'71 Deluxe - Now with Super Secret Subaru Swap!

[gvee]

Congratulations! arty0006:

 

[junglefacejake]

Yes ^^^^^^ whs^^^^^^ congratulations to you all

 

[68_early_bay]

Congrats on the new arrival :mrgreen:


And nice one on the awesome work with the engine 8)

 

[Lee C]

First time I've seen this thread, VERY clever stuff going on!!
Radiator install is fantastic!! &
Massive congrats on the new bambino 8)

 

[aogrady]

Hi,

Great work once again...Wow!! Congratulations on your newborn!!

Alistair

 

[dubdubz]

http://youtu.be/mPsMofLWjGc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DadWagens]

Thanks for the kind words on the baby. She's been adjusting to life on the outside very well so far. I do think my son is having a hard time with all of the attention diverted away from him. I'm taking time off work so I plan on taking him to do some fun stuff tomorrow. Maybe some mini golf or a movie, we'll see.

Dubdubz are the embedded you tube links not working for you? I'm not sure what the deal is with that, the videos aren't displaying on this computer but they do on my other one.

Here's the engine mounted again, now with the coolant plumbing through the radiators completed. There is a pipe going across the top of the engine bay with an integrated bleeder valve that is barely visible connecting the two radiators together.

Powder coated engine support bar.

 

[DadWagens]

So here is an interesting trick. Jeff fabricated this fill tube/expansion tank that plumbs into the lower suction side of the cooling circuit. The coolant is filled with the engine running similar to a vanagon. It can also be filled with a vacuum tool. This view is from behind the apron, which is also upside down in the pic.

Installed:

No overflow tank at this point. The coolant dumps to the ground when there is no more capacity in the fill tube. This has been working fine for the past few months but I think that I have been losing some coolant as I recently noticed the engine temps running 5 deg. higher than normal. Still no overheating but we decided to revise this portion of the cooling system to make sure I don't have any issues.

Shots from a couple more angles:

 

[DadWagens]

This is a nice detail. Jeff found this oil fill tube on an old American van at the wrecking yard. I really like that the cap is metal for that vintage look. He just used the top of it and custom made the rest to adapt it to the engine and make it accessible. This went to the powder coater too.

 

[DadWagens]

Since the hot air exiting the radiators flows over the engine in this configuration you have to deal with the problem of high intake temperatures. Jeff welded up a cold air intake tube that snakes to the left and forward toward the gearbox to ensure that engine is fed cool air from outside of the engine bay. His welds were so clean that when the tube was powder coated it looked like it was made of plastic. It turned out sweet.

Pod filter on the end.

 

[junglefacejake]

Jeff is the daddy!
Is it possible to craft a cowl that encloses the fan and also directs hot air out the bottom of the engine bay?

 

[DadWagens]

Yes, he is the daddy. You can understand why I wanted him to do this conversion for me. Not to mention that he completed it in about four months.

Your ducting idea for the hot air could probably be done but it would block access to everything and it would take a lot of hours of fabrication that I can't afford. :lol:

An undercarriage shot for all you pervs ...

So here is one minor compromise on the sleeper status of my bus. I bought these "EARZ" scoops from Just Kampers and had them shipped to the States. I figured these would be okay because they're clear and almost invisible at a distance. They made a huge difference on the engine temps at speed. Jeff bought some of the same material and plans to make another set that are slightly bigger to increase the air pressure to the radiators even more.

 

[DadWagens]

To keep tabs on the engine temp I bought this retro gauge and Jeff made a nice little panel for it. He added a bright red warning light that the Microsquirt unit will turn on if the water temp goes over 225 deg. F. You can still see all the field dust on the dash from the 10+ years the bus sat out in the country- I had not cleaned the dash in the two or three years that I owned it . Hardcore rat look :lol: .

 

[MetPeter]

Damn, respect! It looks 'factory made'!

 

[gninnam]

Damn, respect! It looks 'factory made'!

Agreed 8) :mrgreen:

 

[DadWagens]

Nice, I'm glad you guys think so too. That's what I was hoping for.

Here's a video of the engine running in Jeff's shop shortly after completion in 100 degree F weather:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pxwMamOxw[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pxwMamOxw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

4th gear acceleration:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQZI-_EmLKA[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQZI-_EmLKA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fans were not running at this speed with the engine hatch propped open about an inch. Later I had Jeff cut a hole behind the license plate to provide more area for hot air to escape instead of propping the decklid but I now think it was a mistake because when I put the rear bumper back on it started running a tad warmer. I think the bumper is acting like a scoop and pushing hot air back into the engine bay through the hole at speed. I need to put the bumper splash pans back on because I think it will block some of the air flow through the bumper.

And once again in case anyone missed it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GfA5D0A95Q[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GfA5D0A95Q" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
:shock:

It's crazy fast for a bus! The first day I got to drive it, I couldn't resist :lol: :

 

[DadWagens]

It idles so smoothly and quietly that at first I kept thinking that the engine was stalling out every time I would stop. But the warning lights stayed off and sure enough when I pushed the go pedal it would go. We found that the heat created by the radiators was affecting the stock starter if I shut the engine down and then tried to start it before it had cooled. So Jeff sourced a Jetta TDI starter that fit the gear box by just slotting one of the mounting holes. It works great and the extra torque turns the EJ22 really easily. Also he had to change the stock crank trigger wheel to an WRX STI unit because sometimes the EFI had a difficult time syncing with the crank during startup. No issues now. He has also spent some time tuning the Microsquirt. I'm hoping to get a little laptop or something to run the tuner studio software so I can continue optimizing the fuel maps. It has an auto-tune feature that does the work while you drive around normally. Pretty cool geeky shit right there.

When I started daily driving it I couldn't resist racing anyone who thought they could take on an old ratty bus and surprised quite a few people. I raced my friend in a turbo volvo and he got me by two car lengths but he also did a wheel stand to spool up his turbo before launch. I probably would have pulled on him off the line if he hadn't spooled the turbo but he would have caught me later. I also ran against a V8 pickup from a rolling start and he barely walked away from the bus. He was tripping out asking what kind of engine I had in it. I smoked one guy in a 4 cyl pickup twice- I beat him by a couple of car lengths, let him pass by one length and then caught him again and he had it floored the whole time! It was epic even though the truck wasn't all that fast. You should have seen the look on the teenager's face in the passenger's seat, he couldn't believe what had just happened.

It took a while to get over the power and drive like a reasonable person. Buses really are not meant to be driven like that or they wouldn't be shaped like a brick :lol: I'm really glad that Jeff made a new fitting on the intake to plumb the power brake vacuum line to the intake manifold. I know the brakes are adequate because someone pulled out into traffic right in front of me without looking :shock: .

So as mentioned previously Jeff has the bus right now, he's going to do version 2 of the coolant fill setup and add a conventional expansion tank/fill bottle with an overflow tank so I don't lose coolant anymore. This will be plumbed into the pipe that goes across the top of the engine bay so it's at the highest point in the system. He's going to cut a small hatch into the rear deck for fill access.

Additionally he is going to hook up some LEDs to tell me when the fans are on so I can start experimenting to improve the cooling even more. I have a bunch of ideas to try, like putting the splash pans on the bumpers and perhaps removing the stand offs behind the license plate to close off the decklid hole. I also want to try removing the flaps on the radiator shrouds to remove the restriction they create- I think they probably work better when the radiators are front mounted because there is plenty of flow to hold them open. At this point I am willing to cut more sheet metal from around the engine to make the opening as big as on a late bay if necessary but hopefully I won't have to. I love the engine swap so much that I'll never go back to aircooled on this bus. I figure if I decide to sell one day, the swap will be the major reason why people would be interested in buying it.

The true test of this radiator setup will be driving to bug-o-rama in Sacramento in 100 degree weather next summer. Other ideas to help with cooling are to add a rubber "air dam" in front of the engine to lower the pressure behind the bus even further to help the hot air to be drawn out. I'm also considering changing the rear tires from 175/70r14 to the stock size 185r14s so I can get some of the gearing back and lower the rpms at cruising speed, but that would mean I'll need to lower the bus more in the back so it sits level. I may need to notch the rear to do it. Also when Jeff builds up my 6 rib transmission it should help tremendously as we'll gear it so it almost idles down the highway. It will be nice to have four gears once again...

Sorry about all the blabbering I'm just so stoked on my bus now. If anyone has any questions or any ideas to help improve my conversion feel free to post up.

 

[aogrady]

Hi!

Amazing conversion, absolutly love it!

A thought on the cooling, you mention a air dam in front of the engine, would something like those truck/bus rear mudflaps do?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/310767012312?lpid=82" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe this would create a low pressure area, which may have a benefit of creating low speed cool air for the filter intake?

Interesting about how the engine lid being open and the bumper affect the heat, probably a similar effect to a air cooled engine running hotter temps with the lid open....as you say, the pressure/aiflow must affect how the hot air pulls the cold air in, probably basic physics, but it's too late in the evening for me to figure it out aerodynamics :lol:

Wonder how running something say, like a Porsche 356 air grill would look where the license plate is? Or would that have a negative effect as noticed above? Sounds like a cardboard engine lid to modify air holes and some data logging equipment needed! :lol:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VERY-NICE-USED-ORIGINAL-PORSCHE-356BT6-356C-BRIGHT-ANODIZED-ENGINE-COVER-GRILL-/360431559047" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Could you reverse one fan, (stick it the other side of the rad) so it pulls the heat away from the opposite rad, and up and out of the half moon vent? I assume the fans only run when in slow moving or standstill traffic? When moving at speed, the air in through the vents can still pass through the rad, but pull it out when going slow?

Anyway, back to the open deck lid therory, found this:

However, the air flowing off the trailing surface doesn't just sit dead or just stay there, it actually flows forward.

I'm not getting into the debate raised by the initial thread poster but I will point out some aerodynamic constants about any object with fast flowing air moving around it or a fast moving object moving through (still) air - same effect....

Especially if the object is squared off or slightly rounded off at the back end (most cars), the laminar air flowing off the back doesn't just hang around or just stay at the back of the object (car), it actually flows forward in a series of eddies called vortices. You have all observed this watching water in a creek flowing past a rock and is why white water rafters sometimes get trapped downstream of big rocks and you all learned pretty quickly when you first started driving that if you left the tailgate open in your station wagon, you got exhaust gasses 'sucked' into the car....
The oil mist on the back of the bus alluded to by cru62 is also there because of this effect.

Aerodynamics regarding airflow and pressure differentials can get complicated but the above is a constant for any 'blunt' object with air flowing around it. So an open engine lid will have some air flowing into it from behind the bus. If this air is coming off a hot engine & exhaust from underneath the bus..... well, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.


I posted up on the Youtube link, boy, it really flies! Glad the brakes are up to it!

Here is a EJ22 reving to 9k! It just kept climbing rpm on the dyno - crazy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CltVZKbEn_w" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Need to stop looking at engines, it's 1 am...

Cheers,

Alistair

 

[Bundy]

Hi,
Loving your work on this conversion.
I think I need to get my EJ20 remapped as it seems slow compared to those vids!! Possibly due to the amount of stuff inside it though :lol:
I have my radiator slung underneath so not really comparable, but nevertheless it took me about 5 or 6 incarnations before I was actually happy and confident that it'd last. The final thoughts on is that the more coolant you can get in the system the better...so I ended up with a big thick radiator and increased the pipe sizes running to it...that coupled with a T25 expansion tank and burp bottle it is faultless now.
I have also added an oil cooler to help as I plan on towing a Rapido folding caravan so it's gonna have it's work cut out!
Another thing I did was cut 6 large holes behind the rear number plate and stand it off the engine lid with a couple of rubber grommets...I reckon that's helped keep better airflow out of the engine bay as it never seems overly hot in there after a long run anymore.
I just need to sort the sump out now so I can get rid of the extremely heavy sump guard I made for it!
Good luck with it...oh, the gearbox will transform the drive! I had mine rebuilt with the 091 c+p and a taller 4th...cruises beautifully and 1st is useful too now :lol:
Cheers
Al

PS: Fit a rev counter...that way you know it's still running when at the lights! I had to as couldn't hear it

 

[marco]

Scary stuff! Mine's scary at 50, let alone double that 8)