240 B21F->B21FT engine swap

Hey y'all, so I'm planning on buying a 1980 242 GT soon that needs some work, the pervious owner bought it as a project but couldn't finish it... now I know I could reassemble the motor, the owner has all the parts.. BUT a lovely friend of mine has a crashed 1983 244 with a B21FT motor in it(so no intercooler,, although she does have an oem intercooler in the trunk lol),, and she was kind enough to say that I could take it (she's probably sick of looking at it sit in her driveway lol) so of course I have the crazy idea of just swapping the B21FT into the GT.

I'm just not sure if there's any little things I have to pay attention to :/ the only difference I can think of between the two that doesn't include the motor and trans is the line for the boost gauge ?\_(ツ)_/? other than that it should be a straight forward swap.. but I was wondering if I need to swap the wiring harness too, or will the B21FT plug right up to the B21F harness? I mean they are old motors that don't have all that sophisticated monitoring systems like modern cars,, especially with K-Jet! I imagine there'd only be a few sensors like oil pressure and coolant temp.. well correct me if I'm wrong haha
And yes I'm aware that I'll have to swap the ECU over and the flywheel since it's going from auto to manual

You'll need to swap the entire fuel injection system. They're both k-jet, but a lot different. You have a complete donor car, so start by swapping over everything, that looks different than the recipient.

How big of a PITA is it going to be to get it smogged? I'm not an expert on CA emissions, but it would be a real bummer to do all the work and then have a nightmare getting a tag for it.

Wren said:

How big of a PITA is it going to be to get it smogged? I'm not an expert on CA emissions, but it would be a real bummer to do all the work and then have a nightmare getting a tag for it.

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They'll usually start down their checklist as long as there aren't any shiny or obviously aftermarket emission related bits in the engine bay.

So yea swap everything in the engine bay, all the way to the tip of the tailpipe.

Don't forget the 240T fuel pump and accumulator out back.

Worst case scenario you'll have to referee the engine swap, in which case you'll have to have everything from the later model car in place anyway.

Stumbling block in either case will be a sub ~230K mile cat so it'll blow clean enough to pass the new stringent 2008+ NOX requirements.

Okay that's good to know,, I was planning to swap most of that stuff anyways haha
Oh I got smog worked out, I know someone :x and apparently if I insure it as a collector car it falls under being smog exempt? Idk something I read here http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1239 gosh why can't they just raise the smog exempt year to 1980? It's not like there's a ton of old cars on the road e_e

You might as well plan on swapping the whole main / body harness as well since the engine management is integrated back into the dash harness, along with the triple pack wiring...

Or do a lot of head scratching, unless you're an electrical genius and have a lot of spare time to partake in the drudgery of splicing many unrelated circuits.

I might as well,, I was thinking of just buying a whole new engine harness since it'll probably be all deteriorated anyways and I might as well do the body harness too,, I wanted to swap the dash in anyways so I could have all the nice gauges,, and a shelf

Well you have the parts for the big swap. The newer dash will also bolt in but that is a lot of work. Wish you well with it.

An hour or so on the dash is the least of his problems.

I feel like the fuel system is going to be the biggest PITA, pulling the motor will just be kinda teidious, but it's fine tho I like doing **** like this so it'll be fun to me and I'll have my dream 242 too so it'll all be worth it

Don't forget the 3:73 rear end from the Turbo, bigger driveshaft, front struts with vented calipers, and bigger spindles 'while you're at it'.

Steering wheel and all that miserable early stuff too!

I didn't even think about the rear end tbh I was just gunna weld the diff since I wanted this to be a drift dedicated car, and I wanted to keep the transmission in the GT since it's manual and I don't want a bicth shift I mean I do have a donar car so why not, even if it's just to have spare parts, you can never have too many spare parts am I right?? I actually really like the style of the GT steering wheel, and I've been told big is driver steering wheels are better for drifting rather than those little Cheerio sized ones haha

Redwood Chair said:

An hour or so on the dash is the least of his problems.

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LOL

edit:// I did something similar to this once. All of the engine, wiring, dash, suspension, fuel system, well... pretty much every freakin' part from an 82 242 into an 84 244 (diesel). I really just stripped the diesel to a shell on jackstands and transferred everything from the (wrecked) two door. It took about four months.

Good luck! (take lots of pictures... It helps you to remember where stuff goes )

Hopefully this shouldn't take too long, I might skip out on the front struts since I want to get coilovers on it anyways, but then I could also take the struts for a core charge too and still have stock ones? Idk like I said earlier can't have too many spare parts right haha but I don't think it should be too bad since it should all just bolt in unlike another swap.. I'll probably end up having a local enthusiast come help me

Oh yeah I'm going to take a ton of pictures, heck maybe I ought to record it too haha