i'm looking into buying a single turbo motor with transmission. they guy is telling me that it is a 13b from an fc fitted into an fd. it ran fine and everything. the concerns i have is that 1. its a used single turbo motor and 2. how can i tell if i'm getting a good deal or if this is even a good idea.

the guy said he had it running for about 2 months strong with no issues. the owners license expired and he parked the car. his time was up on the island and he couldnt sell the car in time before he left. the car has been sitting for about 2 months. i took off the filler neck cap and saw there was still fluid in it, meaning they didnt drain it before putting it in "storage" mode. is that something i should be worried about?

were going to start it before i buy it just to see its "running" condition. what would the chances be that, we start it and its good at idle (we cant drive the car because its de-registered and all that) but when i go to drive it in my car something could fail. when we start it, i plan on letting it sit until it reaches operating temp then rev it a bunch and see what happens.

it has a power fc so its say to say it was tuned. and the turbo is a greddy td07-25a.

i just dont know if this is a good investment/idea on my end. heres some pictures...

 

How much? Looks pretty ghetto rigged and messy so I'd be questioning the quality of work for everything else

 

1. Test compression
2. Drive it on a back road to ensure tranny is good with smooth shifting and no bearing noise.
3. Negotiate with the price.
4. Buying anything used always comes with risk. Follow your gut feeling. It's not the only deal out there. You work hard for your money, be patient and spend it wisely.

 

First, that is not an FC engine.

Second, there were a lot of corners cut in that engine bay, from the old school oil can ignition coil and MSD in the footwell to the vacuum cap on the heat hose nipple on the waterpump housing.

There was a lot done wrong, if you are just buying the engine I would not suggest that you drop it in to your car as-is.

 

i would love to make that motor be "proper". long story short, i bought the motor. looking deeper into what was done, i'm surprised that it ran. the wire harness is hacked to **** and yes, there WERE a lot of shortcuts taken. when the previous owner went to do the single turbo harness, he just cut off all the plugs and left the wires as they were.

the soldering job is terrible and the electrical tape job is just trash. it really needs to be fixed up. i want to do it. i just dont know where to start...

for the msd, am i supposed to have one of these?

 

no, the msd 6a is just an ignition amplifier/booster like the HKS twin power...

picture number 4 shows a shot under the UIM, you can see the stock ignition coils there...

edit:

oh, picture number 9 shows something like a coil (the blue cylinder with 2 red spark wires attached) at the right side of the engine bay with 2 spark wires connected... looks like the setup uses the stock trailing coils and a aftermarket leading coil...

 

...of which someone has bypassed the stock leading coil and wired in a dual output oil can coil by the ABS unit...

 

so whats the "catch can style" coil pack for? i thought it worked with the msd somehow... ive always seen cars with a msd installed have a msd ignition box like that with it...

 

It is not required when the MSD 6A is installed correctly on the stock leading coil. There are a ton of threads on installation of the 6A and Crane amps.

 

so i got the motor in and everything mounted and all that. i made a lot of repairs to the harness and modified some things. for the time being, i am going to keep it the way it is and slowly start fixing all the messed up things from the previous owner. the biggest thing on my list is to get another harness and do the single turbo harness properly.

i will be posting pictures and a start up video this weekend. i would really like to make this half-*** build a proper one...