Plavan's 818R Build Thread

[bbjones121]

On the stamped vs cast impeller water pumps:

Crawford announced in 2011 their new "secret" to success high flow water pump. They have a pic in this article and talk about it, about half way down: http://www.superstreetonline.com/how...s-engine-tech/.

To save you the click:
Q: You came across an interesting finding on the factory water pump. Would you care to disclose this information?
A: The water pump (front, right) is a cast turbine that flows more water, whereas the OEM piece (rear, left) allows for water to bypass the blades and does not flow as much water. It is one of our trade secrets of engine building and you are first to hear about it.


If you Google Crawford High Flow Water Pump you'll find multiple threads about it on NASIOC and IWISTI.
Then the community figured out it was nothing more than the Subaru OEM old style cast impeller pump. I think Crawford has now discontinued sales of their high flow pump. It's not on their web page anymore and RallySportDirect shows it discontinued.

I saw this too, but I believe there may be some marketing strategy going on here. Of course fundamentally, and common sense make the cast one appear advantageous. But, no matter what we feel...Why would Subaru use the stamped one in a larger displacement engine? I personally would trust the millions of dollars and many engineers Subaru has access to.

[Pearldrummer7]

I always have heard that one flows more at low rpms, and one more at higher rpms. There was a whole issue a friend had with his supercharged (yup, belt driven supercharger) Impreza where had swapped these and moved his heat problems from idle to high rpm driving, further confirming it.

The cast one :looks: like it should flow more, but I don't know how you could tell other than trial and monitoring

[Mechie3]

Why would Subaru use the stamped one in a larger displacement engine? I personally would trust the millions of dollars and many engineers Subaru has access to.

Money. It's not always about outright performance. Unfortunately, we can never really know without finding the engineer that was involved.

[Wayne Presley]

I saw this too, but I believe there may be some marketing strategy going on here. Of course fundamentally, and common sense make the cast one appear advantageous. But, no matter what we feel...Why would Subaru use the stamped one in a larger displacement engine? I personally would trust the millions of dollars and many engineers Subaru has access to.

If it saved $.50 over 10 million units produced....

[Sgt.Gator]

A stamped steel impeller has to be much cheaper to produce than precision cast. If the difference in performance only appears in high performance situations you can guess which wins in the accounting department.

All said though, I've never had a water cooling problem in my race car using the stamped version. But I never rev over 6500 rpm. At 8,000 it might make a big difference. The 2.5L being a lower rpm engine wouldn't normally need the cast impeller, so they made the switch when the 2.5 came out.

[FFRSpec72]

Why would Subaru use the stamped one in a larger displacement engine?

My JDM EJ207v7 uses cast, but the engine also revs to 8500

[129st]

If it saved $.50 over 10 million units produced....

The usual engineering cost reduction path is to take any cast metal part and redesign it for injection molded plastic. If a plastic part can not handle the temperature or stress, the next path is to redesign it for stamped sheet steel.

[Scargo]

This is why LIC uses genuine Subaru water pumps. Other aftermarket, "performance", high flow pumps are made to the Subaru -026, -065, -007 design. Gates kits (TCKWP328RB) are coming with the paper gasket and a pump that is made in China. I did not know this. Yours has the same numbers as mine on the drive hub and shaft. The Chinese version's blades do not come in as far towards the middle. They do not cover the whole face on the casting like the Subaru part does. All my used pumps show some corrosion or rust on the nipples but it is minor compared to yours. Some are supposed to have 17 to 40K on them. Subaru pumps come with a metal gasket.
You want this one, PN 2111AA065 if you want to delete the oil heat exchanger (PN 21311AA051) or this one, PN 21111AA026 if you want to retain it.

You could say that any of the water pumps would be OK for normal driving. It's the general opinion of enthusiasts who race the cars, that the OEM pumps with the cast impellers are superior for cooling at sustained higher RPMs and the elevated temperatures that race motors see.

Chad, this is another slightly puzzling piece of the puzzle of how your motor was built. Andrew says "I have been working with them for about 12 years myself, collectively the company has about 50 years of Subaru specific experience, ranging from all spectrum's. I have personally tracked a 2008 STi Time Attack car that we used to own (the one displayed in factory Five's open house) This year I tracked a 2013 BRZ for about 15 events personally, it was a pretty fun season. Prior to that I owned a 2007 legacy GT that we built, also a fun car!"
How does Andrew not know about these water pumps till now? Andrew seemed to duck the question when I first brought it up. Then Andrew says later, "I am however interested in looking into why some people like the old style, Scargo posted some external links about it in Chad's thread that I am checking out)" which implies these pumps have never been on his radar screen; someone who races and builds race motors. Not that he was asked to put in the best pump for racing in Chad's motor, but it just amazes me, nonetheless that he'd put a generic Chinese pump in a high-dollar race engine.

[ssssly]

Which water pump is better, is one of those long standing Subaru debates that no-one seems to have a real answer for. Has a folklore around it almost as involved as alien explorer pyramid theories.

Is one of those things I have always wanted to test, but have never got around to since I don't have a flow meter. And the people I know who do and my schedules never lined up right.

They probably both flow enough water for proper circulation and cooling. And I haven't had any real issues running either of them on EJ207 or EJ255 setups. I however also don't run super high horsepower Subaru engines. I generally shoot for around 400hp with my builds, give or take, depending on my turbo de jour. And not wanting to deal with the rebuild schedule that accompanies getting into the 450HP+ builds.

My prime concern with the stamped impeller on an 818 is the possibility for cavitation. Since the cooling system seems to like retaining air bubbles as it is, a water pump causing cavitation certainly wouldn't help.

Interested in if the water pump drive pulley has any dark spots on it?

[AJW Performance]

Scargo,
We use the 2.5l style to this day and probably will unless someone requests otherwise.

Chad's has the 2.5L style, and he did not request anything otherwise 2+ years ago. I hope Chad will acknowledge this because now it seems like I am getting blame for using 2.5l the style pump that he has. We both agreed (Chad and I) to using the Gates kit.

So to confirm, any 2.5L Subaru motor leaving here always has and always will get the 2.5L water pump, the correct part number for the engine. If a customer want's otherwise we can certainly accommodate but it will never be standard to use the 2.0 waterpump on the 2.5 motors. Customer's would most likely freak out for using the "wrong part number" on their engine if we put the 2.0 style water pumps on 2.5 engines.

Chad's motor goals at the time was for us to supply a strong engine that would be good for the 350+ HP range if he decided to upgrade his turbo down the road.

Chinese pump? Gates makes some great products and is also affordable, where they are made does not really matter in my opinion. Most "Japanese" Subaru performance parts are now made in Taiwan/ China. But that is a topic for a different thread, on a different day, which I do not wish to "prove" to anyone at this given time due to the other topics on this forum that need attention.

And to confirm, it is not a high dollar race engine, it is a stage 1 STi block that fit his budget and goals at the time.

PS- That Crawford time attack car you quoted me on above, That had a "high dollar race engine" made by Crawford, A shortblock in the range of $6,000.00 at the time ( more than double of your average stage 1 block) , guess what water pump it had? The 2.5L style.


I am wrapping it up over here, I hope everyone has a good weekend.

[Mulry]

Not true.
There was plenty of opportunity to "make more money" if that is what we wanted to do. For example Chad's setup as is with the new shortblock, used heads, and other donor components (turbo, intake, etc) would sell on average for about $2500.00- $3,000.00 more than what he bought it for. Not going to disclose how much, that is his privacy. If he shopped around prior, or pokes around currently he knew this or will.

So the point I am making is why would I try and save $2.00 and use a different gasket? Especially if your saying we somehow found a way to recycle used paper gaskets lol.

I wasn't trying to imply that at all. I wasn't even referencing you or your work. The question that I was answering was "If used parts were installed, why would an hourly mechanic want to do this? Is he taking the new parts home and selling them on Ebay?" And I've seen that done before, where a shop will put used parts on a car without disclosing them to a customer and pricing the parts installed as new.

I don't have any idea what your relationship was with Chad or the deal that you guys worked out. He may have ordered a new block with good-used parts on it to save money. That's not necessarily an irresponsible choice, and those things happen all the time with racing engines.

[Scargo]

Here's the stock Subaru, OEM stamped steel impeller.

The made in China, Gates pump doesn't come close to making it from the horizontal arrow point to the left of the vertical arrows. In fact it ends about where the vertical arrows are, so it is narrower than the OEM version and doesn't fully cover that face, which is like a sealing surface. Then, it sits off that beveled sealing surface by around 1.5 mm. A huge gap. So, it does a lot of churning and less pumping. Fluid can escape outward, backwards and upwards through the gaps (after where the vane is bent down). I would think that the gaps and other weaknesses in this design could be significant as RPMs go up and the little vanes can't contain or control the movement of the fluid and the fact that there's no ceiling for much of it. Then it becomes more like an Osterizer than a pump!
The thing is, if you use your car as a grocery getter, just drag race or autocross it then you will not see the sustained extremes that a road race motor sees for a solid half-hour.
I am reminded of going to EFI and having my car tuned for the track. The late Chris S. was brilliant in that he knew the rigors of the track and would not tune to the razor's edge of reliability. When you stress a Subaru motor that much you had bettered do it right. 270 or so WHP is not bad, but look at how many failed motors we have seen because something was not quite right.

[305mouse]

So AJW isn't even going to address the fact that the water pump they put on clearly wasn't new. Looks like it sat in my backyard for two years in upstate NY winters and I dumped salt on it daily.

[AJW Performance]

So AJW isn't even going to address the fact that the water pump they put on clearly wasn't new. Looks like it sat in my backyard for two years in upstate NY winters and I dumped salt on it daily.

I spoke with Kyle he wanted me to ask Chad (which I did) if there was any surface rust on the pulley as here in New England it would (if it was used) but where Chad lives it probably would not.
I already stated and offered to replace the full kit with the brand of his choice but he has purchased elsewhere already.

Kyle also had another idea I will ask him to post or to tell me...

Everything we have on our end says it was a new kit. I am addressing the concerns by trying to provide support and make things right with him.

[AJW Performance]

I wasn't trying to imply that at all. I wasn't even referencing you or your work. The question that I was answering was "If used parts were installed, why would an hourly mechanic want to do this? Is he taking the new parts home and selling them on Ebay?" And I've seen that done before, where a shop will put used parts on a car without disclosing them to a customer and pricing the parts installed as new.

I don't have any idea what your relationship was with Chad or the deal that you guys worked out. He may have ordered a new block with good-used parts on it to save money. That's not necessarily an irresponsible choice, and those things happen all the time with racing engines.

Understood, thank you.

Chads shortblock was new, all the bolt ones were from a donor.
The topic in question now is 2 things;
The most important topic- was the timing belt kit new or used prior to Chad getting it.

Secondly, there is discretion between water pump preference, but that is outside of the AJW to Chad topic or "issue" here so to speak in my opinion, as we clearly state we use the gates timing belt kits unless otherwise requested by the customer, 9 out of 10 motors we build with have the gates timing belt kit, which includes the water pump. We use the part number representing what the engine calls for, some members here are noting a "custom" or hybrid setup if you will and use a different style that was present on the older 2.0 engines because it is claimed to work better.

[Mechie3]

Ajw, scargo wasn't saying you were wrong to put on the 2.5 pump or say that chad requested otherwise. He was simply saying he is surprised that someone working with a company that used to be heavily involved in racing subarus and is involved themselves wasn't aware of the 2.0 pump swap people do as it seems to be a common thing for road racers.

[AJW Performance]

Ajw, scargo wasn't saying you were wrong to put on the 2.5 pump or say that chad requested otherwise. He was simply saying he is surprised that someone working with a company that used to be heavily involved in racing subarus and is involved themselves wasn't aware of the 2.0 pump swap people do as it seems to be a common thing for road racers.

Thank you

[C.Plavan]

Andrew-

There is rust on the pulley- Look at the picture again- on the nose is a rust spot, then around where the belt was not rubbing there are some small spots



Just so we are keeping track:
1. Bad belt (gouge) (nice guide clearance)
2. Bad and unmatched bearing manufacture idler pulleys (not from a Gates kit)
3. Captain Obvious used/rusty water pump
4. Ported and polished heads yet the exhaust ports were black with carbon build up when new.
5. ????
6. ????
7. ????
8. ????

You are not really helping with anything in this thread besides damage control for yourself. May I please ask that you no longer post in my build thread? You can post in this thread if you own up to your companies errors, and send me some money back, or a new OEM shortblock, otherwise take a hike. You are not adding anything positive. How can one of your old customers be happy with what they are finding on a "Top of the line race motor" that you should of charged me even more for....? This is unacceptable.

I'm fine with you addressing the other thread, but this one is mine.

[metalmaker12]

Andrew-

There is rust on the pulley- Look at the picture again- on the nose is a rust spot, then around where the belt was not rubbing there are some small spots



Just so we are keeping track:
1. Bad belt (gouge) (nice guide clearance)
2. Bad and unmatched bearing manufacture idler pulleys (not from a Gates kit)
3. Captain Obvious used/rusty water pump
4. Ported and polished heads yet the exhaust ports were black with carbon build up when new.
5. ????
6. ????
7. ????
8. ????

You are not really helping with anything in this thread besides damage control for yourself. May I please ask that you no longer post in my build thread? You can post in this thread if you own up to your companies errors, and send me some money back, or a new OEM shortblock, otherwise take a hike. You are not adding anything positive. How can one of your old customers be happy with what they are finding on a "Top of the line race motor" that you should of charged me even more for....? This is unacceptable.

I'm fine with you addressing the other thread, but this one is mine.

Agreed ...AJW your name is dirt on here and everywhere.

[Flamshackle]

fair call

[AZPete]

fair call
AZPete (former AJW customer)

[C.Plavan]

The new owner of the Spyder came and picked up the car yesterday. Sniff, sniff. He sent me this picture today



I'm really getting ancy to work on the 818R, but am at a standstill until I get I get the new waterpump. I might just pop off a cam/valve cover to see if it has ARP headstuds in the mean time.

[Scargo]

Have you run a compression test on it? Leak-down?

[C.Plavan]

Have you run a compression test on it? Leak-down?

No. I don't think that is needed yet.

[129st]

Any Spyder nostalgia will evaporate when the NP01 arrives in your garage (race ready or in parts.)

[AZPete]

Did you send an oil sample to Blackstone?

[C.Plavan]

Did you send an oil sample to Blackstone?

Ill have to do it after next test. I didn't keep a good sample from when I drained it.

[Frank818]

Man that scenery is perfect. You live in a kick a** place, man!

[C.Plavan]

I'll just put this here.





Chassis #19 incoming in March.... (or #20.... I requested #20 since we keep 2's in our numbers to honor my Great Grandpa who raced cars back in the early 1900's). 22 cars sold to date- 12 on the West Coast.

My Great Grandpa Thompson in 1916 in a car he built himself.

[Sgt.Gator]

The NP01 is awesome, especially for the price. Where I race the windows would be a problem, our conference has a rule that forbids driver and passenger side windows up. I double checked with the conference stewards, windows must be down or not installed. And I'm wondering if I could climb out that driver window in the event of a post crash fire where the driver door is jammed closed.
Very cool contrast with your great grandpa's car!
Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving! We had a foot of snow and it's -5 degrees here this morning!

[C.Plavan]

The NP01 is awesome, especially for the price. Where I race the windows would be a problem, our conference has a rule that forbids driver and passenger side windows up. I double checked with the conference stewards, windows must be down or not installed. And I'm wondering if I could climb out that driver window in the event of a post crash fire where the driver door is jammed closed.
Very cool contrast with your great grandpa's car!
Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving! We had a foot of snow and it's -5 degrees here this morning!

This is a racecar- If the stewards don't see that, I would be running with a different group . There is so much room inside, it's ridiculous. You can fit two Cool Suit ice chests on either side of you.

[Frank818]

You are building that car?
Huge step fwd the 818!

[C.Plavan]

You are building that car?
Huge step fwd the 818!

I'm still undecided. I would like to, but I want to race immediately. They charge $8500 to build it, which is alot of cash, but might be worth it. This is a top of the line racecar manufacturer/builder (Panoz, Deltawing, Indycar). It would be nice to have the racecar delivered ready to go. I will have to do alot of tinkering on it when it gets here.

I have been receiving PM's if I still on plan on selling the 818R. The answer is yes. I do not need three racecars. I'm still going to tinker with it in the mean time. If you want it, shoot me an offer and we can discuss.

[C.Plavan]

The new water pump is in, new timing belt kit is in, timing is set. I installed a Company 23 Timing belt guide (Thanks for the idea Gator), slick little piece. I just need to put the timing covers back on, throw the underdrive pulley on, then fill it with fluids.

The hardest part was scraping the old water pump gasket off..... The OEM metal gasket is the only way to go.

New water pump vs. used water pump.

[Scargo]

Really nice to find the Company23 adjustable guide at a fair price ($55). Only problem is the additional $10+ for shipping (from IIR). I have a Tomioka that I will be unloading because it is not adjustable and it does not match the radius of the belt on my pulley. There is no ability to improve on the inconsistent gap. The $7.00 difference is well worth it to me.
RE, pump: Nasty water there in Cali, eh?

[Flamshackle]

The new water pump is in, new timing belt kit is in, timing is set. I installed a Company 23 Timing belt guide (Thanks for the idea Gator), slick little piece. I just need to put the timing covers back on, throw the underdrive pulley on, then fill it with fluids.

The hardest part was scraping the old water pump gasket off..... The OEM metal gasket is the only way to go.

New water pump vs. used water pump.

Cant wait to hear how this all works out for you Chad. I am crossing my legs, arms and toes as well as the obligatory fingers just to make sure!!!!!

[Sgt.Gator]

Cant wait to hear how this all works out for you Chad. I am crossing my legs, arms and toes as well as the obligatory fingers just to make sure!!!!!

+1 !

[RetroRacing]

Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegodpleasegodpleasegodpleas egodpleasegodpleasegod!

[bbjones121]

When is next race?

[Flamshackle]

When is next race?

yea; when do I need to go to prayer!!!???