[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by wulfgang

I'll bite.

Me too I suppose

No. Their cars primary characteristics are dominated by their rear-engined and mid-engined layouts and 50 years of development on the same chassis, not by the flat engines. They didn't even choose flat engines, they just inherited them from VW. Don't read too much into it.

I would agree that the rear engine has unique handling characteristics, but I would argue that the flat engine was key to giving the car the anti-roll, tight-to-the-road feel; and that would include their old cars, and everyone in between, and not just the cars at the end of this 50 years of development. Was their other engines and cars good? Yes, but the
V8s in the 928 doesn't feel like the 911, and such is the case (for a number of reasons) with the V8 swapped 911's.

It is interesting that you say they just inherited the flat engines from VW because it was Porsche who was contracted by Hitler to make the VW, "the people's car", and with the Type 32 prototype, he put a flat 4 cylinder in the rear.

Yes, because of the lower ride height (nevertheless, the Cayman has ducts that stick down to make the ground clearance even worse than BRZ). If we drop a car by 1", we lower its CG by 1". If we drop the engine by 1", we lower the CG by what... 0.20"? So how much do you think that engine placement matters?

My point in bringing up Porsche was to highlight the fact that for $25k, we have Porsche architecture to the car and Porsche feel to the handling.

No. The handling is more directly affected by the very wide track, the long wheelbase, and most importantly, the fact that all of the press cars had stock tires which don't develop enough grip to move the suspension much. So the press cars corner very flat because a) they don't have grip and b) the track is huge.

Long wheelbase and wide track? Do you mean proportionally? Because the BRZ is 167x70x51 with a 101.2 wb and a Civic SI coupe is 177x71x55 with a 106.3 wb, and I would consider the BRZs handling/feel much better.

I respect that the flat-4 has a lower CG, and that's great. But the marketing is all about the red herring: let's focus on the CG so that nobody asks why in the hell you put a heavy-ass, expensive, complicated 2.0L way out in front of the front wheels when you could have just used a tiny, light, cheap inline-4 instead.

Manufactures have a lot to consider when developing cars. They have to consider costs, performance, safety, legacy, etc. For Porsche and Subaru, I believe their choice to use flat engines was a trade-off, but they wouldn't have done it without some benefit--the idea being that marketing wouldn't be enough without some benefit.

To improve on the handling of the WRX, they did this to the engine position. Visually, it looks significant, and appears to not be "way out in front of the front wheels". They could probably have moved the engine even further back, but they didn't. Maybe safety...? Maybe better turn in with some weight in front of the center of the front wheels...? I don't know. I am not an engineer.







And because it matters to this swap, the F20+tranny is around 460. The FA20+tranny is around 480. Is the FA20 engine heavy? Yes. Will this swap be lighter? Slightly. Could they have used a detuned turbo 4 cylinder? Yes, but maybe they wanted NA, maybe they wanted revs, maybe they wanted to stay 2.0 for racing/class consideration. I don't know. I know that when you control for inflation, 200hp 2.0L NA motors from Japan like in the Type R, S2000 and RSX-s were in $35k+ cars, so I think this motor is a deal.

There are a lot of what if's, but Toyota went to Subaru for this engine and arranged it how they thought best.


Love the car for what it is (looks, lightness, big track, etc.), but since this is a car forum and we are all car guys... please, please don't perpetrate the marketing BS.

Anyway, I am very excited to see the results of this (or a K series) swap, because I too want to do this. I'm on my second BRZ now and I just can't get over the missed potential with the engine. The rest of the car is perfect!

I'm excited to see this swap too because it is cool. My original post was not to beat on swaps. I was getting defensive because the FA20 motor, or use of a flat four engine, was called a "silly design" or he wanted to "see a real engine in there rather than the silly flat4", a design shared by silly old Porsche, and a design and engine that was carefully chosen with respectable attributes. Do your swaps, but there is no need to trash Subaru and Toyota for something that is pretty good, even if it may not be as good as your F20, LS, 2JZ or whatever other better engine is used in a swap.

Originally Posted by NOHOME

I agree with all of your points. And since this IS a forum dedicated to getting rid of the pedestrian pancake from Subaru, I cant help but think it is the right forum to voice your thoughts!

I was trying to avoid going off-topic with a tangent debate about Porsche handing--not avoiding the "swap vs not" debate.