vw bus subaru engine conversion

[retromatt]

hi has anyone on here had experiance fitting a vw bus with a subaru engine?
I'm looking at buying a bay window, rolling shell but comes with a subaru legacy engine.
its meant to be a 'relativley' common conversion to do, and there are companys out there selling looms and conversion kits etc i have seen.
just wanted opinions from people who 'know', what sort of hassle is it, compared with just putting an original air cooled engine back in. and what sort of prices am i going to be looking at- I'm told that a loom made for the conversion is around £300, but what else do i need?
thanks for any advice, matt

[nel5on]

Adaptors and flywheel...radiators, gauges, software, time and tools.
www.rjes.com can help with parts. I have not done yet.
Also you can avoid the adaptor and flywheel and go straight for a subigears "reverse" CROWNwheel and use the subaru gearbox too...hmmm 5/6spd!
I haven't done it....but am considering it.

[wightfug]

My mate did this twice on his sandrail (once to 2L then to 2.5L). Unfortunately the Forum where it was all documented closed down but you can look at sandrail#23 if you are on FB (which I am not so don't know how much is documented there).
Also Volkzone and the Samba have lots of info on it - but Rjes as linked is a good place to start. Subaru gears is a good solution but expensive.

[joostvdw]

You'd be better off starting with a t25 WBX or diesel, this way you'd already have all the watercooled stuff ready for the subaru swap. As long as you don't go for a lot of power the stock bus transmission will be fine with an adapter and custom flywheel. Early subaru's have OBD1 which is a lot easier to run as a standalone loom, OBD2 will need a reflash but absolutely doable.

Physically the engine fits, but needs custom subframe and exhaust work obviously.

[discostew38]

I looked into this myself for mine
Starting off with cost I don't know how much you have already but I'm sure the only thing you can use from the donor car is the engine and loom (if you was going that route)
You can buy gearbox adaptors exhausts ECU and loom kits and rads but all are expensive

Gearbox
Like I said you can get adaptors to use the VW box but a stock N/A scooby engine will be putting out 3 times the power the old VW engine was
So don't expect it to last very long
As well as the gearing is pretty low on the std VW box
The best option is use the scooby box and the conversion kit from subarugears but this is also quite expensive

When I looked into it there was two main companies that do the conversion parts for this
And they both have a different way of cooling ie radiator location
And from what research I done it would seem none are that affective

This is all based on the research I done and not actually doing it myself
Now I recon if you use the subaru gearbox and find a way to overcome the cooling it would be a good conversion

But I still think the cost out weighs the end result

Type 4 engine and box would be the easiest option
Or stick with the type 1 and tune it (the options for the type 1 are endless)

[pauly22]

Google search fellows speedshop, they do these engine swaps all the time