Head Swap to IX
 

Alright guys, I haven't been on the forums in forever!!! My car has been doing great until randomly I hit a manhole and my timing belt broke :crap: So the head is gone now and I was thinking of throwing the IX head in its place. I have seen plenty of threads with this being "done" but can't seem to find any information on if all I need to do is just plug and play, or if there is some more work to it then just that? Every thread I read on the situation just never finished with their info!

I did a lot of research on this. A while back. So has doncarbone. On Club4g I remember hearing about a guy who swapped a VIII head on. The best source of info I ever found was on Club3g though. VIII head swaps are becoming common place over there. There is a part list of all the things you'll need. You'll just have to make adjustments since your doing the IX head.

I think the best deal would be to find a fully loaded head, sensors and all.

Im pretty sure I read that Evo and RA intake manifolds are swappable. But Im not sure if there would be any kind of clearance issues with the RA IM on the DOHC head. So you might need a new intake manifold.

You'd need new headers. There are a few NA 4g63 headers you can get out there.

You'd need an IX timing belt, possibly a cam gear, and you'll probably be alright on stock IX cams.

After that the biggest issue would be making sure sensors connect and work. On club3g I seen a lot of people having to order different cam sensor parts quite often. And IIRC the IX only uses Mivec on one cam, I dont remember which though. However Merlin is a wizard at tuning and mapping on the Evo's so Im sure he would have no problem figuring out what needs to be modified in your ECU to get it all to run.

Good luck man! If you go thru with it please chronicle it all! I'd love to see a DOHC RA! :D


EDIT :: you can check out THIS THREAD. There is a lot of good info in there from when we were looking into it before. Im not sure the part about needing an Evo IX ECU is relevant anymore after seeing a few other things. Ive seen people run DOHC and their ECU only reading one cam, and Ive also seen the sorcery that Merlin can pull off in an ECU. So that bit might work out.

Thanks for all the info Bakuro. I actually found the 3g forum post on the swap and everything involved. Since its a little more than what I was estimating I'll just get mine rebuilt haha. And the fact that our contract at work switched so I just got paid all my vacation time that was remaining.
I might acquire the parts down the road as it sounds like a project I want to do, just not all at once.