[superturismo]

Hi, struggling to sell my beloved GTA, the only reason she is for sale is due to the fuel economy, I cannot afford £450 a month in fuel.

I love the car, and it owes me massive amounts of money, so my question is:

is a engine swap possible? Will either the 1.9jtdm or preferbly the 2.4jtdm engine swap over easily?

I'm fairly sure the gearbox is the same, possibly different ratios I'm not sure.

I'm sure many of you will think I'm crazy for even proposing this, but I really really don't want to sell the gta.

Thanks

 

[Pud237]

It would cost thousands to do, you'd need to buy a complete 156 JTD to use as a donor car for a start, as you will need engine, box, all electrics, driveshafts, mounts, cooling system, exhaust system,fuel system etc etc. Then basically strip GTA to a bare shell, strip 156 JTD to a bare shell and then start rebuilding the GTA shell with the JTD parts. Major amount of work to be paying someone garage rates to do. Almost feasible if you can find a cheap/rotten 156 JTD and can do all the work yourself in your own time. GTA engine & gearbox is worth a fair amount of money.

Have you got a link to the advert for your GTA?

 

[superturismo]

Alfa Romeo : Alfa Romeo 156 GTA Q2 - BARGAIN, NEEDS TO GO!! - PistonHeads mobile

link above for the sale.

That's a bit dissapointing though about the JTD, I would have thought it would be easier. Any pointers for the sale would be great.

 

[Pud237]

Looks lovely. Does it have 330 or 305 brakes?

 

[superturismo]

She has the 305mm brakes.

Thanks for the comment, she looks better in real life!
Absolutely gutted to be selling.

 

[Pud237]

Do you still have the original wheels?

 

[Jacco156ss]

It would cost thousands to do, you'd need to buy a complete 156 JTD to use as a donor car for a start, as you will need engine, box, all electrics, driveshafts, mounts, cooling system, exhaust system,fuel system etc etc. Then basically strip GTA to a bare shell, strip 156 JTD to a bare shell and then start rebuilding the GTA shell with the JTD parts. Major amount of work to be paying someone garage rates to do. Almost feasible if you can find a cheap/rotten 156 JTD and can do all the work yourself in your own time. GTA engine & gearbox is worth a fair amount of money.

I did a JTS to GTA conversion recently and even though they are a bit closer family as a JTD/GTA it indeed required a complete strip down of both cars to fully complete the conversion. Only technical thing that wasn't changed was the windscreen wiper motor.
Both cars were early 2003 and that must have helped cause everything fitted in one go.

Here in the Netherlands people tend to look to convert a GTA to run on LPG to get the cost for fuel down. Is that an option in the UK?

 

[Joss]

Jacco has a good point about the LPG. It's worth looking into but a very expensive outlay in the first place

 

[ChrisS]

Was intending to convert the 166 to LPG but in the end, decided it wasn't economic sense for me as we do so few miles and the car is getting old now....but if you are doing £450 a month in petrol....it's a no-brainer if you want to keep the car. Some guys in the 166 section have used Profess Autogas to convert their cars. I had planned on using them too...but depending on where you are, you might like to consider Hilton Autogas as well. They did my Jeep and although expensive, it's a really top quality job and uses the best parts available. Service is superb too. Don't want to get into a mine is better than yours argument here, but the Prins system on my Jeep uses Keihin gas injectors that last 100000 miles and ain't cheap. Budget conversions tend to use budget injectors that absolutely will not last 100000 miles! Of course, you can fit new budget injectors again, but do you really want the hassle every year or so (given the fuel you are using,you must be clocking some miles).

As for performance - a properly set up system with quality parts will lose next to nowt. Prins quote about 1% for their latest systems and I see no reason to disbelieve that. I think the cheaper systems tend to drop back to petrol when hoofing it to recover lost performance. Not sure why they need to do that but I have my suspicions.

 

[OperationAlfa]

buy a cheap alfa jtd, run that as a daily driver and keep your GTA.