wires help - swapped from aircooled to watercooled

[rich r]

Not that it helps, but I can confirm that the Gen 2 Legacy H4 engines will run well enough to move the car on just two cylinders, and apparently the six cylinder ones will just about cope with three not firing, or indeed with broken conrods or missing spark plugs.

I know the first from experience (duff coil on one of my old 2.2s), luckily not the second. But there are some stories from the Australian forums of people limping home over 200km with fewer than the usual number of cylinders contributing, or indeed with no coolant. Rectified when they got back and went on to run for another 100,000km with no issues.

I do like my Subaru Legacys - I've had three 1996 Gen 2s: 2.0 twin turbo GTB, 2.2 NA manual estate, 2.2 NA auto saloon (on LPG) and currently have a Gen 4 3.0 Outback (converted by Simon)

[Brian_H]

Hi, no I didnt leave any of old exhaust in place, new exhaust system fitted.

It has crossed my mind how the reducer would have got it's temps though with no coolant throughput?

My understanding is that you have some way of obtaining heat from the exhaust and getting it to the vapouriser - I've not seen or done anything on that front, but would assume this would probably be down to pumping liquid around a suitable point in the exhaust and circulating it around the vapouriser.

The only other way i could see you could do it would involve heating the gas directly from the exhaust - bear in mind your not looking to heat the gas really, but more to stop the vapouriser and injectors freezing up (as this will destroy the rubber bits inside them as they try to flex to do their jobs and can't at the low temperature). The only other way to achieve the same thing would be to have some way to heat the vapouriser from another heat source besides the exhaust (you don't really want to use the oil for a couple of reasons - Main one being a leak could prove to be disasterous, and also the vapouriser isn't intended to have engine oil running through it so could impact it working reliably as well)

Simon can hopefully provide more info on that, though you removed what was originally fitted so hopefully that would give some idea of what was being done originally.

[LPGC]

Hi, no I didnt leave any of old exhaust in place, new exhaust system fitted.

It has crossed my mind how the reducer would have got it's temps though with no coolant throughput?

Because the liquid gas feed to the reducer was preheated by exhaust heat via a heat exchanger. When gas changes phase (liquid to vapour) there's a cooling effect which is why reducers are usually plumbed to an engine's heater water circuit, but the cooling effect is more of by a number of degrees from the liquid phase than to a certain temperature... So if you preheat the liquid gas a reducer can stay warm enough to work properly without having warm water circulated through it.

Post crossed with Bri's due to me breaking off to eat tea since starting this post.

[LPGC]

@rich-r
Hi Rich,
I've got a Mazda Bongo in the yard to convert who reckons someone on Legacy forum recommended me (Bongo is here for a fortnight while it's owner is on holiday but had an Elgrand collected today and have a Maserati to work on at the moment).
Anyway...

I haven't been on Legacy forum for a long time, in fact since I was 'placed on review' for helping several owners of Legacy's converted elsewhere with a particular brand of LPG system which all didn't run properly on LPG.. you'll probably know the story! After giving tech tips to one owner who'd suffered 8 months of LPG problems since his system was first fitted the owner took exception to my saying he'd had bad service and shouldn't have had to put up with the problems.. after taking exception he threatened the Legacy forum with legal action... which resulted in mods deleting the respective content and putting me on review.

Mention of the Legacy forum reminded me to have a browse and it seems there's been a few mentions of me from people wanting my help since I was last on, and it also seems I missed a PM from DazRSK in June 2017 in which he told me I had 24 hours to sort my content out or he'd delete it. I replied to DazRSK's message yesterday but haven't heard back from him yet. Probably no love lost between us due to previous arguments on his pro electric vehicle threads but I wonder if he's seen my message or messages from other users asking if I can help... Maybe you could ask him mate?

Mind you... I still get plenty of custom from the Legacy forum even without being present.. I imagine due to PM's. Converted another Legacy a few weeks ago.

[rich r]

Simon - to be honest, DazRSK is a very difficult character. I often end up just ignoring him I'm not on there as much as I once was.

Sadly I suspect my current Legacy (Outback) might be my last as Subaru UK have stopped importing the models with decent engines - the 270bhp 3.6 litre H6 and turbocharged models are in production for sale elsewhere in the world, but we just get a limp 170bhp H4 Maybe time to get another import perhaps?

[LPGC]

Cheers Rich. I've converted a lot of imported cars over the last few years, seems to be loads of info about importing on relative vehicle model forums. Common topic is is it better to self import / use a UK agent / use a Jap agent. What would you recommend and have you done it before?

[Gilbertd]

Get something over 10 years old. Dead easy to import and register as all that's needed is an MoT. Anything less than 10 years old needs to go through an IVA test, much more expensive and complicated.

[rich r]

I've had one where I was the first UK owner (imported through a company that did the whole process), the other ones I've been the second UK owner so all the importing stuff was already done.

But yes, once the Gen V Subaru Outback 3.6 gets to 10 years old (not long now), then that may be an option. Though there's a lot of work to get things like the satnav and radio working in the UK as they're integrated into the dashboard. So much easier when radios were all simple DIN units and satnav was stuck to your windscreen

I'm a big fan of using Legacy engines in VWs btw - especially the SOHC EJ20 and EJ22, which aren't much different in size to the originals, just with the need to do the coolant system. A good improvement in power, reliability and emissions and means a lot of nice pre-80s VWs can stay on the road.

[LPGC]

There was a period a few years ago when I converted and sold DIY conversion kits for a lot of old air-cooled VW campers that had been fitted with Subaru flat 4's. I asked some of them if they knew each other... they said not so maybe a coincidence.

Seen one old VW van that it's owner had spent over £40k, thousands of hours on and nearly got divorced over. Completely rebuilt from restored shell, 4wd with jacked up suspension, Subaru engine, new camper interior. One for Gilbertd to muse over lol... he reckoned he took it to off-road events where it outperformed Landrover stuff on rocky hill climbs (tempted to voice doubts but nodded instead lol). But it kept breaking CV joints due to the severe angle with high suspension.

A usual place to fit the radiator seems to be underneath parallel with the ground and with no ducting to channel airflow... I did wonder if this provided enough cooling. Where's your radiator @pgtips?