? about sl1

[jeff kolling]

ok i have 2 ?s

1. a friend of mine is wanting a body kit for a sc1 and we have looked for the last 3 hours and cannot find one. so anyone know of where i can find one?

2.he is also needing to either rebuild or swap his engine. he wants to swap it into a dohc but can he do it without a lot of mechanical work. or is it a lot harder than replacing the same engine and also what does he need.

thanx
jeff

[VS1400]

Don't know on the body kit...

An engine swap to a DOHC motor would be impractical and expensive, including changing the engine wiring harness, PCM (computer), coolant hoses, and most importantly, the transmission. The gearing is different between the two. Just to name a few things.....

You'd be better off buying a car that already has a DOHC engine.

[goldenrod]

wrong vs. i dont know what year your car is but you can get bodykits for saturns at s-icon.com. I dont think there site is fully running right now but you can contact them using that site. sohc to dohc swaps are simple. You can probably find a used motor for about 500 or less. The wiring harness is the same, when u swap the pcm (which isnt always neccessary) it is just simple plug and play. the coolant hoses remain the same because the the engine blocks are identical in design. And lastly the transimision from a sohc will bolt up to a dohc. The gearing is different but that doesnt make it a bad thing. If you are going to run nitrous or forced induction applications the sohc trany (mp2 trany is arguably better. The only other thing you may need are dohc gauges and those arent neccessity either.

[VS1400]

Exactly, you don't know what year his car his.

You think a SOHC wiring harness from a 91-94 will "plug and play" with a DOHC? I'd like to see you make that work. For the same reason, (differences in fuel injection) the PCM is clearly different as well.

Even if we were talking about 95-later car, a PCM swap would be a bare minimum to get the car to run correctly. Even then, you may still find some problems with harness length.

Although they bolt up, I wouldn't be surprised to see driveability problems without a transmission swap.

The upper radiator hose is different because the >heads< are different. The same general shape, but the length is different by the head.

Just trying to save the guy a headache.

[SabreKhan]

Amen, VS1400. Just go get a cheap DOHC. It will be much *much* less expensive and a whole heckuva lot easier. Especially less expensive if you sell the SOHC to help pay for the DOHC... you could pretty much just sell your SOHC for the same price you bought a DOHC for. People don't seem to much care what motor their Saturn has, as far as the general driving moron goes.

[goldenrod]

Ok so we dont know what year his car is so we cant help him there. But wrong again 95 dohc motors used totally different fuel injection systems from all other motors and years.
SOHCs 1991 to 1994 are throuttle body injector
SOHC`s 1995 uses MPFI (2 ohm per injector-obd1)
SOHC`s 1996 and newer use MPFI (16 ohm per injector-obd2)
DOHC`s 1991 to 1994 uses MPFI (2 ohm per injector-obd1)
DOHC`s 1995 uses SPFI (2ohms per injector-obd1)
DOHC`s 1996 and up uses MPFI (16 ohms per injector-obd2)
You can run a sohc comp. on dohc 96-99 motors. the fuel maps are slightly different but not nearly different enough to make the car run like crap. The pin outs for those comps. are the same and the location of them in the car is the same. But dont get me wrong it is more efficient and there is more power when running a dohc computer. The harnesses are identical (96-99).
Transmissions wether it be an mp2 or an mp3 doesnt matter. They bolt up exacltly the same and the gear ratios are not so radically different that it would cause a driveability problem. trust me on this one my 96 sl has a dohc with an mp2 trany. An mp2 trany on a dohc motor will lose about a half second in the quarter apossed to an mp3/dohc combination. As i said before the mp2 can be better depending on application.
No hedaches with the radiatior hose either just cut it about 1-2" shorter and your set.
At least with his used car he already knows its problems.