25 ST-R? It's time for VR-4 power!

[crazydriver81]

Hi folks!

As some of you know, I have my 25 ST-R since 2007 now. And I love this car. But 175hp (especially combined with the 4-speed A/T) isn't much of fun. It is more a cruiser. Hence we all around here like performance cars, it was the time now, to change the power plant in my car.

Guess what, I have bought myself a FL Legnum VR-4 shell from 1999 (from the car, German-Dave is breaking) with all necessary bits in it (engine, A/T, FL-ECU, wiring loom). I will collect the shell tomorrow and will take some pics.

I'll put this powerplant in my 25 ST-R, without putting the AYC rear diff in. From what I know, the rear diff on a ST-R shall be the same like a VR-4 Type-V rear diff. So hopefully this will work out well. Further, I am not quiet sure, if the interior loom will fit the engine loom, as I think there will be differences between ST-R and VR-4. If necessary, I have to change the interior loom as well.

Before putting the engine in, I'll carry out a complete service to it with cambelt etc. So if you chaps need some proper pics please let me know. I can take some detail pics of the engine / cambelt side, once the engine is out.

I plan to update this thread regularily, depending how the work goes. Unfortunately I can only do this at weekends, so I plan 3-4 weeks for all of this stuff. We will see how it goes.

That's all for now.

[Nick Mann]

[MarkSanne]

Exciting!
On a sidenote: I've been wondering / fantasizing if I should create a (the first?) VR2 wagon one day?!
I love the legnum, but it's so heavy!

[crazydriver81]

Mark, you will be to late. There are a number of VR-2 Galant Estates in Germany already, made by Teske Motors in Berlin... Except the fact, that Mr. Teske is an a**hole, the conversions are of good quality. Further they offer a RHD/LHD conversion for jap. imports.

Anyhow, as the ST-R is a 4WD chassis. So I hope there won't be too much problems with the conversion. Fingers crossed...

[MarkSanne]

Good to hear others have gone the same (a bit crazy) way Still, converting a ST-R to VR4... don't think I've seen that before! Keep up updated and don't be shy with pictures please

[Ryan]

I had my suspicions that you'd be doing this Stefan - good luck and look forward to seeing the progress

[scott.mohekey]

The open rear diff from the str will work fine with the vr4 drive train. In fact, the prop shafts in both are near identical. You'll be wanting the transfer case from the vr4 though, as the STR one is smaller.

[crazydriver81]

@ Mark: I thought about buying a VR-4 directly and selling my ST-R or convert it. As the 8G's have a serious problem with rust and my ST-R chassis is free of this nasty stuff, I want to keep ist and "just" swap the engine over.

@ Ryan: We'll I have a company car now, so I do not need the Legnum as a daily driver -> Hence I can afford the fuel consumption.

@ Scott: Thanks for this important input. The TF case is included with the A/T box, so will have this part for my conversion. By the way, does anybody know if the front driveshafts from an ST-R will fit for my VR-4 conversion? Or do I need the driveshafts from a VR-4? cheers

[crazydriver81]

This is what I collected today... VR-4 engine plus A/T gearbox, complete loom and ecu etc...

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[Nick Mann]

Let the project begin!!

[MarkSanne]

Sorry for offtopic, but I can't help myself as I see a black 6G in the first picture. Anyone you know Stefan? Looks goooood!
And most of all: good luck with this project!

[crazydriver81]

@Mark: No problem. Yeah, I know the owner very well. This is one of my old cars, a 1991 Galant Viento with 4G67 N/A engine. A very good friend of mine owns it now. He want's to sell and upgrade to a 6G VR-4. If you are keen, just let me know.

@all: Can anyone explain, why the A/T gearbox hasn't got any external filter? How do I service this box correctly? Only flush it with fresh fluid or anything else I should keep in mind?

[Ryan]

@all: Can anyone explain, why the A/T gearbox hasn't got any external filter? How do I service this box correctly? Only flush it with fresh fluid or anything else I should keep in mind?

As far as I know, facelift VR-4's only have an internal ATF filter.

[crazydriver81]

DAY1:
We started to rip the engine out, so fenders off and there we go. So far I do not know if I need to swap the small looms which are running behind the front fenders as well. From what ASA says, we only need the engine loom itself (harness control, like ASA says).

Can anyone please confirm if the engine wiring loom, which connects to the ECU, can be split from the rest of the interior loom / engine bay loom? So that I can take the engine out with attached loom? I do not want to disconect anything, unless it is necessary, because I am afraid of putting this stuff together again.

After two hours we had to stop working on this. We expect to have the engine out at the weekend, but it depends on spare time. so far the chassis loom had been disconnected from the engine loom and we dropped all fluids out.

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DAY2:
"Can anyone please confirm if the engine wiring loom, which connects to the ECU, can be split from the rest of the interior loom / engine bay loom?"
Yes, this can be done! engine/gearbox loom can be taken out seperately, without need to remove interior looms or attached engine bay loom.

Completed a bit more now. The car has a mileage of 172,000kms and no bolt or nut has snapped. WOW! The drive shaft nuts had been covered with black laquer, so no rust had a chance to get there. We were able to push the driveshaft out with 1 finger!!! Also the nuts behind cat converter and on the turbo outlet came off easily. The engine will be out today. SUCCESS!

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DAY3:

A little update today, as we took everything out of the breaker. What you can see from the picture is, that the front rocker cover seal is leaking. Other than that, the engine is dry. We will give it a good steam clean, prior to put it in.

However, we can not put the engine in the following weekend, as the poly engine mounts will not arrive in time. We will start with the cambelt service, new plugs and the rocker cover gasket. Further we will prepare the intercooler piping and mount the intercooler.

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DAY4:

Just a small update. As expected, some of the parts have not arrived in time. So we spent just some time for the timing belt service and used rest of the time for the 1990's Colt with Evo-engine project. Interesting was, that I ordered most of the parts as blue print parts from a japanese parts specialist. What I received, you can see in the picture. Same parts as if ordered via Mitsi but less than half the price! Still missing are the poly engine mounts, Amsoil stuff and the parcel from NJ. Will go to the workshop today (after I have finished my regular work) and prepare the engine mounts to fit the poly bushings. Next thing is to dismantle the ST-R to get access to the necessary cables. So out with the co-driver's seat and the center console...

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DAY5:

Today we took out the rubber bushings from the engine mounts and inserted the poly mount from the states. I could not imagine, how we would have done that without a press. Further it might be interesting to know, that the upper engine mount is a hydro mount, filled with oil. We had to wipe the oil from the floor after pressing this out...

We also started to pull things from the ST-R apart. So far everything is out, to have access to the engine loom. Tomorrow we will rip the old V6 N/A out! The weekend will be used to put the 6A13TT in and put the rest of the car back together.

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DAY6:

The old V6 is out. I tried to put the 6A13TT in and hoped, the Al-subframe of my ST-R can be kept. Unfortunately it turned out, that the gearbox was fouling at the ST-R subframe. The engine was near to be in but there was 1cm or so needed to line all mounts up. So we had to take the engine back out and needed to change the subframe as well. I used this day to complete the engine, change spark plugs and mount a new intake manifold gasket as well as the missing spark plug cables. I also found a cable, pinned out of a plug. But I don't found a plug, missing this cable. Can anyone help please and explain, where this belongs to?

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DAY7:

Today my headache started. We tried to pull the steel subframe of the breaker apart. Everything went well, until we tried to loose the last bolt from the subframe. It turned out, that the bolt and the metal sleeve in the rubber bushing had rusted to one unit. We tried everything, but in the end we had to cut the bolt. Now I am there with a steel subframe, needing 2 new bushings. I have to talk to a friend, if he can make some polyurethane ones. If not, I possibly need another subframe. If I can solve that, the 6A13TT will be in in some hours.

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DAY8:

THE 6A13TT IS IN! Basically we started to put all things back together. So cleaned the VR-4 subframe and gave it some rust-proofing with satin black laquer. The subframe fitted without any spacers or whatsoever. Afterwards we putted the loom back in place. Again, it fitted the ST-R interior loom without modifications. I am curious to see, if all works as expected (esp. dash board lights). The wires you can see on the engine block are for the oil temp gauge. We fed those cables along with the wiring loom through the firewall.

We also recognized, that the AT shift cable from the VR-4 is different to the ST-R one (length and size of the bolt connecting to the gear selector switch). So this need to be changed as well.

After the engine was in, we recognized, that we had forgotten the alternator. So task for the next time is, to get the alternator in.

Tasks left:
- install the alternator
- install VR-4 gear selector cable
- install the front drive shafts and put the front axle back together
- install IC piping
- install the downpipes
- connect the boost gauge and the oil temp gauge

Here are some more pictures. They guy with the hammer is my mechanic (owner of a Mitsi workshop at 24 yrs!) and the other guy is my metal fabricator (junior boss of a company).

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DAY9:

Some more things are back on the car now. Driveshafts are in, suspension bolted together, propshaft back on.

Tasks left:
- install the alternator - done!
- install VR-4 gear selector cable - done!
- install the front drive shafts and put the front axle back together - done!
- install IC piping
- install the downpipes
- connect the boost gauge and the oil temp gauge

sorry guys and lads, no time to take pics yesterday...

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DAY10:

Engine and all parts are in and we fired the car the first time yesterday. It seems as one or 2 cylinders are not working. We have to investigate this in detail because there are no failure codes stored in the ECU.
Further the bloke I bought the wreck off has fooled me. The FMIC supplied with the wreck was not the one, belonging to the car. The breaker was a FL and the IC was from a PFL car. So no hose to connect the IC properly. We decided to mount an Evo 3 FMIC only for test purposes. This will be changed to the 600x300 FMIC I have in the workshop already.
I also noticed, that the rpm-meter is not working, although the ECU gets a signal. I expect this is due to different connections between ST-R and VR-4 instrument cluster loom. So I have to change this loom too.

We tested the ECU yesterday with the MUT-III computer and this is working as expected. It stores fault codes and displays it in the instrument panel. Due to the misfire problem, we did not make the first test run yesterday.

So chaps, I will need your help now. So please see the separate thread in the engine forums.

And here are some more pics...

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What have we found so far:
- car has the OWC gearbox with "EZB" in the end, so no external filter and probably the weak wave spring - anyone to confirm? (thread on OZVR4 is a bit confusing...)
- engine and gearbox are not leaking in general
- engine does need new rocker cover gaskets
- coolant color was bright green
- engine oil was fine
- gearbox oil was in a bad (brown-ish) state, but nearly no metal parts came out with the oil
- after having a closer look at the turbos, I can say that they are fine (no play and near to no oil in the pipework)

Already ordered parts:
- all parts for the cambelt service inc. water pump - full service done
- new spark plugs Denso PK20PR-P8 - changed
- 600 x 300 x 76 FMIC inc. silicone hoses - to be installed
- ATF from Amsoil - filled
- ASL 5W-30 engine oil from Amsoil - filled
- rocker cover gasket & plug seals - to be done
- all oil seal rings from the cambelt side - done
- poly engine mounts - done
- new water radiator - installed


That's it for now...

[The Vee]

Sounds like a good project. As far as wiring loom goes, when I did mine I only needed to do the engine bay loom but I had to make it hybrid between V6-24 and VR4 (coil packs ilo distributor etc). If I remember corectly I just had to alter the cabin loom slightly for the Lambda sensor, ecu and Rev counter. As I recall I also dismantled the instrument panel and swapped the rev counter over to keep my original speedo, mileage etc( Hi vis dash). Mine was a manual to manual, so I don't know if you will have to alter any wiring for auto - I would think the auto ecu will need swapping. Hope that helps a little - good luck with it all.

[crazydriver81]

Thanks Andrew. You had a V6 and put in the VR-4 engine, correct? Did you swap the engine loom too or did you just left the V6 loom?

[The Vee]

Yes V6 out and VR4 in. Took the engine loom out and made one out of the V6 and VR4 loom to work.

[The Vee]

This may help a little:
http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthr...ghlight=begins

[crazydriver81]

post #14 updated - total cost so far = 1,742,00 EUR

[crazydriver81]

a little update today...ordered the poly engine mounts in the states. Hopefully they will arrive in time.