right, my wrx V2 wagon went bang a few weeks ago and after many hours searching ebay for replacment engines it apears finding decent wrx/uk2000 engines are min £500 and stis any thing up to £2k, so ive ended up buyin this...

EJ257 EJ25 IMPREZA TURBO SEMI CLOSED DECK BLOCK ENGINE on eBay (end time 27-Feb-10 19:36:13 GMT)

now... i've a freind whos a mechanic with quite a bit of experience of building engines, and has promised to help me build the engine, so that aspect wont be a problem.

however, neither of us have fitted a EJ257 into a V2 GC8, so im hoping thats where u guys can help...

1st of all, my standard ecu had a ESL daughter board chip already installed, is this going to be safe/advisable to keep and map once everythig's run in? my worries are MAF related ETC

2nd, will my old engine harness fit with out majour modification (i understand coils and injectors will need a bit of retro fiting) or will i need a ej25 harness?

and 3rdly i spose any advice etc to make things easier would be much appreiciated, ill more than likely think or other things in the mornig, so ive no doubt ill have more queations shortly...

but thats in advance for now

 

Since the long engine is in bits then the easiest way to do this is to reuse your existing heads and sell the newage heads and manifold etc to recoup costs. Doing it this way means its just like swapping over a 2.0 shortblock, except you'll need a my97-8 water cross pipe and you'll also need to block off the extra crank breather.

If you want to move away from the hydraulic heads you have then depending on power goals the MY97/8 wrx/uk heads are cheap and again all your exisitng inlet manifold/ancillaries/coilpack will bolt straight on.

 

oh and your ESL will work for getting it running and to get it to your mapper but I personally wouldn't use it to run in the engine since you do need to give it a bit of boost to bed the rings and it won't be mapped for the 25% volume increase. So factor in the cost of ESL live if you chip isn't one of these

 

ah, thats a good idea jay, will my coils fit 97/98 heads? thought they went to twin coils then?

also are 97/98 uk/wrx no better than sti ones? im guessing they both have solid lifters?
and surley the ej25 heads and manifold are biger thus able to flow more? or will it not be worth the work to ge them to fit?
excuse my ignorance, spose we all have to learn some how

 

The extra torque may be a little problem for you, a clutch may be required and your gearbox may suffer so take that into consideration if you want to put a 2.5ltr in there.

Tony

 

yeah i understand tony, think im gonna go for a paddle clutch, and eventualy i wanna fit a dccd box...

 

I wouldnt go for a paddle clutch, if you ever had one on your car then you wont really want one on there again plus they can put more strain on your gearbox, something you dont want to do.

Tony

 

Your coils will fit, yes they did go for coil pack on manifold that year, but there is still the threaded hole by the plugs to accept your coils.

WRX/uk heads have same casings as sti but over bucket shims and decent cams - STi have under bucket shims and more agressive cams. WRX heads can rev to 7k5 whereas STI to 8k+ but with a 2.5 unless you spend mega money you won't want to rev past 7k5...