Is this EJ22 engine swap going to work out for me?

[brycarp]

Hi All,

 

I think this engine swap will go OK, but the junkyard engine I got is not a direct match, so I figured I'd better seek wisdom from the awesome people here.

 

The car is a 1996 Impreza Outback with EJ22, automatic transmission. 222k miles. I think we bought it with about 160k miles. It has consistently had trouble with losing coolant over time, and we've had varying success with stop-leak in the coolant. A lot of the time it has been getting "Cylinder 4 misfire" CEL code. More recently I've noticed that if I do a full throttle accelerate onto the freeway and then pull off at the next offramp and stop, I can tell it was blowing compression gas into the coolant because the reservoir has overflowed. I had the engine checked out by a local (non-dealer) Subie guy, and he pointed out that cylinder 4 has low compression.

 

So I decided to look for a used motor, given the mileage and not being sure that if I did all the work to replace head gaskets that that would for sure take care of the problem(s). I looked on car-part.com and found a nearby supposedly matching motor ("4" in 6th digit of VIN) from a claimed 132k mile car. Both motors do have "EJ22" on the block.

 

But there are significant differences with this motor:

• The car has some kind of canister up front on the passenger side, right next to the ABS with two hoses coming over to it from the engine. The junkyard motor doesn't have those connections.
• The car has three small hoses that connect on top of the throttle body. The junkyard engine has two connections there.
• I'm 98% sure that when I had the car's motor out when I first bought the car and had the valve covers off, that engine had no manual valve adjust. This matches what I see "out there" about a 96 Impreza 2.2 - hydraulic valve lifters. The motor I got to put in has roller cam and manual valve adjustment. Not a biggie to me, but just another clue toward "What is this engine?"
• The car's motor has red plastic color on the fuel injectors. The motor has gray (maybe slightly greenish compared to the gray of the connectors that plug onto them) fuel injectors.

Both motors do have EGR, so I expect that will hook up OK. Both single-port exhaust. I plan to use the entire intake manifold and all of the various plumbing from the car, bolted onto the block/heads from the junkyard motor. So from that, I should keep all the right connections. I noticed that the knock sensor has a different connector, so I'll need to keep the sensor from the car and bolt it on.

 

From having the valve covers, pan, and oil pump off of the junkyard motor, it all looks pretty good at this point, but my main question is "Given the differences of this motor, will everything work out with using the block/heads from it and the intake manifold/plumbing/injectors from the existing motor?

 

If the gray injectors would be fine to use, I might want to use them too, since they are significantly lower mileage.

 

Thanks for any help! I have GREATLY appreciated the help I've gotten here in the past.

 

All the best,

Bry

[Fairtax4me]

Sounds like you got a 97 or 98 ej22. Those had solid valve adjusters that need to be adjusted every now and then. No biggie.

Bolt your intake manifold on the new engine and drop it in the car.

[AdventureSubaru]

Yep. just make it a long block swap and you're good to go. You could run it with the 97/98 intake manifold too, but you end up splicing a few intake hoses together.