BrandonspecB

Got to installing the NA sway bar and modifying the front subframe brace. I've got a pile of parts to fab exhaust, intake, and charge pipes. And there's more stuff on the way. I think I'll be getting something like 15 packages delivered on Tuesday. Metric Motors said the engine should be done on Wednesday. I'm not getting my hopes up too much though. In my experience working with machine shops you always need to add a week or two to any time frame they give you .

How do you like it? I read that it's 25mm. I had a 22mm front and 20mm rear Whiteline bars and really liked that combo. I'm not much of a corner carver though, so I probably won't notice much difference with the 25mm bar (except the price.) Update: Still waiting on the machine shop. On Friday they will have had my stuff for 2 months. Lots of parts are showing up to make fuel lines and exhaust and other things. I bought some new fuel rail dampers because I just couldn't put the old, corroded ones on the shiny fuel rails. I think the only things I still need to buy are the fittings and lines for the turbo feed and drain. I need the engine to see where all that is going to go.

Wow, thanks for letting me know! I was planning on eventually getting a larger Whiteline NA front bar, but this will work great.

Here's a pic showing the bends in the NA bar that allow for more exhaust clearance.

Did a few more things in anticipation of the engine getting done. I noticed that the naturally aspirated car's subframe and sway bar are different to accommodate the exhaust heading straight back. I'll be copying the exhaust routing that Mighty Car Mods did on their turbo EZ36 "supergramps" and so I decided to swap in an NA subframe and sway bar. After getting the turbo subframe out it doesn't appear that it would cause too many clearance issues, but the sway bar and subframe brace definitely will. The NA subframe brace is three separate pieces instead of one big piece. I'll just cut the turbo brace into three pieces rather than buy the NA braces.

It is plug and play. It even uses the factory EJ engine harness. Some of the sensors aren't in the same place as the EJ, so I'm going to have to lengthen some wires. They included all the leads for the additional coils, injectors, and variable lift solenoids. All I have to do is run the wires, cut the connectors off the EZ30 harness and connect them to the leads and it's good to go. You can see in the picture the adapter harness and the wires coiled up are the additional leads. It does come with a base map for your particular setup. Phil at Element Tuning got all the info about my setup and the map was programmed in the Hydra when I got it. The factory gauge cluster works with the Hydra. The ABS, VDC, Nav, A/C all work. I'm not 100% certain if the cruise control works. I'll try to do a good job documenting all the wiring changes and any electrical issues that come up for this swap. As far as emissions, I'll be moving to a non emissions county in a couple months. While I was researching stand alones I remember reading some things about piggybacking the factory ECU with a jumper harness just so it can be connected to via the ODB2 port. Then you'd force pass the readiness monitors with a Tactrix cable and Ecuflash and remove all the codes to get it to pass. At least that's how I think it would work. You'd still have to get someone to turn a blind eye on the visual.

No big updates. Still waiting on the machine shop. Got the fuel rails back from being plated. They look amazing!

More goodies showed up. EMS is plug and play with leads for the additional cylinders and variable lift solenoids. Started measuring the rod bearing clearances and was coming up with literally 0 clearance. Either the rod is too tight or the bearing is too thick. The rods measure at 2.165 and King's info says the big end diameter is 2.1673. I didn't have a stock rod to measure and compare, so whether the rod is small or the bearing thick is up in the air at this point. Either way, the machine shop will get it straightened out. Edit: The stock rods measure 2.165 which means King's bearing thickness is off because they are basing it off an incorrect big end diameter.

I agree with that. There usually is a trade off somewhere. When I put cams in my EJ it picked up a lot of top end power, but lost a lot down low. It was worth it for me since I like drag racing. Low end power doesn't mean much when you're launching at 6500 and spinning the engine to 8000.

I appreciate your interest in my build and compliments, but I have to disagree. Boosted engines benefit quite a bit from valve and port work. Anything that makes power on an NA engine will make power on a boosted engine and let you make that power at lower pressure. https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showpost.php?p=42414744&postcount=3 As far as log vs tubular, what I've seen is that logs usually spool faster due to less internal volume and tubular make top end power due to better flow.

I definitely checked that build out when planning mine. I think I'm going to copy their exhaust routing except use a real 3-1 collector for each header. Anyways, got one head done. I'm just going to use the stock valves for this build. Everything is in such good shape and there aren't any oversized valve options available. Some stock sized aftermarket stainless valves really won't give me much performance benefit, but they will give me a lot of additional cost. Blasted the valves with glass bead and lapped them in with some lapping compound. I'll have Metric vacuum test them to make sure they seal properly before they resurface the heads.

More parts means more progress! And pics! The rods are works of art. My buddy told me I should have bought a spare just to hang on the wall. Started getting the heads ported. I'm just doing a very light bowl blend. The valve seats stick out into the port quite a bit, so I'm just grinding them down and blending it all together. The EZ head casting is much better than the EJ. Far less casting flash in the ports. The intake ports are massive. Dual intake valve springs from the factory and extremely wimpy exhaust valve springs. I laughed when I pulled them out. Company 23 EJ valve spring compressor works just fine on intake and exhaust valves.

Build is finally going to be moving forward. Block is at Metric Motors getting machined. Valve springs and Hydra EMS have shipped and will arrive next week. Rods are shipping out on Monday. Main and rod bearings are ordered. I'm excited!

Haven't made a whole lot of progress. Still waiting on rods and valve springs. My advice to anyone having parts made for a build is to go through the manufacturer. I tried saving money by purchasing through vendors and I am having a very hard time getting updates. Had a nice EZ30 torque plate show up. I guess I can get the block machined now. Painted the intake manifold and valve covers with a wrinkle paint. Turned out pretty good. Also welded some AN fittings to the valve covers for the breather hoses to the catch can.

I'm sort of in a holding pattern waiting for rods to show up. They won't be here until the end of March. Injectors and FPR showed up. Sort of weird buying six injectors. Modified the fuel rails with -6 fittings. Just need to weld them on. Here's a cool vid of Jeff Sponaugle racing his EZ30 WRX. The sound is amazing.

Case halves are done and ready to be bored, honed, and decked. Pistons are here. Ordering EMS tomorrow or the day after. Started pricing out parts to build headers and exhaust for the turbo.

Been working on some cool stuff at work. Rebuilding a 2-stroke 8v71 Detroit Diesel out of a loader that the operator overheated. He didn't check the fluids before he ran it for the day and overheated it so bad it seized. Finished pinning half the case. Other half should be done Friday. Pauter rods are ordered, but they are 4 weeks out. They have to be made. No one has them in stock. Talked to Element Tuning about a Hydra EMS. Going to order tomorrow. Should be able to get pistons ordered in the next few days.

Things are slowly moving forward. Started getting the pins made up and installed. Lots of work. I have to hand finish each one to get the fit I want. I'm installing them a little proud so I can make 100% certain they're completely seated. The machine shop will get everything flush when they resurface the block. I decided to go with Pauter X-beam rods instead of the Outfront H-beams. I initially wanted the Outfront rods because they say they are fit for the wider EJ bearing. Well, after inspecting and measuring the crank and bearings, the wider bearing will fit, but it won't do any good. The rods journals on the crank are chamfered on the edges. This means that any wider bearing will be off the flat surface of the journal. So, no point in using them. Ordered the Pauter X-beams. They're beefy.

Got the engine torn down, cleaned, and ready for the mill. There sure isn't much to the crankshaft. Perrin made 600 whp with the stock crank, so I know it will hold that much. One thing I noticed with this engine is that there are no reliefs cut in the cylinders to make room for the case bolts. Those reliefs in the EJ measure 0.26 and are a tremendous weak point. Pretty much every cracked cylinder I've seen happens there. Speaking of case bolts, these bastards were tight. 1/2" impact wouldn't touch them. 3/4" gun had to come out.

Finally got off my butt and finished stripping the engine. Hopefully I can get the shortblock disassembled tomorrow. This really is a sweet engine. Lots of cool, complex stuff. I was pretty excited to find I can loosen the head bolts with out removing the cams, but that only lasted until I couldn't get the bolts out and had to remove the cams anyways. The intake lifters are pretty complex. It's where the magic happens for the variable lift. The exhaust lifters are the same type as the EJ. The intake lifters use a little shim to set the valve lash. The oil pan is a structural part of the engine and houses the water pump as well as the oil filter housing. Lots and lots of hardware to strip this engine.

Here's some more info about the EZ block. I measured the thickness of the cylinder walls as well as the depth of the cylinders of an EJ and EZ. EJ wall thickness: 0.32 EZ wall thickness: 0.30 The depth of the EZ cylinders is pretty consistent except at 90 degrees on the rear cylinders. The coolant flows differently with the EZ. The only coolant holes in the head gasket are at 90 degrees on the rear cylinders. Coolant flows front to back through the block, then flows into the cylinder head at the rear cylinder, and then flows back to front in the cylinder head and back to the radiator. With that said, at 90 degrees on the rear cylinders there are ramps cast in that help the coolant change directions into the cylinder head. Other than that one spot, the EZ cylinders are around 2.35" deep. Short cylinders are stiffer. The EJ has taller cylinders except in a few spots where the casting bridges between the cylinder and block. The EJ varies between 2-3". Here's a link from Jeff Sponaugle. He is a former Cobb calibrator and I have read everything I can find about his car since it's one of the few EZs around making decent power. He made over 500 whp and wtq with the stock block. In post 21 of the link he says he made 580 wtq. Stock, open deck block. https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1645176 I really think this block will handle quite a bit of power by semi-closing the deck with some pins that support the top 3/4" of the cylinder where pressure is the highest.

Stock crank. Pistons are from Outfront Motorsports. 9.7:1 compression down from stock 10.7:1. Rods are also from Outfront. H-beam, fit for EJ bearings. One of the EZ's weaknesses is the small rod bearing surface. Outfront's rods use the wider EJ bearing. They are press fit. It's similar to what companies do when closing the deck entirely except this requires far less machine work. The closed deck blocks have a step machined out around the cylinder and the block and then press in an insert that completely encircles the cylinder. Pinning you machine out a circular step and press in an aluminum dowel. Once it's pressed in, it can't go anywhere, just like the closed deck inserts. It's simple and effective. Not as strong as a completely closed deck, but not as expensive or invasive either. I'm not sure how much of an issue thermal expansion from different alloys will cause. The information I can find about the closed deck inserts says they're machined from billet 6061. The block is definitely not 6061. So, who knows. Probably not too big of an issue with a light press fit. Here's a video of how much they machine to press in an insert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpBi2DHvrgI

These are my thoughts on this. I just don't think it's necessary. I've found the stock EJ25 case to be really reliable at around 500 whp. It wasn't until I started pushing it towards 600 whp that a liner cracked (full disclosure: that was after I leaned it out trying a new meth injection/gas ratio looking for more power. It might still be alive today.) So, let's say 20% drivetrain loss comes to 625 crank horsepower (625 * 0.8 = 500.) That's 156 horsepower per cylinder from the EJ. This is the number I feel comfortable with from an EJ. 600 whp would be 750 crank. For the EJ that's 188 hp/cyl. The EZ at 750 crank horsepower would be 125 hp/cyl. At 900 it would be 150. Spreading that power out takes a lot of strain off of individual components. I'm thinking that supporting the cylinders with some pins is going to be fine for what I'm doing without the cost and and possible issues of sleeves. I like to keep things simple and effective. The pins combined with how short the cylinders are should be plenty to keep them from flexing under power. We'll see though.

Started tearing the engine down. I'm blown away by how clean it is.

I think you misunderstand what pinning is. I'm going to be inserting aluminum dowels between the top of the cylinders and the block, turning that open deck into a semi closed deck. No one knows how much power the stock case will hold. No ones's used one to make a lot of power that I know of. They either close the deck or get it sleeved. Something else to consider is that the cylinders don't protrude out of the block very far. So, just because it's open deck doesn't mean it's necessarily weak. Pic of a pinned EG33 block.