Some early 2.5's had a head gasket problem, it's fixed by replacing
the gaskets. I've never heard of them warping.

The 2.2 is a great engine, 130hp gets my '84 westy merging like a
real car and 21-22 mpg. Non interference is a big plus.
On my last conversion I changed the timing belt, idlers, water pump,
head gaskets (they were cheap and I had the engine in front of me),
and the oil seals and o-rings, a new SUBARU thermostat before I put
it in. Works great.

FWIW on my first 2.2 conversion I changed the head gaskets with the
engine in, took me an afternoon. The harness conversion was not that
bad either, it's not rocket science but you do have to pay attention.
I used the KEP plans and pinout diagrams from the Subaruvanagon files
for the harness.

Most of the JDM engines I've seen for sale come tested and
guaranteed. There is some sort of Japanese law to require new cars
every 30k-50k miles, you can look it up and read about it on line.

Rob
becida@comcast.net
with an '84 Westy powered by a '93 Subaru 2.2 in western WA

At  12/27/2009 12:57 PM, Sudhir Desai wrote:
>One thing to note about the 2.5liter engines is their propensity to
>warp heads (not unlike the 1.9liter lump you would be replacing).
>
>my $.02
>
>Sudhir