I am looking to drop my stock 73 2.0l and rebuilding it stronger while maintaining day to day driving reliability before putting it back in. Im not interested in blowing the engine by pushing it to its max but Id like to see it reach 115/120 HP without entering the world of the insane. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Check out what is required to have a good reliable 2056, that is what I have and am very happy with the performance. It is not a fire breathing Camaro eating monster,but it certainly get keep up on the spirited driving tours we go on! Many will chime in with in depth descriptions, heads from LN Engineering combined with the proper cam kit from Jake Raby and I have the power and torque range you are looking for. Good luck to you.

Ian Stott
Moncton
Canada

2056 - @McMark

Your stated desire to make more power comes at the sacrifice of engine strength. The original stock 1971cc engine was designed with redundancies (safety factors) to handle stresses. Higher displacement, higher compression reduces those safety factors, makes more heat, and may make more HP but the engines components need to become thinner and are higher stressed to accomplish that. So the stock engine becomes inherently weaker to achieve more power. How much so depends on how extreme the mods become. One of several good reasons to leave it stock. You will be wise to avoid the slippery slope. But maybe wise is no fun for some?

To another Virginian, Whereabouts in VA are you?

Jeff is generally a purist about keeping things stock, which is great. However, I think there's a decent consensus that you can meet your stated requirements with the 2056, as others have stated, while still maintaining good reliability and driveability with stock FI components. Do a search on here for 2056 builds. In short, a 2056 is:

1. 96mm pistons and cylinders. These fit in the case with no machining.
2. Stock 71mm crank
3. Cam, and your basic options are:
a. stock cam, but that generally won't get you to 110 hp, depending on other specs like compression ratio
b. FI compatible cam, like a Type4 Store 9950 or Webcam 73 (I believe), which should get you in that hp range and still give good reliability and driveability with generally stock D-Jet (MPS needs to be tuned)
c. Carb-compatible cam. Lots of options, and depending on how aggressive you want to go you can easily meet hp requirements, perhaps at expense of some driveability / idle stability.

2056 is what I have, and lots of others here as well. If you want to deviate from stock and go that route, build it yourself or contact one of the good builders here, like McMark (as Rob suggested).

I'm pretty happy with it

but will add get European Motor Works (EMW), (4) 96mm Keith Black (KB) pistons, (4) 96mm cylinders, and piston one ring set. That's the way you have to order as EMW has a funny way of ordering.
You also want lifters that are matched to the cam.

2056. See my sig.

Thats the stuff they built my big /4 with ...