Engine Transplant

Basically just trying to find out the easiest/best/cheapest engine swap.
Currently have a mk1 cab 89 on a 1.8 8v carb.

It is chucking out blue smoke from exhaust and has failed on high emissions on mot so decided to just swap the engine.

Any advice appreciated. I had read that the mk2 2.0 16v is astraight swap.

Cheers all

How do you define 'straight swap'?

Cheapest and easiest is a like-for-like swap, ie replace your existing engine with one exactly the same. Same capacity, type, year. All the items which bolt onto the engine will be on the other one, all pipework connections will line up, and you'll not need to remove things like inlet and exhaust manifold, saving yourself the cost of new gaskets.

Best, is subjective - hence more questions need to be asked:

1. How much money do you have?
2. How much time on your hands?
3. Is it a daily driver, or a 2nd car
4. What's the intended use of the car?
5. What skills do you have or will it be done by a garage?

cheers Paul_c
to answer the questions

1. How much money do you have?    -     looking to spend around ?500 on the engine itself
2. How much time on your hands?    -    plenty
3. Is it a daily driver, or a 2nd car      -     3rd car so no worries there
4. What's the intended use of the car?      -     to drive. Girlfriend has always wanted one, so i have restored one, and engine is the next bit.
5. What skills do you have or will it be done by a garage?     -    None when it comes to mechanics. Friend owns his own tuning company so he will be doing the transplant.

I was led to believe the mk2 engine bolts straight in?

?500 is okay for the engine alone, but there's lots of other bits required, which will push the price up. For example if you're fitting a 16V, you'd need a custom manifold, which will be around ?200. Looking at the answers, I'd go for a 1.8 16V, or if you wanted to spend a little more, 2.0 16V. These are the same size as the original engine externally, so pretty much everything is bolt on, there's no custom fabrication.

Dont forget if your going injection, yours is carbed…..

New pump, tank, lines etc

You would be better off sticking with carbs imo as theres a lot of work involved putting the injection system in, a 1.8 16v/2.0 16v would sound fantastic on carbs just be a bit thirsty.