legacycentral bbs

Well, I need some advice on ditching the 2.2T that came with my 1994 Legacy Sport turbo rally car, and the easiest way to put in an NA engine. I have tried applying for an exemption to run a turbo engine with an AWD car for a novice license, but was denied. So if I want to race soon with Rally America, I need to put in an NA engine.

I'd preferably like to do something that minimizes the amount of work needed to be done. As well as having something that will allow me to tune. I have done an EJ207 swap on my 02 WRX and have tuned the engine myself, so I feel very comfortable mechanically and tuning wise. However the electrical stuff is what has me worried. I can read a diagram just fine, just a matter of finding one.

Any suggestions on what I should do, and where I should look for an NA engine/wiring/ECU? This is going in a race car, so I feel fine having to take apart a wiring harness, as I plan on stripping everything not needed anyways.

For those interested.... The car is planning on making an apperance at the following:
- Perryville Rally in Perryville, MO
- 100 Acre Wood in Salem, MO
- Rally Paris in Paris, TX
- Rally Tennessee in Linden, TN

You shouldn't need to mess with a harness if you get a donor long block with the electrical connectors and an ECU as only a couple wires need to be switched at the ECU.

It would be much easier and cheaper (unless you've already got the engine) to just buy a 90-94 sedan L AWD and it will be lighter too if you don't get a sunroof one.

I've already got the fully caged rally car. Bought it for $1800, logbooked, raced for several years in MN at several rallies. Problem is that since I am a novice driver, I have to run NA AWD, no turbos. Already have appealed to Rally America asking for an exemption since the car is balls slow, but was denied.

I see. Shouldnt be too difficult then.

You'll need to get a donor car with the 2.2L N/A engine which shouldn't be too hard. 90-94 doesn't matter, you just need the ECU that comes with the N/A motor. The N/A ECU will plug in place of the turbo one. Things that will give you issues:

- Flywheel. The clutch/transmission in the N/A cars is cable and your trans will be hydraulic. You'll need to swap the flywheel from the turbo over to the N/A motor for everything to fit correctly.
- There was an ECU change which eliminated the need for the barometric pressure sensor. If your turbo motor doesn't have it and the N/A motor is looking for it, it might cause a problem. Just add the wires to the ECU connector and run them under the hood to the sensor scrounged from the donor car.
- Manifold harness. 90-92 cars I THINK have two or three round connectors near the battery which is the main connection for the intake manifold sensors/wiring. The later cars are square. If you stay round/round or square/square on your swap you MAY be able to just plug and play the intake manifold wiring harnesses without needing to move any sensors. Otherwise you'll need to transfer the wiring harness from your turbo intake manifold to the N/A motor. A few sensors are in different places so you'll have to pull them out of the wire wrap to make enough slack to move them around, but you shouldn't have to cut in to any wire.
- Cooling system on the NA is a lot simpler than the turbo so you may need to block off a few lines here or there. The N/A radiator has a pressure relief radiator cap where as the turbo system uses a remote reservoir so you'll have to get creative. You can't just eliminate the aux tank since there will be no way to fill the overflow reservoir. It may be easier to swap the N/A radiator in but making the turbo rad work will be worth your while since it's thicker.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. There may be more but it should be significantly easier going your direction than the other way around. Plenty of info here on the swap to do it yourself. Good luck!

--Andy

EDIT: I have a spare ECU from a 91 N/A manual transmission car if you end up needing it. IIRC 90-92 use the same ECU and 93-94 were part of the change.

See "biggreen93" or something like that on here. He did the same thing to his rally car. Dropped in an eg33. Or just search for him in the build threads.

Yea, BigGreen ended up going to Open Class (displacement was greater than 2.7L) but he had a lot of track days under his belt that allowed him to be exempt from the Novice driver Open Class rule. He is a hell of a driver though! Chatted with him a bunch in between stages as I was co-driving for a PGT WRX.

Crashsector, thank you! That is a tremendous help to know.

I tried to buy that car. he said a guy from arkansas was supposed to be there to pick it up the saturday, i called friday.

dang. Well, I am not sure where you are, but i would love to come to the events in MO. And if you ever decide on sellling, call me. I am ready and you got a heck of a deal.

i offered the guy more than you got it for, almost double.....

take care of it, i will be interested in that car down the road for your selling when you need to.



as said, the radiator needs swapped to na so you have a radiator cap to fill it.
The exhaust you need y pipe from na car and midpipe from same. you can stick with the turbo crossmember.

trans...need to swap flywheels etc maybe a few others to get the 5mt to work right.

ecu swap to na

have fun keep updates coming...

No, he can only stick with the turbo crossmember if he modifies the right side of the Y-pipe to extend down farther to clear (probably not a great idea for rallying), cuts the crossmember, or runs the turbo exhaust with a spacer where the turbo would normally be.

Bheinen74 wrote:I tried to buy that car. he said a guy from arkansas was supposed to be there to pick it up the saturday, i called friday.

dang. Well, I am not sure where you are, but i would love to come to the events in MO. And if you ever decide on sellling, call me. I am ready and you got a heck of a deal.

i offered the guy more than you got it for, almost double.....

take care of it, i will be interested in that car down the road for your selling when you need to.

That is me.

I am in Jonesboro, AR near the MO border, kinda. I had been talking to the guy for about a week straight prior to picking it up, put down a $200 non-refundable deposit to consider the car sold while I tried to find a good day to pick it up. I think the guy was pretty excited to see that it will be seeing real stage rally. I've been keeping in touch with him sending him updates about the car, good kid.

I've been rallying for about a year now as a codriver, but have been involved in rally for years. Have got three big league rallies under my belt as a co-driver, was looking to spend $4-5k on a good starter rally car as a driver, but this deal came up. Already have fixed a lot of small nagging things. Will be taking it up to St. Louis soon to get the cage updated and more safety features added while I am out of the country for a month in a few weeks. Hoping to get it on the stages by October.

Back on topic, so a 2.2L N/A would be the easiest swap? Is it even worth considering a 2.5L from an RS with a complete wiring harness? Or is that just more work than necessary.

An N/A engine will also have high compression, most noticeable in making more power at higher rpms and an extra few mpg.

I was going to suggest the 2.5 as there is a Thread on here and/or the Ultimatesubaru.org/forum site w/the swap.

You'd keep your harness (BTW, '89-91 used the square connectors; 92-94 had the round ones), or get another '92-94 harness....NA or turbo - only difference is the CTS/gauge wires need extended/moved around. It doesn't appear it'd take much @ all to swap. The differences in the OBD1 '89-94 Legacy vs. the OBD2 '96+ EJ25D are minimal ('96 = 155hp; '97-99 EJ25D 165HP). The SVX EG33 would be a better option, but more work. I believe the '95+ are OBD2 on the EG33.

Yes, you'll need to either modify your X-member or use an NA one, or modify the exhaust....been there/done that.

I know there's been a bit of conversation on here, but I'll give you my suggestion. Find a complete n/a motor and intake piping along with the non-turbo front crossmember and accompanying ECU & MAF sensor. I'd suggest looking for a 92-94 n/a motor. The non-turbo front crossmembers are the same between 90-94 Legacies.

For the wiring, what I'd suggest doing is pulling the engine harness off the turbo motor and use it on the non-turbo engine. The reason I suggest this is so you don't have to mess with the differences in engine plugs between the models and years. You would need to extend the two cooling temp sensors' wiring from the driver's side of the engine to the passenger side. That shouldn't be a big deal.

Additionally, you will need to swap the positive leads only for the crank & cam sensors. You can do this right at the ECU connectors and just swap the pins. It's very easy. Depending on the n/a ECU, you may or may not have to play with the MT/AT identifier pin.

Overall the swap should be pretty straight forward. There was a comment about the clutch setups being different, but that doesn't matter, just bolt the turbo flywheel to the non-turbo motor.

There is a difference in height between the turbo & non-turbo radiators. If you ran the non-turbo radiator you would need some form of shim at the bottom to raise the radiator up.

I would suggest having a custom exhaust made or use a 2.5 borla header or similar mated to a custom fabbed mid-pipe section.

I'd suggest checking out this thread for some of the info you would need regarding wiring diagrams.
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14485

Also, my AWD & 5spd swap write-up may help with some of the wiring, specifically the MT/AT identifier.
www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/swap

There is (was) a member here running a ph.I EJ25D in a rally Legacy. I can't remember his name, though.
I believe the sensors/wiring on the EJ25D will work w/ a stock EJ22 ECU. That would net you a bit more power than a EJ22 but beware of head gasket issues with the 25D. Fairly simple swap, from what I understand. If you can decipher a wiring diagram, it should be no problem.

I would stick with the stock displacement ej22, it may allow for more classes to run in. If you put a non stock size engine for your year, they can deny you entry...

In Open Light you are allowed any engine size as long as it is NA and within some other parameters. EJ25's are the most common Subaru engines run in that class, some of them built up quite nicely.

MConte05 wrote:In Open Light you are allowed any engine size as long as it is NA and within some other parameters. EJ25's are the most common Subaru engines run in that class, some of them built up quite nicely.

Sounds like you've got your answer.

just take the turbo off the 22t and use a n/a header and intake tube with the same maf. it will run fine, no wiring changes needed.

MikeyMeyagi wrote:just take the turbo off the 22t and use a n/a header and intake tube with the same maf. it will run fine, no wiring changes needed.

No go there, N/A header won't clear turbo crossmember. Otherwise, good idea!

it would with a little modification

I would think a 22T sans the turbo would have terrible throttle response, flaccid torque curve, and be quite thirsty compared to the 22E due to it's low compression. Would make sense if you didn't have the means to do a swap, I guess.

Nope. It does use more fuel, but the only difference I noticed performance-wise was power starts to drop off about 1000 rpm sooner. I got 23 mpg vs. 25-27, but I wasn't logging my fuel use that well then and driving faster. Same bottom end torque.

i would do the ej25 with 22 heads and cams.. thats what i had and it ran on stock 22 harness and ecu.. it had lots of torque

Matt if you are going to stay in Open Light spend the time and energy putting a decent 2.5 in. It's not rocket science, or even aerospace engineering . You will be kicking yourself later if you do the 2.2... remember you have to compete against the guys who are going to be in lightened 2dr imprezas with 4.44 gears and cammed high compression 2.5s. Don't handicap yourself right off the bat.

Do you know what your legacy weighs? I still haven't put mine on the scales.