bp to b8 swap?

[chiefton17]

hey guys, I'm new here, but currently have 4 first gen proteges and love them, buiding a fleet of these tough cars

so my story is that i have a 92 DX, that is the b8, bone stock, with a 5 speed, but the body is throttled

i also have a 93 LX, BP, that is an automatic,with a bad motor, and a shot trans, but has an awesome body.

I wanted to drop the sohc motor and trans into the lx body, i did some searches and most everyone else is swapping the opposite way, my plan, and i am not sure if it will work, so thats why im asking you guys

i was going to grab the wiring harness out of the 92 so that it matches the motor/trans
i was also thinking about bumping up the motor some, while i have it out and apart
-thought about shaving the head, is this a good idea or no, i was aiming for 10:1 compression
-was going to port and polish the intake and exhaust
-going to put a dohc manual ECM in it, it seems to add hp to the sohc motors without any other mods- my dd is a 94 DX that i put an exhaust system in, and the dohc ECM, it helped a lot


this is my plan, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys

[atomicEGT]

What's wrong with the motor in the LX? If the head is still good, swap that onto the B8 bottom end and throw some boost at it. You can even keep the LX's wiring harness and ECU if you make a couple modifications.

B-series motors make ****-all for power when normally aspirated.

[chiefton17]

the lx motor put a rod through the block, but nothing is wrong with the head. ill look into the turbo option, but im not looking for a whole lot of power here, its going to be a daily driver, so i dont want
radical power, the n/a sohc motor has won dirt track races for me, but has the dohc ecm

what modifications to the wiring harness would i have to do?
and would there be programming issues i would have to deal with if i put a turbo on?

[dustinlib]

sounds to me like the best option would be to swap the b8's bottom end and tranny into the lx, shouldn't need to change much in the way of wiring due to using the same head, but you will have a few changes to make with the clutch and pedals and such.

[chiefton17]

alright, progress update, i got my b8 motor and trans out, and everything needed to put the 5 speed in the auto car, have an
empty shell of a car now tonight I'm pulling the lx car in to thaw, and will pull the motor and trans tomarrow

fyi for anybody planning to do the swap, the brake pedal assembly, is one complete unit, dont pull the clutch pedal out by itself and expect to be done, i found it easiest to pull the steering column, since i am already stripping the car out for parts

still havent decided if i want to turbo yet, i dont have a ricer turbo around, so would have to buy one, and i dont have a lot of money, but i have a friend who owns a machine shop, so i can shave the head for cheap.

if i shave the head, i did a search and found that .010 is the max i can shave, does this mean for the motor to still be non
interference fit? or is this the absolute max?

[chiefton17]

another update, got the motor out of the lx today, that was rough, this thing is slimy, just about every seal on it was out, along with the tranny seals, oil trailed all of the way to the back of the car :/ good to know that the one I'm putting is doesn't leak, the motor was dry when i pulled it.

tomorrow ill be changing the pedal set for the 5 speed, changing the wiring harness, and hopefully get the motor/trans stabbed into it

its lookin like ill just be putting a stock b8 in it, because cash is short and i kind of need the car because my truck went down recently

is there anything else i should be doing before stabbing the motor in?

[miK3Pro]

change front and rear main seal and redo the oil pan if its leaking..... save the dohc head, intake manifold, exhaust manifold, vaf from the lx, so can do b8/bp hybrid later when you have money....

[chiefton17]

alrighty, thanks for the input

progress update: i drove the car home last night/this morning it took me untill 4 in the morning but i got her done, still have a few small things to do, but it runs and drives great! so she is doing good, i had a couple issues when i went to start it, one being that the trans neutral switch is still alive and active, so i wired the two wires on that together, and the other being that i had swapped the bp injectors into it, trying to get more horsepower, and it would not idle worth a crap, and really smoked and wouldnt do well when i reved it up, so i swapped the stockers back in and it fixed both of those problems. Another issue i had was that i tried to swap the bp throttle plate on, because its bigger and will flow more, but my problem there was that it was a different throttle positions sensor, the one off of my b8 engine would not bolt onto the bp throttle plate, and i couldnt just run the bp tps, because it was the 4 wire for the auto, and i have a 3 wire manual harness. I was wondering if there is a way to splice the 4 wire connector off of the old harness, onto my harness to make it work?

Overall, im very happy with my new car, and i couldnt have done it without this site, there is lots of good info on here, thank you