Dave,
Couple of questions, daft unless you know the answers.
Does an engine swap affect our current historical status.

What about insurance.

Have you thought about the gearbox. Depending on how aggressive you are with it, think I read a standard box may take up to 150 bhp, not sure about torque. Maybe that was in a dream 
Paul

Will the bug box take the Subaru power ? I thought the idea of the Bus box was to handle the torque? Physically I don't  see much in it bu I guess it is how tight it is in there.

@JimB if you have not already, take a look at "Road Going Sandrail" over on the Baja Club forum - that's my mate "The General" and he has done exactly the swap you are with the Rjes - twice in fact as he did the 2L then the 2.5L

Cheers for that will take a look ,could do with a few pointers

Will the bug box take the Subaru power ? I thought the idea of the Bus box was to handle the torque?

The Type 1 box is good for around 140bhp, the EJ20 Scooby engine is around 130bhp, so as long as you don`t drop the clutch every time, then you should be ok.

If going Turbo motor, then you must find an alternative to the Type 1 box, but in a Buggy, that is a whole new challenge due to the space we have.

Does an engine swap affect our current historical status.

No. Genuine VW engines are no longer made, the points system was dropped, so engine swapping can be done. Oh, and we also got them to scrap emissions testing on the replacement engines too.

What about insurance.

Its still a kit car, and still has a 2 litre engine - many have said that insurance is unaffected

Thanks for clearing that up

Re insurance I went from 40Hp beetle to 140HP MX5 and they put it up.... by about £10 

On a Buggy, we have a single fuel pipe that goes from the bottom of the tank to the pump and then to the engine - its a very simple setup.

Not so on the Subaru. Because this is a fuel injected engine, the fuel is pumped from the tank at very high pressure with the fuel injectors taking only what they need to squirt into the engine, and the rest is then pumped back to the fuel tank in a big loop. This does also mean that you have to use special high pressure fuel lines to do this. However, from the engine and through the car, confusingly, there appear to be three fuel lines instead of the expected two.

The three pipes disappear into a void above the tank, but even with the rear diff removed I cannot get my hands up there to see what is going on with this third pipe, or even the other two if I`m honest.



Whilst trying to follow the pipes by touch and feel feel where I could, I also found out that they went to this box hanging out the back, and this also had its own little rats nest of pipework too. Wasn`t quite sure what this box was at this stage, or if it would be needed later.



Inside the car under the rear seat area are two removable inspection plates for access to the fuel pump that is immersed inside the tank, but even with these removed and a big chunk of floor removed with an air chisel (that was great fun) I still could not determine where all of these pipes were heading.



By this time I was getting more than a bit frustrated, so took to the underside with a large grinder and a crowbar, and everything you see there are fuel pipes. Certainly far more than I was expecting. After returning from my 3 hour visit to A&E with only one eye now open, I then tried to fathom out what was going on with all of this.



So . . .
The fuel line that went from the pump to the engine was easy to identify, as was the return pipe from the engine back to the pump. Everything else looks to be some form of elaborate tank venting system to prevent vacuum or over pressurization with any excess fumes being vented to the atmosphere by the black box, that seems to be some sort of carbon filter for eliminating the smells. All of this is controlled by that third pipe. I could however be wrong, and won`t really know until I strip down the tank properly and see where that third pipe goes on the engine.




If I am right, then that third vent pipe will go to a manifold take off or vacuum point on the engine and all of this pipework and carbon filter can be junked, just so long as the Buggy tank breather is up to the job - and if not . . . .  Well that's for another days investigation.

I bought myself a new tool the other day, a Draper Cordless Impact driver. I am surprised that I have got this far in messing with mechanics not to have had one of these before, and following a top tip on the Subaru forum to get one of these, I have decided that it is now one of my favorite tools.




The first thing you notice underneath the engine is just how big that sump is, but no matter, as there is a good solution for that one coming up later. The next job is to remove those two exhausts, and this is why I bought the new tool. As we all know, exhaust studs rust and corrode, and can be a real bugger to get off. Quite often we will have a big ratchet or spanner on them and apply so much sideways pressure to the stud that it will often bend, break or shear off. That is where this impact wrench comes into its own as it took no more than a few seconds to remove each of the siezed nuts in perfect condition.

You will notice that I have highlighted the lower part of the chassis in yellow. Whilst you are stripping the bits out, you would be well advised to remove the dozen or so bolts holding this lower subframe in place. They call it a "U" or "C-Section" and a quick search on eBay will show that even the rusty ones can fetch 3 figures as long as they are straight and not crash damaged.




I kid you not - This exhaust system was removed with every nut and bolt intact in less than five minutes using my new tool. I am stunned. I haven`t tried it yet, but that manifold looks like it may even be reversible so that the exhaust could exit towards the front of the engine, which may be useful to those of you that like the Tri-Mill or Bobcat style exhausts. The smaller bit is the Catalytic Convertor with the two sensors for controlling fuel mixture. Something we will also have to investigate later.




Whilst crawling about underneath, I noticed that the Subaru block has two conventional engine mounts, so removed all the visible nuts for these too.

The cooling system is without any doubt, going to be the real achilles heel of this project, which is a far cry from seeing just how simple Subaru made it when originally conceived. Two bolts, two hoses and the entire cooling system comes out in one lump. One fan is for Air Conditioning and the other for engine cooling.




With such a compact lump, you can see why many of our International friends seem to just hang the radiator at the back of the car and connect it up - but that is not the British way. We must take a perfectly useable system designed by a well funded team of engineers, and come up with something we think will be better on the back of a fag packet. This is what I am hoping to recreate though, hopefully at the front of the car. This does also mean turning the engine hoses through 180 degrees so that they point backwards instead, and that itself will involve a fair bit of head scratching.

Am I missing something. If the fans pull then the hoses are pointing the right way

Am I missing something. If the fans pull then the hoses are pointing the right way

The Radiator as you see it there is correct - its the hoses on the engine that are pointing the wrong way as the radiator will effectively be mounted behind  the engine and not in front of it.

Got any pics of the outlets on the engine?
Someone may spot a bit from another car that could be substituted

Got any pics of the outlets on the engine?
Someone may spot a bit from another car that could be substituted

Some have fabricated new manifolds for this to make the outlets point the other way, and when I strip this engine down I`ll have a look to see what is involved in that

We all know that a Beetle engine can be removed in a matter of minutes with a trolley jack, as it just slides straight out of the back. However, the removal of most of the conventional car engines out there will require some form of crane or hoist to be used as they often have to be lifted out of an enclosed engine bay. And that got me thinking.





To be fair, I didn`t think that hard about it because I do not have access to an engine hoist, but I do have a big angle grinder and an ATV Jack. I decided to chop the front off and pull the engine forwards - something I would later regret.





With the front chopped off, and some sheets of wood put down under the jack to make sure it would slide easily, I set about trying to jack it up. Unlike the Beetle engines, the underside of the cylinder heads are where the exhaust studs are, so I had to be a bit careful here and decided to jack it up on the bottom of the very rounded sump. It was immediately obvious that the engine mounts would not let it pull forwards and jacking the engine up to clear them meant that it was at such an angle (even with gearbox raised) that I would never be able to separate the engine from the box. The trouble I was facing is that the rear engine mount bolt is obscured by the front cross member and trying to remove the bolts whilst in mid air would mean some very precarious spannering as loss of fingers was a distinct reality. Figuring that I had already been to A&E once over this car, I decided to remove the bolts. With the engine lowered back down to the horizontal again, it still would not budge.

This was where I was glad to have the rounded sump pivoting on the jack as I could really give it some welly by shaking it from side to side. Eventually it came free and it turned out to be one of the small casing alignment studs that had corroded in place. I won`t pretend that it slid out as easily as I was expecting, but very glad to have the smooth wood underneath the trolley wheels. And then I had a problem - a big problem.

Those of you of a certain age will remember the "Weebles" and are probably now humming that catchy tune in your head "Weebles Wobble . . ." Yeah, well, with a nice rounded sump that is as far as I got before the engine decided to fall off the jack - luckily it fell backwards onto the wood and missed all of my toes. Managed to get it back onto anther trolley though, and this time supported it with bricks. Doesn't look like any damage has been done, except for my pride.

The picture below will show the trouble I had getting this out. In order to get a lower center of gravity on the drive train, the bottom of the bell housing has been removed along with a big slot in the front cross member where the flywheel goes.





In hindsight, I should have used an engine hoist for this, as I could have pulled the engine out at an angle with all mounts still fitted and it would have been fully supported at all times - it would also have taken less time to do than it has taken to write this bit up !!

I have an engine hoist from machine mart. Not expensive and has paid for itself many times over.

Used it to get engine on bench, assemble a 3 person build concrete BBQ on my own, help shift railway sleepers and makes you look like you mean business when people see it in the garage