98 Legacy GT-B Limited, or the cheap ass JDM twin turbo wagon.

[TruTaing]

The attention to detail is awesome. Cant wait to see it all together!

[DanK90]

Love the work you're doing man! I have a 95 legacy wagon and this is just pure pron...

[Shepherd]

Had a lot of progress happening the last weeks

Few weeks ago I actually started putting together the engine.
The block came first of course.

The crankshaft had completely been machined to 1. undersize (-0.25) so I got myself a nice set of 1. oversize (0.25) ACL Race (3metal) bearings for the main and big end bearings.
Unfortunately my machine shop didn't ask me about the bearings and so they already got a set of standard oversize bearings that I didn't wanna use but still had to buy (Just in case you wonder why there already are big end bearings in place).


Crankshaft and con rods put together.


Prepared the block, cleaned the old screws and painted the visible ones.


Crank placed in the prepared block half


After the block was screwed together, it was time to get the pistons in.


Finally, some time after midnight, I was done... and what can I say? Putting a Subaru block together is all about lube and fingering holes.




The weekend after, I prepared some other important parts... First I checked if the old oil pump was still good to use as it could've been destroyed by metal bits from the broken piston or it just couldve been worn.
Luckily all the clearances are still within stock spec.






...of course the oil pump had to receive some good cleaning, along with some other parts.
First step's always getting everything covered in Diesel and then simply brush the dirt off.


After the Diesel did its work, I wash everything off with brake cleaner. For the oilpump I then used Aluminium primer, gold paint and clear coat.




The oilpan was still pretty dirty on the inside and I couldn't even get all the chunky piston bits out of it, thanks to other sheets welded into the pan. I gave it to my brother who then cleaned it out properly in a machine at work.
After that I simply removed rust on the outside, gave it some epoxy-primer, paint and clear coat.






All done, put together and ready to go in!


Last but not least I reinforced my engine stand... if you wonder why, just look at the beginning of this thread.



Now last weekend the last order of engine (and some other) parts arrived, the only thing I'm waiting for now are a set of injectors and Samco intake hoses.







On Sunday I finally had time to start assembling the engine. Thus the block ended up on the engine stand.


My Cometic MLS head gaskets then received the copper treatment... the copper is supposed to fill little imperfections and differences between the gasket and the block/head surface as MLS gaskets arent squishy enough to do so.




Also had to clean and paint some parts that I forgot to paint.



Worked away and added more and more parts, finally at 3am Monday morning the engine was mostly put together... at least the bigger parts except for the intake and exhaust header.







Now I'm just cleaning, painting and adding parts slowly while I wait for the last important bits to arrive.

[GroceryGetter67]

sub'd for sure! Cannot WAIT to see what you do with this thing, I wish I knew a fraction as much as you when it came to engine internals

[coconutt]

Really good start to your build man.

[jazig.k]

Looks like this is gonna be a great build. Keep it up

[cosmo135]

All gold everything.

[Shepherd]

Painted the last bigger engine pieces...
Stripped down the spare intake that came with the Legacy...





Cleaned everything with brake cleaner, then taped it off good and sandblasted both the intake and coolant-crossover.
The valve covers I just cleaned with steel brushes on my drill and dremel as I was too lazy to tape everything off properly.
After that I primered the parts, painted them gold and showered them with some clear coat.
Not flawless, but imho good enough, not building a show car.
Nicht das beste Ergebnis, aber für eine Dosenlackierung total in Ordnung.

[Shepherd]

Just a small update...
Painted the block halves and the heads, just a few things left to paint before I can start to assemble the block, getting quite excited!

[nsogiba]

love the attention to detail

[P78]

watching this after seeing your mk3 build

[tekzhicuh]

Looks like you know wtf you are doing.

[Shepherd]

Made some progress on the wagon in the last months.
Sucks when you have to wait for parts from Japan, then for the machine shop, etc. etc.
...at least I can use the spare time on my other cars.

Anyway... I ordered 1. OS (0.25) pistons from an EJ207 (...or EJ208, not sure anymore) and compared them to the stock pistons. The EJ207/8 is the followup engine to my EJ20R/H.
The newer model ones are different shaped, and do have 1mm less compression height.





Also ordered an 1.OS piston from the early version EJ20R, here it is compared to the later version EJ20R



Next I had to determine the volume of each piston.





Turns out the earlier version EJ20R pistons (~16,5cc) do have a higher volume than the later version pistons (~14cc). Since the heads and head gasket carry the same part number over the whole production time, I think it's pretty safe to say that's how Subaru raised the compression ratio from 8.0:1 on the early version engines to 8.5:1 on the later version.

The EJ207 piston does have a volume of ~11cc, but the 1mm lower compression height raises the volume to ~17cc compared to my original pistons.
To compensate that, I'll go with a thinner head gasket to end up with the same compression ratio.

I could also just get the heads skimmed down enough, but that would be irreversible.


Dropped the pistons at my machine shop then and went to work on the heads.


Checked if the valves still seal tight, which they all did.


Then took everything apart and dropped them at the machine shop when I picked up the block and crank.
Just told them to resurface them while skimming them down only as much as needed and to check on the valve trains.



While my heads were at the machine shop, I started to clean the block.
In retrospective, I should have done that before I got the cylinders machined.
Few small steel wire brushs for my power drill and little ones for my power tool made the work pretty easy and quick, but also quite dirty.
Will have to wash the blocks down good with silicone remover before I paint and assamble it, but other than that I'm really happy with the result.







Once I got my heads back, they received the same treatment.







Just gotta clean up a few more parts, then paint should happen.

[Dudermagee]

Good start.
Looks like you know wtf you are doing.

Can't wait to see more.

[TWM Performance]

Wow, what a fantastic car

- Renato