Engine Conversion Muse... Subaru or not Subaru

[Trundler]

I have recently been considering the future for the engine in my 1987 Transporter Syncro, which currently has a 2.1 litre DJ wasserboxer (now getting tired). I already have an LPG conversion on the van so would prefer to go down the petrol rather than Diesel route. Diesels have a number of advantages but petrol engines are much nicer and more characterful. With LPG, they can be pretty much as economical as Diesel too.

After looking briefly at different petrol options I came to the conclusion that Subaru power would be the way to go (there is a very good précis of the pros and cons of different petrol engines on the RJES website (http://www.rjes.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). Yes, they are selling Subaru conversion parts so have an axe to grind but the arguments merely confirmed my own gut feelings about options like Golf GTI motors, Audi 5s, V6s etc. The Subaru engines are the right size and shape and give a very neat and tidy installation. They also sound good – like the original engine does…

I thus began looking into the Subaru conversions more thoroughly. These are the salient points of what I’ve learned so far:

Subaru engines are plentiful and there are lots of complete cars with good engines in them that can be picked up for £500 or perhaps less. Buying a whole, running, donor car is probably a good solution, to be sure of having all the peripheral bits you need and also because it gives you a chance to properly assess the condition of the engine. Even if doing this, acquiring an engine/donor is one of the ‘minor’ costs of the conversion!

Converting a 2.1 Wasserboxer engined Type25 like mine is probably the simplest of the conversions and needs fewer special parts than almost any other VW to Subaru swap you could name. Despite this, the parts required, excluding the engine but including a stainless steel exhaust, an air filter and the wiring harness conversion work come to about £2k. I long since gave up doing engine swaps myself so add in a donor car and installation by a garage and you come to around £3k. (not including upgrading the LPG system to a more compatible gas injection version) It’s not cheap but you end up with a very nice conversion and a much more modern engine. So, which engine to use?

Any of the Subaru flat fours or sixes can apparently be made to fit without too much difficulty but if investing £3k in the job it would make sense to get a significant advantage in power. For me, this rules out the naturally aspirated 2.0 engines and makes the 2.2s less than desirable. 2.5s are a good bet but the DOHC ones had some head gasket troubles so a later SOHC 2.5 is favourite, if you can find one. These can give you between 150 and 165 bhp and torque to match.

Turbo engines are not recommended. Their chief attraction is their potential for huge power and torque but they add considerable complication to the conversion and the standard VW transaxle can’t cope with huge power and torque anyway (much above 150lb/ft and it starts to get dodgy).

The flat sixes are nice and would sound great. They are apparently not too hard to fit either but they do have the kind of torque that makes the VW transaxle go all weak-kneed. I recently had mine rebuilt so I wouldn’t want to risk it!

Best bet then is a naturally aspirated 2.5, either a SOHC one or a DOHC that has had its head gaskets replaced with the later type. But how does a £3k conversion stack up against the options with the standard lump?

Well, a standard, reconditioned Wasserboxer costs about £1300. If you get a garage to install it that would come to (say) £300. So, for £1600 (or about half of the cost of a Subaru conversion) you can have a ‘brand new’ engine. But, you would still be stuck with 112bhp/128lb/ft (tuning the Wasserboxer is not really worth considering, if you want more power go for a Subaru) and you would still have all your old (possibly ropey) ancillaries. The wasserboxer is a ‘nice’ engine – it sounds good and has pleasant characteristics – but it does lack power and, whichever way you look at it, it is a very old and very compromised design, having basically started out as an air-cooled Beetle engine.

I am still grappling with this question. I love the Type 25 as a characterful design but I have plans to buy a small boat and trailer and the Wasserboxer really doesn’t have the power for towing. I have three options; 1) stick with Wasserboxer power and live with the lack of grunt, 2) bite the bullet and invest £3k in the van to get Subaru power or 3) sell the Type 25 and replace it with a T4 Syncro TDI. Because of the value of the Type 25 Syncro, which is potentially increasing, the latter would probably involve the least outlay, strangely, but I would end up with ‘just another Diesel van’.

I still have more learning and pondering to do before I can make a decision.

Any opinions?

[lloydy]

from what ive heard the subaru's are a good match for a syncro. Dai on here has one, could be worth dropping him a pm for his opinion.
Another option is the 1.8T, keeps it all VW, most are 150bhp standard, a few are 180bhp. You can buy a complete kit in a box (from usa) which inc loom, mounts, hoses, basically everything

[KINGPRAWN]

Or just stick another DJ in it..... One rebuilt on eBay £1200!!!!

[Dai]

Bite the bullet ,invest the money in the Subaru conversion
I was I the same position that your in now, went through the same thought processes and decided to fit a recon 2.1 dJ which did 50,000 miles on LPG and gave up the ghost
i then went down the Subaru route and fitted a sohc EJ 25 from a 1999 legacy using a combination of Smallcar and RJES parts and SyncroAndy did the wiring,
its transformed the van completely , it's everything i was looking for,better fuel figures ,it has loads
Of useable power and with the adition of the subaru cruise-control just munches miles effortlessly.
I haven't regretted doing the conversion once
PM me if you need any more info

[Trundler]

Thanks for the advice.

I've had other people tell me that the smaller Subaru engines are not that much better than the WBX and not worth the hassle of converting. Someone said go SVX (6-cylinder) or not at all, and another snippet is that Subaru's engine materials are not as good as VWs, so you are getting a more modern but inferior quality engine... which is something I didn't expect.

[pionte]

from what ive heard the subaru's are a good match for a syncro. Dai on here has one, could be worth dropping him a pm for his opinion.
Another option is the 1.8T, keeps it all VW, most are 150bhp standard, a few are 180bhp. You can buy a complete kit in a box (from usa) which inc loom, mounts, hoses, basically everything

Would you have a link to a web page ??

Thanks in advance .

[pionte]

found it... looks stunning...shame I havnt got the $6500

http://www.h2ovanagon.com/Portals/1/Doc ... ochure.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Aidan]

Trundler - meet up with SyncroAndy, he's not far from you and you probably drive past his often enough on way to Lakeland and go get a drive of his, same engine as Dai's, smaller wheels, tintop camper like yours

[Trundler]

Cheers Aidan. I am a bit embroiled in bodywork and painting at the moment but I will certainly look up syncroandy. I'd like to look at his van and the Subaru is still on the horizon.

[Trundler]

Despite a huge amount of researching and weighing up of pros and cons, I’m still not much nearer a decision on the replacement powerplant for my van (the old wasserboxer continues to soldier on smokily). I’ve ruled out any completely outlandish conversions, though I know all sorts of engines have been fitted to VW vans over the years. My thinking has thus crystallised (a bit) like this:

Diesels: They have their advantages and are in many ways the most sensible option but I’ve more or less ruled them out because I don’t really like Diesels (although I have one as an everyday car). The installation of straight-four engines into the Type 25 engine bay is also a bit messy and not very pleasing from a purist engineer’s perspective.

Lesser Petrol options: The Golf GTI engine and others like it suffer the same purist objections as the Diesels and their characteristics are not as well-suited to the van as the standard WBX (not as much low-down torque) and anyway, straight 4s are very ‘ordinary’ engines at the best of times.

Greater Petrol options: In this category, I put the Audi 5 (as in South African Type 25s) along with Audi V6s in 2.4, 2.6 and 2.8 sizes. They would certainly motivate the bus quite nicely but the 5 is now getting to be a very old engine and the V6s don’t fit into the engine bay without some modification to the engine cover – not good in a camper! The more powerful 2.8 V6 probably has too much torque for the transaxle anyway.

None of the above conversions are so well-documented as the Subaru conversion.

So, we are left with the original question. Subaru or not Subaru?

Subaru: I’ve more or less decided the EJ25 (2.5 flat four) from a Legacy is the best Subaru option. The 2.0 litre and 2.2 litre versions don’t offer enough advantage for the money invested and the 3.0 and 3.3 flat sixes are just too powerful for what I want (and for the transaxle). The conversion is relatively straightforward but that doesn’t mean simple. Some complex wiring work is involved; the whole wiring loom from the donor car is required and about £350 of expert rewiring needed to make it all compatible with the Type 25. Including this, the kit of parts needed for the conversion (from RJES) come out at about £1400

On top of that, it would cost at least £1000 in labour to have a garage do it (it wouldn’t be a DIY job for me!) plus a bespoke exhaust system at (say) £500 and a shallower sump pan at about £250 from Small Car in the States. The total conversion cost I’ve worked out hovers between £3k and £4k, including the required upgrade to my LPG system, so it aint cheap!

I’ve also heard worrying stories about the Subaru engines suffering from Valve Seat Recession when run on LPG and you then get into messy solutions like upper cylinder lubrication systems. Add to this the fact that the desirable modified sumps are not available in the UK and the fact that there is no off-the shelf exhaust system available for the conversion at present and not forgetting that you are still ending up with a second-hand engine (probably with 100k + miles under its belt) and it all starts to look bad for the Scooby option. 

WBX: So, back to the trusty old wasserboxer then? You’d think that just buying a reconditioned WBX ‘off the shelf’ and fitting it would be simple but it’s not. I’ve read a lot about the WBX on Go Westy’s excellent website (a great source of info) but their uprated engines are somewhat expensive (not to mention on the wrong side of the Atlantic). However, I learned from their site that most builders of WBX engines now use a Spanish made cylinder head as the VW ones are no-longer available. The casting is apparently fine but the valves are of poor quality (Go Westy replace theirs with OE German-made valves)

In the UK, builders like VW Heritage want over £2k for their engines and that seems expensive for a straight replacement.

My next option was The Engine Shop. They do a standard 2.1 for about £1350 (exchange) or an interesting ‘big bore’ 2.2 with a fast road cam for £1750. The fast road cam has a duration of 290deg which is jolly interesting but I’ve no idea what the standard cam duration is! This engine also uses the Spanish-made AMC cylinder heads complete with poor quality valves…

What about the lowest-cost option? Elite VW do a rebuilt WBX for about £900. This is not a fully reconditioned engine though. It’s a rebuild, with all worn parts replaced where necessary. Some in the VW bus fraternity have been sniffy about this but it’s exactly the same approach used by Aidan Talbot when he rebuilt my gearbox last year. The only thing Elite seem to lack is Aidan’s (deserved) reputation for thoroughness and quality of workmanship. The £900 Elite engine is still a tempting option though, and it would leave money in the bank for adding extra performance afterwards. See “Supercharging the WBX” in the Mechanical forum.

I should also mention that I have also considered a bespoke rebuild by Marco Mansi or Laurie Pettitt but have been unable to contact either of them.

So, at the moment, the WBX options are still ahead by a nose... It is, after all, part of the van’s DNA, and a very appealing engine in many ways. It’s just a pity it has some question marks over its reliability and is not easy to uprate for that little bit of extra urge it needs..

Still thinking………. :-/

[silverbullet]

You can't really compare the EJ's to the wbx in any way, other than they are the same configuration. Straight 5's are a whole other ball game. As "one of the afflicted" I have examples of all three
The wbx could be really good with modern engine management, like megasquirt. Proper rebuilds cost proper money only because the parts are so dear.
The EJ's have a lot of punch and do pull well right up into the red. They are very good on fuel (once warmed up...) and the torque delivery of the 2.2 would give you a lot to think about, do you really need the 2.5? But...they have a rep for cooking their engine looms long term, which can lead to spurious faults and loss of temper. OEM parts are very expensive.
5's and V6's are big old lumps and very smooth and torquey, but you've got to drive like a saint to get in the mid-20's mpg IME. Anything other than a pseudo-diesel install or a flat-4 means a raised engine deck, I got around this in the 2.6 SA by fitting a second (narrowed and reversed) r'r bed to face the original, so you can sleep midships; but it's primarily a bus, not a mobile cottage!
They have all got their pros and cons, it really depend what's order you put the list:
Originality? Outright power? Purity of installation? Fuel efficiency? Torque delivery? Useability?

Ian

[Trundler]

Cheers Ian, good to get input from someone so "afflicted"

It's a tricky question I'm still juggling with. Ever different approach seems to have it's pros and cons and you are right - the difficulty is putting them in order!

[syncropatrick]

Difficult innit! In a similar boat to you, plus not got money to do anything at the mo, so spend too much time thinking and changing my mind.
I suggest finding people who have the engines installed and asking for a test drive.
FYI, Laurie seems to have retired and written a book on how to rebuild air-cooled engines, which is his real passion. I spoke to him on phone 3 years ago and he said he wasnt interested in doing more waterboxer rebuilds.

[Tobyt25]

Would a honda civic 2.2 turbo diesel fit in? The torque on those engines is incredible.

[Trundler]

No need to go Honda if you want torque. The VW 1.9TDI in my Ibiza has 229lb/ft ... that's way more than the Type 25 transaxle can handle though!