Tony,

you would be better off with a later model STI short motor as they had better pistons, rods, crank and a semi closed deck. I can tell you from experience that the short motor that came out of my RA had no closed deck at all.

The only thing you will miss out on is the nice STI heads and cams going down this path unless you get a complete 02+ STI motor retain the heads and feel some MoTeC love to get the variable valve timing running. Or source just some V6 STI heads from somewhere and bolt em on and stick with your current ECU.

Cheers,

BP