Taco Tech. The Truth About the JDM Subaru EJ20X Engine Swap.

Great informative video Erich!

I see the Garage man specials rolling in 😂 Hard to blame an engine due to some hack install though. Here is my findings after installing a 100 or so 20X and 20Y engines. In single avcs cars with stock stuff we see 250-270whp. Add the basics like a down pipe we see 270-290 Duel avcs cars we see 280-290 with stock stuff. With basic bolt on’s they are reliable into 350whp. Really hard to beat value when they are a 1/10th the cost of a stock rebuild. 5 tuners within hours of myself will tune them via cobb and or opensource and even ecutek. Yes they have lower then the 2.5 torque, but man’s car sitting with a blown engine in his driveway for 3 years had 0 torque.

Great video. Very informative. The EJ20x works OK in its proper home car but without control over the exhaust cams it is always a bad compromise when a crated factory ej255 is cheap as chips. I tune lots of these over in the UK and lots have issues with the avcs pulleys sticking either because the filters are still in the oil feed lines or internally within the pulleys themselves.

Great engine have mine dyno tuned. Stock. Rebuilt no issues

Hey man, love the vids and this one was pretty crazy to see. I love your attitude towards things and knowledge about engines and tuning. Anyways, I have your OTS map on my 23 wrx but I'd like to talk to you about a custom tune, is there a way to reach out to you?

Thanks for sharing your insight. My own opinion is that ej255, 20x, and 20y are all fine engines, but 20x and 20y are not cheaper to swap in (when done well). The mods needed to the 20x/rewiring for 20x ecu and the retuning/dual ecu setup negate the savings, especially if you arent diy. With the ej255, the motor itself, used motorset / longblock or new shortblock with cleaned up heads the obvious up front cost may seem like a lot, but theres really no hidden costs, retunes or inspection problems. After dealing with swapping both, Id always recommend 255. Its less headaches, less downtime, same money or less when done right and better for resale. 20x/20y probably wins for mpg. Id never disrespect a 20x/20y swap thats done right (use jdm ecu or swap cam and cam gear from 255 and relash). Swapping just the cam gear, plugging the avcs oil feed, skipping the teeth is interesting but not super attractive to me. Pretty funny the car in the vid came in with the wrong plugs 👀🙄🤣🤣🤣🤣

People need to become more familiar with the EJ20X/Y engines so they can identify them if buying a used car. Any vehicle with one of these swaps should be valued slightly higher than if it were being sold with a blown engine because if you're buying the car for performance then you need to factor in the cost of installing the correct engine (long block, timing components, etc.).

Thank you for speaking on this to many people advising people to do this dumb swap.

Great info here, thank you so much. Question: If avoiding the jdm engine route and doing a proper ej25 build, would an RA block paired with stock D25 heads be okay tuning wise? I know the combustion chambers on the head are shaped differently VS B25 heads. OR if wanting to keep all emissions items (I'm in WA so doesn't matter, just thinking ahead) would V25B heads paired with an Ra Block be the the best route for a GRB WRX? Again thank you for this info

I have a 2006 jdm model legacy gt wagon with a ej20, Tuned by sti. No problemos what so ever yet. 198tkm and power delivery Is fantastic.

SOOOoooo Im getting a JDM 2005 Legacy GT with the EJ20X in the chassis there supposed to have with the controls there supposed to have, what do you think about these engines?

great video, that motor probably likes a bigger turbo to let it make power up at 8-9K. I don't know if the rod bearings agree with this theory

Sadly im about to loose my 255 for ej20 tommorow :( Cant afford 4k just for a rebuilt 255... I dont want to ever sell the car so Ill just roll w it until I can save 4k and get a new 255... Thank you for the info, most mechanics just want to scam people so its hard to get facts... not going to waste my time or money on tunes etc until i get the 255 back...

So I currently have a 2007 wrx with the stock 255 in there at 171k miles. It has a stage 2 Cobb kit and front mount intercooler. Not really trying to push more power out of it/mod the engine further. Has been leaking coolant and I’m pretty sure it’s the classic head gasket. If I were to get a 20x and swap everything from the 2.5 onto the 20x including the exhaust cams and sprockets, would you still recommend saving up for a 255 short block? Not really sure how much time is left for my current engine and am assuming some of the accessories are not good to use on a new 255 short block. The best Subaru tuners in Ohio were recommending to stop driving it now, get the 20x, and swap the exhaust cams and sprockets along with everything else and they can tune around the dual avcs. What is your recommendation?

I think this is just a good candidate for 2008-2014 STI.... If you can't time a engine and have single avcs ... then walk away .

I’m really wondering who the previous tuner was ??

AVCS might not work possibly because they didn't swap the USDM intake cam into the engine. if you leave the JDM intake cams in they are different and wont trigger the intake AVCS

Can’t you just swap the USDM single AVCS heads on to the JDM ej20x short block? Wouldn’t that solve most of your problems?

Hello. I’ve got an STI 6 speed swapped ej20x. Where can I contact you for a tune?

I’ve owned these engines in the cars they are meant to be in and they are great engines, I think that they get a bad name in the US from tuners but I think most of the time it’s because they aren’t set up properly. The rods aren’t as strong as ej25 ones so they won’t ever make the same power as the 2.5 but I had a 20Y with a 3076 that had full boost roughly the same time as this one and made peak power at 7200rpm. It was heavily fuel limited so didn’t make a huge amount of power but it drove great.