So - thought I would put a little update on the thread since I havent added anything since our last trip out in Oct!
Things are moving on fairly rapidly and there are some large changes afoot that will perhaps upset some of the Aircooled Purists.
To clarify if not justify my changes the mindset came after a rather expensive engine failure where a £3 valve stem shattered and destroyed the left hand side of my engine just before a trip to Europe and after a rolling road session. Thankfully I have the skills as a Mechanical engineer to rectify these failures and have always replaced components with the very best available however I became wary of the crap quality of the parts available on the market for us classic vehicle owners - and there arent any OG quality parts out there for our old motors/boxes.
I toyed with the idea of a big aircooled motor and 6 rib box to get more practical use out of Murphy however most avenues led to the same suppliers and crap pattern parts along with massive build costs for aircooled motors - even a warm 1776 was hitting the £2500 mark using my old engine as a base never mind the costs of gearbox rebuilds and potential future failures. The bigger the engine, the bigger the bill when it goes wrong - even when the part is pence that failed.
So this led me to alternative engines/solutions, I wanted to keep it straightforward and follow the path others have also laid so flat four power it was - and for the last couple of months I have been working on rebuilding a 2.5 litre EJ25 Engine from a 2001 Subaru Legacy that outputs roughly 170bhp mated to a flipped (SubaruGears) crate 5 Speed Subaru gearbox that has zero miles on it. Ive had the loom converted professionally so it is a simple plug and play affair - apparently!!
Before I complete a lengthy build thread that will be done in the next couple of months once im rolling again I still have to install the components as the bus has no box, engine or loom. Ive spent a few months stripping and rebuilding the engine from a short block - they are evolved aircooled engines with a water jacket so not difficult to work on.
For an idea of conversion costs for those interested by the time I am done and up driving again I will be around the £5800 - £6000 mark all in and I have paid to have the engine sourced and gearbox and loom converted professionally. Everything else is being done by me.
Pic is of the 99% complete engine after 100's of hours in the garage as a teaser. Happy new year to you all peeps and see you all in a field somewhere in the next couple of months.
