RallyWagon Gets a New Heart

As I've mentioned in a previous post, we had to postpone our plans for the WRX swap in order to stay in the same class for this race season. But we needed to do something about our tired old motor as it was getting far too unreliable and underpowered. As luck would have it we managed to get our hands on a parts car - an 02 Impreza with an alarmingly rotten body, a clutch so worn it slipped in any gear at any speed, but a decent EJ251 with the only real problem being leaking gaskets which is an easy fix.

This weekend we finally found the time to do the swap. Our tired old motor had 418,000 kms, drank coolant and oil faster than it drank gas, had trouble pulling the car up hills, and always started with a loud "taka-taka-taka" and the oil pressure warning light being on for a good few seconds. It was getting frightening to take the car on long journeys so at the very least the new engine made the car more reliable.

In hindsight it would have been nice to measure the performance of the old motor before putting the new one in. But all we know is the new motor doesn't leak any fluids, sounds healthy, revs freely at idle, and our butt dynos felt the car was noticeably faster. Far from a WRX of course, but decently fast for a naturally aspirated 2.5. We also put in a new clutch while we had the engine out as the old one started to slip a bit. Can't wait till the next rallycross!