Originally Posted by StevieC
The blocks I believe were originally designed for the VW Rabbit engine (Cast-Iron) and the heads were aluminum that Chrysler designed and fitted to it. Then drilled holes in them and the block between cylinder 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 for additional water circulation when the Turbo was added to the 2.2 Turbo's although they weren't big enough holes and would regularly cause head gasket failure and cracked heads.
The Turbos on the 2.2's came with a Japanese made for Chrysler Turbo and a Domestic made turbo depending on the years. The Domestic ones would regularly have bearing failure early on, most likely due to coking from the conventional oils at the time and no water cooling. The Japanese ones seemed to last longer but would also eventually fail the same fate. Not sure why they lasted longer. Maybe better bearing machining or oil circulation who knows... The lag on the Turbo's wasn't 1/2 bad. The factory Boost/Vacuum gage was neat to see.
Also the non-turbo models sometimes had the fuel economy pacer LED that would tell you when to shift for optimal economy like in the Caravans that had the 2.2L 4 Cylinder. (Yes it was gutless)
I actually owned an Omni GLH, Shelby Lancer #24, Two 1988 Dodge Daytona Pacificas, 1 88 Daytona Shelby, 1 85 Lebaron Turbo, 1 86 Lancer Turbo and 1 88 Horizon.
The Omni ran 12.90's after a bunch of modifications. To include an Ed Peters built Garrett turbo, Mopar Big valve race head, 5th injector controlled by the manifold pressure in order to run more than 15lbs of boost
and a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting.
I was real big into them from 1992 until I got into the GM LS powered cars.
2.2 block block had nothing to do with the VW block. The original US Omnis actually used a 1.7 VW engine. The 2.2 was an all new design in 1981.
Willem Weertman was the chief engineer.
The heads unusually like to crack between the intake and exhaust valves.
The original 2.2s all used the 10mm head bolts which did cause head gasket failures. In 1986 all of them received 11mm head bolts until the end of the production run.
This helped reduce the warping commonly seen on the early engines.
The Garrett Turbos used on the original T1 car and later on the T2 cars was far superior to the small Mitsubishi turbo. It was the upgrade when you destroyed the pile supplied by Mitsubishi. All the turbos 85 and up had water cooling. The line came out of the thermostat house and ran to the turbo. The Mitsubishi pile went on the T1 cars in 1988 when they switched to the new style intake. Every Mitsubishi turbo I had failed before 100,000 miles, well both of them and was replaced with the T2 style Garrett. The T1 Garret and T2 Garrett had different compressor housings.
The wastegate on the 1984 was mechanically controlled, 85 and up were computer controlled.
This is an 85 to 87 style T1 with the Garrett you can see the coolant line(boxed in in red) coming out of the thermostat housing of the head.
In 1988 they all went to a roller cam VS the flat tappet. It was a nice upgrade.
The Omni, Charger, Turismo, Rampage, Scamp were all L bodies.
Daytona/Lasers were G-Body
Lebarons/Lancers were H-body in the large 4 door or 2 door coupe as there were K Lebarons
There was also a Turbo III which use a Lotus DOHC head. The heads were problematic. It was used in the Spirit R/T and Daytona Iroc
There was also a Turbo IV which had no wasted gate and used a Variable nozzle turbo or VNT. Some Lebaron GTCs and Daytona's used it
The tooling for the 2.2 and 2.5 was sold to China, were for a long time they still made new versions of the engine.
Every 2.2/2.5 turbo car I owned was a fun little car and easy to modify. They certainly had their problems but were easy to fix and to be honest they cost me less to maintain and never left me stranded like my 02 TDI
Ok I will crawl back into my hole with this useless information now.