thebeerbaron

The goal for this weekend was to get the motor out of the WRX in order to replace the headgaskets I stupidly blew on my second day of ownership. I failed at that, but made some respectable progress.

Some thoughts I thought I'd share:

My engine block seems to be the sharpest casting I have ever encountered. Lots of scrapes and cuts. I noticed one particularly razor-sharp corner before cutting myself on it and actually hit it with a rat-tail file for a few seconds. Job done, but watch out for these things.

One of the how-to guides I was following wasted a good hour's worth of my time suggesting I remove a bolt that was absolutely inaccessible. The A/C compressor on my 2002 can be removed in one of two ways (in hindsight). The first is to remove the four bolts (or maybe five) bolts that hold it to a large bracket that doubles as an engine lift point. The other is to remove the compressor along with the bracket. Both methods have one very well-hidden bolt, but the bracket-removal was the way to go. I should have taken pictures of this, since it differs from the traditional method and is not covered in the shop manual. Of course if I were removing the engine to go into an 818, I would have removed some of the A/C lines, which would have made life much easier...

There are lots and lots of vacuum lines and things like that. I [i]think[/i] I've kept good track of them and marked them as best I can, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up wondering where something goes. I took some pictures and generally have a good memory for these things, but as part of a bigger project, this could get dicy. I'll see if my shop manual has a vacuum diagram or something, but it would be a great asset to the build manual if this were included there.

The turbo-to-downpipe bolts were a real pain. I got them all, eventually. But we're talking about 2' breaker bars, maybe a bit of a cheater pipe, it was ugly. And I am no longer a weedy little guy - this was serious muscle being applied! I had a great impact gun waiting there but the clearance was just not enough. In some cases it was the firewall in the way, in some cases the heat shield on the down pipe was in the way (sockets too fat to seat properly). It would be really awesome if the 818 kit left sufficient room to hit every single turbo bolt with an impact, because sooner or later that pipe is going to have to come off.

While we're on the topic - I'd really like to thank whichever Subaru engineering genius decided that it takes somewhere around a dozen M6 bolts (10mm head on Subaru) to hold [i]two[/i] heat shields onto this turbo. And these bolts aren't neatly lined up in a row, no, it's like playing Where's Waldo, except with tiny little bolts that are exposed to incredible heat. Amazingly, with generous application of Kroil (my new favorite garage helper) and some sympathetic treatment, none snapped or seized. Thank goodness for small miracles. I will seriously look into an aftermarket heat shield before reassembling this stupid motor.

At this time I would also like to plead with Dave, Jim, and whomever else is designing this thing: Let's stick with metric fasteners, please, for the love of all that is holy. It's often said that with 10, 12, 14, and 17mm wrenches, you could pretty much disassemble a Miata into its most basic components. With the Subaru, almost everything seems to be 12 and 14mm, with the 14mm being the most common this weekend. I found one SAE fastener on what was obviously a botched job by the PO, it was a right pain. 12mm didn't fit, 14mm no, 13mm no, finally I tried 1/2, bingo. If I have to play "guess the bolt standard" on this kit, I will be unable to keep this blog PG rated as there will be much cursing and gnashing of teeth.

[url=http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metric-bolt-head-wrench-size-d_1458.html]This[/url] lays out why both the Miata and the Subaru require so few tools - they stick to a standard, in this case JIS. Not some hodgepodge of JIS/DIN/ISO. In my terribly humble opinion, a true "world car" would be entirely metric and follow the donor's standard. "Anything less would be uncivilized"

Other notables: I would like nothing better than to throw out the entire exhaust system (excluding turbo - is it part of the exhaust system, or the intake system?) from head to tail. It's got crusty, rusty fasteners, annoyingly bulbous aluminized heat shields that interfere with everything, and did I mention it's bulky, crusty, and hideous? I'll understand reusing as much of it as possible, but let me tell you, I'm hoping there's room for a very nice aftermarket header system in the engine bay, and I'm hoping that the exhaust after the turbo is so short FFR can provide a replacement stainless system that won't let the car down. I look forward to taking a sawz-all to this system one day, even if it's not strictly necessary.

The front oxygen sensor is proving troublesome to remove - the first socket I bought to remove it interfered with the chassis. The second one can't slide down far enough into the recess to properly grip the sensor. I've been told I might not actually need to remove the sensor, hopefully that's true, because I don't want to have to buy a third oxygen sensor tool.

All I have left to do to pop the motor out is figure out how to remove the down pipe from the back of the turbo without having to undo more exhaust fasteners. Remove the aftermarket front sway bar, which blocks access to the engine mount bolts (stock bars apparently do not have this issue). Remove the remaining transmission-to-engine bolts. Disconnect the fuel lines. Release the clutch fork doohickey (a very strange setup). Probably a full day's work, given how ornery these last bolts have become.

I'm tired, beat up, cut up, and satisfied with some good learning about the donor.