FA20 - A, Thats F20 Quick Math

[NOHOME]

Originally Posted by wulfgang

I'll bite.


The rest of the car is perfect!

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!

[PR138]

Originally Posted by spitfire481

We really need a car to make the trans mount and electronics package on. The car we made the engine mounts/mock up with is a 2j vvti/cd009 car that will be finished as that and sold. If nobody jumps on our swap development request, we will probably buy another shell once the 2j car is done and sold.

Not sure what your timeline is on this, but I'd assume you're looking to do this in the immediate future. If you're still looking for a mule in 2-3 months, I'll be game for sure. This swap with a turbo sounds perfect. I just need to make some moves to be able to start this financially.

[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.

[wulfgang]

Well, this is a swap discussion about putting an inline-4 where a flat-4 was, so maybe it's appropriate to have it here? I'm sure there are many people who come in here and think why waste time putting a 4 cylinder where a 4 cylinder already was, and in this case, I agree with the PO that it is totally justified. I think our discussion addresses many criticisms that people will naturally have with this swap.

Anyway, I agree with most of your points above now with a few exceptions: I don't think the 928 is relevant when discussing "typical Porsche handling" (front engine), and I don't think overall body measurements of the Civic Si are relevant when discussing track (car width != track and car length != wheelbase). For reference, the BRZ has ~2 inches more track width than the Cayman up front.

And yes, I know there are good reasons why Subaru put the FA20 out front, but none of those reasons had anything to do with engineering a good sports car. It took marketing to turn this turd of an engineering choice into some BS about how they lowered the CG. If they really cared about the CG so much, all they had to do to get an equivalent change was to spec springs just 0.2" shorter. That's an almost imperceptible drop, and it would have cost them nothing.

I'll take both solutions: give me the Honda engine to fix the weight distribution and I'll buy the $300 springs to give me back that 0.2" drop in CG.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by wulfgang

Well, this is a swap discussion about putting an inline-4 where a flat-4 was, so maybe it's appropriate to have it here? I'm sure there are many people who come in here and think why waste time putting a 4 cylinder where a 4 cylinder already was, and in this case, I agree with the PO that it is totally justified. I think our discussion addresses many criticisms that people will naturally have with this swap.

Anyway, I agree with most of your points above now with a few exceptions: I don't think the 928 is relevant when discussing "typical Porsche handling" (front engine), and I don't think overall body measurements of the Civic Si are relevant when discussing track (car width != track and car length != wheelbase). For reference, the BRZ has ~2 inches more track width than the Cayman up front.

And yes, I know there are good reasons why Subaru put the FA20 out front, but none of those reasons had anything to do with engineering a good sports car. It took marketing to turn this turd of an engineering choice into some BS about how they lowered the CG. If they really cared about the CG so much, all they had to do to get an equivalent change was to spec springs just 0.2" shorter. That's an almost imperceptible drop, and it would have cost them nothing.

I'll take both solutions: give me the Honda engine to fix the weight distribution and I'll buy the $300 springs to give me back that 0.2" drop in CG.

I'm assuming the naive are not going to be trying a swap, but regardless, it has been discussed that the F20 and tranny has high power potentials and that it will be cheaper and more reliable to do this swap than to do a build of the FA20 and tranny.

If someone was planning to NOT boost the F20, ever, then this swap is not cost effective or necessary, but to each their own.

Whether it was the 928 (engine in front), or a LS swapped 911 (engine in rear), the V8's don't feel the same as their flat engines. And I didn't bring up length, width and wheelbase. I was asking him what he meant by a long wheelbase when he said that is what makes the twins great at handling.

I still don't know what you or others mean by putting the engine out front? Out front of what? The engine is inline with the front wheels.

Some engines in the front:

Evo


STI


AE86 ...just as "forward" as the BRZ

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

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.



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

I'm not going to go into the specific detail about CoG etc... But, when comparing the FA20 to any of the great motors we all know that reliably take power mods and are known to last, (B16/18, K20/24, LSX, 2J, 4G63, etc....) it is really not a good choice for a sportscar (that's my opinion and I'll agree to disagree).

Subaru motors have never been proven to being extra reliable (ringlands on stock EJs anyone? Stock FA20s throwing rods and rocker arms?). I know this is not the case for everyone. I know there are Subaru motors with 200K+ miles of course, but for every Subaru like that there are 10 Honda and 20 Toyotas.

If you want to tell me, this motor provided the lowest CoG of all choices, I'd totally agree with you. But I would have preferred a higher CoG to have a real engine in there (real=reliably able to take power and mods and last). Mind you, this is from someone who ran the FA20 at 550 whp and didn't break it but knew had a ticking bomb on his hands. I understand 500whp is not realistic to be able to last on a stock motor, but I've seen plenty of stock motors or slightly modified FA20s grenade. Freaking Fully built FA20s can still throw a wrench at you when the a cam sensor or sprocket acts up, and P0016 or P0018 ends up hard coded in the ECU and you need to replace said ECU...

Built FA20s have spit out rocker arms, a little dirt on the cam actuator screens and you start getting weird cam actuation CELs. The motor seems to be very sensitive and when you are talking about making power, simple is best. What I'm saying is, even when built, these engines still have more weak points than many other engines that are known to reliably make power. This car from factory with an F20 or K20/24, holy shit I would have bought this car and never looked anywhere else!

[pgranberg11]

Originally Posted by Sportsguy83

This car from factory with an F20 or K20/24, holy shit I would have bought this car and never looked anywhere else!

^ yep, that right there. that's exactly how I feel.

If/When my second engine goes, I seriously cannot wait until there's a full solution for an F series or K series honda motor. My friend had a 400whp supercharged 08 civic Si and ran it like that for years, many track days, many daily miles. Car still runs too, but he is doing a kmiata swap.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Sportsguy83

I'm not going to go into the specific detail about CoG etc... But, when comparing the FA20 to any of the great motors we all know that reliably take power mods and are known to last, (B16/18, K20/24, LSX, 2J, 4G63, etc....) it is really not a good choice for a sportscar (that's my opinion and I'll agree to disagree).

Subaru motors have never been proven to being extra reliable (ringlands on stock EJs anyone? Stock FA20s throwing rods and rocker arms?). I know this is not the case for everyone. I know there are Subaru motors with 200K+ miles of course, but for every Subaru like that there are 10 Honda and 20 Toyotas.

If you want to tell me, this motor provided the lowest CoG of all choices, I'd totally agree with you. But I would have preferred a higher CoG to have a real engine in there (real=reliably able to take power and mods and last). Mind you, this is from someone who ran the FA20 at 550 whp and didn't break it but knew had a ticking bomb on his hands. I understand 500whp is not realistic to be able to last on a stock motor, but I've seen plenty of stock motors or slightly modified FA20s grenade. Freaking Fully built FA20s can still throw a wrench at you when the a cam sensor or sprocket acts up, and P0016 or P0018 ends up hard coded in the ECU and you need to replace said ECU...

Built FA20s have spit out rocker arms, a little dirt on the cam actuator screens and you start getting weird cam actuation CELs. The motor seems to be very sensitive and when you are talking about making power, simple is best. What I'm saying is, even when built, these engines still have more weak points than many other engines that are known to reliably make power. This car from factory with an F20 or K20/24, holy shit I would have bought this car and never looked anywhere else!

Except you would be paying for it... this car isn’t a Honda S2000, Civic Type R or RSX-S. If you meant a K24 from an SI then ok, that car is priced around $25k. Those other cars and engines were in cars that cost $35k+ when accounting for inflation. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison to a budget sports car. Those cars were a budget back then compared to the GT sports cars like the Supra, RX7 and 300XZ, but they were still at the tip of engineering at the time. The twins are the dirt, cheapest sports cars money can buy. The Miata is it’s most direct competitor, and there is more tech in the FA20 than the 2.0 Skyactiv engine.

The Subaru motors, including the FA20, have their issues, but I don’t see many apple to apple comparisons that would suggest that the motor is silly at $25k. For $25k we get a 200hp NA motor that revs to 7500, 100hp/l, 34mpgs, a mid/front mounted engine and RWD with LSD. You get what you pay for. The Civic SI could be a better value, but that success doesn’t make the FA20 silly in design or disrespectable among its competitors. What is the point of acting like the FA20 should be something greater for that price, and is silly? Do the swap, but people don’t need to be a hater.

[tirespin782]

Supercharged s2000 Owner here. I can't speak for all s2k owners, but I don't think I'd consider the f20c transmission *that* stout. The > 500whp s2k guys know they can pop the gear box. I know if I were turbo'd at my power level (500+whp )the diff and tranny would be on borrowed time. The strength of the s2k gear box is that it'll still shift smoothly at >9000 rpm.

As an aside, the FA20 has a FI option that the s2k community is missing, a positive displacement supercharger. Given the option between 400 whp, turbo, centi blower, or posi blower, I think most would take the posi blower as it has a great power curve and is maintenance free. Though I do understand the f20c potential is greater than the fa20, the fa20 has its own merits.

I forgot to mention I'm curious if there is room for centri-blowers. The kits for the s2k use the available space up front which I think is more than the FRS. There is no posi blower kit, so that leaves you with turbos for FI. If you hurt the bottom end of an F20C, it's not a cheap fix. Yes, I understand the engine is strong, but without good safe guards setup (and even with them), things can happen and motors get damaged. The mahle pistions are >700 and the other option are sleeves (dry or wet) and forged slugs.

Of course if you're doing a swap of this magnitude, this is a small chunk of the overall budget. I just mention this so folks are aware of some of the f20c drawbacks.

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

If you meant a K24 from an SI then ok, that car is priced around $25k.

Yeah, give me the K24 from an SI, that's fine. I'd take it any and every day over the sensitive FA20. BTW, having a different point of view is not hating.

If I wouldn't have been already mid-LS-swap I would highly consider doning my car for this swap.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by NOHOME

Regardless of my reservations about the S2000 L4 as a swap engine candidate, I would have loved to have been able to open the hood on a factory FRS and see a real engine in there rather than the silly flat4.

Originally Posted by Sportsguy83

Yeah, give me the K24 from an SI, that's fine. I'd take it any and every day over the sensitive FA20. BTW, having a different point of view is not hating.

If I wouldn't have been already mid-LS-swap I would highly consider doning my car for this swap.

I understand having a different point of view is not hating, but it sounds like hating when someone refers to the FA20 as not a real engine or is silly. It’s triggering considering how much flack this engine constantly gets for not having enough power, and now apparently it is silly for just being a flat four. It gets old.

In light of wanting to double the factory horsepower, yea, the engine can’t take it reliably without a build. If thats the measure of a real motor then few motors are real motors. If all flat motors are silly then Subaru and Porsche have silly motors.

[Sportsguy83]

All good, back to swapping the F20 into an 86

[86Tony]

Any update for the guys patiently waiting?

[spitfire481]

Originally Posted by 86Tony

Any update for the guys patiently waiting?

we have no customers that have committed to letting us do a build yet, so we are in the process of getting another shop car to develop on. Not having a car to develop on is the hold up