You can piece together a swap for $5000 easily if you are willing to wait and shop. If its a 'I need to do this ASAP', then yes, it will be very expensive. U-Pull-It junk yard are your friend and buy everything ahead of time. If you wait to purchase parts during the swap, your misc. fund will grow very quickly.
Overall things I have noticed with swaps, from M50 to S52's. No matter what engine you install, there is a significant torque difference over the M20. It is a much more drivable engine around town. You can leave it in 5th on the highway and pass with ease. Of course the power add is significant as well, but IMO a properly built 2.9 or 3.1L M20 feels just as fast up high as an S50/2. The 3.2 car that I drove was very strong and you could really waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles-foot it to get good gas mileage because of the torque. One thing I did notice though is that anything less then 225 tires on either S50 or 2 leads to much wheel spin in first and second. I have never seen an 'unreliable' M50 family engine except full-tilt race engines. The same can't always be said about the M20. Even if you only can afford to do a decent M50, the torque and power gains are worth the swap. It might not be much faster then a cammed M20, but it drives so much nicer.
For the same or less money you can have a turbo M20 with more power, but with the twin-cam swap, the real benefit IMO is the drivability and reliability. It modernizes the 20 year old car very nicely. The power is not overkill for a driver, and is plenty for anyones track habit. It just makes a much easier to drive E30.
Wes
Overall things I have noticed with swaps, from M50 to S52's. No matter what engine you install, there is a significant torque difference over the M20. It is a much more drivable engine around town. You can leave it in 5th on the highway and pass with ease. Of course the power add is significant as well, but IMO a properly built 2.9 or 3.1L M20 feels just as fast up high as an S50/2. The 3.2 car that I drove was very strong and you could really waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles-foot it to get good gas mileage because of the torque. One thing I did notice though is that anything less then 225 tires on either S50 or 2 leads to much wheel spin in first and second. I have never seen an 'unreliable' M50 family engine except full-tilt race engines. The same can't always be said about the M20. Even if you only can afford to do a decent M50, the torque and power gains are worth the swap. It might not be much faster then a cammed M20, but it drives so much nicer.
For the same or less money you can have a turbo M20 with more power, but with the twin-cam swap, the real benefit IMO is the drivability and reliability. It modernizes the 20 year old car very nicely. The power is not overkill for a driver, and is plenty for anyones track habit. It just makes a much easier to drive E30.
Wes
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