EA - EJ Upgrade - What about Suspension and Brakes ?

[subabooba]

Hi All,

If I have been forgiven for my comments on Marcus Ambrose I'd like to ask a question.

I 'may' have found a decent GLF (looks promising from pics and talking to seller but wait till I see it to believe it) and am seriously considering buying to putt around in on the weekend with the longer term view of an EJ20T (or maybe just EJ22) AWD conversion.

While I've found plenty around the net about fitting the driveline (seems to generally go like this, feel free to correct!):
Widen chassis rails;
Modify EJ corssmember;
Some custom gearbox mounts;
Shorten Tail shaft;

but I haven't been able to come across much on what the go with suspension is. Would be great to hear you just fit Lib / Impreza struts from the half cut but I assume (especially for the rear with stardard torsion bar) that it's not so simple? So what do people do about suspension, brakes and most of imporant of all getting 5 stud hubs.

If I go ahead I'll no doubt need all the work done as I have no time, space or ability but just want to get a firm idea of what's possible before I embark on wasting a fortune.

Thanks guys.

[Soobeit]

doesnt sound like a waste of time to me, good questions though as i am about to convert my brumby and have all the info in the world on how to do the conversion but the suspension and brakes is what i also need to find more info on aswell.
sorry i cant help you on this one but i thought id jump on the band wagon for this ride to gain some knowledge as well.

[BaronVonChickenPants]

From what I've found:

Engine:
<engage pipe dream>Don't know about other states but in NSW your allowed a 15% increase in capacity (or power but we'll ignore that) in theory meaning you can legally put an NA EJ20 into an MY or L, for the moment I'm just use an EJ18 because I scored it cheap, but later I plan to use a heavily modified EJ20 block including stroking and possible boring to increase capacity, but once assembled, externally it will appear to be a stock EJ20 and therefore legal<disengage pipe dream>

Once exceeding the 15% capacity you require engineering approval for legal and insurance reasons.

Chasis rails:
You can fit a SOHC EJ into an MY without modding the rails.
If your lucky you might be able to fit a DOHC into a L without modding the rails but not sure about that one.

Engine crossmember:
MY: Elongate the bolt holes for the engine mounts in the stock cross member.
L: No idea

Tailshaft:
You can pay ~$200-300 for aprofessional, balanced custom tailshaft or

Get an L series or liberty front half, cut it off about a foot away from the uni, cut the brumby shaft off at the uni, slide the L piece inside the brumby tube and weld it up....

CV Shafts:
You can fit the EJ inners onto the EA shafts

Gearbox mounts:
Haven't got that far yet, not expecting it to be any harder than the EA82 5 speed adaption though.

Suspension:
I plan to stay with the stock suspension with the exception of maybe putting L rear coilovers on.

Brakes:
I plan to get bratgeebah's Liberty brake kit which is a bolt on kit that gives you 5 stud liberty discs all round and adr compliance.

Hope that clears some things up.
Jordan.

[tim_81coupe]

Answers! Here they come!

I've been stuffing around with getting the Liberty suspension on my 82 GLF. It's certainly not a bolt up and it requires a lot of fabrication. I've successfully put together a solution on the front that unfortunately I've not road tested yet. It wasn't that easy.
With the rear you basically stay with the torsion bar setup. You need modified hubs and backing plates to use the Liberty brakes. Bratgeebah from these forums was building a solution, but I've not been in touch with him since the board collapse.

OK, from the outset you need to decide whether you want the turbo or not. There are big differences between the two conversions. I suppose at the end of the day it comes down to this. If you want tyre squealing, HSV killing bone jarring acceleration, you're going to have to work for it. An EJ22 will not provide this, but is a much simpler proposition. Note I said simpler, not simple.
For the benefit of this post I will make the assumption you'll be running the AWD EJ gearbox that comes with your motor of choice. Just a hunch but I think you're building a road car here. I'm also assuming the NA EJ motor will be SOHC.

EJ22 & EJ20T
------------------
Wiring work is roughly the same. Strip down the stock harness to the bare essentials. You'll need to slot the crossmember holes for the mount studs to go through, and you'll need to remove the guides on the mounts themselves. The gearbox crossmember I'm using is totally custom, it utilises the stock gearbox mounting. You'll need to lengthen the tailshaft (120mm). Shifter linkage mount is custom, no biggie. Exhaust custom too.

Further work for EJ20T
---------------------------
Clutch slave cylinder will need to be mounted on firewall, use original speedo cable hole and reinforce. Chassis rails will need to be cut to clear timing covers. Motor doesn't move enought to require cutting for cam covers. Engine crossmember will need to be re-shaped to allow for the turbo up-pipe. Spare wheel mounting bracket needs to be removed to allow room for intercooler.


These are the basics I can think of at the moment. Long day at work so brain is tired. I'll add more at a later date.

Anything you need to know just ask. Always willing to help out a fellow GLF enthusiast.

[subabooba]

Guys can't thank you enough for these excelent replies, plenty of food for thought!!

I have been thinking along the lines of if I go to all the hassle why not EJ20T, but just I'll just wait and see. Anyway first thing is to go take a look at the car and see if I can get it for a decent price (It's rediculous at the moment). Then I guess the Lib will live on the street and the GLF gets that garage .

Anyway thanks, good to know that there are at least solutions to the suspension and brake issue out there!!

If this goes ahead no doubt I will have a million more questions so thanks for the offer!!



John

[subabooba]

ps: Yes it's going to be a street car only, no off road planned.

Also munching HSV's is a number one prerequisite, have to shame my girlfriends dad is his VY GTS!

Anyway I'll be happy to have a nice GLF to cruise around with in the beginning while I research further!

[tim_81coupe]

On the brakes issue, I have something to add.

I really don't feel the upgrade is necessary to begin with. I have put RX rear discs on my GLF and it pulls up OK for a single stop. Provided you aren't stupid behind the wheel it should be OK.

The reason people fit larger brakes to go with a more powerful motor is because they assume they'll be travelling quicker. This doesn't have to be the case. The car's weight isn't significantly heavier, so why should the brakes have to work harder? A bit of common sense and you should be right with stock brakes, although I'd really say the RX rear discs should be part of that.

What I'm trying to suggest is that moving to Lib brakes should be perhaps considered after the motor upgrade. I'm sure someone here will shoot that comment down, and I have a fair idea of who it will be, but I stand by it. My brake setup has worked fine for the last two years since my EJ20T conversion. I have had to stop in a hurry before from a silly speed, and they were up to it. Only now after sorting all the EJ dramas and fitting power upgrades am I looking at Liberty brakes.

[BaronVonChickenPants]

Assuming they're in good condition the stock brakes are adequate....just.

If you go with the EJ20T the rear discs are a legal requirement.

The liberty brakes are a luxury that should give a hugely increased braking ability, also they allow a much larger range of wheels.

Bratgeebah hasn't announced an official price yet but in my opinion if your going to spend the ~$600 on a pair of rear discs you might as well spend the extra and get the liberty discs, each to their own though.

Jordan.

[subabooba]

Guys thanks for all the info, unfortunately went to look at the car today and it is not half of how it was described...

Anyway Project GLF get's shelved again.... Although I do know of a PERFECT one, just have to convince the old granny that drives it around to sell it to me!!

[brumbyej20]

from my experiance fitting the wrx/lib brake setup is worth the hassel on my brumby rear i used the complete wrx diff cradle and all. had to fabricate my own suspension towers for the coilovers to bolt to very time consuming. then its a matter of making bracket to bolt frount of diff to and that has to include rubber bushes and the cradel needs a mounting adapter made for it. not sure whether this would be possible on a sedan or coupe as the floor pan would be different to the ute.
this ended up bringing the standard wrx 15inch rims and tyres level with the guards gives the rear a wider wheel trac but with some trac spaces on the frount you wouldnt notice.
this makes the brumby not only stop and handel like wrx but because of the weight difference (mine came out 1120 kgs) even better and mines jacked up to standard brumby height (dont like having to crawl over speed humps and like the dirt).