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Old 10-17-2019, 03:11 PM   #1
AWD BRO
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Default FA20DIT Turbo Setup on an EJ!

Sooooo this project, where to start?
....actually wait, I want to start off by saying:
This was an experiment, mainly out of curiosity to see what it would take to make this work. I by no means consider any of the work done here to be "correct" or the "best way" to do this. Think of this more as a super ****ty, somewhat functional proof of concept.



Now that that is out of the way, let me show off the car:


1998 2.5RS Coupe..RWD converted..NA-T..half gutted... I don't know, I paid like $1,500 for it a year or two ago.


Well it was a super fun beater car until the engine decided to lose all the piston rings. Not exactly sure what happened, all I know is it would burn oil like nothing I've ever seen. Plumes of smoke would pour out of the exhaust just going down the road. Has been sitting for about a year since this happened.


So enter the FA20DIT..when I was working at the dealer, I ended up with a complete turbo and manifold setup off of one. Warranty job to replace a snapped stud I believe.
Either way, I had this turbo setup sitting around and was more curious than anything else, to see if I could get it to fit on EJ.

I used a run of the mill USDM EJ205 that I purchased fairly cheap.
(you'll learn why this was a mistake later....)


Initial mockup with late 2.5 oil pan:






Initially it's pretty obvious that it does not simply "fit." This was gonna take some work...

We cut the manifold apart and got to placing the turbo where it needed to be. Used a blown up EJ251 long block that my buddy had sitting around:


From there we extended a few of the runners to get it all to match up again:





You may notice that it ended up slightly unequal, length wise. This wasn't the intention but it was already too late so... we just went with.
I have no idea how this will affect the twin scroll turbo or sound... but this is all an experiment so whatever.



I hit my photo limit already... (see next post!)
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Last edited by AWD BRO; 01-09-2020 at 03:09 PM.
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Old 10-17-2019, 03:26 PM   #2
AWD BRO
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& (now) 3 other GCs

Default

I took the setup home and painted it with some VHT high temp paint.. went with white because it looks fast! LOL



Bolted on to my engine with the oil pan installed:







Then came the process of plumbing the turbo. I purchased a bunch of AN fittings and line and got to work. Really not too bad, the oil filter had to be relocated and oil cooler deleted. Because of this I was able to use the coolant circuit from that for the turbo.

Oil feed came from the usual spot, but return was tricky.
Obviously with the turbo sitting below the pan, the oil wont naturally drain back to it anymore. To remedy this on the FA20 they usa a scavenge pump driven off the camshaft.
I opted to use an electric pump from TurboWerx.
Here's a bad pic of it lol:



Intake manifold on:






....and that's about where I'll leave it for this post. I have made a decent amount of progress since this and I will get around to posting that when I have the chance.

In the meantime, here's a video to go along with it:

Last edited by AWD BRO; 01-09-2020 at 03:16 PM.
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Old 10-17-2019, 04:35 PM   #3
Stretch18
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This is actually kind of neat. Interested to see how it winds up running!
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Old 10-17-2019, 04:47 PM   #4
WRXnick16
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I like the innovation! Looking forward to following this.

Are you concerned about decreased ground clearance at all?
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Old 10-17-2019, 08:56 PM   #5
stikid2005
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Cool stuff! Looking fwd to watching this play out!
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Old 10-18-2019, 01:57 PM   #6
AWD BRO
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WRXnick16 View Post
I like the innovation! Looking forward to following this.

Are you concerned about decreased ground clearance at all?
It probably should be a concern. The turbo is now the second lowest hanging thing on the car.

But if I'm being honest, I'm not worried at all lol
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Old 10-18-2019, 08:46 PM   #7
kash $
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Cool project! Nice to people do stuff like this.
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Old 10-19-2019, 12:40 AM   #8
archer1.8
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Interested to see how this turns out compared to the 2010 Legacy low mount turbo setup

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Old 01-05-2020, 11:22 AM   #9
Illi05wrx
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OBP

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That is pretty cool. I have wondered when someone was going to try this on an EJ motor. Have you thought about doing an FMIC and reverse mount intake manifold? I always thought that it was a missed opportunity to do a FMIC and reverse mount intake from the factory.
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Old 01-09-2020, 12:07 PM   #10
AWD BRO
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Illi05wrx View Post
That is pretty cool. I have wondered when someone was going to try this on an EJ motor. Have you thought about doing an FMIC and reverse mount intake manifold? I always thought that it was a missed opportunity to do a FMIC and reverse mount intake from the factory.
The car already has a front mount, so that's covered. Much easier to do piping for it with this turbo setup than the usual.

I don't plan on doing a rotated intake manifold the first time around. I'll save that for v2.
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Old 01-09-2020, 12:15 PM   #11
Oderus
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Looks neat, good luck!
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Old 01-09-2020, 03:51 PM   #12
AWD BRO
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& (now) 3 other GCs

Default Engine is in the car!

So after I finished getting the engine mostly assembled on the stand, it was time to attempt to put it in the car.
Keep in mind, we never measured anything so at this point I had no idea if it would even fit..

Old NA-T engine on the cherry picker next to my new creation still on the stand:



You may notice in the background that there's no subframe in the car. This is because I dropped the front subframe and trans all as one when I took the old engine out.
This allows me to get everything back together, then lift it into the car as a complete package.


Upon doing so I ran into an issue, the turbo was too far forward to allow the subframe to lineup with it's mounting studs.
I was starting to panic thinking I'd have to re-build the header but upon inspection it seemed the curvature of the compressor housing was preventing the entire engine/subframe/ etc. to move up into place.
To fix this I put a jack under the subframe and unbolted the motor mounts from it. This let me lift the engine above the contact point and bolt the subframe in on it's own. Once I lowered the engine, the turbo sat just above the lower core support...I'm talking credit card fitment here:








So that's the engine installed in the car!


(Continued to next post....)
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Old 01-09-2020, 04:15 PM   #13
AWD BRO
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& (now) 3 other GCs

Default Plumbing all the things

So with the engine physically installed, we're on to the next challenge of this setup, all the custom plumbing.



First things first was the radiator. If you saw in the last post, the turbo is now sitting where the bottom of any OEM fitment radiator would be. I needed something that would fit where the AC condenser would be. This means in between the top and bottom of the core support.

Thankfully, this same issue has been dealt with by those who do H6 swap. Enter the Saab 900 Turbo radiator. This happens to fit perfectly in the space where the condenser used to be and seemed to be the only realistic option.

So I bought one from O'Reilly's and slapped it in there:




Please ignore my hackassery moving forward, this is literally being thrown together for fun

First fitment issue was the lower rad hose contacting the J-pipe. This will be fixed later:






Here's the charge pipe plumbed in:




Going up through the fender just to go back down to the front mount is a bit idiotic, but again, first iteration, budget, just experimenting...


I also took the time to set up the oil filter relocation, scavenge pump lines, and a lot of other little things, like fuel lines, vacuum lines etc..

General engine bay view:








and of course, a video to go along with it:



So that's everything coming along pretty nicely. I don't have anymore pictures to post besides these bonus one of the car sitting around on the driveway:





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Old 01-09-2020, 04:53 PM   #14
AWD BRO
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Default

Not sure if anyone could tell, but I wrote those last two posts in hindsight, well after the fact. It's winter now and this car has been sitting untouched since the middle of August.
Here's what happened:



After countless issues with the merged wiring harness, I was able to get the car together enough to start the engine. It started up and ran kinda weird, I chalked it up to the untuned large injectors and an open downpipe.
So I went about trying to tune to compensate for what I thought was a fueling issue.

The more I ran the engine, the more I realized there was something mechanically wrong which seemed to be a misfire. I checked everything from the injectors, to the coil packs, to the spark plugs... no luck.
The last thing I deciding to check was the timing, before pulling the engine for compression and leak down.. Well as it turns out, the timing was WAY OFF. I'm talking like 10 teeth!!!!

Keep in mind, I bought this engine used from a friend of mine who though it was in good shape. I didn't bother to service the timing components or even check if it was lined up right. Pretty much just slapped the thing together and focused on the custom turbo setup.

Once I discovered that, I didn't even bother trying to re-time the thing, it was clearly far beyond saving at that point. I essentially just, slapped it back together enough to able to run the engine to move the car around the driveway.



As it sits right now, the car is exactly how it was when I left it at the end of August. The plan right now is to pick back up in the spring and give it another shot.
At that point I probably will re-do a ton of things I half assed when originally putting the whole thing together.
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Old 01-14-2020, 12:00 PM   #15
uofime
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Cool project, I’d bet it’ll work great. Should make plenty of power to trash your rear diff
Maybe try to get your hands on an OEM oil pan for the turbo. I know those turbos don’t love having the scavenge pump pulling directly on the drain.
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Old 01-14-2020, 01:26 PM   #16
KillerBMotorsport
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uofime View Post
I know those turbos don’t love having the scavenge pump pulling directly on the drain.
^ Very true. You will need a sump down there to pull from. Ideally check valves as well.
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Old 01-27-2020, 01:52 PM   #17
AWD BRO
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& (now) 3 other GCs

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Quote:
Originally Posted by uofime View Post
Cool project, I’d bet it’ll work great. Should make plenty of power to trash your rear diff
Maybe try to get your hands on an OEM oil pan for the turbo. I know those turbos don’t love having the scavenge pump pulling directly on the drain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KillerBMotorsport View Post
^ Very true. You will need a sump down there to pull from. Ideally check valves as well.

I became aware of this after running the engine for the little time that I did.
I've got the OEM turbo sump sitting on my shelf, ready to be put on in the spring!
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Old 03-18-2022, 02:28 PM   #18
danscomp
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Super interested in this, any progress?
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Old 03-19-2022, 12:37 AM   #19
Kostamojen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by danscomp View Post
Super interested in this, any progress?
If you are interested in this, a far far easier route would to be a complete 2010-2012 Legacy GT engine and use all the components from that then just weld on a flange to that header for the FA20DIT turbo. Would solve many issues seen here with hose locations, oil flow and what not.

You could also run a reversed intake manifold to shorten the charge pipe length and front mount piping to almost zilch. Would be a crazy responsive turbo setup.
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Old 03-19-2022, 02:15 PM   #20
ether947
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EJ207 version 8

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kostamojen View Post
If you are interested in this, a far far easier route would to be a complete 2010-2012 Legacy GT engine and use all the components from that then just weld on a flange to that header for the FA20DIT turbo. Would solve many issues seen here with hose locations, oil flow and what not.

You could also run a reversed intake manifold to shorten the charge pipe length and front mount piping to almost zilch. Would be a crazy responsive turbo setup.
Agreed. Although, I think the low-mount LGT oil pan would fix the header clearance issues. I remember someone making the FA20 header work by elongating the mounting flanges. I'll post the link to the setup if I can find it. If the LGT oil scavenge pump can be retrofitted that would be great too.
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Old 03-28-2022, 10:01 AM   #21
danscomp
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Interesting, it would be nice an easy to run the LGT pan/header combo. Wonder if it has the same "anti slosh" as the GD STI pan.

No problem on the fab stuff, just finding a legacy GT being parted out near me might be tricky
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Old 03-29-2022, 02:05 PM   #22
con.fetti
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This is a big undertaking. Curious to see how it goes
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Old 03-29-2022, 04:34 PM   #23
DillChill_36
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love a good experiement, for science!
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