Oh noZ!!! 45 PSI!!!! T3h MPr3zA H4XED!!!

[Mike]

who said you're limited to 220hp?

[83Rabbit]

oioooohhhhh whats this? And its going in tomorrow?! mmmmmmmm 167bhp *blush*

[83Rabbit]

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[83Rabbit]

oh yes, AND I have the WRX front calipers/pads all ready too, now I just need RS or WRX wheels and rotors

This is going to be quite the fun little car by monday.

[ButtDyno]

Sweet! Do you ever come out to the MAIC meets?

[WRXtranceformed]

Yeah come out! You can meet Gary with the 3series hatchback + M3 engine swap monstrosity!

[WRXtranceformed]

Oh, and I'll sell you my engine if I end up doing a swap. I don't know if you'll want it though after I'm done with it =p
EDIT: lol nm, you have an engine now. OOF, it's going to be a long day.

[Nis01]

Looks like a nice project. Good luck with everything. The finished project should be sweet. Always wanted to swap an engine into the older 2.5rs body. :thumbup:

[Dave]

nice. Good to have an update on this lil project. Let us know how the swap went (are you doing it yourself?)

[83Rabbit]

Yep, doing it myself.

2 hours into it and heres whats crackin


Day/Night 1:

I wanted to start the swap at 8 or 9 am yesterday but nothing ever goes as planned eh? The place I had set aside to do the work fell through and the car was dropped off at that place on friday night. The friend helping me who had the truck to get the motor couldnt do it until about 2pm. So I sucked it up and said to myself, better late than never.

After getting the motor, getting the impreza back to my house, and buying an SUV jack and jack stands and getting food it was 6:30pm lol. So we began the process. Heres what we did.

-unhooked everything from the top
-loosened the AC compressor and moved it to the side, even though he was pushing for a non/ac 2.5RS swap to save some weight. I figured, my AC works, lets keep it.
-unbolted the exhaust which broke every stud but one from the old motor, oh well Im not using that motor again. If you plan on re-using your old motor be VERY careful with these studs/nuts, its very easy to break them off.
-unbolted the exhaust hanger that bolts to what looks to be the back side of the tranny, its 2 12 or 14mm nuts.
-pulled the hangers for the exhaust and dropped the entire thing, slid it out from underneath the car. We decided to do this because it was going to be easier than trying to break the bonds on the bolts to separate the exhaust and risk stripping, breaking, or maiming the exhaust lol. It took about 10 min to drop laying on my back with the car on stands, not too bad.
-got every necessary motor mount bolt loose and started on the 4 between the engine/tranny.
-unbolted the radiator, drained antifreeze and removed it for more room.

This is the hard one, the drivers side engine/tranny bolt sits right infront of the axle with too little clearance to put a half inch drive in there we had to use a 3/8'' drive with fine teeth and access it from above, removing the starter and placing a steel pipe on the end of it. Even with the starter removed there wasnt much room to turn it, it was done click by click resetting the ratchet by hand every time. But after about 5 min we got it off. That was the only big snag.

After that it was about 845pm and we decided to clean up and call it a night. I drained the oil out of the old motor and have the car sitting ready to be finished up now as the motor is completely lose and ready to be dropped.


We found removing the sub frame with the motor didnt look as easy as everyone says. It didnt look like thered be enough clearance to clear the PS rack and that we'd have to drop it to pull the sub frame, also would have to drop the control arms too? We opted to keep the sub frame and just slide out the motor.


So, Im going to grab some breakfast and start on it again in about an hour. Hopefully within the first hour we'll have the old motor out and the new one sitting in ready to be hooked up.

[ScottyB]

rock on!

[83Rabbit]

Update:

The 2.5 motor is sitting in the engine bay all bolted up. Here are some notes from the day.

-If you plan on running the 1.8 accessories, alt, ps, a/c. You need to swap over the 1.8 brackets too.
-my MY 00 motor had the 6 tooth crank sensor which apparently is what plugs directly into the 1.8 ECU
-you cannot remove the motor from the bottom without dropping the sub frame and/or removing the a/c condensor dryer. All we did for the hour we tried was succeeded in getting the studs on the motor stuck on the sub frame and bashing up my dryer. So I had to go out and shell out the 150 for an engine hoist. Once we hooked that up it came right out and the new one went right in.
- When installing the new motor not attatched to the sub frame it makes it easier to slide in if you use an SUV jack to jack up the tranny so the motor mount studs clear the sub frame and the angle created by them clearing is equal to the angle of the jacked up tranny.


other than those things, the motors bolted up, the PS is installed and yes the lines were a bit short, took a min to bend the one and a longer rubber hydrolic hose to fix the lower one. The AC and the brackets are bolted in, the alt is in, now everything just needs to be swapped, sensor-wise from the 1.8 into the 2.5 and its ready to go after we get some antifreeze, swap the TB, and change the oil, etc.