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NB this story is lifted from ZOOM! magazine....
The ultimate argument in engine conversions.
A fellow who lived in Australia was lucky enough to own a TWR Group A Commodore. One day it was stolen and the car was susequently stripped of all it's goodies and dumped. The owner was very upset, more so when he discovered the expense involved in restoring the vehicle. Just the twin throttle bodies were quoted at $4000 to replace!
What was this luckless guy to do? Instead of replacing the 5 litre hand built motor, he instead fitted a 2JZ-GTE from the twin turbo supra. It fit very well, and with a new exhaust, intercooler and a bit of porting, tuning work and boost bleed valves fitted he scored about 250 rear wheel kilowatts, compared to the 250 engine kilowatts the car previously had.
Now some people I tell this to are disgusted, some applaud it. I sit in the middle, if that is possible. I think it was a profitable solution, and that overall the car is better for the swap. However I also think the cars original integrity was ruined. I don't think every car has this value. A standard Holden, Toyota, Nissan or whatever usually benefits from engine swaps. But in the case of something like the group A, with the legend surrounding it, I would balk at the conversion. The intangible value of owning say, a Ferrari 250 GTO is far greater than producing a better car by shoehorning a modern 360 modena V8 into it.
That's what I think anyway.
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