Gentlemen-

I am toying around w/ the idea of swapping the drivetrain out of my 'vert for that of the turbo variety. I have an 88 (S4) vert, and plan on staying s4 to avoid complications.

I happen to know of a tranny & complete rear subframe which is available, and in the interest of lack of fundage, I would like to do it in stages.

To the question-

Should I get the rear subframe/tranny in and run with the n/a motor until I scrape up the scratch for a nicely built motor to finish it off, or pop for the motor first and hope I don't break the n/a drivetrain?

The reason I ask is because I can get the drivtrain cheaply, and I want to build a foundation for H/P ratings on the order of 300 to the rear.

Another Q while I am at it- which flywheel will I use, and will my 'vert ecu work? I have heard somewhere the vert ecu's will work with the turbo motor.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated.

 

I know the vert ecu will work with the turbo motor,I have a brilliant black 88 vert too. I just put a 13bt in it the other day. I would do the drivetrain first, then work on a sweet motor. The flywheel should match the tranny your using.

 

Thanks for the quick response- and for confirmation. I want to do this thing right, and don't mind waiting for a solid foundation before piling on the horsies.

 

That is news to me that the vert ecu will work with the TII engine.

I did the full drivetrain and ran with that for awhile before I did the engine swap in my vert.
I got an aftermarket flywheel/clutch with the appropriate counterweight that I put on the na engine when it mated up to the TII tranny.


That is the best route.

 

i dont think you need to whole rear subframe, just the rear end and halfshafts. the 88 vert ecu is weird, it will support tII or n/a motors for some odd reason, its the only ecu to do that i believe.

 

Honestly, you don't really want to do what you're thinking. The T2 drivetrain requires the rearend, the drive shaft, and the tranny. These weight more then the NA version and will add significant weight to your car. You will see a performance loss on the NA engine, not to mention that you'll have to change the flywheel so you'll have to pull the engine anyway.

The easiest thing to do is to wait until have the T2 engine and drive train. When you have all of the parts, then do the swap.

As for the ECU, there's been a lot of talk about this. It seems that some S4 vert ECUs will handle the T2 engine, but some won't. None of the S5 ECUs are suppose to, but they have options that only the T2 ECU is suppose to have, such as a knock sensor (and i KNOW it has a knock sensor since my S5 Vert ECU has a knock sensor that works).

 

Sorry sorry, this may be a dumb question but when u refer to the rear end what exact parts are you refering to.

 

It's easiest to just replace the entire rear subframe, and since that's what the original poster suggested, that's what i'm referring to.

 

for the sake of simplicity mazda just set up the vert ecu's to handle both because in other countries 7 are all turbo'd. This is what I believe, america made alot of FC coupes, not nearly as many verts, so instead of making a new ecu, they just made the ones for other countries work for us verts. Does it have like two eproms or something and switches them?

 

QUOTE:Honestly, you don't really want to do what you're thinking. The T2 drivetrain requires the rearend, the drive shaft, and the tranny. These weight more then the NA version and will add significant weight to your car. You will see a performance loss on the NA engine, not to mention that you'll have to change the flywheel so you'll have to pull the engine anyway./QUOTE

I don't mind a loss in power temporarily, I would just run the car that way until I get a turbo motor built. I understand about the increased weight, and even though my vert is already heavy, it is worth it imho to offset the cost of a complete swap.

QUOTE:i dont think you need to whole rear subframe, just the rear end and halfshafts./QUOTE

I am also aware of this, but an entire rear subframe would be easier to swap, and I have one readily available for a good price.

 

I also forgot to mention that this is my daily driver, so I can't really have her down for more than a weekend at a time.

Keep any responses/ideas coming- and good stuff so far!

 

You do not need to remove the engine to pull the flywheel.

The weight increase is not that much more and besides, it is only temporary.
Going from slower to slowest is no big deal anyways.