Outer Limits 4x4 Board

G'day,
I'm taking my 94softtop off the road and it is eventually going to be used as a full time offroader. I have just got an 85 Drover to replace the onroad duties but the motor hasn't got as good compression as the freshly rebuilt 1298cc in the softy. Will the 1298cc bolt straight into the Drover no problems? As in they are exactly the same bellhousing, gearbox spline, engine mounts, and all the other little dodads? Also the drover has genie extractors which go from 4-2-1 with no catalytic convertor and the softy has extractors that go 4-1 but have bigger runner pipes and a catalytic convertor. Would there be any noticable difference between the 2 types performance wise?

4-2-1 = more bottom end power
4-1 = more top end power
ditch the cat and go 2" for the rest of the system, its illegal to run with out a cat blahblabla, no one will ever check but keep it incase it needs to get inspected.
i like the way the 1298cc motor drives and revs more than the 1324cc one
but thats just personal preference.

Both systems are 2 inch but i'm guessing because the Drover is pre 1988 it doesn't need a cat because it pre dates the emission laws? The 1324 does seem to be a little slower off the mark than the 1298 but it is about 10-15psi down on all cylinders compared to the 1298 so it can go in the offroad only car where it doesn't need the power to keep up on the highway.

Going without cats is stupid considering the price of good 2 inch high flow cats.

still costs more than no cat

isnt it 86 that the cats came in?
i got a 85 lwb with no cat and a 92swb with

would have to be a pretty zealous inspector that would insist on a cat to match the later model engine on a twenty four year old drover

mrRocky wrote:still costs more than no cat

yeah but not as expensive as getting caught, paying a fine and having to put one on. not to mention if u ever want to sell the car u need it to get a rwc. like it will make a huge difference, its a 1.3. if it was me id keep it legal as possible.

i have never heard of anyone in a passenger car being fined the stupid amounts they claim to be the max for running no cat.
Here in w.a. no certificate is needed to sell a car it just has to be fitted with an immobilizer and there are no annual inspections unlike some other states.

Anyway going away from the catalytic convertor issue if the car didn't come out with one it won't need one fitted as far as i know.
All I want to know is are the gearboxes, clutches etc all exactly the same from the old 1.3 to the new 1.3. Cheers

i am going to say yes,
because i have a g13b a g13 a and a g13ba block and all the holes for mounting are identical, including gearbox (got 2 of those too!)

i also have read about people doing it both ways all the time and no one ever mentioned any issues (other than fwd to rwd worries)

I'm guessing that the internals of the gearboxes may differ slightly. I recently changed the gearbox over on my Holden Drover (fitted with G13A). Prior to the gearbox swap, the car sometimes struggled to maintain 100kmh at approximately 3200rpm, but now with the new gearbox in it, it now sits on 3400rpm at 100kmh, and if you don't keep an eye on the speedo, you can quite frequently find yourself sitting on 110kmh! I love driving this little 4WD- it's like driving a race car (compared with my diesel Pajero)...

I don't reckon you would have any troubles bolting on a newer gearbox to an older engine or vice versa...