Man-maths moment [97 MR2 turbo swap]

[Scrunty]

First of all, I can't get a handle on the search 'feature' of the forum despite reading the stickied thread about it - so apologies in advance for what is undoubtedly a re-run thread.
Also second apologies for the long winded post, I don't blame you if you don't read it

I have a 97 gen4 sw20 g-limited that has just rolled over 190k's, has been a very solid car for my five years of ownership.
Coming near that magic 200k mark got me thinking about what might need doing, does the engine/box have to come out to do the cambelt and other stuff that should/needs to be done?
Has one crunchy syncro on third (shifting down) which has always stopped me from bothering with track-days etc in it - I'd like that rectified also.

Then the man-maths kick in as I'd like to have torque again, I started to think I could just sell it and buy something else... but I like MR2's and it seems rather hard to find a decent gen3+ turbo these days.
Drift-tax seems to have put half-decent rwd cars into no-so-economically-awesome prices.

Getting down to it, given I have a solid base of a car I started wondering how much a turbo swap would cost me.. I know the usual advice is sell it and buy a turbo.
I have no garage (or even a flat driveway) with which to do work myself, so I would be paying someone to do it for me.
I have read somewhere on the interwebs if you were to get a half-cut of comparable year everything should fairly much slot straight in? (1 pin / wire difference on ecu for factory boost gauge)

Am I even more foolish than I already think I am? Do I need to snap out of it and just keep the 3SGE, maybe rebuild the gbox?
If not can anyone recommend a good company I could talk to about importing a half-cut? I was guestimating maybe 3.5K odd just to get the half-cut in and another decent chunk to get it bolted in.
Also would you need a cert or would you just re-register it as a GT spec (fairly sure the brakes and the like are the same on the later model turbo/non-turbo models?)

Well done if you made it this far and thanks in advance for any advice

[rollaholic]

its up to you of course, but a few things i have learned over the years -

- any money you spend on mods is 90% money you never see again
- things always cost more than you think

for example, lets say you pick up all the bits you need to complete this conversion for 3.5k. having spent that much money, it'd be madness not to at least replace the cambelt and associated bits while its all easy access. you might as well check the clutch too, and once you've done that you might as well replace it, along with the rear main seal. heck while you are pulling things to bits theres bound to be more o-rings and gaskets that could use a refresh. paying someone else to do all this could easily cost $1000 or more depending on if / what you replace the clutch with.

once you've got it in the car, you'll want to put fresh fluids in everything - thats probably $400 by itself. on top of all the labour before you know it you've spent 5k+ on a car thats worth 2.5, and that you could perhaps now sell for 3500 - 4. whereas if you spent 10k on a mint factory GT it'd still be worth 8k in a couple years time, ya know?

(guessing, no idea what mr2s are worth)

yes it will need a cert, which is just another reason its worth less than a factory turbo one (cant change anything without getting cert updated)

also i dunno shit about mr2s but in my experience top spec cars always have other stuff that makes them a bit different. gauges, steering wheel, seats, trims, better brakes, blah blah. gotta justify that excessive price tag on the new car somehow.

i reckon in 99% of cases it works out cheaper/easier to buy the real deal, particularly when it comes to resale time.

just look at your ae85/ae86 values - that ae86 engine bay tag is probably worth 5k, even if everything that makes it different from an ae85 is gone.

then again this is man maths, and if you love the idea of doing something it doesnt have to make any financial sense. building something has its own rewards.

edit - on the gearbox front, i'd have thought it'd be more economical to find a good 2nd hand box

[BlakeNZ]

Take it from me, who has suffered from the frustrations of stalled projects.
buy this 2gr 3.5 litre V6 G4 link equipped MR2
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/special ... 605329.htm
sell your own car.
job done(complete with torque)

[Grrrrrrr!]

Take it from me, who has suffered from the frustrations of stalled projects.
buy this 2gr 3.5 litre V6 G4 link equipped MR2
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/special ... 605329.htm
sell your own car.
job done(complete with torque)

Listen to this man!

Sell Beams mr2 for good coin because of rarity, rather than turn it into a just another turbo swapped NA, worth less than what car is worth now.

[Bling]

I'd like to add a vote to the above purchase. That thing must be angry!

[Boosted_162]

Take it from me, who has suffered from the frustrations of stalled projects.
buy this 2gr 3.5 litre V6 G4 link equipped MR2
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/special ... 605329.htm
sell your own car.
job done(complete with torque)

Listen to this man!

Sell Beams mr2 for good coin because of rarity, rather than turn it into a just another turbo swapped NA, worth less than what car is worth now.

Being gen 4 would make it gen 3 3SGE would it not? But definately go try the 2GR one.

If you want a fast turbo one, do an Al. Buy cheap GT, CT20B it, drive the shit out of it and do 12's

[Grrrrrrr!]

eh, good point*. Still gen4 in good original factory condition is still worth more than a turbo swapped car IMO.

[Akane]

I'll suggest a gen 3 turbo half cut, would set you back about $3.5k-$5k depending km's and condition.
$500 for new cambelt (while the engine is out), also new tensioner bearings, and misc seals, and fluids.
$1k-ish to put it in.

Then you might be able to re-coup some of the costs by selling your old motor, box and ECU.

[Scrunty]

snip

Excellent points, most of which I have considered - definitely know I would not see the money come back at sale time!
I was planning for $6K total budget, if it can't be done for that then it is certainly not worth it.
The issue is it is very hard to find a gen3+ turbo SW20! Very rarely come up for sale, or if they do they have mega K's and probably need a bunch of work anyway.
Was definitely planning on replacing perishables (seals etc), clutch, cambelt, hoses from hell and the like before putting in new equipment (current clutch is fairly stiff and needs replacing with the 200K 'service' anyway)

@ Blake, it would not be a stalled project because I would be paying someone else to do it
I remember seeing the build thread for that V6 MR2 an age ago, a lot of effort put into that - certainly far from a hack job and I'm sure it is a hoot to drive.

@Grrrr
Unfortunately I don't have a beams (that is gen5 SW20) - just gen3 3S (gen 4 car so basically a different colour roof and slightly different placement of side indicators I think)
Paintwork is in fairly average condition (no garage for the last 4-5 years) but very sound car underneath, only had to fix my exhaust and a $15 suspension part in the last 4-5 years.
'just another turbo swapped NA' ? Really? Please find me a bunch of gen3+ turbos to pick from
I don't give a rats arse about resale value, I drive my cars - I don't wheel and deal and I don't do show cars.


Perhaps I need to see roughly what it would cost before making any decisions, back to one of my original questions - can anyone recommend a wrecker/importer who I can contact to see about half-cuts?
I figure a half-cut would be a hell of a lot easier than buying a 3SGTE package then having to tackle the wiring etc
Otherwise I'm not sure I could get toooo much $ for my car, otherwise I'd certainly consider the V6 beast.
I only currently want to spend $6K odd, meaning I'd need another $4K - I'm fairly sure I couldn't get that for my car as is.

Thank-you all for the input, it's genuinely appreciated.

[Dell'Orto]

Perhaps also look to import a Gen 4 GT? Will be able to be brought in under SIVS, though will be dearer than a conversion.
Costwise, it makes no sense to convert yours of course - but we aren't in the car game for logical thoughts eh If you've got the coin, I say do it (if you don't want to import one)

[Grrrrrrr!]

'just another turbo swapped NA' ? Really? Please find me a bunch of gen3+ turbos to pick from

Only one on trademe at the moment, but there are a few MR2s that used to be NA with 3sgtes shoved in them.. usually after somebody puts a turbo car into a ditch/pole. Which is what i figure happened to mine Gen3s not so common, but still a few about.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/toyota/auction-714698208.htm

If yours isnt tidy enough to fetch good money, then grab this, and a sw20 turbo gearbox, and intercooler and have somebody put that in. Speak to prime in the states, they can probably make you a patch harness/instructions to eliminate 90% of the wiring hassle when you buy the intercooler piping kit off them.

[levinguy]

i'm pretty sure there are only about 20 registered gen 3+ turbo sw20's in nz. to put things in perspective.

[Boosted_162]

i'm pretty sure there are only about 20 registered gen 3+ turbo sw20's in nz. to put things in perspective.

You still got my old one Rob??

[levinguy]

yeah... it runs, reg on hold, lives about 40km away from me, so not on the road yet, no time.

[BlakeNZ]

how much IS your car worth?

[d1 mule]

seems like yet another thread where a question / advice is asked but not taken or really wanted to me.....

[Scrunty]

@ Blake
I have no idea what my car is worth

@ D1 mule
Yes upon re-reading everything that might be a fair summation given what I have said, but after another day of pondering I am reluctantly starting to give-up on the conversion idea.
Perhaps I'll just have to start putting more money into my short-term savings / car fund and cash buy a car when it comes up then sell mine for whatever it might be worth.

[rollaholic]

his asking price might be 10k, but you might get it for less than that. if you've already got 6k to get your turbo swap started, then 8500 - 9 isint that much of a stretch?

its easy to say resale is not important, but sooner or later the time will come to sell

then again the v6 one i can imagine being even harder to shift than a turbo swapped one.

also, never listen to people who sum up engine swaps in 2 or less sentences - once again i've never done shit with mr2s but even the most straight forward seeming swaps have their issues and speed bumps, particularly putting later model engines into older cars. it might be easy to get 90% there, but thats not a running car and the last 10% can be a real PITA. just check out how many projects are for sale on TM with

'90% complete but run out of time / money'

or

'just needs a bit of wiring to get it going'

im not saying yours will turn out like this, but if you want an idea of how much hair pulling can go on, go check out romanVs build thread in the project section

(sorry roman!)

[iOnic]

If you've got $6k and dont care about resale, get a cheap mr2 turbo off TM and hoon around in that and drive your nice one at the weekend. Ct20b, lots of boost and exhaust will make you quicker than most things on the road straight away and when it breaks (its a 3sgte, it'll break) Throw it away and start again.

[Scrunty]

haha I've seen all Roman's threads before, he had that beams swapped mr2 at a track-day I attended a decent number of years ago (I think it broke something fairly quickly)
Again though, all of these stalled projects are ones people tackle themselves.. I don't have a garage or the technical know-how / experience - which unfortunately brackets me as a cheque-book racer (or whatever the equivalent here is)

I'll get my save on and hold off for another few thousand K's of the current MR2's odo