Svangeir's EZ30 H6 Custom Engine Swap

Submitted by Svangeir A.

          I have owned this Impreza since early January 2014, so a little over 4 years now and been tinkering with it ever since. there is always this and that which I wanted to do with it to make it look better, then as I was doing some exterior mods here and there it struck me, why not go the sleeper route? it is a 2006 Bone stock Subaru Impreza GX non turbo, why not keep the exterior semi stock and just go all in with a sleeper build? So I did, I went fully build EJ20, we're talking everything, ACL bearings, manley rods, pistons, valves, stiffer valve springs, forged crankshaft as well as stage 2 camshafts and so much more, 20G turbo, front mount intercooler, the whole 9 yards, took me about a year and a half to complete with all the custom fabrication I had to do to fit everything.

          It was perfect and I loved it to bits, made all the right noises, but bus lengths on WRX's and even took some STI's on 22psi. However it was a CONSTANT battle. there was always this, that and something else breaking. one time the timing belt broke on me and wasted valves and heads, one time I burned a ringland doing 130km/h and it sung it's last. It had broke down properly for about 5 times so I took the engine out, took everything out, and began from square one, built it from the beginning, put so much time and money into it and got it ready for the summer 2017. Then I was heading to Bíladagar (Car Days) which is an annual car gathering of every car nut in Iceland, drove the whole way, 400km and no problem. I was just cruising calmly at car days when I started to hear some noise coming from the engine. I couldn't put a pin in what the noise was so I kept driving and listened. in about 5 minutes or so there was absolutely no question what the sound was ... the main bearings had failed and the engine sounded like an old zetor tractor. So I had to have it towed to my home 400km away and at that point I said f*** it and advertised the car up for sale in August 2017with porked main bearings but all the expensive goodies would come with it.

          I got a few trade offers but nothing special until one day a guy came and made me the best offer I've seen. Literally the asking price, in cash, right in front of me and he was ready to take it then and there. It wasn't until at that moment that I realized ... I didn't want to sell it, it was like all the memories I had in that car rushed back and I kind of choked up and declined the offer respectfully. pulled the engine and every single thing out of it and parked the body outside my house, having no idea what to do with it. So I sold all the forged internals, turbo, everything for a pretty decent amount of money. At that point I just thought, let's do something out of the ordinary, maybe swap an inline 6 and turbo it, maybe swap a straight 5 turbo diesel benz motor? my mind was all over the place! what to do next?? at that point a friend of mine acquired an EZ30 H6 out of a 2006 legacy that was broken and he asked me to diagnose the engine for him and see if I could rebuild it for him, because he was going to put it into an 1986 Subaru Leone sedan that he owns. so I got the engine and not a second later it popped into my head ... would this behemoth  of an engine fit into my little impreza? so I pushed the car in ... and test fitted the engine into it and what do you know, it fit like a glove and all the transmission bolts and mounts everywhere were a direct bolt on. I could not believe it, would it really be that simple? just drop it in, button up and call it a day ? anyway so I ended up finishing his engine and immediately started looking for H6's everywhere in Iceland, but they are like freaking unicorns, there are no H6's just here and there in Iceland, I found one though, that was in a car 850km away from me, the car had 3000km on it and had rolled over brand new and had been sitting ever since. however the guy wanted 5000 US dollars for it as it was, I wanted that engine but 5000 dollars? not likely. so I started looking for EZ30R's on ebay at first, and there were some with transmission for about 3000$ but I wanted an engine only, and all of those would not ship to Iceland.

            Then I googled it and the first link that popped up on google .... "JDM racing motors" ... clicked it and viewed it, browsed all the engines and I wanted a Spec B EZ30R which they didn't have at that time and though, ohh well damn, and kept looking. so A week or so goes by and I stumbled up on the site again and browsed through it again ... and it had all new engines now, so I though, do the update so regular ? So I started looking every single day, searching for that H6 and one day .... boom ... it was sitting there, 1300$ ... an EZ30R spec B engine with only 74k km on it. I didn't hesitate, I immediately sent a request and asked if I could purchase the engine and if they could ship it to Iceland. the response ? nothing but delight and positive! I told them I wanted the engine BAD, so the said they we're going to check shipping, and even RESERVED the engine for me so no one could buy it !! as soon as I saw reserved I just though holy shit, this might actually be something here. so a day or two went by before I heard anything but then it came! the shipping would be 700$ so total of 2500$ and I didn't think twice, I confirmed the purchase, got the transaction information and went straight to the bank! Completed the transaction and awaited for them to receive the money! few days later, it was confirmed, the engine had been paid for and was being shipped. I still kind of couldn't believe it.

          If I remember correctly about 3 or 4 weeks passed and I suddenly got an email, from a shipping company here in Iceland, they had the engine .... and it was ready for me to pick up! I drove straight down there and picked it up, drove it home into the garage, and kind of just looked at it, like holy shit this just happened, I actually just bought an EZ30R H6!! but it's been a few months since that now and it is all in working progress, will most likely be out and about by summer 2018!! but all in all the whole process of dealing with Wali and Co at JDM Racing Motors was at all times, night and day, just an absolute delight! in every step of the way Wali and Co was there to help me out and make the purchase, shipping and receiving a hundred times easier! I've said it a thousand times before and I'll say it a thousand times more, If ANYONE is looking to buy anything JDM like they offer, 10/10 ALWAYS go to JDM Racing Motors! 

The following are updates to the project. Pictures will be included and grouped below:

01/26/2018: Whilst waiting for more material I painted and test fitted my new clean front grill aswell as installed an entire xenon system. The next thing I did was get a new crossmember and paint it to look good and then proceeded to put the front end back together! Next up I put an extra lightweight flywheel and stage 2 clutch on the engine and started prepping for it to go into the bay! After the prep work was done I took an evening and installed the engine in the bay! Can't believe how 'easy' it was by myself. So the engine was now sitting in the bay in all it's glory. I got it in pretty early in the evening but ended up just snapchatting it and not really working on it the rest of the evening hahaha. So after that I aquired my manifolds, installed them to the engine and proceeded to start welding up an exhaust for it, I haven't gotten further then the pictures because I ran out of material but will be making a complete 3 inch exhaust with 1 glasspack and 1 rear muffler. Then I finished welding a complete 3 inch exhaust from the manifolds. It has 1 glasspack amd 1 reae muffler.

Submitted by Svangeir A.