What do ya'll think is a reasonable estimate/cost for a shop to replace the exhaust cams on a LGT (engine is in perfect working condition)?
Why are you trying to replace the exhaust cams? It will cost a lot because you have to pull the whole motor to swap the cams. Might as well wait until your motor needs a rebuild or you are ready to do more to it while it is out.
Thank you for the response. I know that it will likely cost most than its worth.... STI exhaust cams have almost 1 mm more lift, which has been shown to be helpful with larger-than-stock turbos on my setup, which I'm looking at doing (for more background, see http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5389360&postcount=53).
What turbo? And completely stock motor otherwise? If its a relatively big turbo you should definitely just save your money for the inevitable need for motor build and then do cams at that time. If you are going to the trouble of swapping cams I would do GSC intake and exhaust and get the bang for your buck or don't do it at all. 1mm more lift on just the exhaust is a reeeeeealllly stupid waste of time and money.
Thanks for the reply! Hybrid VF54 - 20G/TD05 Yep. Perhaps. I'm still interested in what ya'll think a reasonable estimate/cost would be.
Depends on the shop. If they do lots of Subarus and are good at it, pulling the engine could only take like 2-3 hours. But I searched and google tells me book time for a dealership is something like 12 hours to remove and install Engine. That's just remove an install so depending on the shops labor rate that could get stupid expensive just to gain 1mm lift on exhaust. Find a shop you like/trust and get a real quote, they will probably tell you its a waste of time and money unless you are doing more work on the engine preemptively to try to prevent a blown engine with that bigger turbo (drop in forged pistons and might as well do new HG, water pump, head studs, all seals, timing belt etc while you are in there).
Unfortunately this isn't a 4G63 or B18 where you can just swap the cams out lickety split so cams only make sense when doing a motor build when its already out.
Do you have the ability to pull the motor yourself? It'd make the turbo swap infinitely easier and you'd also be able to save that much labor money as well. Dumb question @Nhibbs , but do the heads come off to pull the cams?
Somewhat, might be fun - I was just curious what people though is a reasonable estimate as I will be getting a few quotes from the shops around here.
