Am I Kidding Myself??

SuBaRiNo · Post by **SuBaRiNo** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 1:33 am

ok... i bought a 01 GT Forester after we bought a larger camper trailer (Weight must be about 1000-800kg when loaded). I had this idea that a GT forester with its EJ20 Turbo motor would pull the camper just fine. The plan was to get the camper and car set up for a trip around Australia.

Well this weekend i went on it's first long distance trip and found the GT was not up for the challenge. It was sooooo slow to take off it made pulling out into traffic dangerous. And after driving for a while, only when i was on boost, the temperature would increase. If i kept it boosting the temp would reach all the way into the red. This made driving up hills almost impossible without pulling over half way up. In the cars defence it was about 40deg.

There is obviously something either very wrong with the car or it's just not got the power i need. I need to find out sooner rather than later if this is going to be the car we will use or if we should change cars... sadly at this stage im not convinced any Subaru can meet my needs so like a lot of other past members of this site i might have to change to something more practicle.

Maybe an engine conversion of some description might help. In all seriousness though there are a lot of bigger cars out there that i could buy for the cost of a decent subaru engine conversion/upgrade.

Anyone got any coments on any of this?? Is an Ej25T much better?

Dave

brumbyrunner · Post by **brumbyrunner** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:21 am

Does seem odd that it overheats so easily. 1000kg is well under your 1400kg limit, or should that read 1800kg? Underpowered or underweight is one thing but it should still run cool anyway. Are you sure the cooling system is in tip-top condition?

Like you mentioned, it happens to a lot of us. I've had a non-subaru work ute since '97 and a non-Subaru family wagon (that can tow a car trailer) since '02.

vincentvega · Post by **vincentvega** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:24 am

the only time i seriously consider getting rid of my lib is when im towing my boat long distances. its about 850kg..

if you cant make do with a smaller camper then another car might be on the cards.

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:40 am

800-1000kgs should be no problems for it. There must be some thing wrong there as you already thought.

I towed our camper with the 2.5 turbo liberty all over the place and never had a hint of trouble with overheating. Our van was always around 1200kgs when loaded. Add to that the weight of a car full of gear as well and the weight was right up there near the limit.

Last trip when we destroyed the van we did it non-turbo and auto. I hated the lack of power compared to the turbo but it was not dangerously slow. That camper was 450kg empty. With all our gear, extra fuel and water and it would have been 1000kgs or there abouts. My temp would get up when sitting on 110 across the barkely highway into a massive headwind. We would have to slow down to 80 to keep the temp right. The 2.5 turbo one would have towed the Trek camper across there sitting on 140 and not had an issue. (I tried 140 with the big camper on the back and it did it no trouble but not safe to go that fast with the van for too long)

AlpineRaven · Post by **AlpineRaven** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:42 am

something isnt right I guess, is yours an automatic?
I would get the cooling system checked - and has it been bleed correctly?
Do you think Turbo is working properly?
I found 1200kg caravan under tow okay with my N/A EJ22 Liberty, but starting off I use low range but hilly areas is the weakest point for N/A as it struggles.
Cheers
AP

Post by **Captain Obvious** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:50 am

yeah it sounds like there maybe some cooling issues, ej motor rarely overheat unless there is something wrong, like headgasket, water pump or maybe an air leak. on the same trip OB is talking about subaman had overheating probs in his gen1 turbo lib, only coz one fan wasnt coming on, he was towing a 1t camper as well.

i tow a camper the would weigh i guess 450-500 + whats in the car with my lib and have no cooling problems.

so your GT should be up to the task!!

BTW its and auto isnt it??

bryan

D3V1L · Post by **D3V1L** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:21 am

that really sucks balls dave:( hope you wormk out the prble

but to make you feel a little better, my cruiser overheated like a bitch this weekend in the sheer heat, and its never cooked in the time ive had it. so your not the only one with heating issues.

it was much hotter then 40 north of lanno as well

as for the power. i dunno wtf is going on there, ive towed my car trailer (1200kg alone) with teh buggy ontop which is another 700 odd kgs. with the ej25n/a outback and while it was noticably heavy it wasnt dangeriously underpowered. might have to look into it

davo

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:55 am

I rekon something must be wrong, I remember you mentioning it being quite slow to pull away from traffic a very long time ago even when your camper was lighter.
My Legacy doesn't seem to have this issue. Naturally alot of power comes on when it hits boost, but before that it's not annoyingly slow, just normal taking off from lights etc.

Maybe we should hook your camper up to mine (I have a towbar now) and go for a few laps around the block just as a comparison.
I know being a much older model my car isn't identical to yours but I still think it will be a good comparison to do. After all it is an automatic EJ20turbo car and it's completely stock - just has a loud farty exhaust, I don't even have facility to boost it.

Engine conversion I don't think would be necessary, but if you really wanted to go down that route and have a really awesome Forester maybe the best motor for your application would be a 6cyl one. Big motors suit towing and cruising. There have been plenty of H6 conversions to Liberty's that originally had a 4cyl so into a Forester would probably be straight forward. An EZ30R from a 2005 3.0 RB Liberty would be the ducks nuts, they make 188kw in completely standard form! Here are some pics, how beefcake are they, even the timing covers are metal.
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/8706/p ... largei.jpg
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/3497 ... 7large.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/5492/p ... 6large.jpg
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/4585 ... 5large.jpg
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3610/p ... largez.jpg
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/7778 ... larget.jpg

here's one in a G2 liberty GX as a conversion

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:40 am

I was just thinking about a mates car that I fixed last week. It is a 6 cyl commodore that was gutless and although not overheating it was running hotter than it should under load.It took me ages to work it out but eventually I came down to the cat. I took it out and had a look inside. It was stuffed, melted and crap like that. I just hollowed it out and put it back in. Now it has more power like it should, is better on fuel and the temp is way better too.

Not saying this is your problem, but it could be a starting place to look.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:15 pm

That is a very good point! Subarino, your Forry is fairly high on kms from memory? Probably still on the original Cat in the turbo dump pipe too....maybe an aftermarket turbo dump pipe might be a go-er.

SuBaRiNo · Post by **SuBaRiNo** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:23 pm

Yes it is an Auto... The boost i believe is working according to my boost guage... i have fitted a manual boost controller but only set it to about 10PSI. The over heating was occuring under any boost not just above the factory 6PSI boost. Before fitting the MBC i did test it and it was at 6PSI.

The boost seams to go up as soon as u put your foot down but it doesn't seam to do jack shi! till the revs go up. Im new to this turbo thing but is turbo lag spose to be the boost not building up straight away or the boost not effecting the engine straight away.

The Cat thing might be something i should look into... I have never been impressed with the power of it and Hatchie i still believe could leave it for dead. It did go into Subaru for a major service but im starting to think they don;t really know what they are doing... surely they should have picked up any problems.

Thanks a lot for the responces so far as i have just about had it with Subarus atm. AndrewT... that might be a good idea to hook my camper to your car and see how it pulls. The Hatch even pulls the camper better than the forester but traction, steering and braking is a problem there.

Maybe i should take it somewhere and get it put on a Dyno so i can see what it's doing and see if there is a problem here.

Dave

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:42 pm

Turbo lag is waiting for boost. If your gauge is showing boost then your car should be accelerating.

Suba · Post by **Suba** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:51 pm

I can't offer any advice to your problem but there has to be a problem somewhere , my Liberty towed our camper (all be it a bit smaller than yours ) as if it wasnt there passing cars at highway speeds was easy going from 100 to 140 before you could say farrrrrrrrrk.

Mike.

AlpineRaven · Post by **AlpineRaven** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:13 pm

With your automatic (that is why I asked) I was going to say to install an automatic cooler separated from radiator, and go oversize radiator for the automatic. Worth getting.
Cheers
AP

SuBaRiNo · Post by **SuBaRiNo** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:31 pm

I have already upgraded the Trans cooler to one designed for a v8 (So the pack said) it's about 3 times larger than the factory one.

I will have to check the cooling fans to see if they are ok for the heat problem.

Dave

Post by **TOONGA** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:23 pm

that could be causing the problem

the heat transfer from the oil cooler to the radiator could be making it impossible for the radiator to do its job properly

can you move the oil cooler further out from the radiator?

TOONGA

AlpineRaven · Post by **AlpineRaven** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 6:04 pm

TOONGA wrote:that could be causing the problem

the heat transfer from the oil cooler to the radiator could be making it impossible for the radiator to do its job properly

can you move the oil cooler further out from the radiator?

TOONGA

yeah I was about to say, take out the automatic trans cooling pipes that is connected to the radiator, remove it and go direct to the cooler not via radiator.
I did that with my VN Commodore a few years ago and I noticed it was better that way and better in heavy traffic.
Cheers
AP

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 6:43 pm

Bugger mate! I thought the foz would be more than up for the challenge, even in NA form.

I reckon it'd be worth going for the dyno - so you know what its giving you at what rev/speed/load etc. If you could do a before and after changes (fixing things you think could be the problem) dyno runs you'd be able to have a record of anything that's changed in the subi's performance. That may be more money than you're willing to shell out though, which is understandable.

What's the trans oil condition like? And has the trans filter been checked since you've got it?

All the best with it!

Cheers

Bennie

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 7:23 pm

What fuel are you running?

If its making boost, but not power, something is missing from the equasion, maybe the ECU is detecting knock and retarding the ignition timing. Overheating will make it even worse

Do an ECU reset and see what happens.

thatsgoodsquishy · Post by **thatsgoodsquishy** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:40 pm

Dont forget the GT Forester is the lowest powered EJ20t that was ever produced, but it still doesn't sound right. How big is the tranny cooler? It could be putting out a lot of heat and blocking a lot of air from the radiator at the same time if its really big.
Have ya had a look on http://www.ozfoz.com/ and http://www.gtrydaz.com/home/ for some Forester specific advice?
Find another GT to take for a spin to compare to yours? Checked for codes?
Diagnosis wise i'd be checking cat/muffler for collapse/blockage and then intake for restrictions/leaks (intake leaks that only open up under heavy load? collapsing intake tract?) for the lack of powarrrr (the basics, air in and air out). Although if your getting the psi then it shows its all working reasonably well. I reckon a dyno run could be the quickest way to find whats going on, not cheapest but should be able to narrow it down.