Wondering about tuning OBD1?
 

ok, so my friend just today bought a 1990 Subaru outback with 167k on it.

my other friend has a totalled Legacy turbo sitting at his house and my friend wants to swap the motor into his outback...

now i dont think anyone has done this...
so thats what im wondering about

i know it can be done, but what exactly will need to get done to get it to work

second thing. once it is in, is there a tuner that can tune OBD1? we will be throwing a td04, and a wrx tmic on it at first with stock wrx injectors

also before the motor even goes in, we will be getting the motor built and using ej20heads instead of the SOHC heads on the EJ22t.

any help from tuners would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Paul@DbTuned. I will be calling you about the parts to put into the EJ22 since i will be building my own along with building his. we will probably just send them both to you to be put together. Frankenstein lol

bump

I've never tuned OBD-I. AFAIK, you would have to physically swap out the chip in the ECU. This is easy on some ECU's and harder on others. I used to do this back in the day with my GTI.

-- Ed

my 91 legacy is obdI. well, once i get a replacement turbo, i'd like for you to look at it to see if you can tune it. thanks.

[QUOTE=EQ Tuning;2489948]I've never tuned OBD-I. AFAIK, you would have to physically swap out the chip in the ECU. This is easy on some ECU's and harder on others. I used to do this back in the day with my GTI.

-- Ed[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=chochocho;2490000]my 91 legacy is obdI. well, once i get a replacement turbo, i'd like for you to look at it to see if you can tune it. thanks.[/QUOTE]

I'll be happy to take a look at it, but I highly doubt we can do much of anything with the stock ECU directly. I think the only options would be to run a piggy back setup or switch to a standalone.

Thanks
-- Ed

i see. do you have any particular piggyback or standalone setup that you prefer?

Outbacks weren't made until 1995, so that's not what's sitting in his backyard. Motor swaps are only smog legal if every emissions component is carried over, and you get the car ref'd, and the car the motor is from has to be the same year or newer than the chassis it's going into.

There's no reflash for OBD 1 cars, becuase you don't have any sort of interface for them; you have to physically swap out the chip or the entire ECU, and there's nothing in the US market that will do it - you're looking at Australian or Japanese solutions, and BAR doesn't like piggybacks or standalones, either.

Trust me, I've owned 3 Legacy turbos (all of which had ECU issues to some extent, heh). Engine management is an issue; you're going to end up with boost controllers, SAFC's, etc, which mean you're doing a lot of hacking and don't have any direct logging, only wideband tuning. All of this assumes a full wiring harness swap, etc. You're better off rebuilding the Legacy Turbo.

[quote=sybir;2490451]Outbacks weren't made until 1995, so that's not what's sitting in his backyard. Motor swaps are only smog legal if every emissions component is carried over, and you get the car ref'd, and the car the motor is from has to be the same year or newer than the chassis it's going into.

There's no reflash for OBD 1 cars, becuase you don't have any sort of interface for them; you have to physically swap out the chip or the entire ECU, and there's nothing in the US market that will do it - you're looking at Australian or Japanese solutions, and BAR doesn't like piggybacks or standalones, either.

Trust me, I've owned 3 Legacy turbos (all of which had ECU issues to some extent, heh). Engine management is an issue; you're going to end up with boost controllers, SAFC's, etc, which mean you're doing a lot of hacking and don't have any direct logging, only wideband tuning. All of this assumes a full wiring harness swap, etc. You're better off rebuilding the Legacy Turbo.[/quote]


they did make an outback in 1990

its properly known as the 1990 Subaru Outback Legacy.

another thing with the location of the car. in Calaveras county you smog the car once in its life time. the donor car is a 1991 Legacy turbo properly known as a 1991 Subaru Legacy SS.

so after putting the car together smog is not an issue. Up here there are also no laws about Catalytic Converters. As long as the vehicle passed smog at some point in time when the car was bought or previous owner recently smogged it the car is done being smogged.

so Engine Management is basically out of the question. it would come from Fuel, Timing, and boost control? that is doable.

thank you Sybir for the shared knowledge it is very appreciated for further knowledge. my friend is very interested in doing this swap and was wondering about it.

[QUOTE=chochocho;2490073]i see. do you have any particular piggyback or standalone setup that you prefer?[/QUOTE]

I'm not a fan of piggy backs in general as they offer relatively little control. AEM is one of my favorite standalones.

Thanks
-- Ed