Subaru EG33 (SVX engine) into first gen
 

Well here we are again, I thought I was done, but nooooooo, just can't leave well enough along. I hit a couple car shows, every one scratched their heads and kept saying they wanted to hate it, but they just couldn't. So I'm back at it again to see if I can make more people scratch their heads.

What am I back at? If you have hung out in the 1st gen section at all you may have seen my build thread of my first gen. It was thinking a little out side of the box, but keeping true to my original goal of keeping everything cheap and fairly easy to find. What that resulted in, was a EJ22 powered first gen. It ran, it drove, it did all the things a car should do, but what it lacked was some good grunt. Now don't get me wrong, it moved down the road just fine, but I just wanted a little more.

Here's my original build thread if you're interested.

Tons of awesome!!!

So in the search for more pick up and go, I had three choices in my mind.

1. Turbo: this being the most complicated and probably the most costly I quickly shot down this idea. It was more then I really wanted to deal with.

2: Frankenmotor: 2.2 heads with 2.5 block, gives you a solid 12:1 cr and people have claimed HP ranges in the 170 range. This would have been the easiest choice because all I would have had to do was swap out the 2.2 block with a 2.5 block and for the most part be done. But from the outside it would look the exactly the same, and well frankly if you are going to do something, you might as well over do it.

So that brings me to #3, the EG33 out of a SVX. Couple more cylinders, about 100 more HP and a whole list of other things that need to be sorted out and made to fit. But in the end, you end up with the sound of a flat 6 under your right foot, and well, that's just sexy.

So that brings me to my new thread here. :)

A day in the garage of pulling the old motor out and just even seeing if this new motor will even fit was job one. I got a long block from a buddy of mine for nothing, and well that was enough to see if it would even be possible.

And I'm here to say, it's possible.

Attachment 756149

The son of a bitch fits, with no frame cutting needed. That really was the least of my worries, because stuff like, oil pan, exhaust headers, steering shaft, radiator, are going to be the bigger things to deal with. Oh and don't forget the wiring. I loooooove wiring! (enter sarcasm)

So what's next, nothing really, I need to find a donor car to even think to make this possible. The shear number of things missing from this motor would be stupid expensive to try to peace together. And you do see SVXs with bad trannys from time to time for relatively cheap, so I'm going to be keeping my eyes open for one of those.

I'll post some updates as I get them. :D

Well crap that didn't take me long to get rolling on this.

So I'm working out a deal right now for a full running car. I have to tear down a EJ harness for him, did I mention I don't like wiring. But the things you do to feed your addiction. But I should be getting the car for fairly cheap with me trading my time working on his harness.

So with the potential of a car showing up in my driveway soon, I figure I can start some prep before I get it.

There are a few main hurdles I see I need to over come.

1: oil pan, as this engine has two more cylinders hanging off the front it's not going to fit like the EJ22 did, because the pan is just longer.

2: exhaust, like with the EJ22 the headers will need to be made. Making them very short and hugging the bottom of the engine so they will clear stuff like subframe, steering rack.

3: the steering shaft, with the EJ22 the stock steering shaft fit just perfectly, not so much with this engine because of the DOHC heads. My plan is to make a notch in the frame rail and run the shaft through the frame rail, we will see how that works out later on.

4: wiring, blah

5: about 10 dozen other things


So I had a chance to start on number 1 last night because the long block i got had a pan on it. But rather then put the pan on the motor and keep taking it in and out over and over to trim the pan, i did the next best thing, i welded it to my motor mounts. I know they are going to be in the right place, so welding the pan to the front of it puts the pan in the right place also.

Attachment 756143

so with some repeated trimming I was able to get it the pan to clear the rack and sway bar. All while keeping the stock pick up location and dipstick and flow back tubes. I loosely calculated I lost about 1/2 to 3/4 of a quart with the trimming, but the pan was a 6.3 quart pan, so I will do some actual measuring when I get it all welded up. If I happen to loose more then that I will possibly add some kick outs to get my volume back, because the last thing I want to do is oil starve it.

Attachment 756144

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Well this should keep me busy for another week or so until I get the actual car and snag the header off of it and start building my new one.

More to come soon. :D

This thread is already filled with awesome. Hats off to you sir.

this! :icon_tup:

needless to say, i'm in.

I am all in favor of putting a better motor in place of the rotary, but you have chosen an orphan motor, only used in the SVX, which was produced in small numbers, a very complex motor which has more than its share of problems. I spent a lot of time talking to owners and mechanics about this motor when I considered buying an SVX, and I walked away from it. Subaru walked away from it too, when they decided to build the high performance WRX.

Before you are in too deep I would encourage you to look at some of the readily available Nissan and Toyota 4 and 6 cylinder engines, which are highly reliable and more efficient. My Skyline motor swap into an FB was simpler than what you are doing.

Interesting verrryyy interesting

I have chosen a orphan motor for a couple reasons. Yes the EG33 was made in smaller numbers then the rest of the motors out there, but it did have a decent run through the 90s, so finding them really isn't that hard. I'm currently in possession of 1 complete motor and one long block, and getting a whole car for probably about $500, so I'm going to be swimming in a sea of EGs here soon.

But you may want to revisit your sources about the EG33 being overly problematic. The SVX, yes, the motor, not really. The motor was an elongated EJ22, so much in fact that pistons and rods are interchangeable between the two, and from all that I have seen, read, watched have two hair dryers on them, have been a solid motor. It does have some continuous high RPM cooling issues, but if I was looking for a screamer I would totally go a different path. The SVX was a poor design and I will agree with that, overweight, only had autos which couldn't take the power of the EG33s, which is why you can find them so cheap, dead trannys. But I'm a fan of the motors.

I personally think they are one of the more under estimated subaru motors out there. They tip the scale around 250 lbs as a long block, they have decent power and torque and fairly cheap and easy to find. Aaaaand I have seen NA builds of over 300hp. There is tons of potential with it.

And trust me, I'm already in deep. Click my build thread, the car was already a driver with an EJ22. Most everything is figured out behind the motor, bell housing, tranny, all that fun junk. Everything will bolt up to the EG and I just have to sort out the wiring and things here and there.

Its just something to kill some time while I'm in school also. This path is going to be way cheaper and easier then anything else because the car is already set up for a subaru engine. And subaru in their wisdom kept so many things the same, like bell housing patterns, motor mounts.

oh and lastly, sexy flat 6 sound. ;)

Can't wait to see the steering rack looks like. Keep going!

The steering rack and sway bar fit In that notch I made on the pan. But I'll snap some pics the next time I'm out there.

Interesting swap.

Men oh men :P

Well now, look at what I finally was able to drag home and start parting out so I can get to that big sexy flat 6.

Attachment 756014

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Damm I couldnt give my ol svx away when the tranny pooped out...toss some naawsss on it ..lol

those seats are comfy I miss um

I didn't have to give anything for it other then some traded work.

Updates on this seven years later? Great work overall! Suby's (wrx's for me) and fb's really seem to go together well. I miss living in the northwest, I remember crawling through junkyards around 2002 and there were entire rows of first gens.

Unfortunately nothing really happened with it. It was a space issue. The EJ22 i am using have some pretty compact valve covers which allows for the steering shaft to snake by it. When I first tried to get the steering around the larger heads I was in school and guess what, steering parts are not cheap. Fast forward to a couple months ago I revisited the whole larger engine and steering shaft issue and I threw in the towel. I'm going to mark this up to poor planning on my end, if i would have had the idea that I was going to try this later, i could have done a better job of position things. So now I just run the EJ22 and I'm very happy with it. Would I like some extra grunt, sure, but its really about cheap fun for me.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...542d1124f1.jpg

There's always the supercharger route... doesn't color the exhaust note like a turbo would.

https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=605625

Nice to know it's still running around out there.