Veldin's 2014 Subaru BRZ gets a 2JZ.
 

03/19/2018:

Hello everyone! Another build thread here...

I'm going to be 2JZ GTE vvt-i swapping my 2014 BRZ (20k miles on it currently in stock form). Power goals are somewhere between 500 and 800. It's a broad range because initially I want to stay on the lower end of the spectrum. But once i'm comfortable with everything i'll be turning it up and letting her eat.

Currently I am just gathering parts. My friend Eathen will be lending a hand with things that require a second set of hands, otherwise I plan to do almost everything by myself. We are doing all the work in Eathen's garage because he has much more room than I do.

I will try to document as much as I can but I'm usually more oriented on just getting stuff done rather than stopping to smell the roses.

If you have any questions about your 2JZ swap in an 86 platform please feel free to message me.

Some honorable mentions for this project are:

Pure Automotive Performance - These guys hooked me up with my MoTec 130, plug and play harness, trans and engine mounts, radiator, exhaust manifold, CD009 trans, Maverick trans adapter kit, Spec twin disc, etc etc. I got most of my stuff here and for great prices too. They took most of my money lol

A Star Fabrication - This is a local company that sold me most of my head components including cams, valves, and valve springs. They will be assembling the head as well.

Got various pieces of my parts on eBay, RockAuto and also Amazon.

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10/24/2018:

I wrote some BS here about how this whole thing is fitting into my budget, that was 8 months ago... now i'm about double what I intended on spending so that's cool. This swap is EXPENSIVE! Way more than I thought it would be and I thought I was fairly experienced with swaps...

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11/xx/2018:

Taking a long break during winter on this and bringing the car home to hibernate. Eathen needs the space in his garage to work on some cars and make some money. I'm sure he will do plenty while my car is gone so I don't mind one bit to tow the car out and tow it back in at a later date. There is no reason for me to spend so much energy and extra money heating a garage when I can just finish this when it warms back up. I'm in no hurry.

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03/27/2019:

The car is back at my buddy Eathen's house and I will start wrenching on her soon! Stay tuned...

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05/21/2019:

Plodding right along here, installing some finishing touches. Sometime next month, the car should be ready to fire up for the first time. It's exciting!

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08/16/19

Super close to firing up. Not nearly as quick as I originally intended due to little things here and there taking entirely too long. I have to add fluids and run the wiring harness and it should be ready to fire up for the first time. Maybe another week or 2 since I have other stuff going on as well and my wedding's coming up in October.

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09/02/19

Car turns over but does not start. Working on uploading a revision to the M130 ecu. Fuel pressure is good and no leaks present. Should start really soon. Turns out some of the pins on the harness were not correct for my sensors and the car wouldn't start. Will fix this and update you guys.


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10/30/19

The car is being tuned currently. At 15psi on 93 octane is totally destroys the high performance 265's on it in 2nd and 3rd gear. We will do some more fine tuning but the next big thing is to get a better tire on the car. Once I go with e85 in the Spring and really start adding more boost it's going to be a shit show. I'm thinking NT555R in the rear but I will update the thread once I make a purchase.

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04/21/2020

I purchased Nitto NT555R's for the rear and I got new wheels as well as NT05's for the front. They are 17's instead of the 18's I had on there. Going to look killer with the new Subaru 4/2 pot calipers.

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07/13/2020

Tuning on e85 has been a blast so far. I'm running into a few small issues but currently i'm at about 22psi and on nt555r's i'm getting a lot better traction but still blowing the tires off in first and second (even with lower boost in these gears). Might put it on a dyno this fall but not too concerned with the actual number. I'm easily over 600whp at the moment but not done tuning yet. Hoping to send boost up as much as this little turbo can go and be over 700whp.

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10/5/2020

My tuner and I are pretty much done with tuning on both 93 and e85. The car is 100% flex fuel now and we have 2 separate maps for it. One map has roughly 19 psi and it's pretty much what I currently run. The other map is about 24 psi and is not really usable. By that I mean, there's no traction once boost kicks in. Working on setting up the Motec traction control and we should be in business to turn it up!

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11/26/2020

Picked up the car from a 1 step paint correction and 5 year ceramic coating. I figured it was time and I want to preserve how nice this car is.

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3/7/2021

The car has Mickey's ET Street SS in the rear now. NT555r's weren't cutting it, these Mickey's grip a lot better but have a much lower life span. Oh well, the price you pay to play :D

Car is currently setup at 737 whp and 558 wtq on e85 and 24psi. Exhaust housing is too restrictive to go any higher and we are limiting the torque a bit with safer timing to keep everything happy.


Thanks for following!

If you're just starting to read this thread, here's a sneak peak of the finished product:

https://youtu.be/YOuVFb4L4hQ

https://youtu.be/goacBCc3nrw

The picture I got of the 2jz GTE vvti in the shipping yard somewhere in Cali
https://i.imgur.com/yU4LlwI.jpg

Finally got the engine delivered and unwrapping it
https://i.imgur.com/u14GA4m.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/1KxTZ0p.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/HWaaDnH.jpg

Finally got it on the picker and then remove the crappy auto trans
https://i.imgur.com/QNmCrFT.jpg

An hour later it's on the engine stand, where it will spend it's life for the next month
https://i.imgur.com/DzY7DLX.jpg

The next day I started taking off the intake manifold and exhaust manifold
https://i.imgur.com/U4Zq7C1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YTrquoy.jpg

Couple hours later
https://i.imgur.com/iKBRgdH.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/n7SooQc.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RB6xhdR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XPdnh0b.jpg

Cleaned up all the pistons really well and put some oil in there
https://i.imgur.com/t8PySRR.jpg

This is how the BRZ sits now. It's on the lift, engine ready to come out, I just have to disconnect the transmission.
https://i.imgur.com/TvcMEoH.jpg


Taking the trans out
https://i.imgur.com/I9zFBlx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6SJ93uu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/84onN1A.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/npGHQ3J.jpg

Of course the motivator...
https://i.imgur.com/77oUbRw.jpg

Got the engine out yesterday, now moving onto more fun things!
https://i.imgur.com/NX0OSoR.jpg

This thing below is the biggest pain in my ass. Highly understated on other threads, be prepared for days of grueling labor getting this out!
https://i.imgur.com/VHT3F0u.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/IDfuf5s.jpg

Reserved for pics2

Reserved for pics3

Reserved for pics4

Interesting stable. I get a feeling this is not the first time around this block?

Interested on the s2000 in the background

I've genuinely never turned a wrench on a 1jz or 2jz before in my life. I am coming from a 750whp evo.

It's stock and not for sale but could be tempted with a trade for a BRZ lol.

As I read my original post, saw it would be seen this way!

Meant this is not the first time you have played in the deep end of the mechanical modification pool.

Oh, you are correct. This is definitely not the first time :). And I have both a TIG and MIG welder of my own which i've been using for quite some time. So fabrication isn't an issue, even though I won't need to do much aside from exhaust for this build, thanks to the guys at Pure Automotive Performance.

Hi everyone I am Eathen, I will be helping Veldin with his build, I am little late to posting, but I made it to the first page right? Hope everyone is excited to see the progress made throughout this build. This build will have its struggles and we will keep you updated along the way, because why not? Maybe one day some of you will want to venture on this road. This picture was the a few weeks ago before the BRZ started its new life on the lift.. Enjoy the build and be sure to subscribe!

http://i65.tinypic.com/2n9vlew.jpg



Cheers,

Eathen

Also if possible, put price of whatever "X" part needed to perform the build

With all due respect, the best option is for people to look up online what things cost and source their own parts. Some of the parts I bought were done so via a direct wholesale account. So the prices I put may be against UMAP and may also confuse viewers into thinking they are getting ripped off online.

At the end of the build, I will post every single part on the car, down to the tiniest little thing. Then others can use that as a reference and do their own hunting.

Few more pics added to the first page. Not much going on at the moment, waiting for the cherry picker to be free so I can pull this engine. I've been cleaning engine parts left and right. Everything is filthy on this engine.

Engine is out... It's no huge feat considering only 2 bolts were holding it in after the trans came out.

I bought those spot weld drill bits on amazon everybody was using and they are total trash. I paid $20 thinking they wouldn't be bad but each one was wobbling and did not cut straight. One of them broke 2 teeth and I only did like 3 spot welds before I realized it was way more work than it was worth. So I just too a bigger "normal" drill bit and started going to town. I've done about half the spot welds this way and it's way easier than the stupid spot weld removal bit. Seems like a gimmick to me, or maybe $20 wasn't enough to justify a quality product. Who knows... I'll try to take more pics today.

Yeah the cheap spot weld drill bits from Harbor Freight (which sounds like the one you got off amazon) suck to use. I bought 5 and ended up using every one. They would either get dull, break a tooth, or the centering pin would lose its point and walk off.

Hopefully the spot welds are the last of the issues. :burnrubber:

If only that were possible lol.

I've removed the trans mount brackets out of the trans tunnel. I used a dremel with a small cut off wheel to put an "X" into each spot weld, then I used an air hammer to chisel them off. This technique made it very very easy. I mentioned before I tried a $20 set of spot weld drill bits and they were trash.

Now i'm having a little trouble expanding the trans tunnel. I am using a bottle jack but everytime I expand it and loosen the bottle jack, it goes back to shape. Any pointers for this?

Possibly use 2 bottle jacks spaced apart a little and then let it sit for a day or so. Might work.

I used and air chisel with a hammer bit and a 2.5 pound sledgehammer

Use heat maybe

spread it with a bottle jack then beat it with a hammer to relieve the the metal. Its tough work, but it will clear without cutting out the tunnel lol

Update: Broke a bottle jack... It was an old craftsman so maybe was on its way out but damn. I have not tried to do a bottle jack and beat the metal after, I will give that a shot. i don't want to use heat since I only took the carpet out and there's other things that may be affected inside the cabin by heat. Off to the store to buy a new bottle jack! Also, I will try to find a nice air hammer "hammer/flat" bit.

I didn’t think to use a bottle jack but I can see how that would have helped. I just used an air chisel/hammer on the upper parts and sides of the tunnel and floated it over the area I wanted to push in. Since the tunnel isn’t really solid it vibrates and takes time....it massages the area in more slowly but comes out pretty clean.
https://i.imgur.com/uaq4B3O.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7E5v373.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AYPXzXo.jpg

The bottom and harder areas like the firewall I beat with a sledge hammer and air hammer
https://i.imgur.com/LVNw3T3.jpg

Your doing this on a lift right?

I ended up with tons of broken up sound deadening material under the carpet too. Probably from all the vibration, a real pain tonclean out with the whole interior innokace haha

Yes - on a lift. I will for sure try this method with the air hammer. Which trans is that? the CD009 is a big bitch lol

I took the sound deadening out already, I have my carpet out to make it all easier.

Another update: I sold my engine and transmission from the BRZ! This is a big achievement for me honestly because I was worried I would sit on them for a while. They went quick, less than a month for both. $2500 for the engine, $500 for the trans.

T56....you’ll have your work cut out for you haha

I just ground down certain spots of my t56 and didn't have to beat anything.

With the CD009 i'd prefer to get the tunnel in order. That way if the trans ever shits the bed I can get another and not worry about modifying anything, just drop it in.

The new bottle jack I bought doesn't work sideways..... and I bought the 3 piece flat chisel set from Amazon which came yesterday and they didn't do much. I have a nice air hammer and 30gal compressor. The air hammer barely makes a tiny dent in the metal.

Time to move on for a bit.. The next step is to test fit the trans in the tunnel and see what's what. If I have to take a lot more out, i'll be cutting and welding in new metal. I'm done messing around.... should have done this in the first place most likely. I've spent literally the last 2 weeks manually beating this tunnel up, dropped a bottle jack on my face, all to try and save myself the "extra" work that at this point doesn't feel so extra at all...

I did however get the fuel pumps and hanger installed into the tank yesterday so here's some pics of that:

https://i.imgur.com/nSvmtGh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Z9PJRVg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tqOoMmo.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/MAemyPS.jpg

I was a lot of work to bang that tunnel in for the T56. I was pretty tired.


Did you get the optional wiring kit from radium as well?

What do you think about the plastic nuts meant to hold the terminals down?

Yes I did get the get the optional wiring kit but I haven't looked at it yet lol. Still in the box. I think the plastic nuts are the only questionable part of that kit. I think i'm going to find some stainless nuts to use and maybe use the plastic nuts on top of those just for looks.

How did you go about expanding your trans tunnel?

Did you ever make a decision about how to wire/control the fuel pumps? I replied on two other threads but never heard back.

You replied to me? Or to other people? Cause I normally respond lol.

But the answer is yes I did. I was originally going to use the oem wiring for the primary and run the secondary separately to the MoTec and control it off the intake pressure. This changed slightly when I emailed Sander at Obsidian Motorsports. He is going to help me wire both pumps directly into the MoTec ecu and have the primary controlled as normal and always on, and the secondary come on at 5psi of manifold pressure.

So far Sander has been extremely helpful and I'm very happy to have messaged him since I too was confused on how I was going to run the wiring.

If you have anymore questions please let me know.

The wiring kit was pretty simple. Green fuel pump wire is used simply as a trigger for the relay which feeds power to the pump and the Grey wire is eliminated. Fuel pump and relay get grounded to chassis.

I bought stainless nuts but then I thought about how many times stainless hardware has done me wrong lol. I used the plastic nuts radium supplies...they are quite snug and I figured they must have had a reason for including the plastic ones.

Trans tunnel I used an air hammer and a 2.5 pound sledge hammer....t56 remember?

Ahh yes you did say that. The air hammer isn't working well for me, likely due to my 30 gal compressor maybe being too small. I may snag a small sledge and give that a shot.