Originally posted by khuezee:
From my own experience, it can be done but will be quite pricey. The Turbo MR2s required a different transmission than what are in the NA.
I'm going to have to disagree, although I suppose it depends on what one considers "pricey".
My car was formerly a 1993 NA before E.L. Prototypes swapped in a late model Gen III rear clip from Japan.
The way these swaps are usually done these days is that a doner "clip" is sourced to swap into the NA chassis. A clip is essentially the back half of a wrecked car that has been cut in two (from the firewall back). This can be from either a higher mileage wrecked U.S. car ($1,500-2,000) or an imported, late model, low mileage car from Japan ($2,000-4,000).
The transaxle on an MR2 is essentially the same as a front wheel drive car only mounted in the back. In other words, the engine, transmission, subframe and rear suspension all come out as a single unit along with the wiring harness and ECU.
The labor involved in these swaps is relatively straightforward for a shop that knows the pin-outs on how to re-wire the car for the NA dash and accessories. Basically, the entire rear drive train is dropped from under the donor intact (engine, transmission, suspension, hubs, brakes and all) and bolted in place in the NA chassis. Since the chassis is designed to accept this set-up from the factory, no fabrication of engine mounts or anything else is involved.
E.L. Prototypes charges around $1,500 for labor and the entire swap usually takes under 2 weeks.
So, for between $3,000 - $5,500 an NA car can be converted to turbo.
Granted, all of this can be considerably more expensive (especially with respect to labor) if a turbo engine is sourced separate from the rest of the clip, but with the prices of rear clips being very reasonable as more and more donor cars are brought in from Japan, it rarely makes sense to source just an engine without the rest of the package. Beyond that, when one buys the entire clip, the bigger turbo rear brakes, beefier cross member and LSD (where applicable) are part of the package.
In my opinion, none of this is all that expensive or complicated (especially not for the relative to the prices an NSX owner is used to seeing) and certainly going this route can be a worthwhile and cost effective alternative to finding the ideal turbo car given how rare and expensive nice MR2Ts seem to be these days.
-- DavidV
www.boostedgroup.com
[This message has been edited by BoostedMR2 (edited 01 September 2002).]
