Why not the WRX? Options

[Brett W]

I was checking on the net today and you can pick up a WRX motor for about 650 used. This is pretty complete. That would make a great 914 swap. Better turbo, and some cleaning up of the engine wiring and such you could have one bad ass daily driver.

You would still have the flat four and you could over come the limitations of the T4 engine.

[jonwatts]

Ben you Ignorant Slut (IMG:style_emoticons/default/fighting19.gif)

No seriously, that sounds like reasonable, uh, reasoning. I'm always concerned a little bit about resale value only because I've sold cars that I swore I never would. This hasn't stopped me from dumping stupid amounts of money into them, I just have the appropriately sized guilt to go along with it.

Before I bought my engine I was doing all the required research and one of the things that led me to the twin turbo version of the EJ20 was the fact that Subaru hasn't been making it for nearly as long as the single turbo version. The only difference I remember is that the twin turbo has slightly higher compression than the single turbo version (like 8.5:1 vs 7.5:1). One of you industrious wannabies should figure out all the differences between early and late EJ20 engines to see how much it really matters. What I'm getting at is that you may not know exactly what version (or vintage) of the engine you're getting for $650 until it shows up on your doorstep. This was a big enough deal to me at the time to pop the extra $500 for the known engine. $1200 for 300+ HP is still great bang-for-your-buck compared to what we're used to with german engineered HP. Would I do the same thing again next time? I don't know yet.

Sheesh, this is why I only post smart-assed one liners. Real posts are too much work.