So You're Thinking About Doing a Swap
Since I finished my V7 STI Swap in May, I’ve been getting a great number of PM’s from people that are trying to figure out if they can or should do a swap themselves. In the interests of saving me from having to rewrite the same message over and over again, I thought I would publish my take on it here. This is not meant to be a guide or a final say on whether or not you should do a swap, but hopefully it provides some insight and gives you some food for thought on whether or not you decide to do a swap.
Some background:
Three years ago, I was into cars but knew very little mechanically. In fact, wingless will remember the day that I came over to his house and it took us 2 full hours to install a cat-back exhaust, mostly because I didn’t know what I was doing. Over the next two years, I learned a bit more about cars and how to turn a wrench but I was by no means an expert at anything and still asked a lot of questions (I still do!).
As of the end of last summer (2009), I would say that I was fairly confident mechanically but knew that there was still a lot to learn. I guess I was looking for an excuse to do a swap, and when my head gasket started to go, that was what I was looking for.
So armed with some disposable income, a lack of responsibility and what I thought was a fair bit of time on my hands, I dove right into a complete swap.
And so we come to my first bit of advice: Reasons to do a Swap
There are many reasons to do a swap but the most important thing is to have a clear cut reason as to why YOU want to do it. As with asking advice on a future modification, you’re going to be asked what your goals are. Are you planning on building a track car? Are you planning on building a show car? Or do you just want to do a swap for the sake of doing it? There are those reasons and many in between, but whatever your reason, make sure you’re clear on it. That will help you make your decisions in the future and, over the course of the swap, give you something to remember when you run into difficulties and want to give up.
The added bonus of this is that when people ask you why you didn’t just buy an STI to begin with, you’ll have something to tell them. And trust me, they’ll tell you that.
Now, lets focus on the disposable income part of the equation. First of all, have a budget in mind before you start. I was lucky in that I had a fair bit of money that I could spend on a swap, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have limits to what I was willing to spend. Alright, now, have a budget in mind? Add on a few thousand. Trust me. There’s always going to be incidentals and yes, maybe you can sell your old engine and other parts, but you might not find a buyer when you want to or you might be asking too much for it.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how much the swap cost me. Ill tell you this much. The entire JDM clip, plus hood, headlights, brembos and shipping cost me over $10k. That was just from one vendor. With the added costs of a wiring merge, misc parts and random tools I needed, you can imagine that the cost was a fair bit more than that. I can’t give you an exact number cause I don’t know it. I don’t really want to go through my receipts and calculate it.
Im not saying you can’t afford it, but I am saying that it’s a consideration. Not many people have that kind of cash laying around and if they do, they might not realize how quickly the costs can spiral out of control and before you know it, you’re broke with a car on jack stands.
Next is the time consideration. This all depends on how experienced you are mechanically and the extent of your swap. Going from an RS to an STI takes more time cause you need to strip out the dash wiring harness and either merge it or have it merged for you. Then you’ve got to put it back in. Are you swapping a six-speed? Then you’ve got to do the drive-shaft, rear diff, axles, hubs/knuckles etc. Trust me, getting the e-brake set up isn’t all its cracked up to be.
What Im getting at is that, for the average person, doing a swap is going to take you longer than you think. Many friends have reminded me that when I first started, I prophesized that it would only take me three weekends. Nine months later, I rolled the car out of the garage for the first time. Trust me. Life gets in the way. You get tired of spending all your time in a cold garage. It ended up that I could work on the swap maybe 1 day during the week and even then, that was sometimes a stretch. I figured I could work a few hours after work every day, but that rarely happened. I was tired and having a life and doing a swap seem to be mutually exclusive.
Another factor is waiting for parts that you need to order that you didn’t think about. If you snap a bolt or something is seized, you’re going to have to order it from Subaru, and let me tell you, they don’t stock all the parts you need to build a car. Surprise surprise.
The point is, budget a lot more time than you think. Especially if its your first swap and you’ll have to figure out things as you go. There’s always going to be problem areas (like the e-brake or dropping a sensor behind the turbo) and its going to take extra time and cause you extra frustration. If you’re debating a swap, chances are good that you’ve been involved in a part install that took way longer than it should have. Think about that, but multiplied over many parts over an entire car.
Now that we’ve dealt with the time and money factors of doing a swap, lets talk about how hard it actually is. Ill tell you right now: for the most part, its not hard. At least, I didn’t find it hard. Oh, there’s going to be frustrations at things like stubborn bolts, parts that don’t fit right and “oh yeah, where does this plug go? I hope its not important!” but especially with Subarus, they’re built like lego. You can take em apart and put em back together again and it is pretty straightforward. Now, the most important aspect of this is doing your research. Have a plan. Have a list. Have something that tells you what is coming up so you don’t need to redo any work. Make sure you have both the service manuals for your original car and the one for the new engine. You’ll need them for torque specs and they provide good instructions for how to remove components.
