Repair 2nd gen or swap 3rd gen?

[c.stratton04]

My friend is trying to decide what to do with his car. It is a 91 turbo with 120K miles on it. He recently broke his tranny and the timing belt needs to be replaced soon. Anyways, his two decisions are to mod or swap. I think that it would be better to keep the current engine, put in a new transmission, have a shop check out/replace and worn internals, upgrade turbo, intercooler, new clutch, downpipe, boostcontroler and a few other mods to get him to around 300rwhp. He thinks that it would be better to just swap in the 3rd gen 3sgte and go from there. The problem with this is that the engine costs $2200 shipped, cost of labor (how much do you think that would cost?), and then he has to mod it. Do you guys think that it would be better to put all that money toward upgrading or swapping? His budget is around $5000.

Edit: This car will be a daily driver so reliability is important. Also, do the JDM engines need higher octane gas?

[JekylandHyde]

I would not bother with the JDM.
I would fix/modify his.

*side note ~ you did not indicate that there is anything wrong with his engine, so why tear it apart?

[drazhartd]

The only pro of doing the swap is lower mileage on the engine.

And yes, if you want to sustain that "jdm 245hp" you must feed it the higher octane it expects.

[DavidV]

Originally Posted by drazhartd

The only pro of doing the swap is lower mileage on the engine.

And yes, if you want to sustain that "jdm 245hp" you must feed it the higher octane it expects.

Water injection and a Power FC (plug & play for the Gen III) along with some dyno time will get around the octane difference.

-- DavidV

[c.stratton04]

well we are going to build up the gen 2 engine!! tonight we started preperation for the drop. took off intake, exaust, IC piping, all hoses and electrical wires, drained coolant, tranny fluid, and oil, and we just have a few things left. we are going to go over all the connections on thursday, disassemble the drive shafts, and crossmembers. then on friday we are dropping it out.

For mods, we are going to get upgraded intercooler, act clutch, boost controler, afr controler, cooler spark plugs, and lsd. we still need to get the tranny working. what do you guys suggest? try and repair it ourselves with a kit, take it to a shop, get one out of a junk yard, or buy one off of the internet? i have never really had to deal with a broken transmission so i dont know the best route to go.
Thanks guys.