Since there are many requests from people wanting to know the status of my setup, id thought id share some of the sad story with the rest of you.

As some of you know I bought a built 2.5ltr sti engine from one of the forum members on this site. The engine was never checked out personally due to my blind trust of the seller, but I was going to get the customary compression and leakdown test performed when we found we couldn’t get the brant code working. In my desperation to get the car finished (scheduled leave off work) we opted to transplant the engine into my car in belief that the engine was fine.

The transformation into my car took a lot longer than expected due to myself wanting to create a custom turbo and manifold setup, a week turned into a couple of months, but alas these problems always happen when you’re the guinea pig.

The day had come to pick the car up, from where I noticed on start up there was smoke billowing out of my catch can. I was told by the workshop that this didn’t seem right and frustrated that I didn’t know about this sooner. I was told by the seller that this hadn’t happened in their vehicle and previously told that the engine was in perfect condition as it had only done a couple of thousand kms. I got a few opinions from some of the gurus and came to the conclusion that 2.5ltr engines breath more than their 2.0ltr variants.

We then proceeded onto the tune and found that the car was not capable of making any power above 5000rpm or any power at all (less than 220kw atw). The turbo that I have fitted is a rotated garret GT35R, which makes most of its power around this rpm level. This was unusual as very similar setups over east made in the order of 315kw atw on 5psi less boost. Whilst at the tuning centre we had a look at the sellers map, and with a smaller turbo found that the power severely dropped off at these higher rpms, virtually identical to my map.

I was starting to get worried but was told by others that flow was the problem. I proceeded to take it back to the workshop that had completed the engine transplant and they did a compression and leakdown test. Low and behold the numbers were BAD compression (110, 95, 115, 120), suggesting that the rings were stuffed (i.e air bellowing out from the oil filter) with a leakdown of 70%. What this meant: A rebuild on an engine I thought was in perfect condition.

I spoke to the seller whom contacted the original workshop that built the engine. They wanted to see the engine for themselves and conducted their own compression test, and suggested to me that the engine was fine with a compression of (130, 130, 135, 135). The smoke from the catch can was also normal on a 2.5 engine, and again it was suggested to me that flow was the problem.

I then opted to get another test done independently at a third workshop and these results were very similar to the original workshop suggesting that the rings were stuffed and a rebuild was in order. Other information about the condition of the engine was also presented which I never knew about..

So where does this leave me now? A car that has A LOT of money invested in it which makes less useable power than a 2.0ltr with a VF34, a ticking time bomb which can blow at any moment and an engine bill that’s going to be in excess of $5000 if I ever want to get the full potential out of my setup. I’m sure theres a lesson or two to one of more of you.