JDM Impreza EG33 Development Car

[LetItSnow]

I will admit that until today's posts, I was unfamiliar with Darren's transactions. Digging around the forum, I found clear mention of his trade some three months before I got here. I'll be honest: It's not very often that I've seen someone with a comparable post count be an authority. It seems I was wrong.

I'll go a step further to say that the first bit of the original post can be easy to misinterpret, what with "JDM" (imo, usually implying production) and "agent" being combined with the EG33 in the Impreza and Outback. I'd sure be surprised if these cars were ever produced for the public (admittedly, what I read), although not as much as if the twin-turbo SVX police car ever hit the streets.

And yes, it's possible that pieces like this exist as one-offs... You could consider any given manual transmission equipped SVX a one-off, and those we are familiar with aren't even factory backed.

There's no doubt that the standard life of a test mule is brief. I've driven and worked under a variety of pre-production cars and trucks, some with gas tanks so small that they needed to be refilled after every (short!) test drive, some with flat, black (not flat black) dashboards, and even one pre-production car that was wearing the body of a current production car - you could only tell from the outside by noticing that the gas door had moved from left to right. Most of these had the same rough aesthetics and apparent lack of robust assembly as the XT in the Road and Track piece I mentioned. The only test vehicles that survived were production pieces that were returned to stock. This is why I would be surprised by the existence of a 17 year old test mule.

So that we're absolutely clear, I'll repeat that I didn't say it's not true, but I will express that I'd never have considered that Subaru would think of entering the almost scarcely produced lump that is the EG33 as a Le Mans race engine. We know how their more-than-four-cylinders racing has panned out. The 12 cylinder engine that they didn't build that flopped is hardly indicative of success in that direction. As for Le Mans, it's surely not impossible, but the thought is sure unexpected, and I like to think that I'm not alone in thinking so.

All told, apologies are due if my words came across more as accusatory than as shocked by these ideas. It's frustrating that text can allow for so much miscommunication, and feet ain't tasty.

[svxistentialist]

It's always been a source of wonder to me that Subaru dropped the EG engine and introduced the EZ series.

Maybe the difficulty of shoehorning the bigger lump into the Impreza chassis sent them back to the drawing board to make something smaller?

Maybe when they tried out the EG33 as an endurance engine they hit the same overheating wall that most of our racers have been hitting? Le Mans with the EG33 was nothing but a dream?

I can see why with what we now know that you would be sceptical about any Le Mans ambitions for the EG33. However, until they ran the tests maybe Fuji did not know at that time there was a cooling problem? Maybe the EZ series engine is the answer to the problems that Le Mans aspirations uncovered?

They had to start somewhere.

Joe

[TomsSVX]

Originally Posted by svxistentialist

It's always been a source of wonder to me that Subaru dropped the EG engine and introduced the EZ series.

Maybe the difficulty of shoehorning the bigger lump into the Impreza chassis sent them back to the drawing board to make something smaller?

Maybe when they tried out the EG33 as an endurance engine they hit the same overheating wall that most of our racers have been hitting? Le Mans with the EG33 was nothing but a dream?

I can see why with what we now know that you would be sceptical about any Le Mans ambitions for the EG33. However, until they ran the tests maybe Fuji did not know at that time there was a cooling problem? Maybe the EZ series engine is the answer to the problems that Le Mans aspirations uncovered?

They had to start somewhere.

Joe

Joe, chains own the variable cam market... Not to mention, chains or gears are clearly the proer drive for cams... belts are and always will be a mistake IMHO. The engines I work on have upwards of 900,000 miles on them... All running gears that never go bad or wear out

Tom

[Darren]

Just a little update to this post for those interested and who messaged me...
the company who were developing the eg33 for world sports car racing was a company called Motori Moderni in Italy.
It was started in mid 1989 and dropped in the early 90's when the board decided rallying was the prefered route with the new model to be released (as we now know was the Impreza) on the back of the success of the Legacy and world wide exposure it gave the company.

Not much info is available on if the engine was ever really considered viable or competitive and it was certainly never put into any sports car chassis as Subaru never went that far with the project to build a rolling prototype but it was run in a single seater development chassis used by the company. (believed to be either a 2 or 3 year old ex minardi or benetton F1 chassis)

Thats about all I think I will be able to find out as the guy was more involved with the rally car program and only gained the information through collegues working on the projects at the time and was obviously directly involved when the board took the rallying option over other motorsport routes.

Incidentally all the departments that were running motorsport development and special projects were merged in the late 80's and went on to become what we all know now as Subaru Tecnica International.

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by subbieatnz

Thats where a 92-97 JDM Parts manual Would come in handy if you could read what it said in Japanese.
Ive been trying to track down a NZ or even JDM Parts manual for ages.
Ive managed to pick up the whole set of SVX FSMs

I suggest you PM paddlesnz. He taught English in Japan and is fluent in Japanese. He has Japanese literature on hand. Nice guy and helpful.

[lhopp77]

Here is one EG33 based engine that was developed. I don't think it ever made it into a race car.

Lee

[LetItSnow]

Originally Posted by lhopp77

Here is one EG33 based engine that was developed. I don't think it ever made it into a race car.

Lee

From what I've read, that was at Motori Moderni design, completely unrelated to Subaru hardware. It was raced, albeit unsuccessfully, and disappeared quickly.

Links:
<Drive Performance article>
<8W article about "failed engines"> (scroll down around halfway - look for the 1235)

[K_Dub]

Originally Posted by LetItSnow

From what I've read, that was at Motori Moderni design, completely unrelated to Subaru hardware. It was raced, albeit unsuccessfully, and disappeared quickly.

Links:
<Drive Performance article>
<8W article about "failed engines"> (scroll down around halfway - look for the 1235)

They owned 50% of Motori Moderni at the time, and financed the development of this motor, even casting their name into the valve covers. I'd say that makes this a Subaru motor. They list coil-on-plug, dual camshafts, and 4 valves/cyl as features of this motor (features they'd just developed for our EG). Beyond these similarities, I doubt it had much in common with the EG33, but I wouldn't go so far as to say "completely unrelated".

Did the Koenigsegg B12 S ever come to fruition, or did the Swedes agree with Subaru that this engine is more trouble than it's worth? That block with a supercharger would be really something.

[LetItSnow]

They actually didn't own any share of Motori Moderni - they owned 50% of the Coloni race team. As well, the engine was an existing design with "SUBARU" slapped on the valve covers.

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by K_Dub

" financed the development of this motor, even casting their name into the valve covers. I'd say that makes this a Subaru motor."

AND Subaru cliams it as a Subaru engine. If this was not true it could be a legal matter. But, even common sense tells you that an engine this complex could not be developed from the drawing board in the times that it was done WITHOUT significant predesign work by say---maybe Subaru.

Some people may remember that one of these engines sold on Ebay a couple years ago. I don't guess it was bought by one of our members or we would have heard something about it over time.

Lee

[subbieatnz]

Originally Posted by lhopp77

AND Subaru cliams it as a Subaru engine. If this was not true it could be a legal matter. But, even common sense tells you that an engine this complex could not be developed from the drawing board in the times that it was done WITHOUT significant predesign work by say---maybe Subaru.

Some people may remember that one of these engines sold on Ebay a couple years ago. I don't guess it was bought by one of our members or we would have heard something about it over time.

Lee

How much did it sell for?