Some people like a challenge and like working on cars. Newman’s BMW bastard child project is a great example. I doubt he would have undertaken that project if he didn’t like the engineering challenges that it entailed. I’m pretty sure there are BMW motors he could have put in there that would have made the car just as quick for far less headache.
But, when his project is done, he’ll be able to park that thing next to a BMW with BMW power that might have the same performance and everyone will be checking out his car while no one notices the BMW powered BMW. There is something to be said here about being unique.
All that said, I’d much rather drive so give me a simple way to make power and have it be reliable any day. AKA, yank out rotary/bmw motor/4 cyl anything and insert LS2/T56 combo.
The reason why is because I see Hondas as boring because everyone and their mother has/had modded one.
I’m not looking at it from a speed standpoint. I don’t care which is faster for cheaper, I would still rather have that N/A 300zx over a turbo Honda any day.
lol, but that swap was truly amazing. Also was that a shop that did that? It’s pretty smart for a performance shop to showcase their skills by doing something like that.
I assume (without knowing much about it), that with the amount of shop time, and money that was spent, the stock powertrain could have done pretty well on its own.
explain…[/QUOTE]
If everyone traded in their 300zx’s or whatever else they had for a Honda because they can go faster for cheaper, that would be really gay and boring.
Yep, but you can’t tell me when after blowing his rotary in an FD for the 3rd time a guy said, “fuck it, I’m dropping an LS2 in here”, his friends didn’t say the same thing you’re saying about “why, there are already proven ways to go fast that are easier”. The first guy to do it was dropping GM stuff into a Mazda. Not just a Mazda either, a weird rotard powered one. To be the first I’m sure it wasn’t easy.
But he persisted, it caught on, and now the LS2/FD swap is a well documented and supported way to go fast and have fun.
Hence, my simple, “Every common swap at one point wasn’t” comment.
weird, i was about to start a thread similar to this as i have a friend who wants to go and build an all out turbo d series and his only reasons were he thought it was cheaper and he wanted to be original instead of going with a piston/rod b series (what i call a cookie cutter combo)
i showed him these graphs and asked what power output he would rather have
the top one is a prett built d series with a tomount 30r on pump gas (19psi)
the second one is bone stock gsr with a ramhorn 57 trim on pump gas (16psi)
the b series is cheaper for that comparison and has been running 3 years on that same tune
and here is a b series with the same turbo as the D and its sleaved etc
he still insists on the d series as he says he would rather do it to be original, but in my opinion why modify the car to be fast if your not going to do it the best you can with the amount of money you have
The only reason I could think of doing a unique swap would be because I already had a Motor from X, and a Shell from Y.
Sure you could sell motor from X and buy a better fitting one. but lets be honest that’s just a pain in the ass, and having to worry about the motor being actually intact. heaven forbid you trade for a motor and find out it has bent cylinders (f’n B-series)
