1986 Westy Subaru Swap - '95 EJ22

[northband]

After reading and following many swaps here on thesamba.com I finally got around to doing my own swap.

This is the main build thread but if you see my other posts they're more topical. Never-the-less there is much info here so hopefully it helps others.

First off - huge thanks to thesamba.com and the SubaruVanagon Yahoo Group. Several people helped me out but I need to make a shoutout to 61scout, boxermick at boxerswaps.com and Tom Shiels - with out their patience and help I would have been lost in space a lot longer - thank you.

Summary:
Difficulty: 7
Pricey: 5
Confusion: 10
Satisfaction: 10

Comments:
I'd do this project again and plan to. It was rough, but fun and now I feel so accomplished and am much happier about my Westy. I know so much about my vehicle and have a deeper mechanical understanding on how she runs.

Engine Sourcing & Pull
I spent hours reading here about what engines to use, how to get, what all is need, etc. Perhaps by now you have a good idea about this too - otherwise there is much info on this site on the subject (now including this post).

I looked for a '94-'00 EJ22 in the 500-1000 price range. I found many that had blown head gaskets, bad transmissions, etc. but decided to hold out to find a good runner. I considered getting the engine w/ECU already pulled but wanted to first see if I could save a buck and spend the money elsewhere (bumpers, grill, etc.).

After several candidates I found one 1.5hrs away for 500.00 and I'd do the pull on site w/ help from the owner who built race cars. This worked out great as I would be doing the project in my driveway/alley so need to have the donor car towed. The car had around 160k miles and was running but not drivable as the rear shock shot through the floor due to a rusting body.

I showed up around 8am and wrapped up around 3pm. Before pulling the motor I inspected it, listened to it run, checked compression, leaks, etc. It was grimed up from leaking valve covers, and other shotty gaskets. But it ran well, no knocks, and sounded like a smooth running engine.

EJ22 - I went with the EJ22 over the EJ25 because I don't care for the extra HP or speed. Going 70 in a 2T piece of metal is fast enough for me. Plus the EJ22 is non-interruptive. This boosted my trust with going with an "old used motor".

The owner pulled the motor while I worked on the harness. In the end I got the harness out uncut and he got the motor out w/ little issue as well. The only setbacks were:

- I couldn't get the O2 sensors out
- I forgot the rear O2 sensor harness
- The owner pulled the intake manifold off (I'd rather have done that)
- The owner cut the EGR pipe when taking off the manifold
- The owner broke a couple hoses, T's etc.
- Somehow lost the power steering reservoir lid

In hindsite I think if you took your time, or had more experience, these setbacks could have been avoided. They were the result of speed. I really wanted to load up the parts in my truck in one day vs. having to camp or come back.

The harness definitely was tricky. After reading about it so much here though I felt it went pretty smooth. The only hiccup I had was removing the heater box. It was stubborn and ultimately kind of pried it out to get to the harness beneath it.

The only special tool I really used was a hollow star bit screw driver to remove the safety bar. Other than that a good 1/4" metric set and a screw driver got most of it out.

Overall though - not bad. Engine, intake, uncut harness and ECU. Also bought some bricks while I was there for some home landscaping.

I also pulled a box of parts, cruise control, air box/duct work, hoses, brackets, etc.


Engine Cleaning & Partial Rebuild
After sitting in my sister's garage for a couple months I finally had time to dive into the engine prep. My original plan was to simply check and change the timing belt, head gaskets, and general tuneup items. However, after reading and posting a few items here I got encouraged to do more.

Doing a subi swap reminds me of that book I read to my daughter "Stone Soup" because you start out simple then end up finding yourself deep. Rather than doing a big tune up I decided to pretty much take the whole engine apart and update as much as I could.

First step, and most time consuming, was cleaning the engine. I scrubbed that engine in the summer heat using just about every tip and solvant out there. I got to the point that I got sick of cleaning engine parts. This motor was dirty and hard to clean. After hours/days of cleaning I'm happy as it's now a nice engine to work on. However, cleaning takes a lot of time and the end result isn't a perfect shiny engine. Instead it's a very clean old engine. I've seen some on this site do a better job and now can appreciate the time/work involved. I'll get there.

Cleaning the motor. This pic does no justice. I lost many other pics showing a super greasy motor in the hot sun. This pic is probably after some basic top level grease removal.

To remove the grease I tried pressure washing, engine degreaser, WD-40, but mostly ended up using A LOT of Simplegreen w/ some scrub brushes, scratch pads and show towels.

I'm going to touch upon the major items in hopes it can be used as reference examples - also I lost a lot of photos so this is what I have left.

I dove into the engine removing the timing belt covers, engine harness, pullies, timing belt, and heads. For each item removed I took pictures with my phone and kept the hardware in their own labeled ziplocks. I also used an engine cart to keep my workspace organized. Anytime the space got messy I took a break and put everything away to reset the work area. Point is - it pays to be very organized as you're going to have a lot of parts laying around. At the time it may not matter but when you need to get them back in the right order you'll be glad you're organized. Also when things get hectic having a clean workspace helps to reduce stress.

After pulling the heads I started in on the block. Do to time and skill I decided not to crack the block this time around. Perhaps maybe it would have been easy due to the opportunity of having it so accessible, but I had to do my best with what I had to work with in terms of workspace and time.


Piston Rings
I pulled the pistons to re-ring them. I ordered the EJ22 piston ring kit from Smallcar. After some discussion I decided to 'deglaze' (going to use that term) my cylinder bores vs. just popping the pistons back in. I used a tri-hone for the job. To deglaze the bores I oiled up the bores and the hones (I actually soaked them for 20m or so in oil). For oil I used transmission oil as there were a lot of articles and videos going that route.

Smallcar EJ22 Piston Ring Set

I already had good cross-hatching so I focused on following in those tracks for the new cross-hatching. Some people argued, "why deglaze when you already have cross-hatching". Others argue that it's not actually "deglazing". Anyhow for me it made sense to apply a new bore, w/o requiring actual bore resizing, to help seat my new rings. Also - the chome rings I used required a fresh bore.

The trick I found on deglazing is finding the right speed and motion balance. I kept the hone spinning at a medium speed and briskly pulled them in/out of the bore w/o leaving the bore. Per each session I kept the hone moving as I pulled out. After a couple tries you get the hang of it and know what to shoot for. Be careful though to not over do it. Also - after reading a post here I used a peanut butter lid in the bore to keep the hone from going too far.

Typical Glaze Result


Once your done be sure to use a soapy towel to wipe the bore clean. I made sure to not to drip into the block.

I did the cleaning process several times to make sure I got rid of all that metal powder.

After each cleaning session use a dry white towel to make sure the bore comes out clean. Once done I used a light oil to wipe down the bore.

The pistons were easy to pull out. You have a c-clip you need to pull out from one side using needle nose or better pliers and either a metal rod or other contraption to pop the rod out. I found several articles and videos on the subject and ended up going with a metal rod about the thickness of an arc welding rod. It has to be long enough to reach through the block into the piston hole to pop out the rod. I used a hammer to carefully pop the rod out.

At that point you can turn the crankshaft to get the piston to pop out a bit then crank some more to hear the arms clank. At that point you know the piston is separated. You then push the piston back in and give it a turn. Once turned 90 degrees or so you turn the crank some more which then pushes the piston out far enough for you to pull it out.

Be careful when you pop the rod out. Make sure you're tapping against the rod instead of a c-clip. Otherwise you may send that c-clip flying across your shop. When finished you should have 4 rods, 4 pistons and 8 c-clips. I found 7...

Quick lesson - any part you lose or find broken will need to be replaced with OEM parts from the dealer. For me that was an hour drive and a premium price. In many cases the parts may not be in stock. Since I lost a c-clip I tried my best to find a fit via local shops. In the end I Googled the part number and got one at the dealership. After 3 hours of running this errand I came home only to find the c-clip still in the piston. I thought I searched this out but apparently didn't.

My pistons we're pretty clean and the rings were not locked. I kind of lucked out. However, the pistons were pretty dirty so I soaked them in gas overnight.

Here's the result of gentle scraping, scrubbing, and soaking. I used the old piston rings to help carefully scrape out the grooves. They have to be spotless - perfect.

After having the bores prepped I ringed the pistons based upon the Haynes, videos, and ultimately piston manufacturers directions. Basically you space the gaps accordingly, and make sure your gaps are within the specs using a feeler gauge. You need to be very careful on putting the rings on not to scratch the aluminum pistons or break or warp the rings. The thin ones are easy but the thick ones are harder. Overall it's not bad, just be patient and graceful. I recommend watching some videos and read up on technique.

Using a piston ring tool to get the pistons back into the bores was very helpful and probably only possible. I didn't hit the pistons but rather oiled the tool, got the pistons lined up and for each ring kind of shimmied them in. A little tap here and there will help get them in but for each piston I had to make more than one attempt to get it right. Again patience and grace.

Gaskets & Seals
I purchased a gasket kit from Smallcar which contained the head gaskets, thermo, valve covers, and others. The other gaskets such as cam, crankshaft, etc. I had to order from the dealer. I made sure to get the brown gaskets. Again there's so much material repeating this - make sure you get OEM and/or the brown gaskets.

My oil seal gasket. I pulled out the old one using the screw trick that boxermick shows in his videos. It worked great. The oil seal is harder to pull than the cam shaft seals.

This is basically how each seal turned out. Each area I worked in I made sure to take the time and clean well.

When inspecting the oil pump I needed to replace the little O-ring in it as well. Even though this may seem trivial I ordered this too from the dealership.

Getting to the rear of the motor I inspected whether I had the metal or plastic oil separator plate. Unfortunately I had the plastic. So I decided to replace this as well.

Along with these main seals I also replaced the following gaskets head, throttle body, thermostat, water pump, valve cover. They were all in the smallcar gasket kit I had used.

Water Pump & Thermo
The more I type this the more I realize how many photos I lost from my phone. Such as replacing the water pump and thermostat. The thermostat is a good example of using OEM parts. I actually bought an aftermarket thermo from a local shop but then decided to order the OEM. Sitting the two next to each other is a night and day difference. The OEM is a completely different beast. Getting the water pump and thermo in place was easy.

Timing Belt & Pulleys
After finishing up the gaskets and seals I moved onto the timing assembly. The belt and pulleys were recently replaced. The timing belt still had the factory marks and the pulleys looked new. I got the pulleys back in place and timing belt as well. The timing belt was a bit tricky but using some clamps to hold it in place while you route it really helps. Also keep in mind, the marks you make on the belt are going to be off after you crank the crankshaft. You need to instead focus on the lineups on your CAM and crankshaft pulleys. Those marks you made will eventually line up after around 7 cranks or so. It's kind of like how a comet orbits in relation to the earth.

With the timing belt in place, gaskets, seals, water pump, heads, misc. back in place it was time to work on the intake manifold.

Intake Manifold
I didn't take this off the car so I had to give this one a quick study. The intake manifold actually has a lot going on. I took each piece off one by one and again took lots of pictures and organized the bolts/parts. After lots of cleaning I had a clean manifold. I then primed it with some engine primer and gave it several coats of red high-temp engine paint. I also cleaned up the fuel and vapor lines and painted those black as well. I replaced all the warn out vacuum hose and cleaned up what I reused. In the end, like the rest of the motor I got very familiar with the intake.

I ended up with these items left over. I did eventually figure where each went.

This was the general condition of my fuel lines which I cleaned up and painted. NAPA will be your friend for getting misc. lines/hoses.

KEP Adaptor Parts & Luk Clutch
By this point I was itching to get the KEP parts on. I ended up making my KEP order around 3 weeks earlier. I ordered the plate, wiring instructions, header, muffler w/cat, air-intake-to-airbox, engine mount, heat shield, and muffler bracket. My last clutch seemed newer but I was getting some bad clutch chatter coming out of 1st so decided to swap it. I ended up going with a Luk clutch by Busdepot.

After many read throughs of the KEP instructions, watching Busaru videos, reading blogs/posts, etc. I was ready to get moving. I started by removing the old studs and getting the new hardware in place.

This is the hardware that came with the kit.

Visegrips made removing the old studs easy.

Test fitting the adapter plate. Looks beautiful. Notice my EGR pipe fix. I probably could have dropped the EGR all together since my van is manual. However, best to keep it factory as possible considering.

After a nice test fit I got the adapter plate in place. Then placed the flywheel on.

With the flywheel and plate mounted to torque specifications, I installed the Luk clutch. The positioning tool came with it and made this easy.

I used a dab of blue locktight for the clutch.

Sealed up the gap with the included clutch plate. Everything goes together so wonderfully. Notice my RTV on my oil pan. I removed it earlier and cleaned it up spotless and remounted it.

Jumping ahead, the KEP parts and clutch are installed. I also got the exhaust header mostly in place. Now ready to move on to mating to my van.

Installing the EJ22 into the Vanagon
I decided to do the technique that Boxermick used. Using an engine crane and rolling the motor under the jacked up van and pull up into place. After transporting the motor from my sister's garage to my home I used the crane to get mate the motor. Since I was working in a stone alley/drive I used plywood to make a working surface for the crane to roll on.

This was tricky because you gotta make sure not to get hung up and get it lined up just right to get those 4 studs to go into the holes. Doing this as a one man job was tricky as your managing the crane and trying to carefully line up the holes w/o bumping into things. After lining up I got one of the studs threaded and used that to help pull it into place.

The starter hole requires the longer stud and luckily I was able to use the given hardware to bolt it nice and tight w/o having to grind the notch off my starter.

After mating up I then bolted the existing holes on the frame to the engine support bar. After that I bore out the additional holes and got those bolted up as well.

At this point the engine was mounted. I decided then to switch gears and do the harness.

Cooling System
I pretty much modeled my system off of the photos from boxermick's site along with the KEP diagram. Naturally I had to run different hoses as I didn't have all the extras to re-use. I just went to NAPA and did my best to create an efficient routing. I made sure to make secure connections. The van was running hot initially - but it just needed more coolant as there was sill air in he system. I bled the cooling system via the KEP petcocks several times. I actually just did it again tonight. I think you need to do this until you can see your levels stick and have a consistent temp.

Exhaust System & O2 Sensors
I used the entire KEP system. I could have shopped around for a cheaper muffler or re-used my cat, but by this point I just wanted a new system and didn't feeling like sourcing it all. Believe me, you'll get your share of sourcing in this project. The KEP heat shield needed further modification as it wasn't a perfect fit. It's thin metal so was easy to modify. The exhaust was a bit loud at first but then after heating up a few times it's very quiet now.

As far as the cat - I needed to use 2 O2 sensors one on the header and one post cat. I thought about doing a cat back or tricking the system or just trying one O2. However, it's best to just give the engine what it wants vs. hack it. So I then got a 2-3" pipe extension for the cat and had a local shop weld it on the cat and drill a hole and weld a bung on the posterior side of the cat. So now I would have O2 on header, cat, O2, muffler. Going this route turned out great. I can post photos of it to help others if interested.

Engine Harness
I had pondered like crazy on whether to do the harness. I've read all the posts, which you probably have too. I ultimately decided to give it a shot - again patience and grace. For what it's worth I ordered the KEP instructions even though I have a '95. They weren't majorly helpful for my case but they did give me a nice overview of the process.

I found photos, posts and the boxerswaps.com site to be helpful on this portion. But ultimately, it was one on one help that got me through this. Often you're not far off path but you have no idea at the moment.

I started by getting the pinout charts for my motor year ECU.

Example shot of my ECU's pinout.

At first these charts are confusing but ultimately you'll learn to know them well as they are you map.

I then lopped off the alt portion of the harness as I knew I'd create a separate alt harness.

Alt harness

I then traced each wire from the ECU and labeled them. Once knowing what was what (I still didn't know what anything was for, I just knew to keep it), I started removing all the un-need connectors. This really confused me as at first I felt I would need everything. After lots of tracing, ID'ing and support I lopped off a ton of connectors. The ones I needed I had labeled so as to avoid damaging.

My harness after a major cleaning.

For my engine, 1995 EJ22 from a Subaru Legacy I ended up with the following connectors.

Engine connectors

Ignitor

ECU wires (VSS, Tach, engine light, etc.)

MAF

Regulator and Atmospheric Pressure

Diagnostic Connectors/Main Relay (brown), Fuel Relay (green), OBD

Not shown are my grounds (PIN 50, main relay, misc.), and my O2 sensor connectors.

At this point I was able to bunch up the harness into some kind of organized chaos. I eventually used velcro wraps to do this. I bought a roll of it from Lowes and cut my own.

This process just takes a lot of patience. I made my own grid on what wires to keep and what ones to question. After feedback in the forum I ended up "taping off" around 8 wires. Mostly pertaining to the AT and AC systems. By taping off I mean cutting, folding back, and heat shrinking the ends.

Per the instructions from KEP, the wiring charts, and walkthroughs at boxerswaps I did my splicing.

All splicing needs to be properly protected and sealed

Spliced in my fuses. Note make sure to put on your heat shrink before soldering .

Ok so by this point I got the rest of the motor installed, alt, power steering, etc. So I had loosely got my harness put together and decided to try some test starts. After hooking everything up, which looked horrific btw, I tried to do some test starts. For the life of me it simply wouldn't work.

The problem I had was the fuel pump would not kick on. I ran power to it and found it be working. I also jumped the fuel pump relay which turned the fuel pump on so I knew that was working. Going back and forth on checking my wiring, splices, etc. I could not find the problem. This became super frustrating. It was at this point my patience and confidence started to wain.

The engine would fire up but instantly choke out. Even hearing it run for 5s I got so excited.

I got troubleshooting help from the forum but it didn't seem to be of much help. All the tests failed and led to several possible causes. It was at this point that one-on-one help got me out of a rut. Members of the forum and Tom over from the subaruvanagon group held steadfast on helping me. Specifically working with Tom, he was able to mentally diagnose the problem through all sorts of experiments until we arrived at the source - the ECU.

Somehow my ECU had gotten damaged. Not sure how. Looking at the circuit board it looked fine and ran before pulling it. I must of somehow damaged it during the build process. Without knowing for sure I found an exact match 3hrs away. On an early Sunday morning I made the trek and picked it up. I had paid for it the day before and the junk yard put it in the bushes for me. I found a match for 80 bucks - and the guy also threw in a power steering reservoir cover.

After plugging in the new ECU all the relays clicked and the engine fired right up. I was so excited to finally get this major test/obstacle out of the way. After more tweaks to the harness I decided to give it it's final wrap. I decided to mount the ECU under the cabinet cubby inside the van. So I drilled a hole and ran the wiring. My harness didn't match up to the KEP chart nor did it look like other organized harnesses. However, it turned out not bad and reached each connector w/o too much slack.

By this point I had pulled the Vanagon's old harness and re-used as much as I could from it. Such as some yellow connectors and the round connector. Here's what my final harness looked like and a run down on each connector.

I used plastic covering in 3 sizes and wrapped that with electrical tape.

Black junction box connectors. Notice I shortened and soldered the Vanagon connectors so that they would mate right up with the Vanagon. Here are the round connector, start, battery hot, tach and ignition wires.

Pressure Regulator and Atmosphere

Engine Connectors

Coolant level - taken from Vanagon and wired to round connector

Grounds - I ran all my grounds to a heavy ground wire which goes to the chassis. I also ran a heavy ground from engine to frame.

Fuel pump wire - which went into covering and wrapped once installed.

MAF - Igniter looked just like this but wider

ECU, relays and diagnostics. I kept these close to the ECU so that they would be out of the engine bay.

O2 Connectors. Since I didn't pull my O2 sensors from the donor car I bought 2 universal Bosch sensors and wired them in via clips. So far so good. I ran the black to black as according to the chart that was the signal wire. The other two wires are the heat wires.

Tachometer Mod
After getting the engine running my tach didn't move so I thought it was a wiring issue. Tom right away that I'd have to mod it. So I did based upon the files at the subaruvanagon list. Even though this procedure is well documented I've taken some photos for reference.

I removed my tach from the dash - carefully! Here's the tach (already done) but disassembled.

You need to clip a resister and replace another. Here's a photo of what to do for each resister.

Since all the Radioshacks are going away I recommend you order resisters and solder - you're going to need it. I got this box of resisters off Amazon for around 10 bucks.

Heat up and remove the old resister

Solder in a new 220k OHM resister

Make your solders nice and tidy

Clip the other resister. You can also remove it but I felt paranoid and just clipped one of the legs

That's it. Carefully put back together - very careful to not break a needle. Once re-installed it was awesome to see my tach work once again.


Finish

After misc. tweaks, fighting to get the airbox to fit, running the engine harness, tightening this, fixing that, I finally finished the swap. The motor runs awesome, doesn't leak, has great power, and my van is back on the road.

I drove it for maybe 200 miles and just now changed the oil. I was dripping liquid but found it to be a loose power steering hose. On my list todo is to get some after market gauges, fix the alt light via relay mod, and turn off or run my engine light to get rid of the O2 light on the dash.

I also have a weird clutch cavitation when I downshift or shift under high RPM's. It's as if the under body of the van shutters. Not really clutch chatter but some sort of tremble. It vibrates out and decays quick but curious what it is. I gotta investigate that and get it fixed.

When I accelerate the exhaust has a kind of roar. Yet when I'm at idle you can barely hear he motor. I often think it's stalled. Tomorrow I'll be driving it 100 miles round trip on some 70mph highway. So we'll see how she handles.


There's many details that I left out due to forgetting, not having notes, or just being tired from typing this whole thing up. If there's any questions we can just discuss in this thread.

[supdude]

Awesome post. Thank you for the documentation and photos. This post is a great resource when I do my swap this winter!

How did you route your throttle cable? Looks like the boxerswap technique?
_________________
['83 EJ22]
LED LIGHT KITS! To illuminate your Vanagon or Westfalia!
The Rise of SURFMACHINE!
VanagonLEDs.com

[VWinVT]

Awesome resource! Thanks for helping others navigate this process!
_________________
1981 Westfalia with a 2001 Cabrio ABA

Small wheel turns by the firing rod,
Big wheel turns by the grace of God.
Every time that wheel turns 'round,
You're bound to cover just a little more ground.

[northband]

Regarding throttle cable that's right. I flipped the throttle per the boxer swap technique. It works great!

[wesitarz]

Re-tighten all of your coolant line clamps after the system has run hot. They can suck in air creating an air bubble and it will overheat (in my case after 1-2 months)

[northband]

Re: coolant lines. Will do and thanks for the tip!

[kalispell365]

Excellent write up...FINALLY someone who does rings, that's how to do it right!
One small note...If you ever pull the motor again, you should change those screws on the metal access cover from the countersunk ones that you reused to a pan head screw. Subaru should have sold you the correct update allen screws with the plate, but you can use some common phillips pan heads from the hardware store as well. I have seen the plates leak premature when done using the old screws.
_________________
1983 Diesel Vanagon Westfalia chassis with Subaru 2.2l

[northband]

Thanks! Man Subaru sold me that oil separator plate as a kit. I drive an hour, pick it up, open it when I get home only to find out it's just the plate.

When I pull the motor out in the future I'll replace those screws - so thanks for the tip.

[dobryan]

Great job! Enjoy.
_________________
Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[furrylittleotter]

Nice clean install, Enjoy!

btw I understand that red intake is good for an extra 2-3 hp! a

Neil2

[northband]

Yeah that red intake does seem to make it go faster! I know one thing, it makes me smile every time I open the hood.

[snwbrdr435]

Awesome job documenting everything!

[northband]

I have a question about VSS. I was told to use a VSS by the community as well as KEP. However, after getting my motor running it seemed to run fine w/o adding a VSS. So curious - how would I know if it needs it? Am I running in "limp" mode and not realizing it?

Tonight I took my first long trip (50) miles. I did an average around 65mph at 3800-4000RPMs - curious if that's expected behavior.

[hogan029]

Hey I see that you have a 86.. was wondering if you had any details into your cooling system.. I am researching for my winter build. I saw the boxerswaps website but it only shows the earler vanagon cooling system.. any details or photos would be amazing

[VWinVT]

[northband]

Photos coming. I did almost the same setup as boxerswaps but didn't have the extra hoses. So I got some pipe and various hoses from NAPA and worked it together. Tomorrow in the light I'll get some photos and post up.

[hogan029]

[kalispell365]

[northband]

I checked the computer and I do now in fact have the VSS error code. So I have a GoWesty VSS on it's way. Looking forward to getting it installed.

[northband]

Here are some pics of how I ran the cooling system.

I actually found the cooling system a bit confusing at first. After running through different scenarios I think it's pretty simple.

Now that I have a better understanding I consider this my first draft and will probably be making some changes. I think I'll eventually replace some of these hoses and 'make shift parts' for some custom pipe.

I also would like to use Tom's coolant flange - I think that's a very elegant solution compared to running T's in your heater lines.

That being said - I mainly used three sources for how I ran this:
1) KEP diagram
2) Boxerswaps walkthrough (both site and video)
3) Circuit modification articles


Since I had an '86 I didn't have all the extra hoses to re-use. I also was a bit concerned on using my warn out hoses so pretty much ran all new hoses. I honestly wasn't 100% certain on which hoses to get, besides their diameter. So I sketched out how to run my lines and went to the local NAPA to get hoses.

I ended up using 4 new hoses. Three of which were universal hoses and 1 right angle that I used for the corner piece coming off the thermostat and the right angle coming off the dishwasher pipe. I was able to cut two 90's off the same hose.

Here is a top view showing a hose curving from the coolant manifold around the back of the van. This is a universal hose and seems very durable.

Here is a top view of my expansion tank (notice I need to bleed a bit of air out of it). In my mind this is where it made sense to have it as I'd seen diagrams and photos of having the tank here. However, I wonder if it would be better on the right side. For me having it on the back side gave me something to bolt the bracket to as well as some easy access to hook up the plumbing.

Based on the KEP diagram and the Boxerswaps site I decided to use the dishwasher pipe. I actually tried two - one from Lowes and another from Menards. I went with the Menards one because it was a bit sturdier and had a lip on one of the ends. For the other ends I roughed up the metal and clamped it as tight as I could go w/o damaging the thin metal. I think this will hold up, however, this is the part that feels so make-shifty. I plan on swapping this out, I think it would be easy to make up a sturdier copper replacement.

Also shown is the KEP bleeding petcock. I really think this is a must. I've already bled my system a couple times because it's pretty easy via this method. I've been able to keep my expansion tank pretty solid green but accidentally let some air in the other night when tinkering with it.

Here is a closer photo of the plumbing going to the expansion tank. Essentially you have a right angle hose going from the tank to the top pipe of the dishwasher pipe. The main shaft of the pipe connects to the coolant manifold and the right angle I have running along the right side of the engine bay on up to one of the main coolant lines.

On the coolant manifold side I only used 1 clamp as it had a nice flange on the pipe. However, on the other end I used two. In fact, on any pipe I've doubled up the clamps and tightened tight as possible w/o causing damage to the pipe or the hose. I used a 1/4" drive ratchet with a socket to do the torquing vs. a screw driver. Call me paranoid but my confidence feels better doing it this way.

Pardon the crappy photo but moving on - this shot continues along the back of the engine bay curving around to the right. So the large coolant hose connects to the end of the dishwasher pipe and does a right angle that leads up to a piece of pipe. The pipe serves as a connector from which another universal hose connects. The universal hose runs up under the firewall and connects to one of the main coolant lines.

The pipe is EMT electrical conduit. I'm pretty sure it's 1 1/4". Now the case for EMT... After seeing Boxer Mick use it over at boxer swaps I researched it a bit. I couldn't dig up any issues or dirt on going this route. In fact, I did read some references in some racing mechanic articles where they discussed using it in the cooling system. That being said the guy at Lowes disagreed and said the motor will explode. I hope that won't happen, but by that point I'll most likely have replaced this setup with something custom.

Notice the other main hose down below in the foreground. That one heads over the exhaust header and under the firewall to one of the main coolant lines.

Another shot showing the EMT lines that are connected to the universal coolant hoses that connect to the main cooling lines. The nice thing about these EMT connectors is they're heavy duty, make a nice run over a potentially hot area, and allow me to have a nice base to tighten the hoses to.

Here's a side shot of the right angle hose coming out of the thermostat, connects to an EMT pipe, then to a universal hose going to a main coolant line.

Here are the heater hoses. The heating system in my opinion reminds me of the original fuel lines - lots of hose and junctions. I decided to run new hoses for the heating system, at least rear portion. Since the van is already up may as well take an advantage of it.

While running new heater lines I made the "H" junction below where the lines head up into the bench seat heater. I did this using a couple T connectors. By doing this I always have an open circuit in the heating system. As mentioned earlier, I plan on going with Tom's flange as this route is ugly compared to that. Even so, lesson understood and this will work for now vs. simply keeping the heater control slid over to the right in hopes no one accidentally turns it off!

That pretty much sums it up. In hindsight I think the coolant system isn't so bad. At first though I didn't fully grasp it and feel I can really improve it now. But as long as everything is secure I think you can piece it together as many have.

One thing worth noting, I used zip ties to loosely secure the lines/pipes in place. Also, it may not be very noticeable but I also used zip ties to secure extra hose layers in places where the hose rests against something. I've done this in several areas in the engine bay for just about anything. That engine is going to be shaking a lot so if there's an area that can rub you better protect it.

Also - as someone else mentioned, you gotta check and tighten all hose clamps after you've ran the motor a while. I'm about to do that since it's been a couple weeks now.

As an added photo - here's a close up of the reverse throttle that Boxer Mick used in his videos. It felt weird tearing that throttle apart but I'm very pleased with the results and it's simple and doesn't require any special cables.