JayRex - 05 LGT Engine and 5EAT Rebuild

[jayrex]

This thread will be for the engine only.

 

I will keep the trans rebuild separate, but it should end up being: TransGo shift kit(Purchased), Bullet Proof Diff Bushings(Purchased - Thanks Dave), and Frictions replacement (Pending Inspection).

Link to 5EAT Rebuild Thread

 

Wrenching experience so far:

This is my first rebuild. I've done lots of homework, watched every video I could find, and read thru most of the build threads here. My experience consists of a few subaru head gaskets, timing belts, top feed fuel rail install, tgv delete install, fuel pump install, and swapped the turbo out. So I've been all over it, just not elbow deep like this.

 

I love seeing other peoples pictures, so I'm going to try and provide a bunch. And if you're lucky, maybe even TOO many!

 

Reason for Rebuild:

Burning an incredible amount of oil... 4-6qt per OCI.

5EAT Trans is slipping bad. I can't have any fun with that crap is going on, so I'm going to dig into that at basically the same time. (Much more nervous about this part)

 

I do not suspect anything catastrophic is wrong with the engine. BUT... the last day I drove it, I did hear some knocking on warm up. It was unusual, and the first time, so that has me a bit worried. I'm expecting(hoping) just the heads and rings need a refresher, but we'll see when we get in there.

 

I did a compression test about 3 months ago while WARM, not super hot. The results were consistent across all cylinders and a bit low(~120 psi), but I don't know if those results warrant so much oil burning.

 

125K miles, I've owned it 2 years or so since 100K miles (100% stock)

 

Current Mods:

JMP Rebuilt - billet wheel VF46, Perrin Inlet

Cobb Catted DP, Invidia UP, Borla Catback

ID1000 Top Feeds w/ fuel line kit, DW65c, TGV deletes.

GrimmSpeed 3 port EBCS, Cobb V3 AccessPort

UEGO WideBand O2 w/ gauge, Bren ETune

Generic Oil Catch Can (stock PCV routing)

Stock TMIC

 

Other non-applicable stuff:

DBA Rotors, Stock Calipers

Cheap black 18" wheels for summer, Black Stock 17's with snows.

BC/BR Coilovers, Upgraded swaybars and endlinks.

Trans Temp Gauge

Russian Dash Cam! (GoPro)

Vinyl Carbon Fiber wrap inside - a pillars, radio bezels, shifter bezel

LED Signals and Brake Lights

Gigantic Optima deep cycle marine battery (barely fits... well it didn't, but I made it fit )

Hacked and re-wrapped wire harness (Blue)

35% Tint all around

Cleared headlights, JDM Tail lights

 

I've been fighting leaky power steering pumps (on my third), so that is why the engine is so greasy in the pics. The heads didn't really seem to be leaking at all.

 

I am going to to tear down, inspect, and then start making decisions. I'm generally thinking about putting a little more money into the heads and just scraping by on the block, but that could all change after inspection. Please chime in with any opinions. I'm not going for a built block, this is going to be practice for future 'built goodness'

 

Here is a walk around video I took for reference in case I forget how something goes back together. Its not edited and I was trying to get all the details, amongst camera focusing issues:

 

Here's a few pictures of my garage setup and the car just before getting started.

[jayrex]

Engine Removal

(Going to put descriptions and format later)

 

Splitting the tranny was hard. Putty knives -->> Chisel -->> Giant pry bar.

Mostly did all the work at the top, as there was little to no room at the bottom. Some heat and PB Blaster on the pins(middle) and studs(bottom) helped.

 

The Torque Converter stuck to the engine. Had to move the engine and tranny at just the right angle to separate. I hope I didn't bend anything on the Torque converter, because I didn't notice right away - I was operating the engine crane out of view of the gap.

 

Don't forget to detach the grounding straps from each side of the head, or you'll rip them right off like I did. Meh, no big deal.

 

The engine hanging there, completely out, was quite the feeling of victory!

[jayrex]

Engine Teardown

(Going to put descriptions and format later)

 

All of the cam bolts came out with a breaker bar and a cheater pipe(not shown in pic). I used a 10 mm 1/4" drive impact hex. They were tight, cheater pipe required for sure. Left the belt on, it did not skip.

 

This set is mostly heads - curious about the scoring of the bearing journals. Most of them I can't even feel when I scrape my nail across. Wondering is this is normal. If it is a concern, wondering what it would affect. The exhaust cams are much worse than the intake on both heads.

 

All the buckets move freely and look worse in the pictures than they actually are. They are quite smooth on the tops, the light just makes them look knarly.

 

All the lobes are super smooth. Very little side to side play on one cam, but most are completely solid.

 

About 3 months ago I did an oil analysis fro BlackStone labs. They did not see any excessive wear material in the oil. And the bottom of the oil pan is basically clean, no metal or weird buildup.

 

I'm into this project about 30 hours so far.

[jayrex]

More Engine Teardown Pics

Mostly Cylinder wall pics - some concern here, but most of the cross hashing marks are still present. Have not split block yet.

Everything moves very smooth when I turn the crank.

 

Pretty mesmerizing turning the crank and watching those pistons move.

[jayrex]

Reserved for more pics

[jayrex]

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[jayrex]

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[jayrex]

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[jayrex]

Cracked ringlands on two cylinders (#2 and #4)

I was really hoping to get away with a hone and re-ring.

 

They are just cracked, not freely moving chunks or anything. The weird thing is, my compression came back 'okay'.

The 'golden' colored picture is showing some scoring on piston #1.

First pic shows one crack, and second pic shows two cracks between my thumb and finger. (both pistons have two cracks)

...you can almost HEAR that piston slap in the second pic, eh?

 

At least I know why its burning so much oil now.

 

I also found a decent machine shop willing to work with me on the block. They initially said they don't touch subaru blocks, but that was mostly because of the assembly. After I said I just wanted a little cylinder work (inspection and hone) they were totally down with it.

 

...maybe they will be excited to over bore it when I ask about that for my new pistons.

 

They are also going to inspect the heads (valve guides mostly) and deck it. They are asking for $100 total to deck both of them. The guides are not 'dropped', but I don't have any way to inspect the valve guide bores. They said $400 - $500 for both heads fully rebuilt. The higher side of that is in case they need to replace the exhaust valves, as they see much more abuse.

 

I have a spring compressor coming soon, so I'll get a look at the valve play in a few days. I also have some dual-grit lapping compound and one of those suction tools coming soon.

 

 

You will need:

A 12 point 14mm socket to remove the head bolts.

A 12 point 12mm socket to remove a few of the case bolts.

A 24mm Deep socket to remove the oil cooler.

 

Here's a few videos I found helpful:

Twisting pistons to remove from the bore:

 

Cleaning up valves:

 

Dropped Valve Guides (BriansMobile1 has great subaru repair videos)

 

Subaru Tech Block Build (Long but informative)

 

Lets talk about forged pistons.

If the block is good I am definitely going with forged, so don't even try to talk me out of it!

Do forged piston and pin sets usually come with rings too? Because I see piston specific rings from the aftermarket piston manufacturers, but somebody in the classifieds is selling 100mm bore forged pistons without rings. They are about $100 to $150 for a set right?

 

If the block is too bad then I'd probably just buy a new assembled short block ($1700+), and deal with the standard pistons. But I really don't want to go this route.

 

Does 100mm overbore reduce compression?

If the block just needs a hone I'd definitely want to stick with standard 99.5mm piston size right?

 

Block will be split soon and I'll have pics of that up in a day or two.

[jayrex]

Split the block and started cleaning the heads and valves.

 

Splitting the block is much easier with all the bolts out... hint hint.

Found a trick, use a cheap car jack on the bell housing to split the block. Worked perfect, along with some rubber mallet action. The main bearings look a little beat, but the crank journals look great.

 

Took the valves out of one of the heads and used a dremel and extention to clean up the seats and ports.

 

The intake valves look almost new after some wire wheel action, but the exhaust valves are shot. Too much gunk on the sealing surfaces. Looks like a new set of exhaust valves will be about $120ish.

 

The valve stems and clearance look good, no scoring. I used this article to DIY a valve clearance check. And looked up some good and bad example videos on youtube.

 

http://www.powerperformancenews.com/tech-articles/how-to-tips/tech-a-quick-easy-check-for-valve-guide-and-seat-quality/

 

The oil trick seemed to work, and the guide-to-stem play cleared right up. So I'm just going to leave the guides as is, even though I was originally thinking I should replace them. The machine shop said replacing the guides would be much more expensive, obviously.

 

If I finish the other head tomorrow, I'll be taking the block and heads to the shop early next week for decking and block bore inspection. We'll figure out what I should do with the block after that... OEM pistons or Oversized.

 

A nice write-up on pistons from our brothers over at NASIOC:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=907570

 

Still debating type of forged piston after reading it.

4032 or 2618. I would like to play more with tuning myself, so I'm leaning towards 2618 and dealing with the associated issues.

 

Here's a video of everything as it sits on my bench now, sorry I'm not a master video maker but its nice to see a video of this stuff sometimes:

[jayrex]

Split Block and Crank pics:

[RckyMtnGT]

Awesome pics, always fun to see a well documented process. Best of luck on your rebuild!

Side note, I fell down a youtube rabbit hole thanks to your links lots of cool information there.

[jayrex]

My trans rebuild thread started. Lots of pictures.

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/jayrex-5eat-rebuild-251969.html

[jayrex]

Currently painting some of the rusty bits with high temp black. Trans pan, some brackets, hard lines for the breather tubes, and that cruddy cross coolant tube that runs across down by the radiator. I'll post some pics when those are done.

 

Still waiting on the machine shop, they have had my heads and case halves for over a week. They are just decking and cleaning the heads, no assembly. Cleaning and inspecting the bores for now. I haven't heard anything from them, but it is their busy season; prepping all the race engines in the spring.

 

I'm really anxious to find out what piston size I need to order, but trying not to be a pest.

[jayrex]

So I got my OEM Subaru EJ255 gasket set today ( 10105AA720 ). From the factory the head gaskets come in a plastic bag with all the other hard gaskets just bouncing around in there. Look at the damage... you gotta be kiddin' me. Those black marks are more 'dings' than scratches.

[Max Capacity]

May be take it to your local dealer and see if the parts guy's will call over a Tech to take a look at those dings and see if they are bad. Or call whom ever you bought it from.

[jayrex]

Yeah trying to work something out with the seller. I don't see why subaru would package it that way. All the aftermarket kits come with them sandwiched between cardboard. It came out of the factory box like that.

 

EDIT/UPDATE:

I sent them the picture with the complaint email, this is their reply:

 

"We apologize part of the kit is damaged. Our master technician said it is just scratched on the surface and is still usable but if you would like to exchange it for another head gasket, you can send it back to us at your expense for an exchange.

-Subaru Superstore"

 

Lol, I'd pay to watch this master tech put them in his car.

note: don't get your head gaskets done at this place.

 

At least they will exchange them... at my shipping expense.

[jayrex]

Freshly decked heads and honed block back from the shop today! I didn't have them bead blasted, they were just washed in that special aluminium dishwasher juice.

 

$250 - not bad, I'm happy with that.

 

I need to lap the valves in, install the springs, and start playing with buckets to get the valve lash right. I'll post some pics when I get into it sometime this weekend.

 

He said the bores were perfect before any work was done, and just needed to freshen up the hone. They took off about .0010"- .0015" by honing.

 

Time to shop around for some 99.5mm forged pistons. They said to bring it by if I had any concerns about the Piston to Wall clearance, but that I will likely find they fit fine. And just to do a good check on the ring end gap.

 

EDIT:

Just made a piston purchase: Wiseco (K598M995AP) 99.5mm 2618 forged 8.9:1 CR

Much research and deliberation has been made on the higher CR. I know its highly controversial.

Justifications are:

Readily available E85 with plenty of injector duty cycle left on my ID1000's for the E85

Not running a large turbo

Currently I don't like the low end/off boost response I have.

They were quite a good price at $499 shipped.

[Max Capacity]

That CR will not be a problem for a great Tuner like Mike Kinsman of TA.

 

Have him tune the car, you'll be fine.

[jayrex]

That CR will not be a problem for a great Tuner like Mike Kinsman of TA.

 

Have him tune the car, you'll be fine.

 

Thanks for the Tuner info, as I am not looking to go back to my last eTuner. They were quick and responsive for the most part, but they had no interest in any back and forth convo at all. Basically,

 

Email 1 "Try this one"

 

Email 2 "Try this one"

 

Email 3 "This should feel better"

 

Email 4 "Here we go"

 

Email 5 "Okay all set use this one once your trans can hold it and run #4 otherwise"

 

Tune was fine, but I have no idea what I paid for

And you can't edit anything or view any values in the tune, which I understand, but l would like to change some things here and there, like the fuel economy scale to get it to match actual, and things like that.

 

I already have the accessport, so I think I am going to take a shot at this:

http://subietuun.com/

Its only like $55 and model year specific.

 

I really like some of his tuning videos on YouTube.

[Fez34]

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[jayrex]

I lapped in the old intake valves and the new exhaust valves.

 

I was more concerned with the effect on the valve seat because the valves themselves were in pretty good shape. I don't think you could lap those crusty exhaust valves I had.

 

I used this dual grit - coarse/fine lapping compound. The oil is for the valve stems and diluting the compound paste when necessary.

 

 

This suction cup tool was a nightmare. The best luck I had was using brake clean on the cup and valve top. Gotta clean off the compound if it gets on either.

 

Valve after lapping:

 

 

Seat before lapping:

 

 

Seat after lapping (not the same hole as the 'before' pic). If you look close at the grey ring, you can see some dark spots. I could probably be there all day trying to get those out, and it looks like it will seal just fine anyway.

 

I didn't want to use the 'drill trick' and risk getting to aggressive with them, although with a little finesse, it may have worked better.

[jayrex]

Assembled the heads.

Between the lapping and assembly, I probably have about 8 hours of work into this part. The lapping took some time, and spring retainers (keepers), were a real PITA.

 

If you take the empty heads to your machine shop, don't forget to take the bottom spring seat/shim thing off... like I did. The shop was surprised I didn't lose any of them.

They keep the springs from digging into the soft aluminium.

 

 

Used some of those Viton valve seals, the picture showed different colors for the intake and exhaust, but when I got them they were all one color. The machine shop said it wasn't a problem.

They just press on with the female end of a 3/8" drive extension, which rests on the shoulders of the seal pretty nice. There's no positive click or anything, and they can kinda go on at an angle. I used WD40 to help a little.

 

Pink stuff is assembly lube. It doesn't really hold the weight of the keepers very well. Vaseline would probably work better here. Once the keepers where on, I just slowly unscrewed the compressor from the other side and kept the tool aligned so the retainer cap would not hit the bottom of the keepers while releasing the compressor.

 

I got lucky with the valve lash. Only two of the exhaust valves were tight when I put the buckets back in their original location. I didn't want to buy buckets because they are $25 each, and its still a bit of a guess if they are going to work.

 

I wrote down the number on all the buckets ahead of time and measured them with a micrometer thinking I was going to need to play the bucket swap game with a spreadsheet. I saw the tight valves had larger buckets than the other two, so I just swapped two pairs and everything ended up in spec. I didn't shoot for high end or low end of the spec, just used feeler gauges and went with, 'go' or 'no-go'.

 

If the tolerance is too tight, the valve may stick open slightly after the engine is hot. If its too big then the cam lobe will smack the valve/bucket and cause wear and noise.

 

Intake spec in Inches:

.0055 - .0095

Feeler gauges:

.006(should fit) and .010(should not fit)

 

 

Exhaust spec in Inches:

.0118 - .0158

Feeler gauges:

.012 (should fit) and .016(should not fit)

 

[Max Capacity]

Good Job there, great reading. Good idea about the go, no go.

[jayrex]

Replaced the rod bearings with King Race. They went right in no problem.

I didn't really go too crazy with the measuring. Everything I have measured up to this point has been spot on. I have no reason to think any of these parts have excessive wear. Even if something was a little off, I'm honestly not going to buy a new crank, rods, or different bearings. My car budget for the next 2 years is maxed out already.

Whats in there is going to have to do.

I did measure the side clearances though.

 

 

 

This is the only bearing half that had any unusual wear. The other half of this set was fine, so I'm thinking (hoping), it was just an issue with that particular bearing.

 

 

New bearings in.

 

Rods done. Torque spec is around 38ft/lbs

 

Side clearance before and after were identical. More justification to myself for not going crazy with plastigauges. The measurement for all of the rods was right on the small side at .003"

The max size is .013" which seemed like I was trying to shove a baseball bat in there. I can't image that would be an acceptable value, but its in writing: