Final assembly on our 2002 Subaru EJ20 | Redline Updates - Hagerty Media

Davin can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to our little Subaru WRX engine. Every engine is essentially a thousand-piece puzzle in which some pieces are obvious and others are quite tricky. Down to the last few pieces, it’s time for this EJ-series flat four puzzle to not only have all it’s pieces together, but for it to run.

The first steps is right where last week left off. The valve covers need to go on with a fresh gaskets before the engine stand is spun to allow for the assembly of all the intake tract bits. Those valve covers also have the holes for the spark plugs, so a fresh set of plugs go in and the ignition coils snap into place on top of that. While the valve covers were rather intuitive to assemble, the intake tract was not so simple. The complexity of which piece goes on in what order turned this assembly into a 4D puzzle and Davin admits that he got one little piece wrong in the order. We think that’s pretty darn good though.

For those asking where this fine piece of work will be going, the answer is a specially-built test stand. It may look like an eight-foot pallet on top of a work table, but don’t be confused; this is custom stuff. With a crossmember to support the engine, an exhaust left over from the poor blue wagon, and a giant mess of wiring to connect, this is one of the more complicated engines Davin has attempted to run outside of a car. Maybe it will all work perfectly the first try. Maybe it’ll be a nightmare and we will learn why doing a full engine-out re-assembly is fairly rare. No matter what, you’ll see it in the next Redline Rebuild. If you don’t want to miss that, be sure to subscribe to the Hagerty YouTube channel to never miss a new video.

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