N/a legacy (2.5i) -> 09 legacy 2.0L GT (ej205)

Hello, I’m kinda new to all this so I opened this thread. I made the horrible financial decision and do an engine swap into my daily natural aspirated 5 speed manual. I’ve decided on doing an ej205 (from an 02 wrx) with a vf48 turbo.

Where I went wrong, I should’ve just bought a ej20x or y and went from there but I was told I could just sell the parts and make it back. That was the first mistake, this swap isn’t as straight forward as I thought it.

I little backstory of the car, it came somewhere from New York, the guy drove it for a year, rod knocked, swapped the short block, then couldn’t afford it and was left in a parking lot for 2 years. Then it was offered to me for a high-ish price and I thought it was a good price because I was told that I could part it out.

Now after the month and half the guy that was helping me found a speciality shop for these types of swap. He quoted me 3 weeks just about we’re about half way through, the engines in most of the mechanical parts are in, we’re waiting on an oil catch can, and sub frame.

If you’re planning on doing this swap, I’m not sure if I would or wouldn’t recommend it. A lot of people don’t, one thing of advice find someone that knows what they’re doing before you buy anything. Do not just throw parts at it. The shop I took it too he builds 800+ Hondas but he was also a Subaru tech for X amount of years with a crap ton of experience, he does build Subarus not as much as Honda.

Electrical aspect:

Now theirs a few ways of going about this electrical cluster of can-bus bs, you can do a full bulk head swap, use the stock na bulk head and or standalone/piggyback. Now I’m not 100% sure about the standalone, I’ve talked to him a few times ab it but not something we’ve gotten too. We’ve decided on keeping the na bulk head, now few things you need to swap literally everything from the na ej253 to the ej205, coolant cross member, wiring harness, etc. now you need to control boost right? My tech is getting the pin out for the na ecu to put it in, and I’ll share that information as soon as I can! Also another thing, boost controllers, buy a Mac 3 port. Literally the same a grimspeed and almost all the others, it’s $40, the only reason you’d want to buy a grimspeed is for the oem factory LGT wiring harnesses with the whole bulk head harness swap. Spark, go get some diy wire on plug and use the factory na legacy coil.

Mechanical:

Everything but the long block needs to be Na legacy, if you get the ej20x/y you really won’t need to worry about it all that much (besides the wiring harness) but for me doing an ej205 I needed a new intake manifold because dbw and other connectors. IMPORTANT ej205 heads have a different coolant route to the turbo that the uppipe won’t clear, you’ll need to get some line and rotate the turbo. Now something we’re doing different is deleting as much random vacuum lines and just simplify the engine as much as possible, why do we need to route the lines back into the intake when we can just vent it into the atmosphere.

Tuning:

A bulk head harness would be the best way of doing this but it’s the most expensive, they’re are ways of getting around it but doing an all motor tune. Tuning is one of those things I have no idea of how to do it or what to look for, that’s something my tech is going to do for me/teach me.

Emissions:

Where I live we only do visual inspections, so I can get around the ob2 connect. To pass you need to connect everything from the na wiring harnesses and move everything, I remember my tech showing me one of the places that most people delete the wire but I don’t remember the name of the wire and plug in.

This swap isn’t for the fate of heart, eventually i want to do an sti tranny swap and a built ej20. I’ll keep this forum up to date, so update coming soon.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, if your in Cleveland-Erie-Pittsburgh-Buffalo area and your interested in doing this swap contact me here and I can set you up with my tech!

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In my time doing basically exactly this to my GC starting in 2015, I'm on my 8th or 9th bottom end.

Make sure the tuning is good. With all the money spent, you could have bought one with a turbo already. but the journey is part of the experience!

EDIT: Also, with that being said. I finally decided to do it right instead of throwing short blocks at it and pulling a degree of timing across the board to try to make the next one last longer while still having good power....

I bought a merged harness and turbo intake manifold. You do it wrong long enough, you have to take a good hard look in the mirror and just... do it right.

Yea I’m not going to say I regret doing it, it’s been an experience I’ve met a ton of people because of it. If I had to do it again I would’ve definitely done it a different way, I’m not old enough to have affordable wrx insurance so getting a turbo subi wasn’t really in the market to spend 300-400 on insurance. Plus I love my legacy, I can’t find a legacy Gt with decent miles. I’ve been looking into tuning a lot. I’ve emailed a few e tuner’s but I’m probably going to have to take it somewhere. My buddy that tunes Hondas will made me a base map, set the boost to 3-5psi, all that stuff. Also One of the big reasons that I took it to a shop is because of the wiring, I’m not a professional and I didn’t feel comfortable cutting into anything. I eventually plan on swapping the whole bulk head with a gt harness and whenever I do that I’m also gonna do a built block (ej20) and etc.

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Also I did end up buying a turbo intake and tgv deletes, the intake came with a turbo harness but merging isn’t an option. If need be we might piggyback off the ecu and have that control fuel, timing, and boost. I’m not sure that’s the last option, my county has visual inspections so I could run a stand alone if I had too but then there’s a hole mess of wiring. I’d like to make a little bit above stock (230hp) so I’d like to make 280 bhp, whatever the tuner thinks is best.

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update: the turbo legacy subframe is in, the up-pipe need some fab work due to the turbo not clearing the trans. I’m not sure if it’s the header problem or what but the turbo is getting clocked, more updates coming Monday.

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Turbos rotated, I believe because we were having clearance problems with the transmission. I’m not sure

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Almost all done, a few lines need ran including a fuel return and the spark plugs need to be connected to the distributor. Just the little things then I plan on running a manual boost controller for the time being because I’m not sure if we’ll be able to connect electric boost controller.

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Got the car running! The guy that helped put all this together is also going to tune my car, he’s mostly experienced in tuning Hondas but as a big Subaru enthusiast he wants to learn so my car will be the Ginny-pig, so we gotta set the sti injectors and get a base map then throw it to paint get the LGT hood then we’ll start tuning. Any tuning info or help with turbo swaps will be awesome, I’ll try to post a video of the car starting!

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Also I’ll be doing an 38mm Tile wastegate and a 3 inch exhaust in the near future (2-3 weeks) I’ll keep you guys updated!

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Nice little snaked downpipe, should throw those uelh headers off lol.

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Finished product

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Here’s the first start!! It’s a YouTube short btw

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