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Love the chrome. I did my intake and bits and pieces including fuel rails and hard vacuum lines with steel-it grey paint. The stuff is amazing and addictive. Yours looks nice and clean. I don’t understand when people spend a pile of money and skip spending elbow grease in cleaning up the old motor.?
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On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 6:28?PM SubieVanagon via groups.io <wklail@...> wrote:
Having gained some confidence with the powder coating, I cleaned and sandblasted the fuel injector rails and guards. ?I coated the rails yellow and one guard chrome and one in bright yellow. ?
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Then I got into that tangle of wires that live under the intake manifold. ?What a mess. ?They were dirty and grimy and sticky, etc. ?So I cleaned them and re-wrapped them and finally got them reinstalled. ?
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Having gained some confidence with the powder coating, I cleaned and sandblasted the fuel injector rails and guards. ?I coated the rails yellow and one guard    chrome and one in bright yellow. ?
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So I received a powder coating kit (Eastwood) as a gift. My wife let me have our old toaster oven to use. Powder coating is incredibly easy. You clean or sandblast the parts to be coated, hook up the machine, spray on the coating, and put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I decided to powder coat my valve covers. Not a pro job but they turned out pretty good. 
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Subaru has used three oil separator plates over the years. First was plastic and I’ve seen pics of them brittle or even melted. Then they used aluminum (which was on mine) but I’ve not seen or heard of issues with them, but the latest offering from Subaru is steel. So I went for it. Not sure if there’s any advantage though.?
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My intake manifold was a mess. Filthy dirty. So I used carb cleaner (lots of it) and cleaned it thoroughly. Then I sand blasted it. Then painted it. Then I removed and cleaned the throttle body.  
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My engine came from an auto Subie but I’m putting it in a MT Vanagon so I had to add the piece above the crank pulley to make sure the timing belt would not skip a tooth or two if the engine should jump backward as when parked on a hill and roll back … 
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Here is a photo of the new oil pump, water pump, timing pulleys, and timing belt. 
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The seal shown in the image was a Felpro seal. It was difficult to install so I pulled it out and bought one at the Subaru dealer. It went right in.?
There were literally some sleepless nights when I questioned whether something was installed correctly. I replaced the new cam seals because I thought I had inserted them too deeply. I took the oil pump back off because I was concerned that the little o-ring slipped out of place while I was installing the pump (it was fine), and I took the timing belt off numerous times because lining up the timing marks was not as straightforward as I thought it should have been. And that Felpro rear main seal caused me to lose some sleep.?
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What’s the benefit of the steel plate? I also did the crank seal and pulleys as well. No end to the money pit. The dealers don’t replace the water pumps or pulleys generally I hear?
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On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 1:44?PM SubieVanagon via groups.io <wklail@...> wrote:
I replaced the oil pump (OEM) and squirted some assembly lube and rotated it a bit, replaced the oil pump/crank seal, replaced the water pump, thermostat (OEM), all idler pulleys (Aisin), timing belt (Mitsuboshi), replaced the cam seals and adjusted the valves. Replaced the rear main seal (OEM), and oil separator plate (replaced the aluminum one with the Subaru steel plate).?
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I replaced the oil pump (OEM) and squirted some assembly lube and rotated it a bit, replaced the oil pump/crank seal, replaced the water pump, thermostat (OEM), all idler pulleys (Aisin), timing belt (Mitsuboshi), replaced the cam seals and adjusted the valves. Replaced the rear main seal (OEM), and oil separator plate (replaced the aluminum one with the Subaru steel plate).?
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The guy I used for my heads felt more or less the same way, but I went new for peace of mind. He said the cam is good, better than the dohc that do need replacing more often and he said the same about bearings. ?
Any thought on switching to the 11mm oil pump? I read it’s better at high rpm but can cause frothing at excessive low rpm. In the van these motors tend to be revving higher than in the Subaru most times. My thoughts anyway?
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On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 8:42?AM todd s via groups.io <tsorel1600@...> wrote:
I would inspect the condition of the bearing journals before spending the money on a full short block. I have pulled a number of 150,000 mile-plus engines down and have almost never found problems with main or rod bearings, let alone problems with the entire case. Also check ring gap and if there is bore taper or ridges but, again, that sort of wear is rare unless the engine has been ran low (or without) oil. I think freshening up the heads and gaskets like you have done and checking the wear on the oil pump is typically sufficient to allow for continued long service life.
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I would inspect the condition of the bearing journals before spending the money on a full short block. I have pulled a number of 150,000 mile-plus engines down and have almost never found problems with main or rod bearings, let alone problems with the entire case. Also check ring gap and if there is bore taper or ridges but, again, that sort of wear is rare unless the engine has been ran low (or without) oil. I think freshening up the heads and gaskets like you have done and checking the wear on the oil pump is typically sufficient to allow for continued long service life.
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I’d also remove the oil pump clean it replace the seals and prime it with assembly lube?
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On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 8:44?PM SubieVanagon via groups.io <wklail@...> wrote:
I took it down this far. ?
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I took it down this far. ?
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The short block is available through subarupartsdeal.com I think for right at $2K.
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Got it on the stand and the party was about to begin!
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I know what you mean about the intake, why are they so dirty? I think mine had 220kms on it or so and likely never had a new PCV so my guess was it was just purging oil into the intake at high revs? the injectors are an easy one to tick off, send to Mr Injector,
he has a three day turnaround and sends you a sheet on what they were and what they are now and is like 22 bucks per and they come back looking brand new. Worth it IMHO.
Just so you budget accordingly the short block was just over 3k and seems to be NLA in canada so likely soon also in the US.?
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From: SubaruVanagon@groups.io <SubaruVanagon@groups.io> on behalf of SubieVanagon via groups.io <wklail@...>
Sent: January 24, 2025 8:29 PM
To: SubaruVanagon@groups.io <SubaruVanagon@groups.io>
Subject: Re: [SubaruVanagon] Warren’s Conversion
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Thanks for the input and suggestions! ?I did not split the case. I found it pretty easy to get it down to the short block, so if I ever need to replace it I’ll order a short block from Subaru for about $2K I think, then put it all back together. I tested
the cam and crank sensors and they passed. ?I replaced the temp, oil, and knock sensors with OEM. ?Basic machining of the heads and installed with new head bolts (OEM) and MLS head gaskets. ?(Finding the correct torque specs was a challenge as they seem to
keep changing). I didn’t clean the fuel injectors and I might live to regret that decision. ?I cleaned the bejesus out of the intake manifold and throttle body and thoroughly cleaned all components related. ?Replaced those short pieces of fuel injection line
with new stuff. ?
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Warren
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