So you all know ive got this 85 GSL-SE with the 13b in it. I was going to do a rebuild (blown apex) but I found a good deal on a running s5 (89-91) motor. Now, are all 13b mounts the same? I did a search and found a guy that swapped a s4 into a SE, but will a s5 fit as well? It dosent have a ECU or witing harness, but I believe that both motors are FI so that should match up. If not maybe I could use the intake off of the old 13b?

Thanks!

 

The SE front cover will need to be modified to accept the S5 electronic mop. Check out Steve84GS posts, he has successfully done this conversion with an S5 TII. I don't recomend using the SE intake with only 2 injectors on the S5 intake. If you want to keep the S5 intake, you will need all of the S5 wiring, ecu maf, etc.. The other option is to go carb.

 

The 13B EFI engines share a fairly common block,but thats about it.

The later FC 13B....especially the S5,differ quite a bit from the GSL-SE engine.The manifolds are different,the EFI and electronics are very different and youll have to do some aluminum welding work to the GSL-SE front cover to get it to accept the S5 electronic OMP.The S5 ECU will not work without it plugged in.
Running the S5 engine on the GSL-SE ECU isnt really a good idea.The SE computor will not be able to activate the VDI intake plumbing,or the secondary fuel injectors,or the CAS fired ignition system.
The S5 ECU is much smarter and quicker,and is the only way your gonna get the full stock 160HP out of that S5 engine.Youll need the correct S5 harness to wire it up,and the SE front cover and oilpan to mount it up.The custom stuff involves finishing the wiring on the left side and doing to mods to the SE front cover to get the S5 OMP working.
The rest is just basic engine swap stuff like fuel pump upgrade,exhaust,tranny,clutch,cooling,ect....all simple stuff since those aspects of the S5 engine are very similar to the S4 and GSL-SE engines.

If you can/do retrofit all the SE hardware and manifolds onto the S5 bareblock,it should run fine.Youll see a minor increase in power due to the S5's lighter rotors and their higher compression ratio.It shouldnt pose a problem for the SE ECU,I succesfully ran a S5 engine off a S4 ECU for a year temporarily, and it didnt complain.Itll run,but you wont really see the performance increases you would if you retained the superior S5 intake,ignition and fuel systems.

 

Dang.....thats a little over my head. Would it eliminate some fuss to switch to carb? I can get the front cover welded for the sensor easily, but after reading around it seems going carb would kill the ecu problems?

If something like this is totally out of the question labor and $$ wise....let me know and ill stop with the questions ;-)

 

Swapping an S4 is less problematic since it still has the mechanical mop. As a side note, you can get around the electronic mop if you go with the MegaSquirt stand alone engine management system. It is the cheapest stand alone option out there and is open source for software codeing which allows for more robust fine tuning capabilities.

 

Great, so does anyone have a s4 they want to get rid of? ;-)

So basically my options are:

A. Rebuild current 13b

B. Go with said s5, mod the front cover, and run megasquirt. (or carb)

C. Find electronics from a s5, and swap all that in as well.

I was pretty set on doind a rebuild, but when I started digging around and found this running s5, the vision played out like I could buy that engine, swap it in, run around with it for the summer, and come winter drag it into the garage for a rebuild and port. Just liked the idea of starting with more power.

If running megasquirt would ease the swap pain, I might go that route. I was thinking id end up with a stand alone sooner or later. Would swapping the FI to carb eleviate all the wiring elecrtonics fuss? Which way would be less hassle free?

I hope you guys are willing to help me out when I really **** this one up!!!

 

Running a carb eliminates ALL the wiring hassels....but its just a carb.Youll loose lowend and midrange compared to the factory EFI.Youll have to tune it,and youll never pass a smog test with it.

Standalone EFI gets you infinate tuneability and maximum HP with the least underhood clutter.Wiring is simple because you eliminate all the factory EFI junk and the OMP problem.But it costs more and requires dyno runs to get tuned correctly.It also will never pass a smog test.

Stock EFI will maximize torque band and economy.It requires no tuning and can be totally smog legal.But it requires some custom fab work and a full understanding of the EFI system in order to correctly swap into the FB.Or you pay out labor for someone else to do it.....

 

Spectacular...

Im praying that the deal with the engine will go through. Then its megasquirt for me.

Thanks for all the help!

 

Here's the link to the main MS board, have fun boneing up.

http://www.msefi.com/index.php

If you pick up the S5 engine, my suggestion would be to use the SE front cover and 4 line mop, along with the Rotary Aviation pump so you can run a seperate pre-mix tank. The biggest problem you will have with this setup is figureing out how to adapt the mop rod to the S5 TB, which has no provisions for it.

 

I did some side by side work with a S4 and S5 throttle body.The pull rod can be adapted to the S5 TB but you have to switch over to all S4 hardware on the front of the throttle rod.For a stock EFI type setup,that wont work since the TPS bracket must be changed and the S5 uses a different/dual TPS.
With a Megasquirt,it shouldnt matter,just install the S4 OMP hardware on the S5 TB and then make/adapt whatever TPS bracket you need to run with the Megasquirt EFI.......or just find a S4 TB.......