L series with 00 wrx motor in it, need help

rensei · Post by **rensei** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:52 pm

hey guys got an L series, 86 model and have fitted a wrx 00 turbo motor in it (dont know what the engine model is)
Any ways, it would be good if any one could help me out with what i have to do to get it to running stage, om going out and buying a wolf 3d ecu
and is it true i need to replace the spark packs, and the fuel tank to efi etc?
if so where can i get some cheap ones in sa?

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:48 pm

I'm in WA, so I can't help all that much. But I can tell you not to waste your money on a Wolf3d! An EJ20 deserves much more! I'm running a PowerFC and I love it, although without any major power mods the factory Subaru ECU does very well.

If you could elaborate on exactly where it is in the conversion (I'm assuming its not finished) we could be of more help.

MUDRAT · Post by **MUDRAT** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:55 pm

Tip #1: You're putting a 200KW engine in a car designed for a 50KW engine. Nothing is cheap.

You can use your fuel tank but you will need a high pressure EFI pump. The L-series EFI tank is more suitable to this conversion due to it's inbuilt surge tank. HOWEVER: I have been using my carby L series tank with an EJ20 for well over a year now with no dramas.

Tip #2: You'll notice I've moved your post from "Subaru Chat". You'll find you'll get more relevent responses when you stick stuff like that here. Enjoy!

rensei · Post by **rensei** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:02 pm

Motor is in, connected to trans etc, plumbing all done, just needs to be wired up basically, thats where im stuck.

Ohk, talked to a 2blokes (one guy named steve from rising sun) who said they could wire it up for me, they both said to go the wolf 3d, but i had a bloke mention the apexi fc, with hand controller, any price on how much i should be spending on an ecu?
Ive mounted a VL electric fuel pump, and thats all ready to go, umm they also mentioned i need to get a new spark packs for it or something?? 4 of them, and yer, i think ive thrown out the wiring loom for it as well so i need to buy a new one of them as we were moving houses lol.
Any ideas, or comments etc would be much appreciated

MUDRAT · Post by **MUDRAT** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:18 pm

Right. You need to buy 2 things: a wiring loom and an ECU. An import wrecker will have both.

The loom must then be stripped. Steve can do this or you can do it yourself:

tim_81coupe wrote:Get hold of a good wiring diagram and basically strip anything going to the body loom. If you're going to use the EJ gearbox keep the plug & wiring for that (VSS). Remember to wire up the check engine light, and if you've got a tacho rewire it to the ECU.

Easiest way is of course to do all of this away from the car, seperate and tag wires that are going to spider into current wiring (harness power and ground etc) and zip it all up in split convoluted tubing. You'll need to decide where you're running the wiring in the car and refer back for lengths, remember most of the time it's better to coil up the excess as there are some shielded wires.

Use the standard EJ20 turbo computer unless you're doing wild mods. Japanese engineers spent years developing the fuel/ignition maps on this so it WILL work and work well - unless you're making it do something its not designed to do, like running stupid levels of boost or nitrous or something.

Try a search for more info than I can quote here.

rensei · Post by **rensei** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:24 pm

umm and about the ignition packs etc what do i do about them do i get new ones like he said?

smoov · Post by **smoov** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:26 pm

you're probably referring to the bosch HEC716 coils.

hope this RIGHT HERE helps

rensei · Post by **rensei** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:37 pm

i have no clue lol, other then that is it a good motor? y would you need to put bosch plugs in?

jzk25 · Post by **jzk25** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:38 pm

Fitting an 00 WRX engine puts you in a different situation than using an older engine. Everything is more expensive including ecus and wiring harnesses. Wiring them is also much more difficult because they have an immobiliser if it is an Aus delivered ecu.

Suggesting the use of a power FC is misguided at best, they are a plug in replacement for japanese market cars, not much use for an engine with no harness in the first place.

I would go with Steves suggestion of the Wolf ecu in your case.
A PFC is not better to a Wolf by any stretch. A PFC is just "easy" for JDM model owners.

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:58 pm

rensei wrote:i have no clue lol, other then that is it a good motor? y would you need to put bosch plugs in?

Bosch coils mate. Part number is HEC716 and they do have to be wired up, although on a 2000 model motor I don't think its feasible. Didn't they run a similar ignition setup to what the NA's run? With the centrally mounted coil and plug leads I mean.

jzk25 wrote:Suggesting the use of a power FC is misguided at best, they are a plug in replacement for japanese market cars, not much use for an engine with no harness in the first place.

I would go with Steves suggestion of the Wolf ecu in your case.
A PFC is not better to a Wolf by any stretch. A PFC is just "easy" for JDM model owners.

Misguided? More like you misread. He didn't mention anything about not having a wiring harness until after my PFC recommendation.

I've not seen a Wolf run in a car nicely yet.

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:35 am

4 of them, and yer, i think ive thrown out the wiring loom for it as well so i need to buy a new one of them as we were moving houses lol

Looks to me like he doesn't have a loom.

A wolf would be fine as would a Microtech although a lot of people bag them due to the price. Cheap doesn't mean shit. If you have a few spare bucks then go for a Haltech or Autronic for bragging rights. All of them will run the car and run it properly if fitted and tuned properly.

Make sure that who ever you take your car to has worked with the ECU company you chose before you arrive. A lot of people will tell you, as I found out, that they can fit "model X" when they they only have done "model Y" previously.

If you have coil packs on your motor now then you don't need to change them. You may have to buy an ignitor for them to run. You can get these from who ever you buy your ecu from.

PeeJay · Post by **PeeJay** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:12 am

Changing coil packs is more trouble than it's worth unless there is a good reason to do so.

rensei · Post by **rensei** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 4:27 pm

so there is no real need to?

jzk25 · Post by **jzk25** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:10 pm

tim_81coupe wrote: Misguided? More like you misread. He didn't mention anything about not having a wiring harness until after my PFC recommendation.
I've not seen a Wolf run in a car nicely yet.

Can't see how I misread it. It seemed quite obvious to me in the first post that he had no ecu at all.
Using a PFC is not a good option because you have to pay to strip the harness of a late model car down to it's bones just to plug in an ecu that needs to be programmed anyway. It's false economy.

I have seen dozens of wolfs that run perfectly including my own. Friends of mine have very high powered cars that use them. One is a 9.5 sec 2JZ LJ Torana that is street registered and driven. They are tuned properly, that's why they operate correctly. If you wire it in on the weekend with your mates over a slab of beer and it doesn't run like the factory ecu that isn't a fault of the product.

MUDRAT · Post by **MUDRAT** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:26 pm

That's 2JZ Torana - is it a metalic blue, almost a WRC Blue?

The fact remains however that you'll never get the closed loop tuning nor the resolution that the factory ECU can offer.

waggaclint · Post by **waggaclint** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:51 pm

I'd go for a Microtec mate - Wolf are shit. I work at a dyno place and we're always havin problems with the Wolf. We've fitted Microtec to a few buggies with EJ20t in em and they are great eh, never have any probs with; easy to tune too.