ok so my friend picked up a 89 gtu for free and he said he would give it to me, the is pretty damn clean but the rear rotar housing is cracked we think, so the question is should i have the motor sent to be rebuilt and ported and fully built or should i just do a JDM TII swap- motor would probably have to be rebuilt also?
any ideas would be great, its also great cause i can use my 88 as a daily and use the 89 as a project car.

 

T2 swap.

 

If you want a turbo car, swap in a junkyard 13B NA, sell the NA car as a runner and buy a turbo car. You will be MILES ahead in time, effort and -- most importantly -- money. The turbo cars not only have a completely different engine, they also have a stronger transmission, driveshaft, differential and halfshafts. And the 89 GTU (the base model) has the "normal" -- not "heavy duty" -- suspension. Don't let the 5 lug bolt pattern fool you, it only has the single piston brakes and whatnot of the old 4 lug models prior to 89. That's not to say it is a bad car, but it is foolish to build a turbo car from a non-turbo when turbo cars can be bought for less total investment. It doesn't matter that you got the car for free, if you sold it you can put that money towards a turbo car. On the other hand, if you found a wrecked TII and could steal the whole drivetrain, that might be a different story.

Now, that said, it's not a bad candidate for a quality NA rebuild. You might be surprised at the performance you can wring out of one. One of our customers with a S5 NA, streetported, oil mods, 6-port inserts, full exhaust, S-AFC, etc. made 189.9 at the wheels, which is rather impressive. A more conservative goal would be 160-175 at the wheels, but that makes for a very, very quick car.

 

Yeap, I did 167rwhp (On a mustang dyno that reads around 10% less than a dyno jet.) on a "fuel mileage" port from Pineapple, full exhaust, Pineapple Sleeves, S-afc, HI-6, and ported intake manifold, cone filter etc. It trapped as high as 97mph in the 1/4, and ran a 14.7 or 14.8. Can't remember. But it was a peppy little car. CJ

 

thanks for the info, and my 88 runs low 14's in the 1/4 and it hasnt been rebuilt or ported YET.

 

Must be pretty light? CJ

 

o man, cant wait for my swap all these 14's r drivin me crazy. (my car runs 18's stock w/ pro driver when it was new). i've heard somethings floatin around that u can turbo ur na. is this true? i know that the rotors are completely different, the turbos running 9:1 n the na's running 9.7:1 compression. but i know its been done but is it reliable n how much work would it be to do this?