To engine swap or not

It's been a while since I updated the blog so I guess it's time for a diary entry of sorts.

Earlier this year, April to be exact, the night I shot the photos of the Gemini Diaries meet I also managed to blow the engine of the '79. Detonated the #3 cylinder and seized the pistons so thus requiring another full engine rebuild.

After spending a significant amount of money building the engine two months earlier I actually lost interest in it for a while. So much so, that I sold some of my parts; the Weber carb, the race headers and a few other bits. Then, I went out and purchased 'the easy way out' a 4G93 DOHC Turbo engine, along with other related bits needed to swap it into the car. I started doing research as to what it would take to swap the engine in properly converting it from it's front-wheel-drive / all-wheel-drive orientation to rear-wheel-drive for the '79. While not exactly being a simple straightforward bolt on job I managed to figure out how to fit it in (something we'll discuss in detail in a future entry) but for some reason I found that I was not 100% committed into the project so it actually sat for a few months. One reason why this was the case was that I did not exactly have THE engine I wanted. I had a better one... I really wanted a 4G92 DOHC MIVEC engine, 1600cc 175HP stock so while the engine I had was better; 1800cc, turbo, 205HP stock (with more tuning potential) that fact did not really sit well with me. Those who know me well will know that I have a fetish for high revving naturally aspirated engines. So while I actually had a better engine, it did not tickle my fetish and I figured it would be a pain to balance the car later. Another reason was that the new engine was HEAVY!! I originally wanted a 4G9x series engine instead of the more popular 4G63 DOHC engine because of the fact that it would weigh less. Yes, it does way less, but it's still far heavier that the 4G33 Saturn engine I was used to. Without having to get into the numbers, two people car easily lift a complete 4G33, yet 4 people will struggle to lift the 4G93 DOHC. I didn't need to weigh it to know it was going to be too heavy to keep the car balanced properly. Finally, what really killed it for me was that I could not figure out how to fit the engine in the car without cutting up the firewall to clear huge new engine. Clearance issues with the cam angle sensor and a few other bits would have required a chunk of the firewall to be removed to fit in the engine. So, after that realization I made a decision and sold the 4G93 Turbo engine.

For sentimental reasons I decided to bring my 4G33 back to life. One more time. I figured I owed it as much given that it has been a reliable partner all these years and still after what it has been through it managed to get me home safely before totally seizing up. There was also this nagging feeling I had that despite what we had accomplished in the past there was still more potential left in that engine. I immediately went to work acquiring parts (mostly to replace that which I sold) to bring my old engine back to life. I had the '79 towed to my workshop and pulled down the engine and took it apart to see what work needed done. As of this writing the engine block is bare sitting on the engine stand waiting to be sent off to the machine shop to have the damaged cylinder bores repaired and to be fitted with new pistons. Having sold my carb and exhaust earlier was actually a good thing. My previous engine build was constrained by the fact that I wanted to retain the same carb and exhaust setup, now that I have a new set of much bigger carbs (note the s!) and will have a new exhaust made I'm free to push the engine build to the next level. I will get into the details of this as we go along.

So, that's the whole long story of how I ended up again where I started. Strange as it may seem to some, in my application doing an engine swap would actually be a cheaper, easier alternative than what I'm planning to do. It would also be more efficient, more powerful and ultimately be faster yet it's because of those facts that it was never that exciting for me... At least in the case of my '79 and with what I could do with my current engine. I did decide to do a different engine swap project, dropping a 4AGE 20-valve engine into a AE92 Corolla. But that's another story for another day.