Have you recently checked out how much a Toyota 2JZ GTE engine sells for? Looking at eBay Motors, prices start at more than $5000.
Sure, you could save a little and get a non-turbo 2JZ, but what about considering one of the following engines as an alternative? These also have aftermarket support w…
I have been seeing a lot of buzz about the VW 2.5 swap. It is an interesting engine and they put it in a ton of stuff meaning it should be relatively inexpensive.
Two whinging points: The Atlas's two 5 cylinder variants were the 3500 and 3700. The 2900 was a four-cylinder.
I used to service Vigors with the G25 engine. I thought they were neat because they were a longitudinal front driver with a separate differential mounted under the front of the engine. What sucked about them was they still used a distributor, up against the firewall, and these distributors liked to eat the bearings, as other Honda engines of the timeframe also liked to do. When this happened on the G25, the distributor would seize. When this happened, the camshaft would break, being somehow weaker than the distributor drive or the timing belt.
Chris Tropea said:I have been seeing a lot of buzz about the VW 2.5 swap. It is an interesting engine and they put it in a ton of stuff meaning it should be relatively inexpensive.
It was very popular to swap into older longitudinal Audis as of ten-fifteen years ago. It was something like four inches shorter than the 034 five cylinder, which gave more room for a front mounted intercooler or even a front mounted radiator in an ur-quattro. The valvetrain and oil pump setups didn't have the same RPM limitations, either. And it was lighter and the cylinder head flowed a lot better than even a heavily modified 20v (2.2l) head. People were swapping out their 20vs that only made 500-600hp for 07K based engines that made.... more.
But the sad thing, today, is the companies that used to sell swap parts like oil pans, motor mounts, intake manifolds, etc are no longer doing it for lack of interest. Heck, a forum that used to be the locus of 07K swap information has shut down due to lack of interest. The left side motor mount is the tricky one, because there are no real good bosses on that side of the engine except for the oil filter housing pad, so this pad was used to build a mount off of. Which necessitated that the motor mount have oil lines running through it to a remote oil filter.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Ah yes. Good catch, and thanks for pointing it out.
And I'm not surprised about the G25, I figured that there were a few reasons why they aren't really a thing nowadays.
In reply to Colin Wood :
I'm pretty sure that it was only available in the Vigor, and may have been a base model engine. (The Legend, later rebadged as 3.2 and 3.5 RL, had V6s, I don't recall if the Vigor ever got it as an upgrade)
All Vigors I have ever seen were automatics. They had all the power of an Accord with a 25% larger engine in a chassis that felt 30% larger, Every Vigor that I ever drove chirped the tires on a 1-2 shift when just driving around normally. Honda was not interested in shift smoothness at the time, they wanted the trans to shift as quickly as possible, and torque management quite literally hadn't been invented yet (Ford did that in a few years in the Taurus). I expect that this behavior was probably a bit off-putting for most.
Edit: TIL that the Vigor was a stretched Accord and not at all based on the Legend. Weird of Honda to make two very similar cars on different platforms. Normally they make two fairly different cars on the same platform 
We once toyed with doing a Barra motor in the 1200 just to be different but now that I have the Mustang that went out the window forever.
As for the Toyota V8s I love them and would love to put one in a 70s Celica or the like.
How is the M103/M104 not on the list? Basically the German 1JZ/2JZ for way cheaper. And there's an actually aftermarket for turbos and standalones now.
File this under "TIL": years ago, I rented a VW Jetta with that 5 cylinder motor in it and was completely underwhelmed. I wouldn't have guessed its potential. Thanks for the education.
In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
YouTube is full of videos of this engine making 800-1000hp at the crank.
Apparently the fun thing is finding one with a forged crank. VW was apparently kind of indifferent about which engines got it, but some years were more likely to have forgings than others. All turbo versions (TT-RS, RS3) had forgings but they also had a weird flywheel bolt pattern. The cast crank is apparently "only" good to 500-600 
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Edit: TIL that the Vigor was a stretched Accord and not at all based on the Legend. Weird of Honda to make two very similar cars on different platforms. Normally they make two fairly different cars on the same platform
Yeah, the Vigor is such an anomaly in Honda's history, at least in the U.S.
That's probably why I like it so much.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
YouTube is full of videos of this engine making 800-1000hp at the crank.
Apparently the fun thing is finding one with a forged crank. VW was apparently kind of indifferent about which engines got it, but some years were more likely to have forgings than others. All turbo versions (TT-RS, RS3) had forgings but they also had a weird flywheel bolt pattern. The cast crank is apparently "only" good to 500-600
Damn, that's impressive. It never dawned on me that the the Jetta motor was the base for the turbo Audis. Thanks.
yupididit said:How is the M103/M104 not on the list? Basically the German 1JZ/2JZ for way cheaper. And there's an actually aftermarket for turbos and standalones now.
I'll admit, my mind went to this M103 and I was puzzled how it was German or way cheaper!
My 2.5l VW engine (07k) was $150 complete. My front dump Lambo header was $200. I will be shooting for 400-500whp after the (probably expensive) build.
It is a killer swap for a Porsche 944 as BoostBrothersGarage sells the whole swap kit to get it into a 944.
I am very glad you included it in your list.
I worked auto salvage in the early 2005s. I've disassembled a lot of cars over the years. You learn a little about something when you take it apart. The worst and most baffling designs were always Hondas. The worst among them were the Vigors.
So many moments if dropping my tools, taking 3 steps back and shouting to the heavens "Why, why why would you build it like that?"
I wanted to take a vacation to their design centre and pick through the waste paper baskets just to see the mechanical atrocities that didn't make the cut.
any day I got to crush a Vigor into a cube was a great day.
In reply to preach :
That sounds like a riot. A 944 making 5-cylinder noises would certainly catch my attention.
In reply to AClockworkGarage :
And this furthers my understanding of why I've only ever seen a single Vigor out in the wild.
(Does any of it make me want one any less? Absolutely not.)
I've personally always believed that the GM Ecotec is probably one of the best budget engine swaps available. Especially when you consider that there is the GM Performance Sport Compact Build Book available that tells you exactly how to build those engines. Swapping a turbocharged Ecotec into a Fiero has always been a bizarre pipe dream of mine.
In reply to 73CB750 :
There was a local who had a 9 second Fiero.
It was front engined and had an Iron Duke.
Naturally aspirated.
GM used to make a LOT of parts for those, too!
Sure, but by the time the Duke was worth anything, there wasn't a lot of Duke left in it.
Circling all the way back to the 2JZ. calling an SD4 an Iron Duke is like calling a mk4 Supra a Celica.
Yeah, kinda... but also no.
So, let's say someone had a Lotus/Locost 7 body and frame sitting on a shelf, what might be a good engine to consider powering it? Any suggestion would need to be set-up for RWD obviously, so a manual transmission must be "do-able". Ecotec(I have zero-experience with these) and Honda J-series have been in my head, but the trans is the issue. What say you????
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
The Ecotec is available in a red configuration in the Saturn Sky and pontiac solstice so it can be done with all factory parts.
The J series is harder but not impossible. I'm currently involved with a mating a J32A3 to a Tremec 5-speed and showing it into a Datsun 240. It has required a custom adapter plate and a custom clutch slave adapter. It also required a custom starter.
S2000 guys do this swap a lot as well. Maybe look into how they do it.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
I've long thought that a boxer would be an awesome engine for a Seven or clone, if the engine was mounted such that chrome valve covers were hanging out of the bodywork.
So my answer is a Mazda 13B with a dual DCOE intake manifold 
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I'm a rotary guy at heart, but the noise, heat, cooling, right-side exhaust exit and most importantly, the dimension make it very difficult in a 7-esque vehicle. The tall height of the center of the motor makes the transmission set very high in the tunnel(unless you go dry-sump, then the cost is outrageous) and that is a tough one to overcome. My Rotus(turbo/intercooled 13-B) was fun but I always kept 2 oil pans on-hand as they seemed to be sacrificial. I'm building an F20C powered one and just contemplating the next one.....
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
I've long thought that a boxer would be an awesome engine for a Seven or clone, if the engine was mounted such that chrome valve covers were hanging out of the bodywork.
I've seen it, and I can't find the photo on my second harddrive right now. Somebody did a ACVW up front with a (924?) transaxle. Very cool looking, and I presume very low COG and weight.
File this under "TIL": years ago, I rented a VW Jetta with that 5 cylinder motor in it and was completely underwhelmed. I wouldn't have guessed its potential. Thanks for the education.
My wife went from a 1.8T MK4 to a 2.5 MK6(briefly) to a 2.0TDI MK6. She thought the 2.5 was a guttless pile of junk in the hills of NE PA and up into VT/NH. We were in the TDI one trip soon after she got it and she was commenting on hills where the 2.5 couldn't maintain speed.
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