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Even with vehement denials of a boosted Subaru BRZ, Subaru has still managed to debut a turbocharged version of the 2.0L Boxer engine. And just because the BRZ won’t get it doesn’t mean other products won’t.
Set to debut first in the Legacy, the new engine makes 296 horsepower and 295 lb-ft but comes mated to a joyless CVT gearbox. Womp womp!
The FA20 Turbo motor does away with the Toyota D4-S system and gets a true DI system instead. Expect this engine to appear, with a manual gearbox, in the next generation WRX, and perhaps in a higher state of tune for the WRX STI. And who knows…maybe it will end up in a turbocharged BRZ, or Scion FR-S.
29 Comments on “Subaru FA20 Turbo Engine Debuts. Start Dreaming About A Boosted BRZ....”
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That’s a whole lot of power and tq from 2.0L. Hopefully it doesn’t have a whole lot of lag along with it. Of course, with a CVT no one will know or care. On paper this could put the BRZ into Cayman territory. In practice, I might prefer the sharper throttle of the current offering…
This appears to be a very powerful and torquey 2.0T – at least on paper. Blows away the current VW/Audi 2.0T and nearly equals the mighty 6-cylinder BMW N55.
Lag is okay. Laggy turbos ostensibly use less fuel.
No they don’t, because you have to rev + stay in boost to get anywhere, as opposed to just dipping your toe in boost with something that spools quickly.
Hopefully this engine won’t need a sonic synthesizing supercomputer to make the sounds associated with a high performance car
Was’nt there some noise about the rod ratio being really low in this new engine? And now they are turbocharging it?
Do you mean almost being a square or undersquare engine?
Rod ratio is the rod-length/stroke ratio. The longer the ratio the less max piston speed, and the less side load. A high performance engine typically has a 1.75 ratio. High revving motorcycles probably have ratios of ~2
And that matters because?
So does this mean the death of the H6 (3.0, 3.6) in Subarus or will it get a significant power bump?
H6 DI with Turbo would be nice *on knees praying to the mighty con rod all mighty*. That would be the mother of all sleepers in a Legacy. Hell mate it with a robust AT and you got a street drag machine that will make the small block crowd look nervous whenever a grocery laden Subaru pulls up at the lights.
A novel idea nobody would buy new, at least to serve that purpose.
@SportyAccordy, yes but if your grandmother wants to buy a Subaru you might actually help her pick it out in the hopes you’ll inherit it.
@sportyaccordy
Come on now. Somebody has to dare dream about something other then stick shift diesel wagons and couches on wheels. It would be like a Panamera/Cayenne rolled into one and done right with a stick, or a Japanese Nomad with AT.
I am confused by this phrase, “The FA20 Turbo motor does away with the Toyota D4-S system and gets a true DI system instead.”
How is the Toyota D4-S not a true DI system? It has direct and port injection, therefore getting the best of both worlds. As the owner of a VW E888 engine in my GTI which only has DI, I can only wish I had a secondary port injection system to reduce the amount of sludge on the back of my intake valves. In fact, the next-gen E888 will have a system similar to D4-S.
So is ubaru cost-cuting and going with a single injection system?
Yup. Sounds like a cost cutting downgrade to me.
It may just be that the addition of turbos, with attendant added charge cooling requirements, tilts the scales in favor of an all DI design.
Isn’t this just a Turbocharged FB ?
Those numbers out of 2.0 imply a peaky engine with lag. More info needed about the torque curve.
Sure it won’t be in the BRZ. This year. I am sure there are turbo test mules already running around.
Another tiny turbo built to coast through the EPA treadmill without ever going on boost, run the magazine 0-60s without ever going off boost, and run actual roads as an afterthought.
This is an excellent comment. I totally agree.
I feel that cars aren’t necessarily getting more efficient, the manufacturers are just getting better at getting a high score on the EPA test. That, and people are more willing to accept going slow again.
The “real world” fuel economy has stayed about the same. 3100 and 3800 GM V6s regularly got 31 mpg in the mid-size sedans from ~1995-2005. I bet the 4 cylinder turbos of today would be about the same, but with temperamental power delivery.
Put this in the BRZ and all the hype will instantly become truth.
Awesome! I bet this will show up the BRZ/FT? right around the same time that Mazda finally puts the RX-8 engine (or whatever vaporware you were hoping for) in the Miata, and we can race them!
Will they sell it as a crate motor?
Would they even need to change anything other than the engine to create a boosted BRZ?
brakes? nope, suspension.. maybe minor tweaks for differences in engine weight.
trim.. no
tires no
seems like a no brainer to me
@daveainchina – can you say “clapped out tuner car” – seriously injecting nearly 100 extra HP needs to be backed up with the appropriate hardware. Unless of course it was engineered from the getgo to handle nearly 300 hp
This engine would be a notable increase power and torque. I think better (and more fade resistant) brakes would be a no brainer. Stopping is important.
And you may want more than just a tweak with the suspension and tires – or at least allow the customer a tighter suspension option.
You’ll have extra weight in front, so suspension tweaks to handle that.
Possible tweaks in rear suspension to maintain desired balance.
Driveshafts (or whatever Scoobie calls them) to front and rear may need upgrades in material, design, mounting, etc., to handle the extra torque.
Cooling system probably needs upgrading.
Fuel pump may need upgrading to feed the new beast.
Now if something about the turbo, the piping, the intercooler, the bigger fuel lines, etc., gets in the way of the BR/FT pieces, like steering or inner fenders or hood, then you just have to get creative.
Dropin engine upgrades with no complementary work are often a bad idea.
Took a while to get stateside (all the better to work out bugs!), but FA20’s now in the ’14 Forester XT and seems to works nicely.
Turbocharger’s on engine bottom which probably makes it too bulky for the BRZ’s lower height engine compartment. Also, torque curves suggest it’s neither peaky nor a screamer (unlike the peaky on-off STI engine)
Unknown is how well engine will resist intake manifold carbon buildup plaguing many DI engines. Subaru added a two stage system to better manage manifold air flow.
Also, FYI, Subaru offered forester turbos with stick shifts up to the 2009 model year. Guess what? They didn’t sell ! So Subaru dropped that variant. In fact, apparently only 5% of all Forester sales are XT’s, though that may change now that ’14 XT can burn regular fuel.