Monsterwagon 2.0

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Phizinza
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Post by Phizinza » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:31 am

You are really dedicated to the L series shape!
Owned - 89 Brumby, 83 Wagon, 83 Leone 4WD Sedan, 83 Touring Wagon, 99 Outback
Own - 87 Brumby, 93 Liberty, 09 Forester
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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sat Feb 06, 2016 11:58 pm

I do like the L series. Decent storage in the wagon area, good aproach and departure angles.
If I waste the LCA setup I could very easily shove the driveline package into any other suby I like anyway, standalone ecu makes that simple. Might go a Gen4 Outback maybe one day.

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Phizinza
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Post by Phizinza » Sun Feb 07, 2016 7:45 pm

Not trying to say you've wasted your time. It's an impressive amount of work. Probably no secret the L series isn't my cup of tea but that's no reason it can't be any others.
Owned - 89 Brumby, 83 Wagon, 83 Leone 4WD Sedan, 83 Touring Wagon, 99 Outback
Own - 87 Brumby, 93 Liberty, 09 Forester
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mattw
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Post by mattw » Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:21 pm

When I stand back and look objectively at the L they are a fairly plain square box. But after spending so many years with them I love them almost as much as my Brum. I'd love to do it again like this. I've always struggled with the "lift or lower" choice though. It would be an exceptional sleeper on the street slung over some low profiles. But then again how awesome would it be in the sand and mud....... I'd need two of everything. 😂

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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:55 pm

Back to the rust repairs in the spare wheel well. Be prepared for some of the worst welding you've ever seen, but hey, it was functional and did the trick. All holes were covered up with patches of metal and welds. Plenty of grinding and some filling with fibreglass just to get a smoother finish and it came up pretty well. I got behind the dash and made sure it was all covered in rustkill paint too.

Donor metal welded in:
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Ground down (all little holes were also welded in again later):
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Some fibreglass added just for shaping:
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"Better than before":
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I then spent some more time finishing the Liberty front crossmember ready to fit to the car with the Liberty wishbone control arms. This is the same as my original idea back when it was 6" lifted except this time I got someone else to supply me with the adaptors to mount the wishbone arms to the L series body. These are still in R&D and I can't put photos of these up at this stage.

During the wheel well rust repairs I also fitted up the brake booster (L series booster), Liberty 1" master cylinder, and retro-fitted the SF forester clutch mater cylinder to the firewall.

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Also during this time I fitted the EZ30 back into the engine bay.

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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:56 pm

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Next I had to organise some sort of radiator. I had planned to use the EZ30 stock Liberty radiator but unfortunately upon looking at the clearance, this was not going to work. At the driver's side, the huge "lump" in the EZ30 timing cover protrudes right into where a huge part of the radiator needs to go.
So I had to come up with a solution to put in a radiator that is a fair bit smaller. This is a bit of an issue in a setup which is already likely to have cooling issues due to the lack of room for airflow etc.
I looked up at one of my shelving units and saw that I had a brand new radiator sitting in a box for one of my other projects. It was a Mazda RX-7 Series 1 radiator. A brand new triple core unit, completely brass. I had a bit of a look and it was exactly the dimensions needed. Sure it's a bit smaller, but I figure that it's triple core, and also if it can cool a 13b-turbo rotary engine, then it should be fine to do an EZ30.
Also being fully brass, that means it's customisable. It would need this as the inlet/outlets are totally wrong.
- At the top, it needs two (one of each head on the EZ30), and it only had one.
- At the bottom, it needs to be on the complete other side of the radiator (passenger side), it was on the driver's side.
- The top tank needed a part of it modified to clear the top of the engine bay part.
- The filler cap needs to be deleted and a neck installed to relocate it further into the engine bay for clearance.
So I went to Natrad in Osborne Park as the guy there is one of the last old-school guys who actually does brass welding. I actually went back there 3 different times to get various modifications done before it was how I needed it. This took a really really long time to sort out.
This radiator is different to your usual Subaru one and has tanks across the top and bottom rather than down the sides. It also mounts by inbuilt brackets on the left and right rather than the rubber mounts Subarus have on the top and bottom.
Here are some photos.

Here you can see the modified top pipes. On the top right the tank has been cut and shut to be more flat. A filler neck has been added, and the bottom pipe has been relocated to the passenger side (driver side hole blanked off).

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Some photos showing clearance (or lack of).

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(note that cutout of the car was for the radiator cap of the EJ22 radiator, cut out by previous owner)
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Some photos playing around with mounting the radiator and thinking about putting fans on the front side (didn't end up putting them there though).

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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:56 pm

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After a lot of playing around with clearances I decided on mounting two thermo fans between the radiator and the engine. This is really the best place for them. This way the fans themselves don't block airflow. This took ages to get right, and the clearance is really really close.
I used two new 10" slimline Davies Craig fans.

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Then I had to organise the radiator hoses. Again, this took a LONG time. Heaps of trial and error. I spent a lot on various silicon pipes, bends, joiners etc.

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Top hose, passenger side.
It's two 90 degree silicon bends with a joiner in between.
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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:56 pm

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Top hose driver's side.
This one I had a bend done on the radiator pipe itself due to clearance issues, this worked well.
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Bottom hose (it's on the passenger side). This was the ONLY way I could get it to work. It's a 90 degree bend silicon hose, a joiner, a 180 degree silicon bend, a joiner, and a 45 degree silicon bend.

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In case you were wondering, the hose clamps cost $2.30 each.

Random engine bay shots:

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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:56 pm

Time to sort out the custom clutch pedal to work with the Hydraulic master cylinder.
I've made two of these before. One by welding a bit of metal on as a bracket, another I bolted on a bit of box section. This time I wanted it to be really strong so I chopped up an actual Liberty clutch pedal to use donor pieces to make a Frankenstein pedal.

L series pedal on the bottom, Liberty one at the top of this photo:

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Chopping it up:

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Done:

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Took a fair bit of messing around to get the angles correct but it works absolutely perfectly.

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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:56 pm

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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:57 pm

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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:57 pm

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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:57 pm

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Post by AndrewT » Sun May 01, 2016 5:57 pm

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El_Freddo
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Post by El_Freddo » Mon May 02, 2016 6:45 pm

You need to alert us when you fill in one of the "place holders" - I've only just read the ones from February!

That's quite an effort mate. I can't believe you managed the fans between the engine and radiator.

Does it run cool enough? And will you end up with AC?

Also the sway bar looks like it's on upside down. I couldn't work out the other wrong thing...

Good effort on the engine bay respray too. I can never be bothered!

Cheers

Bennie
"The lounge room is not a workshop..."
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AndrewT
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Post by AndrewT » Tue May 03, 2016 5:05 pm

Hi Scott,

Yeah I completed the first placeholder back in Feb and didn't bother to put a new post in here to show up in people's "new posts". Figured it'd best contain a bit more information. I'd forgotten how long it takes to bash these posts out especially when there are lots of photos that need resizing etc. There are still heaps more posts to make. Annoying that I used up all my initial placeholders so it's now split across a few pages. Maximum of only 8 photos per post!

In answer to your questions/comments:

Yeah I was determined to get a traditional setup working. Had a few things working against me (already a severe lack of space in L series, EZ30 being longer) etc. Every other EZ30 in L series I've seen done has either the radiator hanging out the front like dogs' balls, radiator mounted on the bonnet(!) or in the boot. Mine is a totally traditional front mounted radiator, not hanging out everywhere, has normal thermo fans mounted in the preferred position, and seems to work fine. Trust me when I say however, technically it really doesn't fit at all. So many parts have been shaved, grinded, squeezed, bent just to get a few extra mm of clearance. A few examples:
- Bottom radiator support had to be replaced to allow for the triple core thick radiator as it's much thicker and also needs to go down lower.
- Bonnet latch needed the guts of it cut out to allow room to squeeze the A/C condenser behind. It also needed the upright brace deleted, and a special extra brace created which is supported by the bullbar. The bonnet latch also needed to be angled up quite a bit, which resulted in the bonnet sitting way too high when closed. So I also had to cut the actual corresponding catch on the bonnet and re-weld it to be a bit shorter.
- Headlights needed some of the plastic surrounds chopped off to get enough clearance for the A/C condenser.
- Hill holder needed to be relocated back just slightly as it was fowling the side of the motor
- Then there's all the other bits not directly related to the engine: Guard trimming to fit the large tyres, firewall mods to fit the hydraulic clutch master cylinder and EJ accelerator cable, dashboard mods to fit a 7" LCD screen head unit. Basically every area of the car has been tweaked to just squeeze in as much as possible.

Yes I believe it runs cool enough.
However, a person looking at the Vipec readouts might be alarmed. It runs up to temperature fine, thermostat opens fine, but the Vipec stabilises at about 95 degrees. I have it set to put the fans on at 95 degrees and turn them off again at 91. This seems quite high, but I am quite sure that the readout is pretty much exactly 10 degrees too high and not actually correct. In the Vipec settings, you can tell it specifically what brand/model your coolant temp sensor is. It's set to a particular Bosche one at the moment. I have no idea if this actually matches whatever the stock coolant sensor on the EZ30 is, so how can I be sure it's actually reading a correct value? If I change the settings to tell it that it's using a slightly different Bosche sensor, the readings are about 10 degrees cooler, but seem to fluctuate really quickly. The original setting works very well so I've left it on that, but ultimately what I need to do is actually replace the coolant sensor with a specific Bosche part number which actually matches the Vipec's settings.
I have bought one of those "Watchdog" temperature monitor setups to run in tandem. This has a temp sensor to measure the actual metal temperature of the engine, independently of coolant temperature. Theoretically the temps should match. I have the sensor bolted onto the thermostat housing. Low and behold, it reads a good 10 degrees cooler on average.
Driving along normally it's low 70s, usually about 72. When stationary it goes up to about 85 or so and the fans kick in (as the Vipec tells them to due to the coolant reaching what it thinks is about 95) and come off again at low 80s.
I did some pretty harsh boggy sand work near my place on a hot day and the watchdog did get up to 95 or so, but I was really pushing it hard.
Overall it works really well and I'm confident there are no cooling issues to worry about. I've driven it for about 3000kms so far and am using it as a daily. The first few weeks were in hot weather.

Yes I am almost done getting aircon going.
I've got a brand new universal condenser fitted up at the front. This took another huge amount of stuffing around to get it to fit, with more bits of the car shaved off to try and get precious more mm's of clearance. Also have all new piping, new dryer, and have replaced the stock thermostat with a new one which is completely independent of the car's wiring. I have a new thermostat knob and an on/off switch on the dash now.
The last part to make this work is to get the two ali fittings off the compressor custom welded to adapt to the standard universal fittings for the new rubber pipes - the original fittings are apparently Korean and don't conform. Just waiting for Vidler to get back from a work trip to sort that out then I can get it gassed up. Just in time for Winter!
I hope this doesn't add too much heat to the front end when it's working. I don't really want to add another thermo fan if I can avoid it, but I think I can work enough magic to actually cram one in to the front end, pushing air through to increase airflow when the A/C is on.

Re the swaybar, not sure maybe you're right. That photo is not actually it's final fitment, it ended up coming back out again and getting entirely re-done onto a completely different engine crossmember. I will get to that.

Thanks re the engine bay painting. It's not that great, just spraycan stuff, and since then it's kindof covered in a layer of basically rusty dust due to copious amounts of welding and grinding for rust repairs. I will get to that.

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Re: Monsterwagon 2.0

Post by El_Freddo » Sun Oct 21, 2018 4:42 pm

Any new updates to share on this build AndyT?

If not, we still need more pics that are everything of this L ;)

Cheers

Bennie

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AndrewT
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Re: Monsterwagon 2.0

Post by AndrewT » Tue Nov 20, 2018 6:25 pm

Yes/No. As with things, I've been more active on bookface. Mostly just posting up regular pics of little outings. A few updates:

News....

1) I stopped using the L series as a daily going back at least a year now. It stood up fantastically as a daily and I put a lot of kms on doing this. Very often with the full family of 4 commuting in to work, daycare, kindy, my wife's work, weekend duties etc. But it is pretty thirsty, and I wanted to mod it a bit more. Found a well priced luxury SG Forester and moved into that as a daily.
The L series has prime position of 50% of the proper house garage and is always kept in there now, out of the weather. It is still used heavily - literally every weekend, only missing a few, basing around the big sand dunes at the end of my street, and the occasional other trip out further.
I've avoided rocky stuff given the lack of traction aides (double open-diffs!) and lack of any bash plates at all.

2) Actually right around the time I got the Forester (literally it was on the way back from checking out the Forester for an inspection) I lost a back wheel in traffic. That wasn't fun. The back left wheel just came off, in the middle of an intersection. The studs on the car just sheered off (not the bolt-on spacer studs - these were still all intact and bolted to the wheel). Wheel went rolling off into a carpark and luckily hit a tree and stopped. I managed to get the car up onto the nature strip by basically doing a massive burnout on the brake disc with sparks flying everywhere with the little bit of momentum I still had. Got it home on a flatbed, and had it back driving within about 45 minutes. I grabbed some spare studs, put them in, re-assembled without the spacer.
Before I actually drove it again, I put 10 brand new studs in, and now permanently run no spacers at the back. The rear track is just a bit more narrow than the front.
It would have been my fault ultimately. I would have done the nuts that hold the spacers to the car up way too tight, I should have torqued them properly. They were on there for many years with many kms before this happened with zero warning.
It's been absolutely fine since, without the spacers.

3) Recently (as in 2 days ago) I finally got around to sorting out the major positive camber issue at the front end its had ever since putting it together. I swapped out the liberty lower control arms for STI GD alloy LCAs, and the matching longer front driveshafts. It has decent negative camber at the front now, looks really tough, but the main advantage is that the handling is MASSIVELY better!

4) I think the poor SF gearbox is on the way out, it whines a bit now when under pretty much any load. Starting to get a little hesitant to go into the middle of these really boggy dunes near my place in case I get stranded there with the kids! I do have a good SG box sitting here ready to go, but kindof want to trick that out with 4.444 ratio change, front LSD and SF low range before I put it in, and swap my DCCD onto it. I want to combine that with a 4.444 R180 rear diff swap at the same time....so I can do an air locker.

Other stuff that will / might happen in future....

5) I want to re-build the front-end setup soon, in regards to radiator and general mounting of stuff. Want to put a much larger radiator in, and mount it much further forwards so I can fit bigger fans. The cooling has been "okay" however it can't really sustain continued driving at low speed under load....boggy sand along a beach etc for too long. Just gets heat-soak. I plan to build some kind of a steel subframe that will do a bunch of stuff - support radiator, support the bonnet catch, mount the bullbar on it, mount a winch on it, bolt bash plates to it, mount recovery hooks to it.

6) I recently created and filed a proper official will....so I guess it's time to supercharge the EZ30R L series. Light speed is too slow, so I may as well prepare for ludicrous speed. While re-doing the front-end (above), I may as well chop out the section of the engine bay that is a bit in the way of where the SC needs to go and get that all mounted up. Then I pretty much just need to fit 6 larger injectors and go get another tune.

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Re: Monsterwagon 2.0

Post by El_Freddo » Tue Nov 20, 2018 8:32 pm

Super charge it? You’re nuts!

Best get that SG box sorted before the other one goes bang!

I’m keen to see what sort of radiator setup you end up with. I’ve had that same problem with my EJ22 on sand and extended climbs (you’ll have to cruise over and I’ll show you a few real hill climbs ;) ). So far the pulsar N13 or 14 rad (can’t remember which one, but it’s the one with the filler neck off at a rearward angle in the same location as the stock L series filler neck), is holding up well, including loaded in sand, but that wasn’t very soft and it wasn’t overly hot at that time of year for a change.

Also, I know you’re time poor, but this thread really needs more awesome through photos ;)

Cheers

Bennie

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Re: Monsterwagon 2.0

Post by L-Rex » Sat Nov 24, 2018 11:32 am

AndrewT wrote:
Tue Nov 20, 2018 6:25 pm
I guess it's time to supercharge the EZ30R L series.
Subscribed :lol:
L-Rex

1992 L-Series Wagon, which used to be EA82 auto.

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