Looking for a motor

[Sm00veM00ve]

Don't know if this warrants its own thread or not, but I've been toying around with the idea of buying a wrecked Gt motor, tearing it down and rebuilding it over time and eventually swapping it. I was just curious where I should be looking for a potential part out? I know coming across one probably isn't the easiest thing because of the limited numbers, but if anyone had any place where it might be easier to monitor and find one that would be awesome

Would be looking for the complete motor too, not just a shortblock

[FLlegacy]

http://www.car-part.com, craigslist, there are also tons of facebook groups dedicated to subies. Personally, I would save up for a built short block and when the time comes transfer your heads and accessories. Finding GT specific heads will be the hard part.

[Sm00veM00ve]

Yeah not to many fifth gens parting out in my area haha but I'll give the website a try thanks.

I was really looking to pick one up just so I can learn how to do it myself, always wanted to build a motor so thats the main reasoning behind it. I would have the block/heads resurfaced, sleeve it, port the heads with upgraded valves/springs/retainers/cams, etc. But I hear ya, which is why I was looking for a complete motor if possible. Otherwise the current motor will get built eventually, just kind of wanted a project

[Zee199969]

Looks like GTEASER has competition for a spare motor

[FLlegacy]

Yeah not to many fifth gens parting out in my area haha but I'll give the website a try thanks.

I was really looking to pick one up just so I can learn how to do it myself, always wanted to build a motor so thats the main reasoning behind it. I would have the block/heads resurfaced, sleeve it, port the heads with upgraded valves/springs/retainers/cams, etc. But I hear ya, which is why I was looking for a complete motor if possible. Otherwise the current motor will get built eventually, just kind of wanted a project

 

Nothing wrong with wanting to DIY at all, if you are getting sleeves anyway talk to your local machine shop and go from there. I would bet they can source a block for you, then you can pick and choose what parts you go with from there.

[Sm00veM00ve]

Ohh thought he already had a spare 12 motor or something?

The last part out I found the motor was already gone :l

 

Yeah I mean if I had to I could just buy the case halves and go from there, but I'd like to tear it down just to do it and video it for future reference if that makes sense haha

[GTEASER]

I do have a spare 2012 (I think) motor sitting in the garage, everything from the throttle body to the bottom except for the headers and turbo. I picked it up for $400. Heads are off of it so I can verify the block is reuseable. Cracked ringland as verified by low compression and really high leak down numbers on cyl 4 I believe. No scoring of the cylinder wall luckily. I think it has about 53k miles on it.

 

In the future, I would like to ship the short block to Outfront Motorsports to have the deck closed and have better rods and forged pistons installed. I will have the heads freshened up locally with bigger cams and heavier valve springs. I may go with 1mm larger valves to help it breathe. Otherwise I would assemble it myself. This is probably way off in the future though.

[jojorios]

$400!!!! Wow! If i could find one at the price as well I would buy it and keep it in my trunk if i had too lol.

[GTEASER]

$400!!!! Wow! If i could find one at the price as well I would buy it and keep it in my trunk if i had too lol.

 

Yeah, I saw it pop up on the local Subaru FB group FS listings and snatched it up fast. The guy I got it from runs a local Subaru shop and this.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVamgsDVnhw]GST Motorsports at GTA Atlanta 2016 - YouTube[/ame]

 

He got the motor from a buddy of his who is the Regional Subaru Tech who approves all the warranty work, etc. It was a warrantied motor that came out of a local LGT suffering from a cracked ringland causing misfire. He wanted it to research the oil scavenger pump that runs off our camshaft to look at adapting something similar to provide more oil to the turbo on his Time Attack car.

[jojorios]

link didn't work.

 

http://www.facebook.com/GST-Motorsports-The-L-1712757219009374/

[GTEASER]

Changed link to a YouTube video.

[Sm00veM00ve]

Wow that's a steal of a deal. I would pick that up in a heart beat as well.

Yeah that's pretty much what I want to do, and if a motor does pop up that I can afford, I'll probably work on getting everything broken down and machined out and focus on rebuilding it after i have more funds for the forged internals, new crank, gaskets, bolts etc.

 

That's really cool, I didn't even think about motors from possible recall/warranty jobs that

might be laying around.. I'll definitely have to keep that in mind and ask a couple friends who work at subie dealerships.

 

If you happen to come across another 5th gen motor for sale let me know haha! Especially for that price

[FLlegacy]

You should really talk to a local shop before you spend any money, find out what a built short block would cost vs having one built up like Gteaser plans to do. My guess is the price will be about the same or maybe slightly in favor of the shop built block. I only say this because finding a blown motor isn't hard or expensive, but if you get the block and build from there then you know you are starting from a solid base vs sinking money into an unkown block. For what Gteaser spent he got a good deal, the heads are worth that but the machine work and sleeves is where the money is really going to be spent.

 

If you really want to build one yourself, wait until you have an issue with yours then swap in your shop built block that can handle all the extra power you are throwing at it. Then you have your engine to fiddle with and maybe fine an impreza or forester you can put it in.

[Sm00veM00ve]

Yeah I still need to find a machine shop, though I have a couple buddies who have a few I can go check out and talk to that they use a bunch for all their projects. Well building it myself would definitely be cheaper in my opinion, since I won't be paying for labor, only big costs would be getting the block resurfaced/machined out for sleeves and same for the heads. Though after that I would be measuring all the surfaces anyways to make sure they're within spec.

I hear what you're saying though and I have been thinking about getting a shortblock and starting from there, but I'd really like to do as much as possible to it myself rather than getting it from a shop.

 

I've also thought about that as well, and the plan is if the motor in the car now is going to be built, I'll probably have a shop do it and keep that built motor inside ofcourse. Then with the spare, I'll build it and maybe swap it into something.

 

In all honesty everything is up in the air for now. If I get some headers, fmic, etc. made for the leggy over the winter I won't have the money to buy the components I need to build the motor. But I'm really just looking for something to toy around with and learn from, though a 5th gen GT swap into an impreza or something would be pretty sweet haha

[FLlegacy]

I guess my point is, if this is your first build, you need to be ready to deal with a mistake. If you flub a measurement on an engine that is going into a project, no big deal just tear down and rebuild again. But if it happens on your LGT after the stocker goes then you are down 2 motors.

 

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[fahr_side]

Why do you want to do sleeves?

[FLlegacy]

http://www.superstreetonline.com/how-to/engine/impp-1103-subaru-ej-series-engine-tech/

 

 

Good bit of reading!

 

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[Sm00veM00ve]

Thanks for all the info guys I'll be reading through it haha

 

This motor more than likely would just be a project motor, For mine I'd rather have it done right at a shop and watch if possible and then the one I'd pick up to rebuild and learn from would be a possible swap into another car or something, was thinking it would be sweet to have the low mount setup swapped into an rs. If that worse case scenario of the leggy breaking down and lets say a motor that isn't done, I still have a car I can daily so I won't be completely out of luck. It would just take a little more time to get the stock GT motor done

 

Sleeve's was kind of just an insurance thing but I just read through some bookmarked threads on Nasioc which were pretty much telling me that the stock ones are perfectly fine

[fahr_side]

Yes. The stock liners will stand up to more boost than most street guys are going to run and the failure rate for those using sleeves are right up there with those who stay stock.

[Sm00veM00ve]

Yup that's what I was finding out as I kept browsing through various threads, definitely not a huge worry for me since I won't be running anything super crazy

[FLlegacy]

What about block distortion, or is that also an issue with more boost than it would see on our cars?

 

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[fahr_side]

What about block distortion, or is that also an issue with more boost than it would see on our cars?

 

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You're likely to see some distortion on any motor that's had a head gasket fail or been overheated for any reason. My engine builder scraps up to 10% of the EJ blocks that come in the shop as uneconomical or impossible to save.

[FLlegacy]

Ok, so as long as you are using a block that didn't overheat, then odds are there will be no more issues than if you bought a reman block.

[fahr_side]

Ok, so as long as you are using a block that didn't overheat, then odds are there will be no more issues than if you bought a reman block.

You're less likely to run into trouble but we have seen blocks that the owners swore up and down had never been run hot, and showed no sign of bad gaskets, and yet still have problems. It's not the cylinder decks as those are easy to skim flat. It's the mating face at the crank line. I've seen a few that came apart perfectly, were reassembled with the exact same parts, bearings included, and despite torquing everything in order and to spec bit the crank hard enough you couldn't turn it without a breaker bar. No good. Everything was okay until the moment you released the bolts and then it sprang out of whack. Measure everything carefully and you find the bearing bores do not line up, or are not to spec for roundness, or the mating faces are not to spec for flatness. This is not that easy to fix, no matter how good your machine shop is, and it's often much easier and cheaper to source new block halves.

You can skim the block halves but then of course you end up with bearing bores that aren't round. Clean those up by line-boring and you can easily bore them past the correct diameter in the attempt to get them round, and no shells are available with larger than stock ODs. Then you get to pay the shop bill and still buy new block halves. There are reasons so few people want to work on boxer engines!

[FLlegacy]

You're less likely to run into trouble but we have seen blocks that the owners swore up and down had never been run hot, and showed no sign of bad gaskets, and yet still have problems. It's not the cylinder decks as those are easy to skim flat. It's the mating face at the crank line. I've seen a few that came apart perfectly, were reassembled with the exact same parts, bearings included, and despite torquing everything in order and to spec bit the crank hard enough you couldn't turn it without a breaker bar. No good. Everything was okay until the moment you released the bolts and then it sprang out of whack. Measure everything carefully and you find the bearing bores do not line up, or are not to spec for roundness, or the mating faces are not to spec for flatness. This is not that easy to fix, no matter how good your machine shop is, and it's often much easier and cheaper to source new block halves.

You can skim the block halves but then of course you end up with bearing bores that aren't round. Clean those up by line-boring and you can easily bore them past the correct diameter in the attempt to get them round, and no shells are available with larger than stock ODs. Then you get to pay the shop bill and still buy new block halves. There are reasons so few people want to work on boxer engines!

 

Hmmm, a built short block looks pretty damn cheap right now, lol! I guess when we really start to push our engines we should consider just how much stress they will be under.