This past week I decided to tear into my '86 Sport N/A of course, and it went really smoothly. Pretty much started last Tueday at night for 3 or 4 hours after school till today. Then I got the engine out around 4 PM and start tearing the externals apart till about 10PM of which I got majority of it taken off.

I was pretty surprised at how easy it was, but anyhow the engine has 178,000 Miles on it and I took it out because it had busted the dreaded coolant seal. This is currently not my daily driver so time is not the issue to me.

Anybody have any suggestions on what to do next? Haha

I guess I'll just throw another rebuilt N/A Motor or rebuild the one I have, though the Turbo conversion is quite tempting...

 

The turbo conversion is also quite involed as well, this including time and money. If you decide to do the swap you should go ahead and replace the drivetrain and STAY WITHIN SERIES! And btw... STAY WITHIN SERIES. I can't stress this enough. You can throw down a s5 t2 block if you want but I wouldn't recommend it unless you go EMS.

 

Before Karack says it. Most likly its not a coolent seal that has failed but the iron that in turn busted the coolant. I think thats how he says it everytime. lol. you dont hate me now do you.

If this is your first 7 and you are in school keep in NA and you will think me later. Do a lil port work(or have someone do it for you). You dont want the car to fail when you have to get up and go somewhere.



My statements are based on the fact that 85% of all turbo conversions are hack jbs that will never run properly.

 

What do you mean by the Iron busted the seal? Is it because it got warped or a piece of the Iron damaged the coolant seal?

I'm leaning more towards N/A but Im not sure if I'll be able to use the old engine 178,000 mi on it so...

 

The iron warps and then the seal goes. When you pull it aprat check your clearences. And if you dont feel you can do the rebuild yourself send it to rotary resurection, hes cheap and has great feedback.

 

I would second the "keeping it N/A" motion

When you tear it down do a nice streetport on the motor and put it back in....

Good luck with the project

 

Cool thanks for the input much appreciated. I've heard that passing emissions here in California is not the easiest thing to do with a street port but I'll look into it more because you get decent power gains with the porting right?. Though I suppose if it was setup properly I might be able to get it to pass.

Ya I was looking at Rotary Ressurection, looks like they are pretty reputable and give a good deal with thier rebuilds. I hope he gets freed up from all the workload he has right now cause lookin at his site, hes not accepting rebuilds right now.