SWAPPING HEADS reply from MRT

[ssspoon@aol.com]

To recap (actually repeat) for the benefit of those of you joining us late,
first here's the original message that went out to a few sources I believed
would have interesting input. I have not been disappointed. I hope many of
you have found value to this thread as well. Immediately following the
repeated query is the reply from Ben at Middleton Rally Team (MRT) in
Australia. Seems like he missed our point as I have found to be the case
before with the Aussies, bless their upside down little hearts. They don't
always understand the US had a full up 2.2 Turbo Legacy, I think because
their 2.2's were all non-turbo.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ssspoon@aol.com [mailto:Ssspoon@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, 29 March 2001 41
To: BC-BFLegacyWorks@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Subydoc@aol.com; Wrx1199@aol.com; BSpecUSA@aol.com;
sales@cobbtuning.com; info@mrtrally.com.au; simon@egr.unlv.edu;
simon@little-johnny.egr.unlv.edu; ssirin@trimm.com; nzwrc1@sunlink.net;
jonesboy@sunwave.net
Subject: Re: swapping heads


Wild Bill Robinson, who may have enough stealth equipment to be considered a

risk to national security wrote; "I know that my son's heads say "NA" on
them, which I would interpret as standing for "naturally aspirated" i.e.
non-turbo." (Can someone confirm this for Bill? Are we ruling out NA for
North America?)

Then he asks; "Does anyone know for sure how the WRX solid lifter equipped
quad cam heads differ from their NA counterparts?"

I like this question because a few days ago I asked for feedback on the
potential for a WRX 2.0 head swap vs. a 2.5 swap onto our United States
version 2.2 Turbo Legacy blocks. This is while making the assumption that
the
2.0 efficiency should be comparable or better than the 2.5 since the 2.0 WRX

engines were probably designed as recently as the 2.5 engines plus they were

designed with performance in mind rather than shuttling the family to
church.


It may also help to know if there are any differences in head configuration
amongst the various WRX versions or at least whether they are all
interchangeable.

Anybody with a pipeline to the braintrust at Subaru (or anywhere) please
inquire.

Meanwhile I will copy this to Cobb Tuning, MRT Performance, Byron Leggett,
Steve Powell, Matt Walters, Matt Scicchitano, and Simon Sirin. Can any (or
all) of you gurus help with the above questions for us please? Us being
members of a Turbo Legacy/Liberty enthusiasts web list, found at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC-BFLegacyWorks,
with email to and from, BC-BFLegacyWorks@yahoogroups.com

We invite you all to join

Larry Witherspoon
ssspoon@aol.com
92 Legacy Turbo Sedan
Torrance (Los Angeles) California
################################# M R T R E P L Y B E L
O W ###########################################################

Subj: RE: swapping heads
Date: 04/01/01 11:44:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: Ben@mrtrally.com.au (Ben Taylor)
To: Ssspoon@aol.com
CC: BC-BFLegacyWorks@yahoogroups.com

Hi Larry.

Thanks for your inquiry, and apologies for the delayed response.

Firstly, congratulations on the most strangly composed email that I have
read in the last month! I won't even ask who Wild Bill is...

An important thing to note is that the WRX does NOT have solid lifters. The
cooking model WRX's all have hydraulic lifters, it is only the STi's that
come with the solid lifters standard (among other goodies, such as heavy
duty <not forged> low friction pistons).

Swapping heads on your Legacy will not really give you the increase in
performance that you are after unless you have modified EVERY other aspect
of your car first (eg exhaust, turbo, intake, ECU, etc). Until these have
been done, the heads will not be the limiting factor. Another thing you need
to consider is the overall strength of the engine also.

All in all, a better swap would be a complete WRX engine transplant, as the
cost will only be marginally more expensive while the gain will be good.

I hope this helps and look forward to your reply.

Kind Regards
Ben
MRT Performance "We Rally, You Win !"
Sydney, Australia


Hi Ben,
Thanx a bunch for your reply to our inquiry. I call a member of our Turbo
Legacy (Liberty) list, Bill Robinson, Wild Bill because he has so much radar
and laser detection and police frequency scanning equipment on his car. Our
US version 1991 - 1994 Turbo Legacy is the 2.2 liter counterpart to your
"early" 2.0 Turbo Liberty with all the good factory turbo internals. The
main differences are the lack of a factory intercooler and lower boost which
is waste gate limited to 8.7 psi. A boost controller seems to be good for
about 12 or 13 pounds before the ECU gets upset, so the basic engine is
probably as good a place as any to start from. However one of the main
topics of discussion right now is the viability of swapping the old early
1990's design 2.2 heads for something Y2K, whether it's from one of the new
2.5 engines or one of the 2.0 WRX's because it seems like the head is where
the differences in the 1990's vs 2000's turbos mainly reside. One viewpoint
is the new 2.5 heads flow better in stock form than the old 2.2 heads will
after a good workover. An opposing viewpoint says the old 2.2 head is a
better design and can be made to flow better than the new 2.0 or 2.5. But we
have had very little feedback comparing the newer 2.0 heads with either so we
are scrounging for any and all input. Thanx again for your time.
Larry Witherspoon, Torrance (Los Angeles), California

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