A guy wants to sell me a 93 Legacy wagon with 77,000 miles on the car. He said the engine has 27,000 on it. It is a rebuilt engine with ej22 heads on an ej25 block. Could this cause problems down the road?

 

Also, could this be a problem getting it by smog inspection in California?

Edited August 23, 201015 yr by abcus
another thought

A 93 Legacy would have come with an EJ22.

I would be more interested to know why the engine was rebuilt at 50k miles.

wow.

I think ej22 older (90-94) heads on a ej25 would make that ej25 a non interference motor. And no headgasket leak issues.

Brilliant

Wonder why Subaru didnt do something like that. Run it til the Tbelt breaks, slap a new one on.

 

interesting.

an EJ25 is basically just a bored out EJ22, so if the work was done right it shouldn't matter.

 

ideally subaru headgaskets were used as EJ25's are known to have headgasket issues.

 

BH mentions interference by which he means valve to valve interference. I think these swaps can still create a valve to piston interference so I wouldn't bank on that without further confirmation.

Edited August 23, 201015 yr by grossgary

Thanks for the help so far.

 

The guy trying to sell me the car said he bought the car from a novice mechanic that wanted better performance but could not get to run. Once he got it home, he put new a timing belt on and got it running. He claims his son ran it for 3 years. It has been sitting for a year since then.

That's a Frankenmotor - it's a fairly common performance upgrade on cars equipped with 2.2's. It should be quite a bit more powerful if properly done (increase of 40 to 60 HP), should pass smog without a problem, and yes it will most likely be an interferance engine now (2.5's are stroked compared to 2.2's in addition to their larger bore) so you want to keep up on the timing belt. It will also be a high-octane engine now - you have run premium due to the increased compression.

 

Sounds like a good buy to me - if the work was done right.

 

GD

Edited August 23, 201015 yr by GeneralDisorder

Thanks GD, yeah the pistons or stroked on the Ej25 so it would in fact become interference. I think you can find more info if you search "frankenmotor" on a few sites, that is what BBS.legacyentral called them.