Hello, I’m kinda new to all this so I opened this thread. I made the horrible financial decision and do an engine swap into my daily natural aspirated 5 speed manual. I’ve decided on doing an ej205 (from an 02 wrx) with a vf48 turbo.
Where I went wrong, I should’ve just bought a ej20x or y and went from there but I was told I could just sell the parts and make it back. That was the first mistake, this swap isn’t as straight forward as I thought it.
I little backstory of the car, it came somewhere from New York, the guy drove it for a year, rod knocked, swapped the short block, then couldn’t afford it and was left in a parking lot for 2 years. Then it was offered to me for a high-ish price and I thought it was a good price because I was told that I could part it out.
Now after the month and half the guy that was helping me found a speciality shop for these types of swap. He quoted me 3 weeks just about we’re about half way through, the engines in most of the mechanical parts are in, we’re waiting on an oil catch can, and sub frame.
If you’re planning on doing this swap, I’m not sure if I would or wouldn’t recommend it. A lot of people don’t, one thing of advice find someone that knows what they’re doing before you buy anything. Do not just throw parts at it. The shop I took it too he builds 800+ Hondas but he was also a Subaru tech for X amount of years with a crap ton of experience, he does build Subarus not as much as Honda.
Electrical aspect:
Now theirs a few ways of going about this electrical cluster of can-bus bs, you can do a full bulk head swap, use the stock na bulk head and or standalone/piggyback. Now I’m not 100% sure about the standalone, I’ve talked to him a few times ab it but not something we’ve gotten too. We’ve decided on keeping the na bulk head, now few things you need to swap literally everything from the na ej253 to the ej205, coolant cross member, wiring harness, etc. now you need to control boost right? My tech is getting the pin out for the na ecu to put it in, and I’ll share that information as soon as I can! Also another thing, boost controllers, buy a Mac 3 port. Literally the same a grimspeed and almost all the others, it’s $40, the only reason you’d want to buy a grimspeed is for the oem factory LGT wiring harnesses with the whole bulk head harness swap. Spark, go get some diy wire on plug and use the factory na legacy coil.
Mechanical:
Everything but the long block needs to be Na legacy, if you get the ej20x/y you really won’t need to worry about it all that much (besides the wiring harness) but for me doing an ej205 I needed a new intake manifold because dbw and other connectors. IMPORTANT ej205 heads have a different coolant route to the turbo that the uppipe won’t clear, you’ll need to get some line and rotate the turbo. Now something we’re doing different is deleting as much random vacuum lines and just simplify the engine as much as possible, why do we need to route the lines back into the intake when we can just vent it into the atmosphere.
Tuning:
A bulk head harness would be the best way of doing this but it’s the most expensive, they’re are ways of getting around it but doing an all motor tune. Tuning is one of those things I have no idea of how to do it or what to look for, that’s something my tech is going to do for me/teach me.
Emissions:
Where I live we only do visual inspections, so I can get around the ob2 connect. To pass you need to connect everything from the na wiring harnesses and move everything, I remember my tech showing me one of the places that most people delete the wire but I don’t remember the name of the wire and plug in.
This swap isn’t for the fate of heart, eventually i want to do an sti tranny swap and a built ej20. I’ll keep this forum up to date, so update coming soon.
If you have any questions feel free to ask, if your in Cleveland-Erie-Pittsburgh-Buffalo area and your interested in doing this swap contact me here and I can set you up with my tech!
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