gte conversion ?

[kennygtt]

Right im looking to put a gte engine into my work car its a 1.2 merit. Is it possible to get just the engine box and ecu and fit them for now ? will the 1.2 drivshafts fit. what else will i need im not that clued up on novas bit of a r5 man really. But i will be making the work nova a valver eventually :D any help appricieted :wink:
kenny

[mowgli]

Right, here goes....
the driveshafts will fit, if you had originally had a 4 speed box, you will need the gear linkage. all of the mechanical bits will fit fine. Ideally you should get an injection tank because it works a lot better, but you can make a 1.2 tank do the job. remember you need a fuel injection pressure pump, and decent fuel lines. the gte throttle cable should be used as well.
strip out the gte engine loom where it connects to the rest of the loom and work backwards with the haynes book as a guide, you only have about 5 wires to sort.
then fit some decent brakes and wheels and suspension

[kennygtt]

Cheers fella im just after the essentials at the moment as i dont want it for performance really just the 1.2 dead so if im gonna replace it i want injection cheers for your help tho. Did you do your conversion yourself do you thnk i cud do it in a weekend or a day, considering i know nowt about these cars but i have stripped and rebuilt my R5 in a weekend and they are complicated engine bays :o

[mowgli]

I did a 1.2 to gte on a sunday afternoon and still got to work on the monday in it, but a few bits were not quite right.
with a bit of help, it could be done in a day, depending on how rusty the old bits are, and if you put a few evenings into sorting the wiring, and any other bits like the fuel system.
it is straightforward and not too hard for a good diy mechanic, if youve done a renault, it will be a walk in the park.

[rysmee]

why waste the time when you could go out and pick up a 1.4 (injection) or gte for 400-500 quid?
yeah they'll be dogs but they have the potential to be nice and fairly quick cars. BUT no hassle of :
- getting all parts needed
- half way through sunday afternoon and find your missing one part and cant finish till vaux gets the part in!
- getting your knuckles sliced by all the rusty bolts
- freezing your asre off outside all weekend
- having to spend nearly just as much money getting all the parts needed and problems sorted!

just a thought

[kennygtt]

Im doin it cos the engine in its dead so just need a replacement ive found someone sellin the engine and box with ecu cheap so all i need is the other bits not gonna mount to 100 quid for that lot.

[kennygtt]

Do i defo need to change the tank as mine is carb so im thinkin i will need to change it?

[mowgli]

ideally you need to change the tank, but you can make do with the 1.2 tank, as it has a feed & a return pipe, just don't go below 1/4 of a tank, or you could run the pump dry with hard cornering.

by the way, rysmee, I'm playing with a 8000 mile g reg 1.0, that has a perfect shell (cost ?700 in april 2000), and the gte I used as a donor cost me ?250 in 1993, I then sold the interior and bumpers for ?300, and stripped the shell. I used all of the bits in a 1.2 merit (which cost ?400) from 1994 till last october, when it finally died, and I'm now swapping everything into the 1.0. I estimate my expenditure to be ?1050 for 11 years of Nova motoring.