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To Any and All Forum Members,

I'm new to the forum and also rather new to the idea of upgrading or modifiying my Legacy, so please bear with me.

My Subaru is a 1990 Legacy LS AWD wagon which I absolutely love. This summer, I'm having some body damage repaired (I sideswiped a guard rail on I-78), and the entire car is being repainted.

As I go through this, I'm also thinking about a possible engine upgrade. Of course, the LS has the standard 2.2L H-4, and I've always considered the car to be rather spirited, but I'm wondering what my options might be. From looking around the forums, it seems that replacing the normally aspirated 2.2L with the turbo 2.2L is possible, but how difficult would that changeover be?

First off, where should I look for a turbo 2.2? I assume that I could check with the local junkyards, but I didn't know if some regional Subaru specialists were out there to investigate. What prices are reasonable?

Also, I do have a concern about swapping the engines. I deal with a Subaru garage in Williamsport (not a dealer, but they specialize in Subarus), and they sell used Subarus, but they will not sell any turbo models for fear of reliability/maintinance problems. (They also removed the air suspension from my car before selling it to me for the same reason.) The rock-solid reliability of my car is one of the reasons that I love it, so would I be taking large chances by installing a turbo engine?

One more thing...if this is too complicated of an operation for either myself personally or for certain family members, and I try to have my Subaru garage perform the transplant, roughly how many hours of labor would be involved?

Anything else that is related or any other mentions about what to do, not to do, look out for, etc. would be highly appreciated.

hmm, You're in a good area, you've got bac5.2, legacy92ej22t, boostjunkie and vrg3 right around you for the locals. The swap is relatively easy, assuming you've got all the parts you need it's only adding a couple of wires to the ecu harness and you're ready to go. As far as reliablity, the engine itself will almost definately be more reliable than your current one. However you might run into more minor things going wrong. like pcv, boost, more stuff to leak. Not so much that you'd think "why did i ever swap this engine in" but more than you might run into with your current setup, that also depends on what condition your current engine setup is in and what condition your new setup will be. You can definately do this with just yourself though it would be much harder than having someone else around. I've never done an engine swap myself but it seems to be just a matter of unbolting and rebolting.

As far as comprimised reliability.

Boostjunkie was running 16psi with 211k on the ticker. If that's not reliability, I don't know what is. That car was goddamn-fast. Not just fast. Goddamn-fast.


The swap SHOULD be as easy as an SR20 swap into an S14. Bolts right up and just a matter of wiring. Probably a weekend or so to get it all done. Just a matter of sourcing parts and having the tools.

while the engine was/is extremely reliable, the entire car as a whole wasn't. That's all I meant.

It is a little more than adding a few more wires, but not insurmountable. Your 1990 wiring harness is quite likely not going to plug right into the engine harness on the EJ22T. That means one of two things. Rewire the engine or rewire the car. But not the whole car. There are two bulkhead harnesses. There is the main bulkhead harness that comes out center. That one stays, and that is the one you need to add 5 IIRC wire to.

The other harness comes out by the fuse box and plugs into the engine. You will either need to switch that one for a turbo one, or put your old engine's harness on the EJ22T. And there may be some compatibility issues with some of the connectors and components in that case. Subaru's of that generation came from both USA and Japan and had a number of different components and connectors used that changed from year to year. Do some searching of the various threads about engine swaps and read them all.

And the going rate on a complete EJ22T swap that is running is in the ballpark of $1500-2000 these days...

Matt, the stock non-turbo harness will plug right into the turbo engine's stuff. Literally all you need to do is use the complete non-turbo harness, switch two wires, and add a few more.

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=2215