another option for transplanting a subaru lump being used by some people. fuel by carburettor(s) and ignition by distributor. it seems a ford escort (cvh?) distributor is fairly easy to adapt to fit into the back of one cylinder head driven from the camshaft.
ttfn glenn

another option for transplanting a subaru lump being used by some people. fuel by carburettor(s) and ignition by distributor. it seems a ford escort (cvh?) distributor is fairly easy to adapt to fit into the back of one cylinder head driven from the camshaft.
ttfn glenn

I have heard of that one and may investigate it further in due course, but I think I will try to use the existing fuel injection setup and ECU first as its included with my donor at no extra cost

F... knows what this does to the historical vehicle status 

F... knows what this does to the historical vehicle status 

Show me where it is written what engine should be in a 1966 Vehicle called a VW Convertible then ?   

Apologies to those who were initially following this thread - I got a bit sidetracked looking after Lisa last summer, and didn`t manage to spend much time on this project. But that's not to say that I have not been sat twiddling my thumbs though. I have been slowly pulling bits off the car and listing them on eBay to sell, and this is how the donor car currently stands.



There is no interior at all, and I mean nothing - but the car will start and I can still move it around my yard under its own steam - cannot see out of the windows when sitting on the floor, but hey ho.

It has however, proved to be an interesting challenge, and today a major milestone was reached. I have just broken even financially with the bits sold so far (£605) - everything else is now profit. That means that I now have a Subaru engine for free, and enough parts left on the car to hopefully pay for the rest of the conversion.

Like your thinking Dave. Looking forward to more updates 

During the summer of last year, I enrolled on a local college course and finally learned to weld. I can really recommend searching out such a course and kick myself for taking so long to do it. The parting words of my teacher was "Practice Practice Practice" and it got me thinking about my Subaru Project. I am far from even thinking about transplanting anything into a Buggy just yet, so thought about rigging up a test bed that I could build everything up on to see if and how well it all runs.

After a trip to the local metal factors, and an afternoon of mischief in the garage, my test bed had started to take shape.



Using a spare T25 lump I had as a template, the engine was mounted at the same height as it would be in my Buggy, and the frame is not only wide enough to be stable whilst the eventual engine is running, but is also the same width as the rear cage on my Buggy, so I have some realistic parameters and mounting points to work with. I can attach some speed sensors to the gearbox to simulate motion and there is enough space for me to fabricate radiators, exhausts and petrol tanks over the coming months and decades.



Lisa decided that it needed a lick of paint, and who was I to stop her. It was really great to have her back in the garage again getting her hands dirty.



And this evening I bolted on a gearbox, ready to receive a new engine.



There are still a lot of electrical investigations to complete before I can think about ripping the engine out, but at least I now have somewhere to put it when I do.

A neat job it should make life easier.

That's the DBs Dave. Looking forward to reading the next bits.

Nice job Dave 

Please can we have some more

Please can we have some more

Sure thing Oliver !

More to follow soon  - Just trying to work out what this yellow thing in the sky is at the moment 

Thank you sir. We had the same yellow thing this morning. It's fine now, back to grey and overcast. The rain won't be long coming 

Managed to get a spare hour on the Subaru and mapped out the wiring of the 2 Oxygen Sensors to the ECU, ticking off another few wires on the list. These sensors are the ones that monitor and control the fuel side of things - more about their workings later.

The plan will be to make full use of the Oxy sensors and include some form of catalytic convertor on my build. If we are to look to the future, then any alternative engine setups we use are going to have to also be emission friendly and IVA Compliant, and that probably means getting to grips with Fuel Injection too. Its all here with the Scooby setup - just have to figure how to make it work properly for us.

Time to start de-cluttering the engine bay of other stuff that is not needed for my conversion.

When I was researching the vast number of different Subaru engines on the net, there is a lot of talk about overheating and the later models that are also suffering from head gasket failure as a result. I have been having a thought about this one, and whilst this may not be a conclusive explanation, its certainly worth bearing in mind. Most people are opting for the much later higher performance engines (including the Turbo) and most of the bad experiences and reports seem to be coming from these conversions as a result.

From what I can gather, the Subaru Cabin Heater Matrix can suffer from blockages with little or no heat coming out. If you simply top up the engine coolant with tap water instead of the correct grade of anti-freeze & summer coolant, then you can often cause the internals of the engine to corrode and form a sludge that builds up and will block heaters and radiators. That's something we pretty much all know about. The thing is, on a conventional car, if the heater packs up, its a mild irritation - but on a Subaru, it can be Catastrophic.

Unlike a conventional car, the Cabin Heater Matrix forms part of the Engine Cooling system and is operated at all times at full flow and full heat. The more power the engine has, then the more critical the flow through the heater matrix can be, so if you have any restrictions whatsoever within the pipework, then engine cooling will be seriously compromised - often with dire consequences. One of the tests I would do if purchasing a Subaru is to test how fast the cabin heater gets up to temperature - if it doesn`t blow hot air almost instantly, then walk away - Cool air comes from ducting, not from cool water in the heater system and cold air here means the engine may have been overheating at some point.

At the rear of the engine, are two 15mm heater pipes - and they go straight to the heater matrix on the other side of the bulkhead.





Most of the conversion overheating stories I have been reading about are from those either trying to integrate this engine into an existing Watercooled T25 or into a Beetle using an aftermarket heater box. Its so easy to see where their problems are arising from, because people are simply looking at two pipes, one in and one return, with nothing more than a heater matrix on the other end.

WRONG !!

The T25 heater system, and 99.9% of the aftermarket heating systems all have an inline valve to control the temperature, effectively like turning a hot water tap on and off. Now think about what I just said about the heater matrix running at full flow and full heat, then the penny should drop that any such valve will be seen as a major restriction to the flow, and therefore water cannot pass from the cooling system to the cylinder heads.

Result = Overheating.

If you want to incorporate a heater as part of your conversion, then what you need to do is to add a short pipe that connects these two heater pipes together, allowing water to pass from one to the other when your heater valve is turned off. Its that simple and would take nothing more than a couple of "T" Pieces and jubilee clips to fabricate some sort of "H" shape.





At the moment, I am just trying to remove as much as possible whilst still keeping the engine running, so a quick and easy solution for a full flow bypass of the heater matrix can be done with nothing more than a short length of Silicone hose.





I may or may not add a heater to this, I`m really unsure at the moment, but if and when I do, I will definitely leave some form of bypass in place.

As said, I am not sure if this is where some of the stories are coming from, but from what I have seen so far, it certainly is a quick way to cook a cylinder head, so there may be some truths to it.