subaru engine in a speedster

[black speedster]

I have been asked by flatfourfan to join this forum. I have just had a Subaru 2liter turbo installed into my speedster. I had the conversion done by Marius at Signature performance in Samrand (Midrand). He has done a magnificent job. It did take a little longer than was initially expected but one thing that kept me happy was the fact that every time I visited him some progress had taken place.

Marius had done number of similar conversions into kombi’s and bugs prior to doing my car. He has the required skills to do the conversion and stands by his products.

At the moment we are making some changes to improve the cooling as things are getting a little hotter than we would like. These are issues related to the speedster only and I am confident that the solution proposed will work well.

The engine management system has two mappings available, we have set up one mapping with a max boost pressure of .3bar boost. This delivered 147kw and 220nm of torque. The other mapping has a max boost of.7bar and at this delivered 182kw and 280nmof torque.

With the slight cooling issues I have only driven the car on the low boost setting and I have to say that there are no words to describe the performance!

I have polished all of the intake pipes, boost pipes, charge cooler etc. I will get down to taking some pics of the installation in the next couple of days if you are interested.

[vuyo]

grate stuff would like to see the setup

[4agedub]

Welcome to the forum. Yes please do post some pics.

[eben]

Welcome. When you're done with the pics you need to make a video of it in action..
I reckon it must be a hold on to your dentures ride..

[Bugger]

Cool welcome man

2nd to the Rotaries I realy like the Scuby mators

[Chris]

Wow,that sounds awesome!

[BUGGOFF]

sounds great. cant wait to see some pics.

[BARON]

Hi black speedster Welcome
Good choice for a engin
You may like these pictures then from a 550 speedster ,engin wrong way round but still same thing.




cheers
Baron

[flatfourfan]

Nice to see that you found your way here Greg. Please post some pictures of what you have.

This ride sounds awesome........

[black speedster]

Well here is some much anticipated feedback! We installed a much thicker radiator and a very powerful fan, It looks as though the cooling issues have been put to bed. The new clutch needed some adjustment but now seems to grip pretty good, I am able to drive in a normal manner, i must admit I was a bit worried up front about the copper clutch being difficult to modulate but it is just fine.

Last night I was working late at the factory and left about 21h30. The car was running beautifully and I decided to take the long route home. There are a couple of traffic circles which are great fun to push through, the road surface is perfect, there were no other cars on the road and I sliced my way through the circles with practiced ease... I buried the throttle in second gear and just before changing to 3rd there was an almighty explosion, SH1T double sh1t. my first thought was that turbo boost pipe had come off under full boost, but I was immediately engulfed in a huge cloud of white smoke. The motor sounded very rough, it almost sounded as though the exhaust manifold had come off! I immediately cut the motor and pulled over to the side of the road. I bailed out with the fire extinguisher in my hand (after reading a post a month or so back about engine fires I went out and bought one) and opened the bonnet quite expecting to see flames everywhere, after about 2 minutes the smoke started to thin out, I got out the torch and found a huge puddle of oil lying under the motor!. it didn't take too long to find the damage, the number one cylinder rod separated at the big end, what a fcnkiug mess!

My next thought was to have to phone my wife to get her to come out and tow me home. this I have to say was quite a daunting thought!!, but then I remembered that my staff had just been dropped of by one of my assistants and he got the call.

This morning I took the car back to Marius and he was very surprised. He was pretty descent about the whole thing. We have agreed mutually to go half on the cost of the motor and no charge for the labour. This will cost me about US$ 350. I think he has been pretty descent as he can't be held responsible for a second hand motor. He has another motor on the floor at the moment and he says he should have it installed by Friday. Now that is what I call service!!!

I have attached a before and an after photo for your interest. I must say I am pretty happy with the look of the engine bay (well the before photo anyway!) Down the line I am going to install stainless braided hoses everywhere)

So much for the reliability of a modern standard engine!

motor before 2.jpg

[eben]

Thats rotten luck man....

[calooker]

I know the feeling, my 2020cc did a simillar thing, leaving a beauty of a ventilation opening at the top of the block, real sinking feeling, bang then nothing, get out go to the back of the Spyder, I find a oil slick, a few metalic bits, and wait for it .......
pieces of a dizzy cap. The rod tore out the dizzy and broke the fuel pump as well. What was real shit there was no warning it just poped at about 5000 RPM. Hope the rebuild turns out better dude.

[flatfourfan]

aaaaah crap man..............that's rotten luck, your builder seems to be a decent fellow though.

[Bugger]

All I can say is Eina

And I think most of our performance guys had that feeling once or twice before

Hope to see you up and running soon

[black speedster]

The replacement motor has already been installed! I should be able to collect it in the morning. Now that is what I call service! Marius said that as i had made it dirty I would have to clean it myself! I am looking forward to getting stuck into cleaning and polishing everything over the week end. In all honesty I am looking forward to driving it more!