How to Build the Subaru FA Engine for BIG Power!

Summary

In this enlightening video by MotoIQ, viewers are taken through the intricate process of building a Subaru FA engine designed for substantial power upgrades. The detailed walk-through reveals how to enhance this engine to withstand up to 500 horsepower, outlining the modifications to internal components such as the crank, pistons, and connecting rods. The session covers the strengths of the FA engine compared to previous models, addressing potential high-performance issues like oiling inadequacies and bolt stresses. Tips are provided on using advanced treatments and precision components to achieve maximum reliability and efficiency from the FA engine—ideal for both enthusiasts and professional builders.

Highlights

• The FA engine crank is robust enough to handle up to 800 horsepower due to cryogenic and WPC treatments. 💣
• Stock pistons in the FA engine are replaced with sturdier, high-performance ones, further lowered for better strength. 🔍
• Direct injection technology improves compression and turbo efficiency, offering a zippier engine performance. 🚀
• Oil flow modifications play a vital role in enhancing engine durability, preventing common failures at high power levels. 🛢️
• Upgraded components like Brian Crower rods and Manley pistons ensure the engine maintains its integrity under stress. 🏎️

Key Takeaways

• The Subaru FA engine can be built for big power, capable of handling up to 500 horsepower without closing the deck. 💪
• Cryogenic and WPC treatments are used to enhance the strength and durability of engine components like the crank and pistons. 🔧
• The FA engine offers significant improvements over the EJ engine, with better oil flow and structural integrity. ⚙️
• Upgrades to connecting rods and other components are crucial for handling high torque and horsepower levels safely. 📈
• Modifications to oil flow and component balance are essential for preventing typical issues like bearing failures and crank whip. 🛠️

Overview

Kicking off with the basics, the video delves into preparing the Subaru FA engine starting from the bottom end. The focus is on utilizing the stock crank that's sturdy enough and making it even stronger through processes like cryogenic and WPC treatments. These enhancements aim at increasing stiffness and bearing support, ultimately boosting the horsepower capacity significantly.

As the tutorial progresses, particular attention is paid to the conversion of certain engine parts like pistons and connecting rods to higher-grade performance components. The talk covers the shift from stock pistons, prone to certain failures, to the robust Manley pistons designed for improved durability and efficiency with high compression and direct injection, ensuring a robust and turbo-ready engine setup.

Finally, the video highlights crucial modifications aimed at optimizing oiling systems and coolant flow to mitigate wear and tear, prevent premature failure, and sustain engine operations under heavy loads. From upgraded oil pickups to superior bearing options, all enhancements ensure that the FA engine is not only powerful but also reliable, preventing the typical pitfalls of high-performance engines.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction to Subaru FA Engine Build The chapter introduces the topic of constructing Subaru FA engines, which has been requested often by viewers. The host plans to demonstrate the building process on a particular engine deemed fit for a video. This FA engine can moderately handle approximately 500 horsepower, and it is noted that the FA engine fundamentally serves as a more refined option compared to the EJ engine.
• 03:00 - 10:00: Bottom End Build: Crankshaft The chapter discusses the necessity and considerations of using a closed deck in engine construction, particularly relevant when power exceeds 600s. Other problems also need addressing at such power levels beyond just closing the deck to ensure the engine's sturdiness. The discussion then transitions to the bottom end build, focusing on strengthening the engine by starting with the use of a stock crank.
• 10:00 - 20:00: Pistons and Rings The chapter titled 'Pistons and Rings' discusses the stock crank in engines, highlighting its durability despite misconceptions about its appearance. The crank's short length contributes to its stiffness, and its design includes significant journal overlap between the main and rod journals, which enhances its strength and stiffness. Additionally, the journal sizes are relevant to its robustness.
• 20:00 - 25:00: Connecting Rods The chapter 'Connecting Rods' describes various features and modifications done to the crankshaft of a Subaru. It highlights the generous support and large bearing area which aids in handling boost pressure. Notably, the crankshaft comes from the factory with chamfered oil holes and built-in reservoirs, something that often needs to be customized in other cranks. The process also involves micropolishing and sending it to CTP for further enhancement.
• 25:00 - 30:00: Oiling and Bearings The chapter explores the use of cryogenic treatment in altering the crystal structure of metals, specifically in the context of crankshafts. Cryogenic treatment is detailed as a process that converts the austenite (a face-centered cubic crystal structure) into martensite (a body-centered cubic crystal structure), which is known to be harder and stronger. The chapter notes that while some martensite is present naturally in the stock crankshaft, the treatment increases the conversion from austenite to martensite, thereby enhancing the metal's properties.
• 30:00 - 45:00: Cylinder Head and Valves The chapter discusses advanced processes used to enhance the strength and performance of engine components, specifically the cylinder head and valves. It focuses on the cryogenic (cryo) treatment, which is explained as an extension of the heat treating process, aimed at improving material strength. Despite skepticism, scientific backing is provided for its effectiveness. Following cryo treatment, parts undergo micropolishing and are then sent for WPC treatment. WPC is described as a Japanese process that further refines the components to ensure optimal performance.
• 45:00 - 44:30: Additional Components and Conclusion The chapter discusses the surface treatment process involving shooting surfaces with tiny ceramic balls at high velocities. The media used in this process includes a dry film lubricant, such as zinc and molybdenum. The exact composition of this media is somewhat secretive, but its effect is to form a hard skin over the surface and embed the lubricant.

How to Build the Subaru FA Engine for BIG Power! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 so we had a ton of requests to do a video on how to build the uh fa series of Subaru engines and um fin got the opportunity to show you on an engine that I think is uh worthy of us doing a video on now uh this engine is for like pretty moderate horsepower I would say that it could probably take about 500 horsepower um the fa engine in base is a prer engine than the EJ and uh I don't
• 00:30 - 01:00 think you have to close decet or anything until maybe you get in the 600s but I mean there's other problems that you have to address if you're going that high besides just again the closed deck but it is pretty sturdy so um you know that being said uh let's start with the bottom end and uh what we're doing to make this bad boy strong um so starting off we're using the stock crank the
• 01:00 - 01:30 stock crank is actually a pretty sturdy piece I know in some of our EJ videos people have commented about how wimpy the crank looks but that's not really true I mean the crank is short uh which helps stiffness it also has a lot of Journal overlap um if you look here you can see the main and the rod journals have overlap in the center now this greatly helps strengthen stiffness also the journal sizes are
• 01:30 - 02:00 pretty generous so there's a lot of support for the crank a lot of bearing area for like boost pressure and things like that uh other things that are pretty cool is the oil holes are um chamfered and they have these little reservoirs in them from the factory and this is a thing that we have to do in a lot of cranks but on the Subaru it comes like that from the factory we get the crank uh we micropolish it and um in this case we uh send it to CTP
• 02:00 - 02:30 cryogenics to get cryogenically treated the cryogenic treatment Str Rel leaves the crank and also converts the asite which is the crystallin metal structure to Marite so we're going from a face Center cubic to a body CED cubic structure it's um Marite is harder and stronger than tinite so we're um you know there's some maride in the stock crank but we're converting more of the last night in the Martin site and
• 02:30 - 03:00 improving the strength it's it's kind of like heat treating so think of cryo as an extension of the Heat Treating process um you know like a lot of people say it's snake oil but there's science behind it and I just told you I guess um so after uh cryo uh micropolishing and cryo um then we s it out to be WPC treated uh WPC treatments like this uh Japanese microing process where the
• 03:00 - 03:30 surface is shot at high velocities with super round really small ceramic balls that kind of look like talcum powder and uh with this uh media they also put like Dry Film Lubricant stuff like zinc and Molly and they're kind of secretive about the exact constitution of that but what it does is it uh kind of forms a hard skin over the surface of the part and also um impinges stri fil lubricant
• 03:30 - 04:00 into the surface and it also puts a Micro dimpled Surface and kind of refines the surface so it's super smooth super lubricious super low friction um so the hard skin uh prevents well helps prevents uh microcracking from propagating in the surface of the material to um turn into big cracks like you know as as you get some fatigue going on so um you you know WPC generally increases
• 04:00 - 04:30 the fatigue strength of a part by about 100% so this is in tensil strength but it's it's more like the amount of Cycles before failure kind of strength so that's improved about 100% so WPC uh reduces uh likelihood of cracking helps fatigue strength uh reduces friction so it's a winter all around um the crank is uh tried from the
• 04:30 - 05:00 factory which also puts kind of like a hard skin over the surface makes the journals more wear resistant that's all good but that's a factory thing um we Precision balance it the balance is pretty good from the factory but uh we take it to the next level and other than that it's a stock crank the crank can probably hold 800 horsepower but um you know there's other things that are not going to do too well in the engine before you hit that point um so that's the crank uh next we'll go to the
• 05:00 - 05:30 Pistons so if you're a Subaru fan you know the Piston is the Achilles heel of ejs um like the EJ uh has a big bar a short stroke and um with the big bar you have a lot of crevice volume around the top of the piston in the area between the top of the piston and then the number one compression ring uh this acts like a trap that stores hydrocarbons and these hydrocarbons can be uh released least into the exhaust in an
• 05:30 - 06:00 unpredictable way um as basically raw uncombusted gas this makes your HC emissions go up so to uh pass our stringent Emissions on the EJ Subaru uh moves the number one ring really high on the piston and that makes the Piston really fragile and uh it breaks ringlands um uh exposes the number one ring to a lot of detonation Force um this is probably one of the major causes
• 06:00 - 06:30 of EJ uh going byby is the failure of the ringland um but on this engine um you know it only runs like an 86 Spore with the 86 stroke which is the same as a lot of popular 2 L engines uh with the longer stroke it kind of helps with torque uh with the smaller bore uh the ring crevice volume is less so the factory can move the ring further down the piston and the Piston is more sturdy
• 06:30 - 07:00 um this is a performance piston it's moved down even more um so you have a really strong piston now um this is a manly piston uh it's for the direct injection the fa20 ddit um one of the things that you got to consider with direct injection is uh you basically should copy the pre-chamber shape that's on the stock piston on your uh moded piston the p
• 07:00 - 07:30 pre-chamber is uh this guy right here uh so the direct injector fires right into here and this little bowl acts like a trap so it keeps all that uh fuel air mixture like right around the spark plug so it ignites easy um direct injection is really awesome like it allows you to be turbocharged but run a pretty high compression ratio like um the EJ is you know the compression is in the eight
• 07:30 - 08:00 depending on what variant you have but um the direct injection engine it's a 10.6 to1 so that really makes things more Snappy it helps fuel economy helps spool the turbo quicker um if you ever drove an fa they're like fun zingy engines not much turbo leg and they actually feel a lot faster than their horsepower would suggest where the EJ kind of maybe feels a little slower than its horsepower might suggest and a lot
• 08:00 - 08:30 of it's due to the high compression ratio and direct injection uh the other thing about direct injection is it puts the fuel right around the uh spark plug area um and so you don't have to worry about as much fuel getting into the crevice area and uh that's another reason why Subaru was able to lower the ring package on on the stock piston to make a stronger piston um you know like if you're making custom Pistons you want to copy this
• 08:30 - 09:00 geometry cuz like let's say you did the flatter top the direct injector might just fire and blow the gas right out the uh right out the exhaust port and you can see in the cylinder head the direct injector kind of fires straight across the Piston so you kind of need this like feature here to uh you know try to keep the fuel from going out out the exhaust port and overlap um this manly piston is uh made out of uh 2618 low silicon alloy for a
• 09:00 - 09:30 turbocharged engine especially if you're running a lot of boost this is probably one of your best choices um it's tough ductal um doesn't it's really hard to like shatter and crack you might have seen my other video where I'm hitting one of these with a hammer compared to a cast piston and uh the 2618 piston take took a pretty big um hammer blow that cracked the cast
• 09:30 - 10:00 piston um one of the drawbacks about uh 2618 is that expands more with heat so you have to run a little bit bigger piston the wall clearance so your piston skirt design is really critical if you want an engine to be uh quiet not rattle around not burn oil and have a long life uh so Manley has pretty good skirt designs uh We've run these Pistons before and they're not that noisy um
• 10:00 - 10:30 some other brands that don't have as good uh computer Sim simulation in their design their 268 Pistons are noisy and they can create false knock with a knock sensor and cause tuning issues but uh not these suckers um it's a pretty sturdy piston um there's a a really big number one ringland it has a pressure Equalization Groove uh this acts like a pressure Reservoir between the first and
• 10:30 - 11:00 second compression ring to kind of helps the second ring um uh get a little bit more tension and hold itself to the cylinder wall better so the overall seal gets better especially at high RPMs um they're all low tension Rings um the uh Rings uh Oil ring is a low tension narrow rail it has a lot of drain back holes so all the all getting scraped off the cylinder walk and like dumping back in the crank case without
• 11:00 - 11:30 much resistance um overall it's a pretty cool piston and with like all manly products it's a really good piston for the money um we pretty much leave the Piston alone but uh we WPC treated it in this case um and the advantages on aluminum with WPC is just like the same as the uh crank so next we're going to talk about the connecting rods um on the fa Motors the
• 11:30 - 12:00 connecting rods are probably their Achilles heel when you're tune them if you run above 330 foot- PBS of torque and for sure if you run above 350 foot- PBS of torque you tend to bend the rod um this usually isn't a catastrophic failure and if you catch it you could usually save the engine but bending the rod isn't cool so it's really important to get good rods in these motors um the rods have this kind of weird um offset
• 12:00 - 12:30 in them as you could see and that's so you could uh when you're assembling it the engine you can tighten the uh Rod bolts um it's really apparent when you're putting one of these together but that's why the rod looks strange so we're running a a Brian Crower Rod um this is a really nice strong part it's made out of um uh High nickel High malum steel so it's like 4340 it's a real tough ductile steel with a high tensil
• 12:30 - 13:00 strength it's one of the best things uh for rods the toughness is good for repetitive High stresses like a connecting rod sees um it has like uh some interesting features like one of them is the uh ribs across the small end of the piston this really increases the strength of the small end and the small end is probably uh the second highest stress part of the rod um it has ARP 2000 bolts
• 13:00 - 13:30 and the whole Rod is um is is uh shot peen shot peening also increases the fatigue strength by uh 1 to 200 100% it's a fairly aggressive shot peening so I think it probably makes a pretty big difference um another thing is like on the thrust faces of the rod uh brown car put these notches so oil can get down in there or and then oil can circulate uh
• 13:30 - 14:00 as it comes off the rod bearing and kind of lubricate these uh thrust faces uh not too many rods have that and I actually think that's a kind of cool feature um there's a bronze bushing um silicone bronze uh there's an oiling hole at the top sometimes um I think that's not the best thing but these strengthening ribs more than make up for it uh so this is a good rod we
• 14:00 - 14:30 don't need to do too much to it basically uh we Precision balance it the uh weights are pretty close on these uh from uh Brian Crower but with our Precision balance we get about dead nuts um then we uh cryotreated it and uh WPC treated it for the same reasons we also WPC treat the the uh the threads of the bolt and under the bolt heads which helps the fatigue of the bolt as you
• 14:30 - 15:00 know the bolt is like one of the highest stress part of the engine and one of the most common places to fail so the WPC helps all that really good um but it's a high quality Rod we don't need to do a whole bunch to it um you look at the piston rings basically the uh rings are like um any other performance ring nowadays the number one ring is a a steel ring for uh
• 15:00 - 15:30 strength and um resilience it's nitrated nitrited for um wear resistance it's really thin low tension the number two ring is uh ductal iron um in the case of uh these manly Rings um it it has like a uh plasma coating on there uh the iron helps it seat quickly the plasma coating kind of helps the the overall wiar resistance it's on the top and the
• 15:30 - 16:00 bottom a lot so that kind of helps the uh wear in the in the grooves of the Piston which is important for seal um they're all thin low tension the oil ring is like also thin and low tension so it's your typical state of-the-art for nowadays ring set the bearings we're using we're using King xpc bearings now we really like King but uh you know conversely if King's not
• 16:00 - 16:30 available we like ACL or we like Cavite bearings too so these bearings are a tri Tri metal type so you have your base steel then you have your uh load bearing surface um you know they used to be made out of mostly lead and a lot of stock bearings are still like really soft like Zin and aluminum um the uh King bearings are kind of lead and they're garden with tin and animon
• 16:30 - 17:00 and copper so it's a really hard substrate compared to uh OEM bearings for instance so they it has a much higher load bearing capacity before like it mushes down and you spin a bearing or something uh the disadvantage of this kind of hard substrate is that it's not good for embeddability so if you're the type that never changes his oil they're maybe not the best choice but I know all of you performance guys change your oil a lot and you would rather have a
• 17:00 - 17:30 stronger bearing I know I would the the bearings are coated with a uh like a polymer coating so it's not Teflon but kind of like a Teflon and it has malum and slippery stuff in it it also has copper nanop particles now traditionally like the top coating is like a quick zinc plate which kind of is soft kind of helps embeddability kind of helps uh the bearing burnish in when you're um
• 17:30 - 18:00 breaking it in um but it really can't take much load or anything it doesn't really help the bearing load capacity but the um xpc coating with the especially with the copper Nono particles actually can be load so it's you know soft CU it's kind of plasticky it has the lubricant particles in it but it also has the copper particles so it actually helps load capacity unlike any coating that I'm aware of currently um
• 18:00 - 18:30 it's one of the reasons why we like to use it so uh King main bearings uh King rod bearings uh the main bearings also have some kind of neat features like the uh oil transfer holes are chamfered uh they also are ovalized for more area so they act like mini reservoirs to kind of help lay down the oil into the uh bearing space and line up with these holes better and have a little bit more dwell
• 18:30 - 19:00 time for that um you know these are some of the things that we might hand do to some bearings but with King uh it comes like that um so it's one of the reasons why I really like that bearing anyway um as far as like case bolts uh we use ARP so when you're running these ARP bolts one of the things you got to remember is uh you know they have more tension um they don't have stretch like
• 19:00 - 19:30 the stock bolts um they have these Harden Precision ground washers so the torque can be really uh precisely applied um when you're running these bolts it's really important to um you know like check the Align bar on the on the cases and uh um you know like give a do a hone on the boards with a torque plate and all the fixturing uh cuz Subaru cases aren't that strong even these newer ones and you get some
• 19:30 - 20:00 Distortion and so if you uh do your honing properly you can strain that back out uh and still you know have good piston seal and good ring good ring seal and uh not scuff or anything like that so uh really important when you're running the stronger Hardware be sure to check your align bar and be sure to do your honing with the with the torque fixtures that's what we do that's kind of how we do the bottom end um when
• 20:00 - 20:30 we're talking about our our cases uh the fa cases are a lot stronger than the ej257 for instance uh when you look at it it's pretty clear the cylinders are thicker uh the edges of the case where the head gasket sits is thicker the head gasket has a lot more support um there's these uh buttresses that go all the way to the bottom of the uh water jacket uh one of the reasons
• 20:30 - 21:00 why the EJ fails is that um you know it's either total open deck or um the 257 has these like really wimpy little bridges that go across and they're like maybe only an eighth of an inch thick or something and that allows the cylinder walls to flex and move around which isn't good for much and it's tends to be hard in the head gasket too um but you look at the f um FAS there's these really thick buttresses that go all the way to the bottom of the water jacket
• 21:00 - 21:30 and uh they come almost to the top of the cylinder uh the reason why a lot of Manufacturers are going to open decks nowadays is you get even heating of the boore so that means less boar Distortion better ring seal uh less Distortion less friction better ring seal when there's better ring seal there's less emissions when you get even heating of the boar especially a across the top where the fire's at um you know you keep that
• 21:30 - 22:00 crevice volume hotter and you have less hydrocarbon emissions so less emissions is is one of the big reasons why so many manufacturers go for open deck nowadays but you look at the fa you got a lot of support just below the deck with all these thick buttresses so um you know you get your open deck but you still get like a lot of stiffness that you don't have in the EJ um one of the things we do is uh which
• 22:00 - 22:30 is another kind of Achilles heel on these engines is they tend to not oil super well and um the reason one of the reasons is that it has a non non priority uh feed for the main bearings so when the oil comes off your oil pump um it goes into the main oil Galley passage right here and um it goes all the way through the
• 22:30 - 23:00 case half of the oil goes to your Mains and the other half goes to your heads uh the ideal way is to have the full pressure of the oil pump feed the main bearings and excessive oil will uh bleed off to the heads so that way your Mains always have the full pressure that the pump puts out now it's not only Subaru that has non-priority Mains like probably almost all production engines nowadays
• 23:00 - 23:30 are like this but it's one of the reasons why um these engines sometimes get bearing problems um in my opinion the bearing problems could start to manifest around 450 horsepower you know this is like if you're road racing on the track and you know if you're doing occasional blast or it's a street honing or um you know it's a drag car um you're probably not going to see it but if you're doing uh track days time attack road racing you may if
• 23:30 - 24:00 you start exceeding 440 450 horsepower so for oiling mods um Killer B makes a heavy duty pickup for the fa20 and it uh has a uh Stronger screen and the screen is uh actually swedged in there and it's a little bit bigger diameter so so the bad thing about the stock pickup is the screen can be easily punched in uh so it could actually punch
• 24:00 - 24:30 in get into the pump or it could fall out um it's really weak that's one of the weak points of the stock pickup also um the killer B1 has uh more volume like right under the screen and a bigger tube and one of the bad things is the uh pickup tube on the fa is actually smaller than the inlet on the oil pump so the pickup tube is a restriction uh the killer B1 is going to help um on our
• 24:30 - 25:00 particular motor we're going to use a uh ieg uh pickup and uh baffle now the ieg one is like the Killer B one probably works about the same it has like a cast piece right underneath the screen that actually has a higher volume and maybe is a straighter shot into the tube but the tube has a slight Bend in it so it's probably about equivalent it's all also like bigger ID and bigger diameter
• 25:00 - 25:30 really strong so it's not going to break like the uh EJ tube now the baffle goes into the upper pan and um it has oneway trap doors to prevent the uh oil from from splashing up you know it's probably really like this fan like uh some other companies like gredy makes the same thing but it uses louvers and it's not as positive ceiling as these uh flappers now the uh fa does have a uh stock
• 25:30 - 26:00 windage tray uh it's not in here it actually uh bolts to here and so that helps strip the windage off the crank um one of the cool things about the fa is that uh the EJ just dumps oil right into the onto the crank and everything and it makes more windage but the fa actually gets the oil from the heads and it uh goes through these passages here which goes to these passages here
• 26:00 - 26:30 which goes to these tubes on the pan uh so the oil actually gets reintroduced right at oil level so none of that stuff gets dumped on the crank so there's a lot less windage going on and uh you know like how ejs have the problem with puking oil so the uh FAA should be a lot better so this pan is kind of a smaller volume but it doesn't include the fact that uh um this has an upper pan so the
• 26:30 - 27:00 Pan's two piece this goes in here uh this bolts on to here and the uh lower pan goes on like this and so all the oil is going to be contained around here uh good with this good pickup so it's going to have decent oil control it's not like the uh EJ where it can like just splash around if
• 27:00 - 27:30 you have an fa24 iich also makes a a baffle and the pickup for you or if you have a uh BRZ F FRS um ft86 they make one for that too if you have an fa24 um Killer B also makes a horizontal baffle that prevents the oil from going into the timing chain area um so if you
• 27:30 - 28:00 have the ieg baffle and that that probably be pretty good oil control now if you have a fa sometimes if you rev them past maybe 8,000 RPM a lot they break the oil pump gears so toay makes some Billet gears now like if you have a turbo motor I don't really recommend that you spin it that hard and I mean you can make a lot of power spinning to the factory re limit of 7700 but let's say you have a built na
• 28:00 - 28:30 one and you're going to wind it out better replace those gears some of the things we do to address the oil feed issue is um so this is like your oil oil pump cover um you get the output of the pump and it goes through this passage to to feed the uh main Galley but what's weird on this motor is this passage is really small and it's a lot smaller than the galley um so what we do is we uh bore this out
• 28:30 - 29:00 so it's the same diameter as the galley so it doesn't act like a restrictor um subu puts a really nice radius in it from the factory so uh you know the oil can make a nice smooth turn but uh we bore this out to the same diameter as the case um and then we also uh chamfer the lead into the boore so we maintain that nice ni smooth Factory radius um
• 29:00 - 29:30 you know I think that helps flow quite a bit I don't know what Subaru was thinking and why they neck this down but um it's something that I feel like helps and it's easy to do uh that it's pretty uh straightforward the the block or cases are stronger than the EJ um it then is a lot less finicky and has more overhead for uh you know for both bu on mods and tuning without breaking
• 29:30 - 30:00 so for our cylinder heads we didn't do uh extensive CNC porting or anything uh you can actually make pretty big gains with just some simple I guess tricks the first thing we did is we did a new and valve job now a new and valve machine is not like a Ci or something that has uh Cutters with three angles where you just uh plunge it down and you get a three angle valve job uh what a new in is it's
• 30:00 - 30:30 actually like a CNC machine where um you program the cutter so the uh cutter will come in and and do a smooth perfect radius to your 45 seat and from your 45 seat it'll make a smooth radius into the throat of the uh Port now um this does a lot of stuff that like hand porting a head would do and it picks up a lot of flow and a lot of power especially low lift flow low lift flow is the most
• 30:30 - 31:00 important because your valve spins the most dwell time at low lift for instance um you know like you're at low lift twice and you're only at Max lift once that's a simplistic way to look at it also the way a Cam's acceleration ramps are uh you spend a lot of time when the valves opening to avoid shocking the drivetrain if you have a cab that's designed any good anyway and you set the valve down slowly too so the valve
• 31:00 - 31:30 spends a lot of time around the low lift part of its uh curve so that's why low lift flow is important and what we do makes a pretty big difference um you can kind of see this smooth Blended uh valve job that's one continuous thing almost uh the seat is still like a 45 and the seat width is still wide enough um to do the job if it's a turbo motor like this one's going to be uh we make the seats a
• 31:30 - 32:00 little bit wider this helps uh pull some of the heat off the valve also makes a longer lasting seat uh with a hotter running turbo engine so once we get this new and valve job um one of the options that we do is we hand blend the uh the valve job into the combustion chamber and the port so we get the die grinders and cartridge rolls and we uh blend the
• 32:00 - 32:30 valve seat itself like right at the base of the new and cut and kind of blend it into the port and this uh kind of opens up the bowl and uh really helps flow uh we also get the top new and cut and we blend it into the combustion chamber uh this reduces valve shrouding and just makes a additional smooth area so the uh stuff can go in and out of the chamber really well now this stuff gives you about 80% of the flow of your typical
• 32:30 - 33:00 CNC Port job at a fraction of the cost and uh you know we like it in all Motors mostly if you're going to be running Force induction or Turbo that's all you really need to do maybe a na car would benefit from um full porting but if it's any kind of mild kind of build that's going to see Street use this is probably enough um and uh sh makes a pretty good difference and it's worth doing for uh
• 33:00 - 33:30 valves on this particular engine uh we're running GSC valves a lot of times you know we'll use Ferrera or we'll use um uh supertech uh you know our customer wanted GSC and there's nothing wrong with them we like them too um these are like stainless Valves and they kind of use an exotic um stainless steel from Carpenter Mills now
• 33:30 - 34:00 if you're a gun geek or a knife geek you know all about Carpenter steel and how it's badass um so the alloy they use is a uh for the intake it's a tinis stainless with uh nickel um malum and chromium in it pretty good um pretty good valve um not too abrasive on guides and stuff and really strong uh for the exhaust valve it uses a special alloy of that Carpenter makes and um it has a lot of
• 34:00 - 34:30 nickel a lot of chromium and a lot of malanum in it probably about twice the level that the intake valve has and this makes it really hard erosion resistant and heat resistant uh so it's not inconel but it's still a sophisticated metal um should be really good and should last a long time uh other features on these GSC valves that are are pretty cool is um they do a flow analysis so on our other engines we talk
• 34:30 - 35:00 about how we usually like a flat nail head Contour on the intake valve and that helps flow going into the engine and the exhaust valve we like a nice uh tulip kind of Contour which helps flow coming out of the engine um there's swirl polishing which uh perhaps might help flow at low lifts it's kind of debatable but I I I guess you know it
• 35:00 - 35:30 looks cool too um I mean it probably fills up with carbon right away so but uh it does have swirl polishing um another cool feature is that the tips of the valves have um uh like stellite which is a really hard material um bonded like with diffusion bonding or something uh to the tip of the valve for wear resistance it's it's a really cool valve uh we're also running uh GSC silic and
• 35:30 - 36:00 bronze valve guide so these have a lot of lubricity um they're easier on the valve stem and they last longer than the stock uh iron valve guides and we're using uh GSC valve seals uh instead of just being made out of rubber the GSC seals are made out of Von so if you're an engineer Fons of floral elastomer sort of like a synthetic rubber but it's extremely heat and abrasion resistant it's probably one of
• 36:00 - 36:30 the best things for a valve seal for the valve trainer running Kord 264 a cams now I don't remember the numbers exactly but it's they're pretty appropriate for a mid power level engine I think the duration is uh 2 272 degrees on the intake and uh maybe 278 on the exhaust and there's 11.8 mm lift which is kind of a lot for these small four
• 36:30 - 37:00 valve engines um what I like about Kord cams is they really have the science of their um kinematics or the valve train down so they tend to have more area under the lift curve uh per degree of duration than any other cam in the import market so cords um you know have more area more flow make more power without some of the disadvantages of having a lot of duration you know like L
• 37:00 - 37:30 idle and poor fuel economy so for the lowest duration numbers they have the most area under the curve in general also they have their valve train kinematics down so um you know they study the uh harmonics and stuff and they uh study the harmonics up to like pretty high order because a lot of your spring Surge and stuff is CAU by um fifth and sixth order harmonics um
• 37:30 - 38:00 spring surge is what people call a valve float um Engineers we call it spring surge but um you know by controlling the the excitation with the cam ramp Contour you could like passively get a lot of float resistance or surge resistance without resorting to super high valve spring tensions um valve springs are running a Kord dual spring and a titanium
• 38:00 - 38:30 retainer um I'm a big proponent of running the exact valve springs that the uh cam manufacturer recommends because if you have a engineering intensive cam like a Kelford uh the harmonics of the Springs are considered for the profile of the grind so um you know anything that moves you know has a natural frequency so the natural frequency of the spring pack is is and and the the the ramps of the cam
• 38:30 - 39:00 are tailored not to excite everything to get uh surge or valve flad so stick with the springs that your cam manufacturer recommends I mean that's what I'm a proponent of so nice cams from kford uh so another cool thing is that we're going to be running this Nordstrom highpressure direct injection pump this pump has about 40% more volume volume than the stock pump so you have fuel head space for the additional power the
• 39:00 - 39:30 other cool thing is that the O Subaru pump doesn't tolerate ethanol very well and guys have been having trouble with the stock pump um seizing up and squeaking and things like that if they're running more than like maybe M50 um for some reason the OE pump doesn't tolerate that but uh this pump can eat E85 it can eat pure eth all no problem and it could also provide enough fuel volume for all that and it has
• 39:30 - 40:00 enough uh Fuel Volume I think to make about 700 horsepower so that's more than enough to blow the bottom end apart so it's a good deal the last thing we do is that uh generally we like to run a fluid damper on these flat engines they have some weird vibrations and the fluid damper uh Works to damp that out uh I've always always been a big proponent of fluid dampers because the harder things whip
• 40:00 - 40:30 like um in the crank and all that those damaging vibrations that can kind of throw your um your uh even your crank angle sensor off and cause a spark scatter uh this works actively to uh damp it out so the more your crank whips the harder this thing works um what it is is it's a uh floating inertia ring you see that right here and it's inside this welded housing um the inertial ring is free to move so unlike a conventional
• 40:30 - 41:00 damper that uh the ring is constrained by Rubber O-rings and uh it's tuned for only a certain frequency of vibrations with this being free to move um the higher the amplitude of torsional whip the more damping it provides uh so it works for a broad RPM range so I've used these on ejs um like the F FRS um it's a pretty cool thing the uh damping is done by
• 41:00 - 41:30 this uh silicone goo that fills up the housing now you see here there's a ball bearing and I flip it upside down and the ball bearing is barely moving so that gives you an idea of how thick this stuff is I mean it's like super thick honey I guess and it's a silicon fluid it's pretty stable across a pretty big temperature range doesn't Shear down uh so this thing will last the lifetime of
• 41:30 - 42:00 your motor and maybe you can put on several different Motors after it's not like a conventional uh damper that has like uh a rubber holding the inertia ring on there the Rubber deteriorates and uh even comes apart with time uh silicone it's good to go for life um so on ejs in particular you can actually feel the difference that uh these things made and FAS so I think that about wraps
• 42:00 - 42:30 it up on the fa um I pretty pretty much like this motor it's kind of fun responsive feels like it punches more than its weight um it's a zippy and responsive it's stronger bone stock and can tolerate tuning a little bit better than an EJ still has its weak points but uh we're addressing them uh so you know it's kind of fun to build
• 42:30 - 43:00 one of these and this is going to be a really fun motor to drive and it should be nice and reliable so if you like this video please depress the Subscribe button and follow us um we have an online store so we sell a lot of these parts that we talk about in our videos um you help support us it helps us get the money to create more content uh if you want to get some cool Moto IQ swag uh we have that on our webs too so you
• 43:00 - 43:30 can get a sick hoodie like this and a uh cool Moto IQ shirt if you don't want to look like a moto IQ billboard uh we have some other shirts too that are kind of funny so go ahead and take a look at those if you want us to build you a motor uh you can go to moto iq.com our website and hit the garage Services link and fill out the form and uh we can get you a quote um if you like Tech content and you still know how to read you can go to moto iq.com and uh we literally
• 43:30 - 44:00 have thousands of tech articles on there and you can probably read to your heart's content for a couple years or something so I hope you enjoyed the um this video on the fa20 um the fa24 is really similar um we haven't built one yet which is probably a good sign that probably means they don't blow up too much um and the features are mostly the same the
• 44:00 - 44:30 most biggest difference is the bar size um so until next time we'll see you around