Subaru Fever, Choices, choices--2.5 or 2.0 T.... Options

[tgbo]

Okay, all you avid Subaru converts, my 914 1.8 is up on stands for rust removal and re-engining...I'm mostly a Fiat guy who has wanted a 914 for years and finally acquired a one owner from a friend who just gave up! Been searching the Suby threads ( wow, some nice work) and made the decision to go with more modern power--sooo, what I have gleaned is this: the 2.5 (ala Scott T., etc) will allow radiator in the engine room, the turbos won't--correct? (Fiid's pix show way more cutting than I want to have to do). The Suby ecu will work fine, with minor fiddling--Fiid, are you willing to share some MS knowledge from your conversion? (yes, I have studied the squirter and may put it on the Datsun, too).

That said, motor mounting--Scott's bar or something like the Downunder bar seems the way to go. Scott, have you decided to make copies for sale, or are you allowing reproduction by members for personal use?

Last question for today: engine vendors -- lots on Ebay, any recs on non-ebay vendors for JDM or NA motors ( and price ranges on recent buys if you don't mind)

Yes, pix will come as the work starts!

Thanks,
John

[TonyAKAVW]

When I first set out to do this conversion I was strongly considering using an EJ20T but after a lot of thinking, decided to go with an EJ25 naturally aspirated engine. I had several reasons for this including:

1. Radiator in the engine bay. No one has proven that an EJ20T won't work with a radiator in the engine bay, but then it does create probably 30% more heat than an EJ25, assuming similar efficiencies. I didn't really want to be the first to try it and I was really big on the idea of having my two trunks intact.

2. Power. While the 227 HP would be nice, and all, 170 is going to be more than twice the power of the engines I'm used to driving with in 914s that I've had. I figure that if I want more power later, I can always upgrade to a turbo motor and just do the radiator in the trunk. The hard work of making motor mounts, etc. etc. will mostly be done.

3. Complexity. The naturally aspirated engine is simple, has few components and fits very easily in the engine bay. The tubro motor has an intercooler, a turbo and considerably more plumbing. Fitting this into the engine bay is certainly doable, but it gets cramped pretty quickly.

4. Cost. I bought my EJ25 with 41,000 miles for $900. Its a domestic EJ25 with single overhead cam from a 2001 Impreza 2.5RS. It came with the ECU, almost the entire car's wiring harness (including the engine harness) and even a ricey blue air intake. A WRX motor with all its accesories will probably cost substantially more.

I too had concerns about the JDM motors. I actually drove over to Nippon motors and looked at the engines they had. They didn't have a ton of Subaru engines, and the ones I looked at seemed fairly old. I'm sure that thats not always the case though. For me, going with a USDM engine eliminated another layer of complexity in engine management that I _might_ have had to go through with a JDM engine. Doing a conversion was complex enough, having to tune the engine, etc., was just extra work that I didn't want to take on at this stage.

-Tony