SVX Conversion Cooling Questions

[Low Bräu]

So my SVX conversion is officially underway. I'll be starting a build thread soon. The freshly rebuilt engine is on the stand and I am currently making my "reverse" coolant manifold. After reading a ton of information online, I am left with more questions. One thing that I can't seem to make sense of is the cooling routing off the engine with a reversed manifold. I have seen this done a few ways and it seems like more than one way could work. The way that makes most sense is to have a 5/8 nipple on the forward facing outlet of the coolant manifold facing up that connects to the "late" vanagon expansion tank's top. The 1" lower fitting on the expansion tank would generally go to the return line that comes off the thermostat. In most cases its a 1" nipple on a 1.5" pipe that connects to the hose off the t-stat neck. Is this correct? Does anyone running an SVX have a few pictures that depicts the hose routing off the EG33 engine? I want to weld this stuff up once and be done with it.

Thanks
j.
_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[ejimmi]

I have an extra manifold and Im interested in doing this too, it really opens up allot of room on the belt side of the engine by not having the cross pipe. I ran in to the same questions as you when i looked in to it, it seems like everyone does it a bit different. Heres a diagram i found. Let us know what you end up doing.

[Low Bräu]

That's how I imagined it working but I keep seeing pictures of people running the lower 1" expansion tank hose to the reverse manifold forward facing outlet (coolant leaving the engine towards radiator). I guess that's what I'm having trouble making sense of is the fact that there are multiple ways that this will work. Ok, so I just need to make a 5/8 nipple to weld to my coolant manifold outlet and I can keep going with installing the engine's ancillary parts. Unless, someone can convince me otherwise.

thanks,
j.
_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[furrylittleotter]

If I had to do over again I would use a coolant accumulator with a standard radiator cap like rocky mountain Westy makes or the one I have now:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hre-3424?seid=s...fgodVGED_g


OR: I would fit a radiator with a standard cap on it as Hobart Kennedy suggested all converters do many years ago.

He also advocated adding bleeder valves, which is also a good idea and easy to do.
http://www.kennedyenginc.com/Pages/SubaruVanagonGen.aspx

You would do well to heed the advice of the old man. sadly, I did not.

It is a major pain to bleed and keep bled an svx for some reason.

Once I got mine bled it randomly overheated and eventually blew the head gaskets (svx) now I run a 2.2

I now have that HOWE tank behind my grill with heater hose going to the heater lines to fill it.

You do not need 1.5 inch hoses going to a filler neck.

Make sure all lines have "grade" to allow bubble travel.


Also, I snapped axles and cvs like twigs with svx power, through a pinion out of a transaxle (3 in all wasted) so ended up with a $4500 rebuild and 930 axle uprades, even with that the ring and pinion began to howl in pretty short order.

If I were the type to give advice I would say reassess your plans now, but I'm not so i will just suggest you might be happier with a 2.5 litre subaru sooner than later.

Either way, should be loads of fun.


Hope this helps. Neil2

[Low Bräu]

[quote="furrylittleotter"]If I had to do over again I would use a coolant accumulator with a standard radiator cap like rocky mountain Westy makes or the one I have now:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hre-3424?seid=s...fgodVGED_g
]

Thanks! I was hoping someone would chime in that went through the troubles of making these engines work in the van. I am not going to use the 094 I will be buying a kit from Subaru Gears once the engine is completely finished. I was looking for a phase 2 EJ25 when I found the SVX for sale. I ended up getting the car for nearly nothing after selling off what I didn't need. That being said, I now have a rebuilt engine and harness for relatively little money. I will without a doubt have more money invested in the transmission when this is finished.

I've already been thinking about getting this thing to fill and bleed quickly. I use an air-evac tool all the time at work. A lot of the cars I work on can be tricky to bleed as well. The air-evac tool pretty much eliminates cooling system air locks. My only concern is it won't pull enough vacuum to fill such a long drawn out cooling system like on the Vanagon.
_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[furrylittleotter]

Yes the cheap price of svxs on the front end certainly does a great job of blinding us of the costs on the backend.

Like I said, it will be fun and we will all be here to have a good laugh when the dust settles.

[geodude]

The problem with the routing shown in the figure a few posts back is a substantial amount of coolant can bypass the radiator through the expansion tank leading to overheating. The good news is if the tank and hoses are routed correctly (tank higher than manifold) any air in the system will end up in the expansion tank. My setup is pretty similar to that one, except I have a 1/8 inch orifice in the line to the expansion tank that allows gas to pass freely, but limits coolant flow preventing the overheating issues. I also put in a dedicated bypass to the thermostat so the heater core does not need to be on all the time.
_________________
1988 GL Camper
1991 Multivan — the basket case

[Howesight]

I am still running my SVX conversion with about 35,000 miles since conversion now and no problems to date - - especially no cooling problems. I am sorry to hear that FurryLittleOtter had so much difficulty with his SVX conversion, but by the same token, with broken axles, etc, he probably had a lot more off-road fun with his conversion. I drive mine very gently with the exception of highway drives which sometimes involve rather, ahem, high speeds. I don't do any really rough 4x4 abuse on this vehicle. I treat it like a camper that will go anywhere and not like a 4x4 with cold beer and a mattress. (I have a Toyota 4x4 beater for the rough stuff.)

I must be lucky on my cooling system, but mine bleeds very easily and stays that way. I use the "nose down, tail up" approach (and my good friend gravity) for bleeding the rad. Remember that after a full coolant drain, a lot of air will stay in the heater cores until and unless the engine is revved to, say, 2,500 to 3,500 rpm to clear out the air in the cores.

When you fellows do figure out the reversed-coolant manifold plumbing, I would be very interested in replicating what you come up with since it will improve access through the licence plate door so much.

Having said all that, for a 2WD, the SubaruGears transaxle is the way to go. My 094 has large rpm drops between gears due to the 1.14 third gear and 0.70 fourth gear, and I am also expecting the inevitable (read "premature") demise of the unit in due course.
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'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[Low Bräu]

I like the idea of having a bypass for the heater. Especially in Florida where the heater might get used once a year.

Back to my original post. Here is a picture, not mine, of a reversed SVX manifold with what appears to be a fairly large nipple off the forward outlet. I would think that has to be at least 1" Wouldn't you think?

_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[Low Bräu]

Here's where I am at so far. I haven't welded the upwards facing nipple off the outlet yet.

_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[ejimmi]

[geodude]

[Low Bräu]

I'm currently thinking this is the route I am going to take. The photo was borrowed from the subaruvanagon.com site. Is anyone here plumbed this way? The SVX water pump/t-stat housing already has two fittings. One goes up to the coolant manifold the other goes to or returns from the heater circuit.

_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[wasserbox]

[Low Bräu]

[flomulgator]

One thing to mention about the Subaruvanagon.com website is that those coolant diagrams are entirely for EJ22 motors. While they are very similar to the EG33 motors there is a key difference that affects these diagrams. The SVX has a dedicated return line from the manifold to the thermostat (shown in Ejimmi's first diagram, with a short section of hose), that the EJ22 does not have. This was not at all apparent to me a while ago and took some correspondence with Tom Shiels (the site owner) to figure it out. Just a heads up.
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She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro!

[Low Bräu]

I realize the EG33 is slightly different but it looks like the Tom Sheils thermostat housing is mirroring what the EG33 already has from new. Two lines off the T-stat housing. Like you said one attaches to the coolant manifold via a metal line with a short rubber hose connecting the two. The other goes to the heater circuit.

Tom's diagrams all seem to incorporate his t-stat aluminum sandwich adapter.
_________________
Independent German Auto
671 Fern Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
(321) 449-4665

Specializing in repair and maintenance for Porsche, BMW, Mini, Audi, and Volkswagen.

1952 Standard Beetle
1960 SO-23 Westfalia
1961 L-380 Turkis Deluxe Beetle
1985 Vanagon Country Homes Camper (work in progress - EG33 swap)

[flomulgator]

Yeah, you definitely get it then. I had thought for a while that my system might benefit from that part and Tom had to set me straight that the EG33 essentially already had it.

The temperature on my system fluctuates randomly and I haven't figured it out. I'll try to organize my thoughts and post back in a bit.
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She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro!

[Low Bräu]

[furrylittleotter]