EJ20G refresh thread, was "A few EJ20G questions"

[PhyrraM]

I recieved my EJ20G from FranticFour this week. The milage tag says 78,331 Kilometers.



Seems in OK condition. I started the teardown to do some minor wiring and cleaning. I noticed that the power steering lines were cut coming out over the front of the motor. I quickly compared this to my SS and noticed a difference. The SS ones do not even come forward. They go from the pump straight back.


I spent about 5 hours (yeah, I'm a loser) seaching Legacy/Liberty pics. I found exactly 3 engine bay pics that have these hoses. Must have seen over 100 that don't. Looks like there is some type of rare(?) factory power steering cooler.


You can see them coming over the radiator in this pic. Anybody know anything about this? Looks like I might need to source another set of "normal" EG20G PS hoses. Or add a cooler.

After getting the intake manifold off I was a bit alarmed to see what I feel is a lot of deposit on the back of the intake valves.


This is the best pic I could get, but it's like that on all 8 intake valves. Is this something to be worried about? Does this merit pulling the heads to check the chambers? I only plan on running this motor for a few months while the EJ22T block gets built, but you know how that goes sometimes.

Opinions greatly appreciated.

[93forestpearl]

Hmmm. Looks like there was lots of crud running through the intake. I haven't seen intake ports that dirty, but then again I have not torn apart a non-USDM motor.

[gto7419]

There was some crud like that in the heads I bought a while ago - I managed to clean it all out, but it took a while... I had a feeling there was a whole lot of crankcase pressure from blowby or cracked piston and oil kept shooting into the pcv system and obviously went back into the intake - mixing with gas and crap from the air. The crud in mine was this really nasty sticky film...

Does the crud go into the manifold?

On the cooler - Why not use your regular power steering pump? Will your stock one fit?
A lot of newer cars use power steering coolers, but seriously, unless the setup was having issues before, theres no need, and its just one more thing to break...

Danny

[Matt Monson]

Only some cars got the power steering cooler. And it's really not a cooler but just a trombone of hardline that goes up by the radiator and back. You can try to find one, but good luck! Just use your SS power steering stuff. It will work, though it won't bolt properly to the EJ20G manifold.

The heads concern me more. I have torn down a lot of Ej20's and that's the most crud I have ever seen. Maybe it's all PVC related and there is nothing to worry about. Take off the throttle body and tell us what that looks like or take pics. Same thing with the inlet plumbing on either side of the turbo...

[PhyrraM]

Turbo inlet side




Turbo outlet side





Throttlebody



Manifold intake ports

Nothing looks that alarming in these parts, so where is the crud coming from? The fuel?

I think I'm gonna leave the heads on. I'll try to get a leakdown test done, but don't have a kit or a compressor yet.

As far as the P/S lines goes, I did notice that the stock SS lines would work, but I would like everything to look as stock as possible as this swap will need to get smogged one day.

[mr soul]

Glad to see the motor arrived OK! Thanks again.

The whole intake assembly actually looks very clean IMO

Looks like maybe just the valves on the one cylinder are not sealing as well as the others. If you pulled the heads, you could lap all the valve seats yourself. Just takes time and patients. Otherwise, I wouldn't see any problem just running it as is.


Also, I found a power steering cooler in my parts piles. I could send it to you if you want one. Or like others have said, just run your SS pump and lines and it will look factory.

[PhyrraM]

If it's just a loop of tubing, then I would just as soon run a real cooler or no cooler.

I didn't realize it when I first posted, but I need to use my SS lines anyways, as the ends that go to the rack on the EJ20G have been cut when the engine was removed. If I wanted to utilize the cooler lines I would need to strip both my SS hoses and the EJ20G hoses down to just the metal tubing and have new rubber crimped between them. I'll save that project for later.

Also, just for the record in case anybody searching later stumbles upon this thread, the PS reservoir for a car with a PS cooler has the return nipple angled differently than a normal one. It's not a problem as I have 3 PS pumps/reservoirs to choose from.

[PhyrraM]

I found a few more anomalies I wanted to point out and see if anybody knows about them.

First my EJ20G has no purge solenoid. The harness has no connector for one either. There is a pipe under the manifold that goes straight from the throttlebody nipple to the charcoal canister.

In the picture you can see it starts in the upper center near the throttlebody and runs without interuption out the front of the manifold in the lower right. From there it goes to the canister. Is it possible that some BC/BFs had the purge soleniod mounted off the engine near the charcoal canister? On the EJ22t this line is split with the soleniod in the path of flow to the throttlebody. My '92 EJ20G wiring diagram show a purge solenoid in the manifold harness, however this engine does not have one.

Second, along with the power steering cooler mentioned above, this engine has a sensor or soleniod on the power steering pump. Is this variable assist? Once again the wiring diagram I have been using makes no mention of this.

This is the device and connector on the back of the pump. Maybe this and the cooler were part of a package together?

This is the connector for it in the EJ20G manifold harness. At first I mistook this for the purge soleniod. But it is definatly not. (the purge soleniod in the pic is not from the EJ20G, it is from a plain EJ22.)

Neither of these is a big deal, but I figured I would throw it out there to see what people knew. Plus some of us are information hounds and I figured they might like to see it.

I will add the purge solenoid to the EG20G manifold as the EJ22t ECU is looking for it. I will use my original P/S pump.

[PhyrraM]

I think I found a possible answer to the build-up behind the valves. Only 2-3 HLAs have thier full range of motion. Most only have a fraction of the full range before they stop compressing. Another 3 are completely stuck fully extended. This means that at least 3 of the valves were not closing all the way. It is possible that they got stuck after the engine was taken out of service, but that seems less likely to me. The little bit of oil that was left in the gallies and filter seems to support that dirty oil might have left deposits in the HLAs.

Current internet rumor has it that these are the exact same HLAs that are used in BC/BF SOHC EJ22s. I plan to pull apart my spare EJ22T heads over this weekend to confirm this. Assuming that this does indeed turn out to be the case, are EJ22T heads worth saving? I could hit the local junkyard and tear apart non-turbo heads for the HLAs if somebody wants my spare turbo heads.

I knew what I was getting into. I bought a USED engine. I hold no resentment or bad feelings to the vendor I bought the engine from. Actually I feel good that I supported a LegacyCentral vendor. But, I would be fibbing if I said I wasn't a bit dissappointed. I paid a premium on the engine and then had it shipped in the hopes of improving my chances at a better engine. I feel a little bit like somebody pulled a full house against my three of a kind.

Again, no ill will towords the vendor. Just had to vent a bit to somebody that understands.