Subaru is one of those automakers that just has a certain identity to it, thanks to elements like quirky styling, often-standard all-wheel drive, and horizontally opposed engines – boxers, as the company calls them. Well, Siberia’s mad scientists at Garage 54 took aim at that engine layout in a recent video, removing the 2.5-liter flat-four from an older Subaru Forester and cutting it into pieces. But since Garage 54 doesn’t commit wanton acts of destruction without a purpose, the YouTube channel also decided to reconfigure the famed engine layout into something altogether more common, welding it back together with all cylinders in a line.
Subaru
- Founded
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15 July 1953
- Founder
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Chikuhei Nakajima
- Headquarters
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Ebisu, Shibuya, Japan
- Owned By
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Subaru Corporation
- Current CEO
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Atsushi Osaki
Getting Some Unnecessary Surgery
The Siberian mechanics start the job with a relatively unmolested Subaru EJ20 2.0-liter flat-flour, an engine that’s seen duty in numerous cars all over the world, including the European- and Japanese-market Forester – American models always came with the larger 2.5-liter EJ25 version of the engine. But since a boxer engine has two banks of two cylinders, creating a Frankenstein-style inline-four would require cutting up two examples of the EJ20 in order to have an engine block and crankshaft long enough to house and run the pistons.
The idea sounds incredibly complicated right from the outset, with more problems arising as the project continues. The left bank of the flat-four will remain largely intact since it’s the one that houses the water pump, crankshaft pulley, and other accessory bolt-ons. The right bank will be cut off along a straight edge, leaving the mother block intact. The second EJ20 will donate its bottom end to the engine, which the formerly right bank will sit on, positioned behind the formerly left bank. Theoretically, the cylinder heads can remain intact, feeding air, fuel, and spark to their respective cylinder pairings.
And yet, apart from the jagged weld lines – the welds themselves are smooth, but the cuts are necessarily wacky – once it’s all put together, you might never know it started out as a boxer four.
The Latest In A Long Line Of Wacky Experiments
The reengineering efforts here are commendable, potentially representing Garage 54’s mechanical talents most impressively. But the boxer-to-inline pipeline is nowhere near the craziest thing the channel has done. Some of its projects include building a triple-turbocharged 2JZ Toyota inline-six and transplanting it into a late-model Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Others involve replacing engine covers and torque converters with transparent parts, seemingly just out of the curiosity of wondering what’s going on inside.
Why A Boxer Is Better Than An Inline Engine
What’s the voodoo behind the horizontally opposed cylinder setup only found in Subarus and Porsches? And what sets them apart from inline engines?
There are even some pretty educational videos, including one that shows the damage that results from running an all-wheel-drive vehicle with mismatched tires – although with some collateral damage to the poor UAZ 4×4 test subject. And then there’s the simply zany eight-wheeled Fiat Uno five-door hatch that looks like the unholy love child between an Italian economy car and a Soviet SU-76 tank. And what about a Lexus GS with a helicopter engine? Carve out some time and get lost on Garage 54’s channel sometime. You won’t be bored.
Source: Garage 54 on YouTube