First road test yesterday. I put about 65 miles on him and that new engine is quite impressive! The high compression / heavy breather T4 motor was a mouse compared to this Soobey with 140,000 miles on it already! It's so smooth at idle that I can't tell it's running. NO vibration and no noise. It reacts so well that it still kinda scares me! It was all a grand experiment and virtually no data (reliable data) was available to aid in the installation, choice of components, little detail stuff that might go this way or that way - it was all "figure it out myself" or trial and error and go buy another component to replace the messed up one - and make a note of this!
As it is, the computer really doesn't care about the missing components (mostly air bypass valve) and for the time being, neither do I. I've got it torn down again to make some modifications to the cooling system (It worked actually too well!) - some things I learned about too late for original installation - decided to try it all and "see if I'm anywhere close!" Everything worked flawlessly except for one defective aftermarket part and it's being fixed now. I may switch to a grille with less freeflow to cut back on the cooling just a tad - on an 80 degree day it had a hard time clearing 160 degrees. The fan comes on at about 200 and it drops the temp about 10 degrees in about 15 seconds of run time. I'm adding some drains, a "heater loop" that I am planning on using now (originally it was short-circuited as I had other plans) and a reinforced section where the water temp sender resides. There were some places where the pipes could move around and rub against frame members, so I'm modifying those areas. I still have to come up with an overflow tank as I didn't design one in originally.
During this teardown, the engine gets a new timing belt and water pump. I have a little tweaking to do in tying all the wiring harness up (brain is where the bus brain was). I mounted the spare tire (the real one) underneath and am worried now that it might drag over some of the speedbumps on my daily commute! I bought the plastic for the air dam and side-skirts - when I put them on I'll have to modify my behavior regarding bumps in the road anyway, so I'll prolly leave the spare down there. I just modified the coolant path through the throttle body to add a valve and bleeder hose (Soobies have a problem with air pockets in the coolant jacket and I have another thirty feet of pipe that varies in elevation to make matters even worse!) I'll add bleeders to the heater loop also, as this is critical during initial warm-up before thermostat opens.
Does it go pretty good? A modest "Oh Yeah!" What can I say? It appears to be the perfect match-up. We'll see in another
60,000 miles how I feel about it, but for now, I'm very impressed. I need to put my notes in order and work out some bugs in the conversion (namely the very poor wiring documentation) and then I should have the information available for those who want to try it! I'd really like to actually build a wiring harness that has only what is needed and bundle it for easy installation.Details I'm working on currently: Had to modify the radiator frame (fake spare tire) for better fit. Adding Jeep-type hood latches (rubber kind) to hold the stainless-steel cover on the radiator frame (true Continental - look spare tire holder.) Opened up the holes in the front end for more clearance for the radiator pipes. Throttle cable isn't as smooth as I like. The problem is at the end of the steel tube where it transitions to the Subaru housing. Shouldn't be too tough to fix. Heck, I haven't even lubed the housing, so that might do it by itself! Maybe I oughta buy a new Subaru throttle cable and start with that new housing... The Kennedy supplied parts have been excellent. I bought the adapter plate and flywheel and later the exhaust pipe. The high torque starter I bought from John C. is working perfectly. Radiator is Toyota 4-Runner and uses a Flex-A-Lite electric fan. Gonna have to do CV joints soon (clicking! Prolly were before, but I couldn't hear it!)
Hopefully I have added enough places for things to flex and give so that nothing breaks. Apparently the crossmember and motormounts I designed and built are reasonably close to right - no air pockets in the coolant and the shift linkage is still right on (Hard to adjust back to the canted H pattern again after not driving the bus for 11 months!) The copper pipe is in sections not over 4 feet, supported at one end and connected with appropriate sized pre-formed Gates hoses.
More info as it becomes available, but I'm awfully busy right now.
-- Dave "Busahaulic" Pearson Fall City, Washington Remove obvious from addy to e-mail