well its just the same basic design. they are 2 of very very few cars that house opposing piston engines...i need a diagram to explain this properly..

 

Same type of engine, not the same engine. Subaru or FHI engineers were allowed study/manufacture of the VW/Porsche boxer engine. Or something along those lines. Hit google and start searching on boxer or "horizontally opposed" engines.

 

similar in that they both have flat- designs. i may have read something somewhere that said Fuji Heavin Industries had contact with Porsche for the design...

add on two more pistons and that's the basic idea

 

+1 nice diagram

 

Good 'ol Wikipedia has a pretty good list and history of various people/companies that have used/taken advantage of the technology here.

 

I always knew deep down inside I had a Porsche motor.:tongue:

 

:rotfl:

 

I'm assuming you're talking about the Boxster, since you've capitalized it.

They are most certainly NOT the exact same thing. The most obvious difference of course is the fact that the Boxster is a 6 cylinder engine, the WRX a 4. They are both horizontally opposed engines, but if we use that as our criteria, we can then declare that the WRX engine is the same as the 25 horsepower flat-4 that was in the 1938 Volkswagen KDF-Wagen.

To the best of my knowledge, they are completely unrelated developments. I think long ago, Subaru derived some inspiration from Porsche/VW with regard to developing horiz. opposed engines; perhaps someone's expounding (exaggerating) upon that.

 

I'm assuming you're talking about the Boxster, since you've capitalized it.

They are most certainly NOT the exact same thing. The most obvious difference of course is the fact that the Boxster is a 6 cylinder engine, the WRX a 4. They are both horizontally opposed engines, but if we use that as our criteria, we can then declare that the WRX engine is the same as the 25 horsepower flat-4 that was in the 1938 Volkswagen KDF-Wagen.

To the best of my knowledge, they are completely unrelated developments. I think long ago, Subaru derived some inspiration from Porsche/VW with regard to developing horiz. opposed engines; perhaps someone's expounding (exaggerating) upon that.

You forgot that up until 2019, Subaru had put flat-6 engines in both the Outback and the Legacy. So, there could be some similarities with those engines possibly.

 

i had always heard that Subaru got started by stealing the beetle(or Porsche 356, whichever you prefer) power plant and then water cooling it but like ray said a boxster engine and a wrx engine are only related in that they're both horizontally opposed engines. that's like saying a Saturn motor is the same thing as a Honda motor since they're both in line four bangers.

 

The Porsche and Subaru boxer motors share oil leaks and poor access to spark plugs. Alfa has them beat on the oil leaks though -- I wonder if that means Alfa made the better boxer motor?

I think it's funny that someone could consider the boxer motor rare, since many millions of vehicles use one. The 2CV and Beetle alone would probably make it among the most popular motors in history, and that's not counting other VW and Citroen models or even Alfa Romeos etc.

The Wikipedia article does not find the Ferrari boxer motors noteworthy, for reasons only they can explain (my guess is the author may not have known how many "r"s in the spelling). On the bright side they do mention one of the two most important boxers in history -- the Citroen and the VW that were in production for many decades. It's also interesting that Honda and BMW make among the most popular boxer motors -- although the BMW fans know this and get excited about it, many Honda people have no idea.

 

The Porsche and Subaru boxer motors share oil leaks and poor access to spark plugs. Alfa has them beat on the oil leaks though -- I wonder if that means Alfa made the better boxer motor?

I think it's funny that someone could consider the boxer motor rare, since many millions of vehicles use one. The 2CV and Beetle alone would probably make it among the most popular motors in history, and that's not counting other VW and Citroen models or even Alfa Romeos etc.

The Wikipedia article does not find the Ferrari boxer motors noteworthy, for reasons only they can explain (my guess is the author may not have known how many "r"s in the spelling). On the bright side they do mention one of the two most important boxers in history -- the Citroen and the VW that were in production for many decades. It's also interesting that Honda and BMW make among the most popular boxer motors -- although the BMW fans know this and get excited about it, many Honda people have no idea.

Honda with a boxer Were is the proof

 

This is great info. Thanks guys.

 

::re-badges with porsche logos::

 

I live in a glass house

... so I should not be casting stones... I criticized the Wikipedia author(s) but did not mention a very important boxer motor: the 1.5 liter twin-supercharger boxer 12 used by Cisitalia in their 380HP 4WD car. The car had everything this group likes -- forced induction, AWD, boxer motor -- plus it was better than our Subarus because it had the motor placed correctly where it belongs (in the middle of the chassis; some idiot put ours way out front). All this, and the car was made in... hold on to something... brace yourself... 1949.

It's what makes a Cisitalia, a Cisitalia.

 

... so I should not be casting stones... I criticized the Wikipedia author(s) but did not mention a very important boxer motor: the 1.5 cc twin-supercharger boxer 12 used by Cisitalia in their AWD car. The car had everything this group likes -- forced induction, AWD, boxer motor -- plus it was better than our Subarus because it had the motor placed correctly where it belongs (in the middle of the chassis; some idiot put ours way out front). All this, and the car was made in... hold on to something... brace yourself... 1949.

It's what makes a Cisitalia, a Cisitalia.

1.5 cc? Those things must rip.

 

The Subaru flat 4 was originally a licensed copy of the Borgward flat 4's. That sounds less prestigious than Porsche though. :tongue:

http://www.sportscarmarket.com/Profiles/2007/March/German/

 

None of you can compete with my Porscharu.

 

:rotfl:


Many of the larger displacement motorcycles made by honda use boxer engines. This I knew, but I never knew that Benz was the originator for the design.

 

I had a customer come in yesterday to look at WRX and STI's and asked which one had the porsche Boxster engine.

took a few minutes of explaining, but he eventually understood the term is Boxer, not boxster.

he was driving a new avalon.

 

:rotfl:

 

i like the idea that my car has something similar to a porsche.

even though it isn't really saying much.:sadwave: (its the same as saying my honda has something similar to a BMW M3 because we both have inline motors)


but i like to think that none the less.

 

My 626 has a lot in common with a Porsche too.

 

yes

fixed.

0-60 in 3.6s
0-100 in 8.3s

1/4mi in 11.8 @119mph
top speed around 200 mph

all of this in the mid/late 80s.

less than 300 road legal version made.

originally made as a rally car.

 

+1 AMAZING. The 959 is one of my most favorite cars of ALL time. Unfortunatly, they were (originally) all kinds of not street legal in the US. There are a few here now, I believe in the hands of Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates to name a couple. Yep, 959 teh hotness...:thumbup:

 

as far as the 959 goes, truley amazing for its time, but the 80'sness is strong... especially by today's offerings its really kind of crude in a not so much good way...

 

I wasn't really a fan of the looks even back in the '80's. The black '84 plain jane 911 I drove a few weeks ago has better lines.

 

I always thought the 959 was the best looking 911 variant ever, and AAMOF I think it looks better than today's cars too. I like that they kept the then-current roof line and jumped two decades with the nose, while the tail looks like a mini 956.

 

I just thought there would at least be something similar.

 

Yes. They are boxer engines, they have 7 crank bearings and they are 6 cylinders. That's where the similarities end. What did you expect? Completely different manufacturers.

 

I was doing research on the subject and this discussion was the first result on google.

 

Well have owed a few Porsche’s the engine is the same style as both are horizontally opposed, Porsche’s when they started using water cooled motors had serious problems with ims rms bearings crapping out the motors don’t think Subaru had this problem…

 

Because Subaru never used an intermediate shaft because (as has already been established in this 20 year old thread) the two engines share almost nothing in common.

 

I was planning to buy a Cayman or Boxster, but when they replaced the Flat 6 with a 2.0 Turbo 4 I could no longer justify 2 1/2 to 3 times the price of a WRX.

 

But you could justify it before, for some reason?

 

Yes, because it had the 6 cylinder.

 

Sound? Feel?

 

Sound, feel, cool factor, and I prefer non-turbo cars. Even if the price didn't go up $20,000 I wouldn't have bought one with a turbo 4. I made an exception for my WRX because it was cheap, AWD, I love Subarus, and the VB was the first WRX I ever liked.