Happy Thanksgiving to you also!

I have an 88 765 that I removed the turbo from and drove it for over a year as my daily driver at 100 miles per day. The only problems with the lower compression motor was an occassional fouling of the plugs on a cold start otherwise the < 2% difference in horsepower over an N/A motor was not noticable. The gas mileage did improve over running the turbo. I later pulled this very noisey motor and replaced it with a B230F from an 86 244 leaving all of the electronics and fuel system alone. So far it has logged over 15,000 miles with no problems.

Regards,
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Will Dallas, www.willdallas.us, www.willdallas.org, www.willdallas.com, www.dallasprecision.com 86 245 DL 222K miles, 93 940 260K miles, 88 765 GLE 152K miles, 88 780 246K miles

Thanks for your comments guys. I am convinced that I should not swap engines.

Perhaps I should just try to sell it with the leak. Its not in bad shape otherwise.

Thanks

A good running 745 with a leaky main seal is probably worth $700-1000. A good running 745 without a leak is probably worth $1100-1600.

Is it worth the extra $400-600 to hassle an engine swap at this point?

Unfortunately, that wouldn't work. The Regina/Bosch difference would be a deal breaker due to incompatibility issues. Also, though the blocks on the turbo vs. non-turbos are very similar, the turbo engine has a lower compression ratio. Even if you could make it work without the turbocharger, it would be a very underpowered engine.

Doing the rear main seal can be a pain, but if there's an indy shop you trust, it might not be as expensive as you think. Worth a phone call, anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well!
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Guid ('92 745 257k, '91 940 SE 278k,)

If you take the turbo off of the B230FT, you will find out the hard way that the FT engine has a much lower compression than the non-turbo variety, and only produces about 80 hp without the boost. Maybe less. Ever drive one of Volvo's early 1980's diesel cars? It will be like that, possibly worse.

Edit: Upon further reflection, I believe that there are also differences in the ignition system and distributor between the Bosch and Regina cars, so you may have to swap the ignition computers too. If the wiring harness will allow it. And, if it does allow it, then you are probably going to have to swap the ECU computers too. Why not just swap the whole shebang, if the harness allows it, in the first place, and keep the turbo? Oh, yes, the turbo engines were mated with transmissions that lacked the lock-up torque converter that the N/A engines had. So, even if you swap the whole shebang, except for the tranny, you are going to be coupling the turbo engine to a lock-up torque converter that it may not like. You may be able to use the lock-up converter with a turbo, but am not sure. It is, nontheless, another difference between the cars that you have to consider.
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Scott Cook - 1991 745T, 1985 RX-7 GSL-SE, 1986 Toyota Tercel (Don't laugh, it is reliable, faithful AND gets 41 mpg!)