I have a vision for a small-ish racewagon with loads of power, all wheel drive and relatively low maintenance/replacement costs. Along with that I couldn't stop thinking about a six. A flat one.
Turns out that there's really only one option...
(False) starts
We buy the car and it's perfect - and by perfect I mean cheap. We were looking for a 2 litre, AWD, turbo. What we have is a 1995 1.8 litre, FWD non-turbo and money to spare. So the size of the project is already out of hand but the budget is fine, for now.
Now we start to pretend to start working on it but actually it will sit for another two months while we buy and install the lift...
For reals
The lift is finally in and I have to admit it is pretty sweet.
Car goes up, engine... doesn't!
Everything at this point is about removing stuff, which is heaps of fun. You can see we have the engine and the whole FWD drivetrain out. What you probably can't see is the exhaust, rear sub-frame, suspension and fuel tank which come out as well.
Don't forget the tape and Skerples.
That'll fit
All we need to do now is fit all this and then we have AWD.
Contains: mostly 2002 WRX stuff + 2001 STI 6 speed gearbox and driveshaft, 1998(ish) 3.9 r160 rear diff + some exhaust stuff picked up cheap.
Told you it'd fit*
Subaru was nice enough to provide threaded bolt-holes even where they weren't needed for the FWD drivetrain, so they deserve most of the credit. Props go to me for cleaning over 20 years worth of road grime out of them out though.
*The rear struts have a slightly different bolt spacing on the top mounts so they don't bolt up. We should be able to swap the top mounts and solve that.
Not seen in pictures: Install GDB Sti pedal box (minus accelerator), includes: conversion from cable to hydraulic clutch and brake booster swap.
I need more wagon
Time to pick up the donor car!
This one is more than a decade newer, has an extra couple of cylinders and a whole lot of more interior space that we'll soon fill with crap.
We get the fun of stripping this one too, except this time we are a little more careful and label and remove the harness(es) as well.
Some problems are best solved with power-tools
We couldn't lift the engine out with a crane because the liberty was a little bent around it and also we didn't have a crane. So we used a power-saw to lop the front off the car and then we could just roll then engine out.
Next to remove the flex-plate from the engine. It was secured with stupid torx-plus bolts, which stripped even when using the proper tool (yes, we were using it improperly, but at least we tried), so we drilled them out. It took hours.
Now we just need to bolt it all up!
Hahahahaha, no.
The internet was right
The time has come for the true test of my Google-fu - the internet says all of this will bolt together and fit in the Impreza.
And holy crap it does fit... at least close enough that we can brute force it.
Anyway, to recap: H6 out of liberty, onto GDA WRX crossmember, flex plate off, flywheel and clutch on, gearbox attached, all then bolted into Impreza. And we only ruined one engine mount doing it.
Subaru miracles from this installment include: H6 drops onto WRX crossmember using stock H6 mounts, manual gearbox bolts straight up to H6, 6 speed gearbox mount bolt-holes exist and are threaded, ej18 starter motor appears to fit(!), both the H6 and the 6-speed gearbox fit in the impreza (although we did have to remove all of the brackets on the gearbox).
Not seen in pictures: We also swapped the drive-by-wire Liberty accelerator pedal (which will require a new mounting hole in the firewall) and Liberty ABS module (which will need a new mount bracket) including all hydraulic hard lines, all of which should mean that we can have traction and stability control!
Goodbyes can be so difficult...
...especially when they involve dragging hundreds of kilos of scrap metal off the concrete floor of a single width garage.
It's a little sad to see this go, it's almost a complete car - it has an engine (ej18), gearbox (FWD), sub-frames (FWD), even some airbags. All it needs is some assembly, wheels, suspension, brakes, pedals and steering. Oh and a fuel system, ECU and wiring. And seats and doors and windows. Then just a little bodywork and it's good to go*.
* Nearly: it'll still need some panels and I've probably forgotten one or two things.
Out with the old
In with the massively more complicated.
We stripped the old dash/bulkhead/engine-bay wiring harness out of the Impreza ready for the Liberty harness to go in. Notice the elegant simplicity of the Impreza wiring vs the mess from the Liberty.
Everything falls vaguely in place though and we should be able to squeeze it all behind the heater box. We'll need some new brackets for things like the fuse box near the drivers door and of course a heap of cable ties to clean it up.
Subaru miracles from this installment include: All of the holes in the bulkhead are in the right place and the Liberty bungs* fit (again, close enough for brute force), even to the point where an extra hole existed where needed on the passenger side for a branch of the Liberty harness that doesn't exist in the Impreza harness.
* We had a lot of fun saying 'bung' and 'bung-hole' during this process.
Not seen in pictures: The harness in and around the engine-bay fits pretty well - headlights, radiator fans, ABS and engine connections shouldn't be an issue - although side indicators, fuse box and gearbox connectors will need a little work.
Impreza to Liberty and back again
After throwing in the bulkhead harness (or sqeezing it behind the heater box then quickly bolting in the dash bar to hold it in), we decided the easy option was to do the same for the body harness inside the car. This way the important items like fuel pump controller and ABS sensor wiring should be straight-forward. That leaves us just needing to merge Impreza lights, wipers, etc into the Liberty harness.
I'm super happy because now the ECU is super-happy. The cluster lights up, the fuel pump primes (after a quick splice) and we can even turn the engine over! We are starting to believe that we might just pull this off.
Next we start merging from Impreza switchgear on the steering column to the Liberty harness and then back to the Impreza lights (for a start). As you can see from this pictures, this is fine... there's always a few wires and stuff left over when you DIY...
Still to do:
- Tidy it up inside
- Finish wiring lights, wipers, windows (maybe mirrors) and hide it behind trim
- Install dash (we'll try for the liberty dash, otherwise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
- Send it off for turbo/exhaust/intercooler - I've been waiting to see if someone produces an off the shelf turbo exhaust manifold. No dice.
- Figure out the final details of the auto to manual swap - should be easy
- Pull pin X to ground
- Remove TCU (apparently)
- Steal wires for reverse and neutral switches
- ???
- Done
- Tidy it up under the bonnet
- Mount Liberty ABS pump
- Mount Impreza fuel filter
- Mount Liberty FPR
- Mount fuse box
- Radiator and fans
- all the other stuff that I'm not thinking about now 'cause it's killing my buzz
To be continued...
Will the Liberty ECU like the ABS signals from the Impreza? Will we be able to work out how to get this ECU to work with a manual gearbox?Will we ever track down all of the codes this thing is throwing? Are we missing any more key components? Will we run out of money before we get to drive it?
Tune in next time to find out.
'Tidy it up inside' is a work in progress
So we started the tidy up and ... things may look to have gotten out of hand. Don't worry we'll have all this sorted out in no time.
The good news is that the windows now all work - which is particularly pleasing because that's one better than when we bought the car. It also looks like the mirrors will be easier than expected and we now think using the original dash is the better option because heater controls and dash vents will work without fettling and, yeah, it will actually fit in the space we have - won't be as cool though...
The bad news is that we've made a huge mess of the interior and run out of crimps. I thought that 100 would be plenty, but no, our rate of wastage has been staggering... There's nothing for it though, I'll just have to wear it and order some more (should be OK at slightly less than eight cents each).
Coming together, visually at least
We have the body harness tucked away, the important things wired in and seats again! That feels better.
After experimenting with the TCU disconnected we found that all we have to do to get it to crank is give it a neutral signal (or ground). This is dangerous, because now we have hope that we'll be able to throw the TCU out and have everything work... Add this to the list of things that we'll forget about but will bite us later on (update: just found the CAN communication code that it is throwing without the TCU connected *sadface*).
All the small things
Most of it is bolted together and tidied up and the inside is pretty much done - barring final fixings, heater controls and all the other crap that doesn't matter 'cos I just want to drive it. The new cluster actually looks pretty great in there and I'm tickled by that view through the old steering wheel.
I'm back at the self-serve wreckers to pick up a few stray bolts and plugs then it's time to look at the exhaust.
Time for welding! First buy a welder and then hit YouTube...
New Plan: just keep going
You remember that plan from a few posts ago? It went something like: "1. Tidy it up inside, 2. Send it off for turbo, blah, blah, blah".
Yeah, forget that, let's just get it driving. The new plan becomes: "do as little as possible to get it off the lift and moving under its own power" which I like a lot because we can do it ourselves and we get to make some noise.
Exhaust manifold doesn't fit so we get choppy and weldy, new ez30 radiator is bought and installed (you won't be able to shut the bonnet, but meh, we'll get more choppy later), coolant is in and the whole thing is warmed up and idles great!
Pay no attention to the warning message and check engine light, it's all fine.