Syncro Westy + Subaru EJ25 in 31 Days?

[ranchero]

I wanted to let all of you know that Smallcar warrantied the muffler. They turned the new one around very quickly. Nice to have it back.

In the 30-50 challenge on another thread (30-50 in 3rd gear) I came up with some dismal times with the 1.9 muffler. 14 seconds or so. I switched to a 2.1 muffler that I had around. No real change. Today I bolted the Smallcar muffler back on and got a variety of times. Conditions (van about 1/3 full of tools, camping stuff, mild winds) Got times of 10-13 seconds. I know this isn't very controlled, but I think the old mufflers may be overly restrictive for the Subie engine. On the other hand, others were getting much faster times than mine.

So I'm happy with the power, but am wondering if I'm missing some for some reason. Or maybe my differences are due to the slightly larger tires (5% difference in speedo and gps). or weight.

1)I'm not convinced that the butterfly valve in the throttle is opening as far as it could. I have it adjusted the throttle cable as much as I can, but it doesn't open all the way. Maybe some more power there.

2)My intake has a bit of a restriction - the muffler shop doesn't have a mandrel bender and there is a noticeable kink in the bend on one of the intake pipes.

3) Water temperature. The water temperature that is read off the Subie temp sender rarely reads over 175 degrees per the Scangage. Is it possible that an overly rich mixture is being fed to the engine because it isn't up to full operating temp yet?

Also, I added up most of my gas receipts. Spent about 1100 on gas for the 4600 mile trip. This was with 3 adults, 1 kid, three bikes on back tons of food, tools and beer. Thankfully the tools were not needed. Beer was replenished along the way.

Best tank 23.31 MPG for 264 miles from Livingston MT (through Yellowstone - 45-50mph for 75 miles) to Dubois, WY.
Worst tank = 14.38mpg Central Utah~WINDY
Unweighted average = 18.14MPG

I only drove on Interstates for approximately 600 miles out of the 4600 miles on the trip. Looks like my gas mileage on those portions was 14.6 (Missoula to Bozeman = 75mph) to about 16.6 (Eugene, OR to Seattle 65-70 I think). Most other driving 55-65mph.

Headed to Taos this weekend.
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'90 Westy Syncro EJ25 (money pit #1)
'96 FZJ80 (cheap by comparison^^)
'13 Golf R. Daily driver.

[Volksaholic]

Thanks for the update. It's good to hear that Small Car took care of you on the muffler. I'm also glad to see that the SC stainless muffler seems to breath better than the stock setup since I invested in the same muffler. I hope the internal self-destruction does not turn out to be an inherent problem with these things... hopefully it was just one faulty muffler rather than a design flaw.
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1988 Wolfsburg Edition, 2001 Subaru EJ251

[shenan-agon]

[RichBenn]

[Franklinstower]

I have not done the 30-50 challenge yet, but plan to do so when I have my new muffler ready to bolt on.

I have the stock 2.1 cat and muffler on my 2.2 and I feel like it is pretty restrictive, kind of like there is extra weight always in the Van. Also, I think the KEP air intake system could be less restrictive for more flow.

But with the muffler, I just picked up a Stainless Porsche 911SC single in single out muffler. I am then going to use a stainless resonator test pipe instead of the cat. That Porsche muffler is really big - 2.5 inlet and it is meant for 3.2 litres (I think). TriStar Eric swears by them for his conversions. I feel the stock muffler just can not keep up with all that extra air the Subie pumps out, especially when you are shifting at 5 or 6k rpms. So when I have this ready to bolt on, I will then do the 30-50 challenge with each system.

paul
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'89 Westy - EJ25/22 Frank 4.44 5mt
'75 Miami Blue Sunroof FI Standard Bug

[izzydog]

I have a 2.2 Subie Syncro Westy with a GM hi-po truck muffler that I found just a little bit too loud for my tastes so I went to my local muffler shop and found a slightly used Dodge Viper muffler for $45. The Viper came stock with an exhaust setup quiet enough to meet federal noise standards for the onboard V10 engine. Well, nobody wants a QUIET Viper so a local Dodge dealer here in the SF Bay area offered an aftermarket exhaust package on the new Vipers and my local muffler shop did the work so they had a dozen or so of these monsters sitting in the rack. It is a 6" round, 21" long stainless beast made out of heavy stock because of the high exhaust temps of the Viper. The inlet and outlet are 2.5" which I'll reduce to 2.25" to fit my CAT and tailpipe. The inlet is offset and the outlet is centered. I got it yesterday and will install it in a few days and report back. Viper onboard. LOL.

Jeff / San Anselmo

[ranchero]

I did the throttle mod that RichBen mentioned. Definitely led to a bit more throttle opening.

I also wanted to make a plug for the enginewiring.com speed sensor simulator. I just installed it. Previously I had the smallcar one. That one seemed to work ok, but I had a persistent cut out on long (30seconds- several minutes) high-speed hills that felt like the engine just running out of fuel. It felt like it just shut off, but then if I let off the gas for a second, I could go right back to full throttle for another 30-60 seconds. Rinse, repeat. I tried a new fuel filter, spare fuel pump. No go. Someone suggested VSS issue.

So I just installed the enginewiring.com VSS ($40) and the symptoms are gone. I was also having an intermittent stalling issue coming to a complete stop after a long highway run. Not sure, but that seems to have disappeared as well.
Steve
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'90 Westy Syncro EJ25 (money pit #1)
'96 FZJ80 (cheap by comparison^^)
'13 Golf R. Daily driver.

[ChesterKV]

[Volksaholic]

I have wondered what exactly the Subaru VSS feeds to the ECU on a manual trans. I would borrow an oscilloscope and take a peek but my Outback is auto. I wish I knew someone in the Salt Lake City area with a manual Subaru... preferably 2000-2004 2.5L that would trust me to tap into their ECU signal. I suspect that Small Car has the pulses right, but I wonder if the duration of those pulses needs to be tweaked... or maybe it's not really a square wave. A 'scope on the VSS signal would tell us all that.
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1988 Wolfsburg Edition, 2001 Subaru EJ251

[kendalwoolf]

Gauges:
Hey ranchero,
Do you have any pictures of the gauges you installed in your Vanagon? Where did you mount them, I am going to be adding some gauges to my vanagon and need some suggestions. I wanted to mount them on top of the ashtray, has anyone seen this done?

Kendal

[rs4-380]

[kenmag]

I've put around 1200 miles on the Enginewiring pulse generator and so far so good. From a cold start the rpm can be a bit sporadic. Sometimes it will quiet right down to proper idle, other times it will sit at 1500-2000 until driven a bit then behaves for the most part but no stalling.
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87GL Westy/suby ej22
87GL tintop/suby ej22
05 Golf TDI
95 jetta GLX

[ChesterKV]

[OilNBolts]

[ranchero]

Here's the gauge setup that I used.

I think it is the same one that Brent Weide used. I bought everything from egauges.com. I haven't screwed it into the dash yet. Seems to stay put pretty well.

[izzydog]

I attached mine to the cluster cover. No holes in the dash and cluster covers are cheap if I want to change back. I'm 6' tall so no issues with the steering wheel blocking the gauges. The pod was $9 on eBay and gauges are from eGauges. I shaved the bottom of the pod a bit to fit the slight curve of the cluster cover. Wired the gauges through the dash light dimmer via a three pin plug so I can take the cluster cover off completely. Only downside is that there is a slight reflection on the windshield at night but overall I like having the gauges in my line of sight while driving.

Jeff

[OilNBolts]

Wow! Nice setup Izzydog. The pressure and temperature demons will not catch you sleeping.
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Current fleet: Vanagons, two '88 GLs and an 89 Bluestar. Beetles, '63, '64, '72 convertible. Plus, four Subarus and three Prius. Too many cars.

[izzydog]

Thanks, OilNBolts. The bulbs in little gauges are slightly brighter than the big gauge bulbs but I should be paying more attention to those anyway so it all works out.

Jeff

[kenmag]

[Gorge Runner]