Subaru Motor Builder

https://www.outfrontmotorsports.com/

Vintage Motor Cars and JPS use Outfront.  I am using an Outfront EJ25 in my spyder build.  Can't speak from experience since I don't have the car.  John at Outfront seems to be a knowledgeable straight forward guy.  I'm sure there are others on the site who have Outfront subies in their cars.  They used to be called Outback but of course Subaru threatened to sue.  So now its Outfront.

Thanks Phil. I’ll check them out and talk to Greg at Vintage. 

Our first Subaru cars were built with Outfront motors.  John and crew do a great job and are very knowledgable.   One word of caution is just check and make sure you don't have an engine/VIN verification that will be done on your Subaru motor.  Most states overlook this, however there are many states that DO verify engine number, and outfront uses JDM donor motors, which are 100% illegal for road use according to the EPA.  they cover themselves by marking the receipt "not for road use. offload only"

 

There are a number of Subaru tuners in California that also build and install their own engines.  I have used Equilibrium Tuning in Fairfield in the past with good results.  They buy blocks from IAG, install, and tune.  You can Google "Subaru tuners California" or some variation of that search term to find a shop near you and lots of online reviews.  I also used Outback twice with mixed results.  Best of luck in your search, and please keep the group informed.

chines1 posted:

Our first Subaru cars were built with Outfront motors.  John and crew do a great job and are very knowledgable.   One word of caution is just check and make sure you don't have an engine/VIN verification that will be done on your Subaru motor.  Most states overlook this, however there are many states that DO verify engine number, and outfront uses JDM donor motors, which are 100% illegal for road use according to the EPA.  they cover themselves by marking the receipt "not for road use. offload only"

 

Yes.  I did know about this and chose to take my chances.  I am using a new short block from subaru.  Carey, do you know where the engine VIN or engine number is located?  If its on the short block I may be ok even if my engine is checked.

Top of the bell housing, so if you have a new US short block you'll be fine in that regard.

Still waiting on your Spyder Phil?

Yes Carey.  Closing in on 6 months.  At this point I just want to get it in February so I can be driving it by spring.  He's got everything in his shop, chassis, engine, tranny etc.  He just needs to put it together.  I know I could have been driving that silver and black Beck from Carlisle.  That would have been sweet.  The wait is starting to get to me.  Was nice to see Ron's Beck side by side with a Vintage at Deal's Gap last month.  There are more similarities than differences.  I really liked your fiberglass radiator cover in the front truck.  Makes the trunk almost usable.  My Vintage will have exposed radiator in the trunk.  Thanks for the info.  Makes me feel better about titling it.  Might be an option for you if you ever get a motor from Outfront.  Short block is only $1000 more.  Also gives me some piece of mind about the engine integrity.

Relax Phil. Greg will get it to you. It always takes longer than he initially says. He is getting better, though. First car was about 6-9 months late. New car was at my house in 6 months......

Jim Kelly posted:

There are a number of Subaru tuners in California that also build and install their own engines.  I have used Equilibrium Tuning in Fairfield in the past with good results.  They buy blocks from IAG, install, and tune.  You can Google "Subaru tuners California" or some variation of that search term to find a shop near you and lots of online reviews.  I also used Outback twice with mixed results.  Best of luck in your search, and please keep the group informed.

Thanks Jim.  Just had a nice chat with Equilibrium (I live in Benicia so only 20 minutes from them). They estimated a cost of about $4,500 for an EJ25 dual cam motor...newly re-built- he mentioned I could probably buy a low mileage motor for about $1,500 on ebay that hasn't been rebult.  So it's starting to get interesting for me because a CB air cooled motor is about $7,000 so can I do the plumbing and radiator, etc for less than $2,500 to make up the difference of an AC engine? I would think so.

Obviously the radiator and plumbing will be extra.  But don't forget about the ECU.  Does the $4500 include the ECU?  Even getting a stock suby ECU to work with one of these cars can be challenging.  And if you want to get more than just stock performance you will have buy an aftermarket ECU and do your own programming.  Make sure you have all of the electronics sorted before you decide to go suby. 

No plumbing and simpler electronics are a big plus for an air cooled engine.  I was never going Type 1.  I thought about Type 4 air cooled.  But Type 4 was going to cost me the same as a high performance suby EJ25 which included the ECU and custom programming.  Make sure you know all the costs before you go suby.  That being said, I think I will get better performance and reliability from the Suby than I would with a Type 4.

FYI, there is a Canadian company ... Lachute Performance that I have started to use and they did great work for me tuning my engine ... they have quite a few races under their belt and have a lot of experience with different ECU's and performance tuning.   Their specialty engine building and rebuilding... all done on site.

Nice operation.

I was happy to find them as I did not realize we had a great Subie tuner so close to us...

BTW, They make custom headers other stuff and ship all over North America... With the Canadian dollar being so low it might be a cost advantage for some. 

Have a look .... https://lachuteperformance.com

550 Phil posted:

I was never going Type 1. 

I think a Type 1 can be made to hustle adequately.

Just sayin.

Here is a pict of what they make... 

Stan Galat posted:

550 Phil posted:

I was never going Type 1. 

I think a Type 1 can be made to hustle adequately.

Just sayin.

Yes that is true but have you tried a subie 2.5L N/A engine in our cars Stan... it is impressive ... most impressive  the torque that is...

Ray, I may have my car Dyno tuned next Spring.  Don't need more power, but I want to optimize the power throughout all 5 gears.  

Those guys that I just used have a dyno and they do all the tuning I found a bunch of their racing videos on Youtube... who would have known. 

I am thinking that maybe next spring I might have them look at my own to see what they can do... supposedly with our headers and with our air filter breather we are in a great shape to have the engine breath better and they can fine tune and get more output on a N/A and crazy power with a chip especially on your kind of car...

I had forgotten about Lachute Performance, Ray. I have two nephews over in La Belle Province who are hard core rallying with Soobs and they highly recommend the Lachute guys. 

I went through Agile Automotive. Just needed the heads tanked and decked, so they passed them to a nearby machine shop I was already working with and I put the motor back together myself. But the Agile guys are obvious lunatics. All kinds of racing cars strewn about their shop. I'll call on them again.

"Lunatics"  I like that .. ... Oui Oui David, those guys really know about engines and tuning... the owner Julien has won a bunch of rallies races.  I was glad I did not need an interpreter  .. actually they all speak English well ...with an accent of course. 

My engine was running funny and they found a crack in my headers so they had it off in 10 mins and in no time had them welded and back on.  Good troubleshooters.  

I finally found a place to take my car for engine work that can think outside the box, that is important with our creations. 

I had a great chat with Tom today - helped solidify my decision to go water cooled. Thanks Tom! Looking forward to meeting you for a drive and drinks (in that order) when I’m next in LA. 

I also spoke with John at Outftont Motorsports. Super knowledgeable and walked me through the various options. They’ll do a turnkey EJ2.5 motor for $6,500. New internals, polished and all the components  needed to drop in the car. 

Ray, David.

Ray.  I’m glad you have found a good shop for work on your engine.  

I take my Impreza to Four Star Motorsports, another good Soobie tuning shop.  Crazy rally guys.  I never go to the dealer.

www.fourstarmotorsports.com

 

$6500 for a nicely rebuilt engine, and polished, sounds on the verge of too good to be true.

When you start pricing even gaskets and cam belts on these things, you'll see what I mean.

One key on the EJ N/A motors, especially when used in our application, is the water pump, which has to push a lot more coolant volume than in the stock application to get it up to the radiator and back. You can got to your FLAPS and get Suby water pumps for $40-$50 all day. But the impeller on them is usually pressed sheet metal, and even the correct-looking cast-impeller pumps (Bosch, etc.) are not built to Subaru spec. So it's actually wise to go to Subaru and pay them their goddamn blood money.

Same thing for sure with the thermostat. And a lot of other things too, which all tend to cost about 3-4x as much as the typical aftermarket parts. As VW Bug people I know you've heard this song before.

Stan Galat posted:

550 Phil posted:

I was never going Type 1. 

I think a Type 1 can be made to hustle adequately.

Just sayin.

I wish I had the mechanical acumen to keep a high performance Type 1 running.  My only consideration for a Type 4 over a Type 1 is the reported ability to build larger displacement engines, 2.2L+, with greater reliability. Stan if I could wrench like you and Danny I'd get a nice 2332 Type 1 and never look back.  A man has to know his limitations.

Bwkirk posted:

I had a great chat with Tom today - helped solidify my decision to go water cooled. Thanks Tom! Looking forward to meeting you for a drive and drinks (in that order) when I’m next in LA. 

I also spoke with John at Outftont Motorsports. Super knowledgeable and walked me through the various options. They’ll do a turnkey EJ2.5 motor for $6,500. New internals, polished and all the components  needed to drop in the car. 

Yup.  My engine started at $6500.  This includes the ECU with custom programming. Great price if you don't get crazy.  I got crazy.  Had to have 200hp with Z head upgrade which required the Stage 1 porting.  And of course I had to have a new short block for reliability.  New alternator, new valve covers, powder coating  etc. etc.  So a very nice EJ25 will be about $6500 but a crazy NA EJ25 with all the performance, cosmetic and reliability upgrade will set you back about $9k.  Still not bad when you compare it to a Type 4.

Thanks Phil.  You know I was just busting your balls.  The GT Silver Spyder went to a member of the Chicago Blackhawks camp and he had a great summer with it.

Yes, I am a big fan of my radiator shroud, but since top and side curtains are standard with our cars we also had to have a place to put them, so it started as a necessity.  It was pretty tricky getting proper airflow AND leaving room to store those things, but we've been running that same shroud since about 2000 now and it is well proven  LOL

We already use a brand new US OEM complete short block.  It was part of our deal with Subaru/FUJI and they ship them to us directly from Japan still wrapped in the factory paper and crate...  this also gives us a factory direct Subaru warranty on the engine!

I am also a big fan of the factory ECU and electronic pedal and OBD-II diagnostics.  I have a few years experience with stand alone from our early Subaru days, and while I am sure it has come a long way in the last several years, there is just no way an aftermarket tuner can compete with the usability of an OEM giant's development when it comes to that.  It is also a requirement for the factory Subaru warranty, but I;d still use it if that was not the case, sans maybe a really crazy engine build...

 

"One key on the EJ N/A motors, especially when used in our application, is the water pump, which has to push a lot more coolant volume than in the stock application to get it up to the radiator and back. You can got to your FLAPS and get Suby water pumps for $40-$50 all day. But the impeller on them is usually pressed sheet metal, and even the correct-looking cast-impeller pumps (Bosch, etc.) are not built to Subaru spec. So it's actually wise to go to Subaru and pay them their goddamn blood money"

Ed.  I believe that when Henry builds a Subie powered car, he adds some extra pumping power to the system, to prevent the engine from overheating when at idle.  I imagine that's a long way to pump coolant for a small engine/water pump.

I just want chime in that I’ve driven my Beck for 2 seasons since the Suby conversion and there has been zero issues with cooling.

I’ve only had two “sorting” issues. The overflow bottle wasn’t big enough and switched to a larger one this season. Problem solved.

The drive by wire throttle was two sensitive for my clumsy foot, so added an after market throttle controller between. The pedal and the ECU to dial in the softer pedal response that I wanted.

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I'm 100% aware that the Type 1 as presently configured is probably only a good solution for 1% of the crowd looking for more than 150 hp. My engine is a solution for a subset of 1 (me). Nobody else would want to drive a science project.

It's the available parts (and the mains pounding out) that limit the platform. Type 4s are in the same boat, just lagging by 10 years (example: try finding a good distributor-- it's like looking for shards of the true cross, or a particular needle in a stack of identical needles).

Listening to the water-cooled guys discuss the gyrations involved with ECUs and cooling systems, and knowing what has to be sacrificed to get there (most of the usable luggage space) does tend to give one some pause before declaring it the perfect, one-size-fits-all solution to everybody's powertrain issues.

In my opinion, there's opportunity here for somebody to build and market "the perfect replica engine". I think there'd be no shortage of buyers for:

• A big, reliable air-cooled motor, built with very, very careful component selection.  Type 4 would be the easiest approach, but usable case cores are not going to be around forever. If a Type 1 architecture was incorporated, one would need to use a TF-1 case (or something very similar) and high quality heads with LOTS of cooling capability. This "super-motor" would need to run a bulletproof EFI/crank-fire ECU and cost <$15K. 180- 200 hp, lots of torque, no turbos, with the reasonable expectation of 75-100,000 mi rebuild cycles.

I think the world would be beating a path to that door.

...or take Jim's approach: stock 1600, start it, drive it, stop, repeat...

I'm right there with you, Stan, and may end up with EFI to go with my crank-fire!

>>>  I just want chime in that I’ve driven my Beck for 2 seasons since the Suby conversion and there has been zero issues with cooling.

@Tom Blankinship, Your statement above almost made me cry.  Took me a little more than three years to sort mine.  :-/

With a large enough radiator+fan (and clear airflow paths in AND out of the radiator, of course), the stock impeller is fine.  That said, it's easy to add a supplemental electric push pump on the outlet side of the engine for peace of mind.  The other solution that I came <this close> to trying was the Davies Craig electric water pump + controller, which deletes the thermostat and controls cooling solely through speed of water flow.  Very neat.  In the end, Greg @Vintage Motorcars Inc saved my bacon and retrofitted a proper cooling system. 

One thing I'd recommend for ALL Suby Speedsters is the addition of an accurate (digital?) water temperature gauge hidden out of sight beneath the dash.  As we all know, our dashboard indicators are less than precision instruments, and the risk of cracking a head gasket is too great to skip this inexpensive step.  Ask me how I know! Of course, I may feel differently had I not gone through the process of beating my head against the wall for 3+ years.

I don't know much about the ECU, mainly because it's one of the few systems on the car that's yet to cause me any trouble.  Outfront uses a "Stinger" unit, and they have capably tuned my car multiple times.  Only complaint is that they don't provide dyno printouts.  I know they supply or have supplied multiple Subaru Speedster builders, so they should be familiar with what you do and do not need.  I regularly travel the 40 miles from my garage at about 700 feet above sea level to the peaks of Angeles Crest at about 6500 feet with no issues.  All that said, @chines1's argument is pretty darn compelling given the preservation of the Subaru factory warranty.

Not sure if I helped at all here, but it seems like more and more people are working through the key issues related to a Suby build / conversion.  @Blake, I wish you luck in your research -- and when the time comes, I think you owe us a build thread!  :-)

Good information Tom thanks for posting.  

I fully agree with Carey's formula it is really the way to go for ease of building a subie engine not to mention warranty from the factory.   Also a stock ECU, with a complete set of OE matching sensors for the stock ECU year will guarantee the best electronics for the engine.  IF you want a race ready ECU go for it but if you want plug and play stay stock IMO

Type I engines have their issues but moving to a new platform brings a whole new learning curve especially for cooling when you have the engine in the back.  

I also chose to use Evans coolant in my car to have lifetime coolant and to prevent catastrophies of head gasket and other overheating issues should they occur.  Evans has a boiling point of 330 degrees F which could save you from an engine build. 

 

Edit (-40° to 375°F)

 

Thanks again everyone- great information. I look forward to doing a build thread with pictures and play by play. My start date is Jan/Feb 2018 so stay tuned...

I love Stan's idea and wish someone would do it. The Type 1 case, fixed with the Hoover oiling system mods, carefully built to 2110 or 2165 with a balanced crank and pistons, a set of Panchitos, the right cam/rocker combo and an EFI/Crankfire fuel/spark setup should fit the bill.

The precisely-mapped spark and precisely-metered fuel would save a lot of wear and tear, so long as the fan shroud was set up and working right. So long as no Chinese-cast brass found its way into the case, you'd probably get your 160-185 hp and your 100,000 miles. Bigger engine, better heads and why not 200 or even 220?

Seems doable, too: start with a CB Perf builder's kit & a micrometer and add the add-ons.

Word to your Subaru: Mine's an old block, no drive-by-wire. The water pump pushes fluid farther out and up than in any Speedster or Spyder, and into a smallish (Honda Civic) radiator. Runs the stock ECU and works perfectly well so far, and I've no doubt it would work fine in a Speedster as well. That's only 135-145 horses though. With the Delta cams and the 2.5 block it could make 180 horses easy but I don't know how the 'puter would like that. As always, your mileage may vary.

I will add to what Ed and Tom have stated above.

As with most gearhead subjects, there is a wide variety of opinions.  Most of the a/c subjects are discussed on this forum: type of platform (type 1 vs. type 4), best aftermarket parts, high HP vs. reliability, best size for street engine, best engine oil, etc.

For Subi guys, same deal: stamped vs. cast impellers for manual water pump, type and size of rad, electric vs. manual water pump, air/air intercooler vs. water/air, electric cooling fans, type of shroud, high & low pressure areas near the rad, and on and on.

Since certain models and years of Subi engines had notorious head gasket problems, overheating and how to prevent it is a common subject.  Accurate gauges (coolant temp, oil pressure & temp, volts/amps) are a must, IMHO.  Digital or analog is a personal choice, but they should be placed where they can be read easily without losing focus on the road.

I opted to keep my manual water pump and t-stat, but added a Davies Craig 150l/minute booster pump and controller, which only activates at 190F.  One nice feature of the DC pump is that it is programmed to run for 2 minutes after shutdown, which helps with heat soak.

Research into the above subjects is difficult, since data is hard to come by.  I have read that a stock Subi manual water pump puts out 55 gallons/hour at 6K rpm.  That's not of much value, unless you also know what it puts out at 1K, 2K, 3K, etc., as not much our time is spent at 6K rpm.  I can find no data for output at less than maximum engine rpm.  Crawford Performance is a well-known maker of quality Subi engines and after market parts.  They offered a "high output" manual water pump a few years back, and took lots of flak, since they couldn't/wouldn't supply any data that showed their pump was an improvement over stock.  Automotive water pumps have a tough job, since they need to supply large volumes at high rpm, but still provide sufficient cooling at 1000 rmp.  Some say that the close tolerance of the cast impeller is more efficient than the stamped blades of the stock Subi pump, but I can find no data to support that position.

Unless you have a well-equipped shop for data logging, we are all limited by trying one change at a time, and seeing what difference that one change made.  Even with that limitation, consistent conditions can be hard to duplicate.  You need same air temp, driving conditions, load, etc., that aren't hard for professional engineers to replicate, but can be onerous for a car owner.

The above is not a complete list of "things to do" by any means, but more of an attempt to focus on what keeps us gearheads interested in improving our rides.  Since I have had only modest success in my road to improvements, I have become more philosophical.  The journey itself can supply its own kind of reward.  Fortunately, I have also found other mechanics/tuners who are ingenious and talented, and have moved the project forward to a greater degree than my personal efforts did.  I'm a marginal choice for mechanical engineering, since I have little training or experience.  But, like most of us, I am deeply interested.  Evan at this old dog's age, I'm still learning and having fun doing it.

Wow.  Great post, @Jim Kelly.  One can almost hear the blood, sweat, and (dare I say it?) tears washing through the monitor.  Ha ha.

 

Separate question:  How / when do we set up the poll to decide how to spell Subaru?

Soobie?  Sooby?  Subi?  Suby?

My OCD kicks into overdrive any time I see it written down.  Thoughts?

Easy answer.

All of the above!

The wording is in the hands of the speller.