John's EZ36R H6 818R Build

[Hobby Racer]

Before I tear the motor apart I thought it would be a good idea to get the new engine compartment bracing done since I will need to test fit things a few times. The new brace is one piece that is easily removed with only three bolts. Since the intake sits quite high I needed to arch the rear bar that spans the back of the engine compartment. Its a super tight fit between the intake tube the brace and the underside of the deck lid. With the brace touching the intake tube there is only about 1/8" clearance between the top of the bar and the deck lid!

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I added some gussets to the underside of the arched sections to ensure its plenty rigid.

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After I get the mounting points welded to the frame everything will get a nice coat of paint and its on to the motor build!

[Hobby Racer]

For us guys with the 818R's, its tough to change tires, work on brakes or even get your car on a lift if you have one. The car is so low you can not get any normal type of floor jack (even the low profile ones) under the car to jack it up. I've seen a few other builders put in these "Jacking Pockets" to allow you to easily jack up one side by inserting a shaft or tube into a receiver and then use a normal floor jack to lift one side of the car. Well its time to copy that idea.

I ended up using some 2" square tube with thick 1/4" wall for the receiver pieces. I milled out 1" holes on each side to take out some weight and make them look cool. After grinding out the inner weld seams, a 1.5" square tube fits perfectly into it and telescopes in and out with almost no slop.

The only place I could find to mount these where I did not have to remove my aluminum side panels was down at the rear trailing arm pickup point. It actually seems to be a great location. Let me know if you think this a bad spot before I weld it in place. I will cut out a square hole in the body to accept the 1.5" tube after I put the body back on so I get it in the right spot.

BTW I have noticed that since I got my milling machine it seems that everything I do requires mill work. Funny how that happens

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[Sgt.Gator]

I think you should mill out the aluminum side panel!

[lance corsi]

Hobby, I have a low sitting turbo Supra with the same problem. I cut a couple pieces of 2x12 and stacked them, then cut a bevel on the leading edges to ease driving up onto them. This gets me high enough to get a standard floor jack under it. The two ramps are about 24” long, which wouldn’t be too inconvenient to pack along.

[Hobby Racer]

Hobby, I have a low sitting turbo Supra with the same problem. I cut a couple pieces of 2x12 and stacked them, then cut a bevel on the leading edges to ease driving up onto them. This gets me high enough to get a standard floor jack under it. The two ramps are about 24” long, which wouldn’t be too inconvenient to pack along.

I have those already but its inconvenient at best. Once I forgot to bring them to the track and couldn't change my tires! Its nice to just roll up with a standard jack and be able to raise your car without first having to drive up on mini ramps.

[Hobby Racer]

Well I got the motor completely torn down and all my major parts have come in so next step is to find a local shop with the expertise and equipment to properly bore and hone a boxer 6 cylinder engine. I highly doubt most of the local machine shops will have a torque plate for a Subaru H6 motor

If you guys have a shop on the east coast you would recommend, let me know.

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[roadrashrob]

I know you are in Syracuse, but I took mine from New Paltz, NY to Larry's Auto Machine in Groton, CT. He is amazing and did mine with a Torque plate. (It wasn't an H6, but he specializes in Subaru's so sure he would have one for your engine) He's right at Groton Airport, so I am fortunate enough to be a pilot and just flew my block to him. Mystic Jet Center has courtesy cars, so it was really easy. He also ultrasonically cleaned my intake manifold for me and it came out like new!

http://www.larryspower.com/index.html

[Hobby Racer]

I know you are in Syracuse, but I took mine from New Paltz, NY to Larry's Auto Machine in Groton, CT. He is amazing and did mine with a Torque plate. (It wasn't an H6, but he specializes in Subaru's so sure he would have one for your engine) He's right at Groton Airport, so I am fortunate enough to be a pilot and just flew my block to him. Mystic Jet Center has courtesy cars, so it was really easy. He also ultrasonically cleaned my intake manifold for me and it came out like new!

http://www.larryspower.com/index.html

roadrashrob, thank you for the suggestion!

When I first called he did not have a torque plate for my engine. I could not find ANY shop on the east coast that had a torque plate and could do the machining needed. I was just about to go down the road of machining my own torque plate when Gary from Larry's Auto contacted me to let me know he has another customer looking for an over bore of the same engine and that he is willing to make a torque plate so he can do both jobs!

I'll be shipping him my case halves next week after I build a custom shipping crate to ensure nothing is damaged in transit.

I was getting a little worried that I would have to ship my case all the way to CA to get the work done.

[Hobby Racer]

With the addition of forced induction I thought it prudent to improve/increase the clamping force on the heads. Here I am installing 12mm ARP-2000 head studs instead of using the OEM 10.5mm cap screw bolts. This required drilling out the old threads in each case half so I could tap for the larger 12mm threads. The Bridgeport was perfect for this job, ensuring accurate, straight holes. To get the tap started, I disengaged the Bridgeport drive spindle so it could be easily spun by hand and mounted the tap in the drill chuck to start the tapping process. When I got the tap down a few threads I removed the drill chuck and finished tapping the threads with a large tap wrench.

Two hours later, the block now uses heavy duty head studs instead of the smaller/weaker head bolts.

[Hobby Racer]

Using the shorter stroke crankshaft from an EZ30 necessitates using a custom longer connecting rod. Since nobody has aftermarket asymmetric rods for this engine I'm using a modified straight connecting rod that was intended for a Subaru EJ25 NON turbo engine. Unlike all other Subaru engines, the EZ36 is designed to have it's rod caps removed from the oil pan area prior to splitting the case halves and the piston rod assemblies pulled out the top of deck.

To help assemble my short block it is necessary to grind out access slots in the block where the red arrows are in the picture below. This allows a long 3/8" extension and a swivel socket to be used to tighten the rod bolts that are on the bottom side of the crank pin. A die grinder and a carbide burr made quick work of the aluminum.

You only need to do one half of the case as you can install the piston rod combos for the other side prior to bolting the case halves together. If this does not make sense now, I'll document it when I assemble the short block and it will become clear.



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[Hobby Racer]

The case halves are all packed up and getting shipped to Larry's Auto Machine tomorrow. I made a custom wooden crate lined with 2" hard foam insulation on all sides to protect it during shipping. Ended up being 83 lbs total. The crate alone was 16 lbs!

[q4stix]

Awesome! I've wanted to build a shortblock for my eventual replacement EJ25 in my WRX (going 170k miles now). Looking forward to seeing this one come together so I'm glad you're posting pictures and build comments!

[Hobby Racer]

I just got the heads back from a local machine shop and they are now ready for reassembly.

Who says only woman are attracted to pretty, shiny things!



It took a ton of elbow grease and many dremel sized scotch bright wheels to go from what you see below to what you see above. That, and about 0.005" of material planed from the head by the machine shop to get rid of the aluminum corrosion and pitting to ensure an optimum sealing surface.

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After a thorough wash, I will clear out all the oil and coolant passages before putting the valves back in. To improve valve train stability under boost and high RPM's, I will be installing stiffer valve springs and titanium retainers. This along with the balanced rotating assembly should allow me to increase the red-line to 7000+.

Larry's Machine in CT says they should be boring my block out this week. Hopefully I'll get it back soon so I can assemble the engine. I'll post pics of that process as it happens.

[Hobby Racer]

There are a few minor blemishes on the crankshaft rod journals that need to be polished out prior to assembling the short block. At first I was just going to drop it off at the local machine shop, but then I thought, you have these cool machines and tools, you should be able to do that yourself. This would be so easy if I only had a lathe. But at the moment all I have is a vertical mill and a good imagination. Thinking of the mill as a vertical lathe, I started with a 3/4" piece of steel round stock and instead of putting the cutter in the mill head and clamping the work piece in the vise, I swapped it around. I mounted the round stock in the mill using a 3/4" collet and clamped a lathe cutting tool in the vise. Now the work piece is spinning and I use the X-Y-Z movement of the table to bring the cutting tool to the work. This actually works quite well for basic turning operations. I then welded up a dog drive plate to the mandrel I just made so I can drive the crankshaft without having to clamp onto the bearing surfaces. Here it is mounted up in my drill press since it was too tall to mount in the milling machine. To support the vertical weight of the crankshaft I took a piece of HPDE plastic and drilled a 1" hole in it. This fits the size of the crank snout and keeps the shaft steady while spinning. A bit of grease around the edge and it spins freely without damaging the crank.



The drive mandrel tapers down below the drive plate to fit nicely into the center hole of the crankshaft.



Full disclosure, this is the original crankshaft out of the 3.6L, not the new 3.0L crankshaft that will go into the engine. I wanted to test the setup first before trying it on my $$$ new crankshaft!

[Jetfuel]

Necessity....the mother of all inventions...

Jet

[aquillen]

What fun. I would have surfaced the heads in my garage, on a sheet of glass or granite with sandpaper. If only we lived close then banging around on stuff in the shop could be shared. Thanks for show and tell !

[Hobby Racer]

Still waiting to get the block back from the machine shop. So I'm working on the cylinder heads. Here I'm hand lapping in the valves to get a perfect seal. Notice the shiny line denoting the seal between the valve and the seat after lapping.

[Hobby Racer]

Reinstalled the valves, valve seals, spring seats, springs, retainers and locks. The heads are now complete. What a job that turned into. Getting those tiny valve locks to seat correctly while holding ~100 lbs of pressure on the valve spring is a major pain in the butt!

If it were not for the special valve lock tool (seen in the pic below with the red arrow) I do not think I could have gotten it done.

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[roadrashrob]

Impressive job. As they say, "those that can, do. The rest of us send our heads out"! ;-) Wish I had your skills.... Can't wait to see how Larry's did on your block.

[Hobby Racer]

Upgrading to forced induction requires an increase in fuel flow that is beyond the capability of my stock injectors. I purchased new Subaru STI injectors that claim to flow 565 cc/min. Here I'm testing injectors to find the real flow rates and latency (dead times). The injectors actually flow 590 cc/min!


I built a test rig that runs one bank of injectors at a time through the testing process. I use the ECU's test modes to fire the injectors as needed.



Here is a short clip of a test run.

[Hobby Racer]

Late last season I changed to Hoosier A7's in 275 x 35 x 18's in the rear. This caused rubbing between the tires and the lower control arms.





I bought aftermarket adjustable rear control arms but I didn't like the way they were built so I decided to modify the stock lower control arms. I started by boxing in the back side of the area were the rubbing was occurring. This provided more structure so I could remove the rubbing section without the arms deforming.

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After cutting out the section that rubbed, I welded in new pieces to complete the arms and add back any strength I had removed.

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[Sgt.Gator]

If I had tried that they would have warped into a pretzel.

[Mitch Wright]

Looks good.
Chassis left rear.JPGI had replaced mine with swedged tubes and was able to move them inboard for additional clearance.

[Hobby Racer]

Oh boy, now I have to look at swedged tubes. I like the light weight and free movement of the swedged tubes. Plus, then the entire rear suspension would be swedged tubes!

[DSR-3]

Spuds and Tube for you!

[Santiago]

I said no more awesome ideas!! *shakes his fist at the sky!*

Oh boy, now I have to look at swedged tubes. I like the light weight and free movement of the swedged tubes. Plus, then the entire rear suspension would be swedged tubes!

Ok...at least show what you did on the knuckle end. Did you just go with a single-shear set up or did you end the tube with a bracket to grab the whole knuckle bushing (OEM style)?

[Hobby Racer]

Ok...at least show what you did on the knuckle end. Did you just go with a single-shear set up or did you end the tube with a bracket to grab the whole knuckle bushing (OEM style)?

Yeah ... what he said

[biknman]

I used links and arms and other suspension bits from TSS Fab https://www.tssfab.us. Mr. Timmins at TSS Fab he'll custom do anything you want for my 818r trailing arms I had him add a bit more curve so I could run 295 or 305 no problem.


Arms and Links for my 818r
TSS Fab rear trailing arms 818r.jpg
818r TSS rear links.jpg
TSS FAB 818r suspension bits.jpg

Arms and links and other bits for my Suby Couple SM race car
Hooptie TSS rear end.jpg
Hooptie TSS rear link and arms.jpg

[Mitch Wright]

I just made aluminum plugs for the rear upright's and a 3/4 rod end and bolt through the upright in single shear and 5/8's on the chassis.Rear caliper mount finished.jpeg you can see part of the plug at the bottom of the photo. Made them in 2 pieces and pressed them in.

[Mitch Wright]

Attachment 145153Attachment 145154 you can kinda see what was done in these photos. I made spacers for the chassis mount to move the link inboard about .750 and captured the rod end on the upright with a large AN washer. Worked great, talking to a engineer buddy who did some figuring said in his opinion was more than strong enough and would break the casting in a wreck before the 3/4 grade 8 bolt.

[Hobby Racer]

10 weeks later, the block is finally back from the machine shop! Its not entirely the shop's fault. They did not have the needed torque plate to hone my block when they accepted my job. They were hoping to make their own but decided to purchase one instead. The place they ordered it from took the majority of time making and shipping the plate to them. Once they had everything they needed it only took the shop a day or two to knock out the bore and hone job.

Next was the return shipping. UPS is not gentle by any means, especially with heavy packages. Here are the pics of the box after I removed the block. Three of the four sides of the crate bottom were blown out. The only thing holding the bottom on was two pieces of duct tape and one side of screws! Luckily I packed the block in tight fitting rigid foam insulation board so it was wedged into the crate. This prevented it from falling out, even with most of the bottom structure compromised. I have not even looked at the block yet

lesson learned, in the future I will use steel or nylon strapping material to go around the crate!

[Mitch Wright]

Looking forward to seeing your car in person at VIR in June.

[Hobby Racer]

Nothing says fun like filing ring gaps for hours on end . First step to assembling the short block is filing the rings to fit each cylinder. I use a simple hand crank filer. It works great and allows you creep up on the ring gap slowly. Given my near eye sight is not what it used to be, the lighted magnifier comes in handy.

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Here I'm using a piston to set the ring in the bore at precisely the same depth each time.



This is a top ring that has been properly gapped.

[Hobby Racer]

Now its time to assemble the pistons and rods. First is putting the rings onto the pistons in the correct order and position.



After many bruised and cut finger tips, all the wire locks that secure the wrist pins are in place. Man are those difficult to get in.



Since I need to install half the pistons and rods BEFORE bolting the case halves together, I needed a way to hold the crankshaft in place. I made some temporary main caps from some hard wood scrap pieces I had. These allow me to flip the case around while installing 3 of the piston rod combos without the crank falling out. Its just loose enough that I can spin the crank to be able to get the rod caps lined up.



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Maybe tomorrow it will be a short block!

[Santiago]

Going from high tech computer testing your own injectors to the oldest of the old-school: wooden main caps...

The man is legendary. =)

[aquillen]

Precisely

[J R Jones]

Coincidentally I worked in my son's shop yesterday and he was starting the assembly of his new upgraded 1UZ (Lexus) V8. He has a supercharger on it and the original V8 was worrisome at 11PSI. When I got there he was exasperated after an hour trying to get the C-ring wrist pin retainers installed. We double teamed them, me holding the clip in place with both thumbs and Grant with a screwdriver pushing the loose end in place.
At #10 or 11 retainer my thumbs were "dented'out". We managed to finish with me wearing welding gloves. BTW the rings are capable of firing 10 feet from almost installed static position.

[Hobby Racer]

I was able to button up the short block today. Best tool ever for inserting pistons into the bores are tapered aluminum piston ring compressors. Makes it super easy and almost foolproof. You can see mine in the picture below.

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[fletch]

this rebuild makes me want 2 more cylinders ... and the skill to assemble them ... and use them on the track
so much want

[fletch]

I'm really curious to see the jacking pockets in use. Do they penetrate the fiberglass side sails in some fashion?