TIII in my Omni GLH

[85glht]

O.K. My $.02 here. Your pic of the engine bay looks great. It looked like you took a lot of time and effort to have a great install of all the parts there.
I don't know what your current setup has for performance so forgive me, but do you think that the performance gain will be significant enough to overhaul the whole engine compartment? I would tend to leave well enough alone unless there will be a GREAT gain in performance. Just my opinion and if you do go through with it, Good luck

[mopar2ya]

It fits quite nicely actually.

[DirectConnection]

There's been a few that have done the GLH-T to T-III swap.

One guy in the NESDAC club did it a few years ago. It wasn't anything pretty, but it all worked and ran fine. I believe there were a few pics of his car at an NESDAC dyno event on their club homepage. John Lucas I think his name is?

[bill baker]

Do you have a better pic of the large NPR installed? Maybe from the front?Just wanted to know how it fit..

bill baker
NESDAC President

[iTurbo]

Thanks everyone for the compliments on the Omni. After seeing a few NPR intercooled Omni's on the web (mostly Russ Jerome, Mike Radowski, Seth Prentiss, and Richard Rickert's GLH Turbo's) I had to have my own. I had the same NPR intercooler in my Shelby Lancer and did a pretty lousy (1st time!) job installing it so I decided to go all out and make it really nice for my GLH Turbo and reverted the SL back to stockish setup.

The performance of the Omni is (was?) pretty good and it is a blast to drive. It's actually a 2.5L TI engine, top end from a TII Maserati TC, Turbo II turbocharger, 3" exhaust and modified '89 Caravan harness and SMEC. The shortblock now has well over 200k miles and the blowby is getting pretty severe. Before the blowby got bad, it made 198 WHP and 270 WTQ with 13 psi boost on a Dynojet. I've only had it to the track once and ran a very dissapointing 15.4 @ 94 MPH @ 5000ft. It was my first time to the track ever and getting a 60ft less than 2.5s seemed impossible. The suspension and chassis was worn out and falling apart so I rebuilt the whole thing underneath and it drives 110% better. I haven't had it to the track again but getting the power down to the ground is much easier now. I deliver pizza in this car EVERY night and it is my only source of income!

I still don't know if I'll go through with the swap, but I think at the very least I will drop the engine in and see how well it fits, taking lots of pictures along the way. In the meantime I can just drive the Shelby Lancer. I'm just finishing up doing a TON of work on the SL (suspension/chassis/brakes overhaul) so as soon as it's done, the TIII project will resume.

[iTurbo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill baker Do you have a better pic of the large NPR installed? Maybe from the front?Just wanted to know how it fit.. bill baker NESDAC President

You can find a lot of pictures of my Omni here:

www.turbosedan.com/omni/

The 'large' NPR fit very well in the Omni. To get it to fit, I had to remove all A/C, relocate the radiator slightly, modify radiator hoses, relocate battery, and use an aftermarket slim fan. The stock Omni radiator fits perfectly between the intercooler I/O. I didn't have to cut the car at all, but I did have to 'adjust' some of the sheetmetal near the driver side headlight with a mallet so I could get it in there.

[turbovanman]

Its definately a tough call. I have driven both engines, and loved the TIII-even though his engine was very tired, FWD cal, 2.5inch exhaust with an Ultra Flow muffler, the thing pulled like a mofo, I love my van but I guess when I get the bigger IC installed, my grin factor will go up. I want to go with a 16 valve setup for 2 reasons-coolness factor and fuel economy as the engines are way more efficient than our 8 valvers.
It seems as though the biggest issue for you will be the overheating from people with experience so I don't think I would do it.
I might get killed for this but I don't think R/T's will be collector cars, hell, 98% of the population has no idea what they are, what they look like like or what engine it has?

[saw wave analog]

just a note, there are 2 types of large npr intercoolers, a 14.5 and a 16.5 tall version.. the 16.5 tall one does not fit into an omni like i turbo's did heh

i bought a large one planning to do basically the same thing iturbo did, only after it got here and i started wondering how in the hell he fir it in there did i discover that there are 2 different sizes of big

[16valvecharger]

Do the swap!!! TIII powered L-bodies rock! I would know cause I have one You will have rad clearence issues but it will fit.

[saw wave analog]

tIII or not tIII

that is the question



...



sorry i couldnt resist

its obvious that a tIII car would be faster mod for mod, but 11's are possible on an 8 valve.. you need to ask yourself what your speed goal for the car is, and then compare costs between getting there with an 8 valve vs a 16, then decide how much you are in it just for the challenge and cool factor..

in an omni the expense and work probably isnt worth it if all you want to do is run 11's

but a 16 valve would do 11's a lot easier then an 8 valve would, and would be unique..

i dont know what i would do myself if i were you.. spirits are big cool cruisers, but then you have the expense of maintaining 2 turbo cars.. tough call

[iTurbo]

Well so far it seems like the TIII itself will fit, but no room for an intercooler. What are you guys doing for the radiator and intercooler? I've heard the VW Scirocco radiator may fit better, but I've never seen one before. I really don't want to give up the NPR!

[glhs441]

I am in the process of doing this swap as we speak,TIII,568 and large front
mount intercooler from nissan ud box truck with custom driver side tank is
in the car used stock glhs radiator wth 90 welded on passenger side,fits
great with half inch to spare when using a fan that is 2" thick at the motor,3/4" at the rim,I guess we will see if it stays cool.

All I need to finish it is to have the TIII and glhs harnesses combined to run the TIII computer.

Also need a TIII dip stick tube if anyone has one let me know.

Andy Stachar

[Mopar_Nutz]

I'd honestly leave the TIII engine in the TIII car. If I wanted to TIII a TII car, I'd source an engine from a scrapped car or something (or neon head of course). I just feel like it's nice to keep the factory stuff together if at all possible...

[iTurbo]

Ian, I know you're right about keeping factory stuff together. Lately I've been overly ambitious with my cars and sometimes I think I should really leave well enough alone! I've thought about doing a hybrid or 2.4L swap, but it just seems like it would be an endless project that wouldn't get finished for over a year. If I put the TIII in my Omni, I could have it running pretty quickly.

I've been searching TD.com and the web for pictures of Omnis with TIII and have only found 3-4 of them. It looks like the biggest issue for me will be the radiator/fan clearance. I'd probably have to cut the center radiator support out of my GLH and move the intercooler/radiator/fan assembly forward a couple inches so the intake manifold doesn't hit the radiator fan. I really don't like the thought of cutting up my GLH.

I was also hoping to 'recycle' my intercooler piping to work with the TIII. I'd like to run the charge pipes like Mike R. does on his TIII rampage but considering the pipes on my Omni are 2.75", I'm not sure how well that will work. Looks easy except for snaking the pipes around the passenger side engine mount. It looks really tight in that area even if I don't use the TIII timing belt cover.

[iTurbo]

I was reading about an Omni TIII swap on the web here:

http://enterprise.aacc.edu/~jbg/cgi-...r=pics/t3omni/

Is there a reason I can't use the TIII crank pulley and serpentine belt setup? Also, what is the deal with the power steering? I was hoping to use all the TIII stuff, and just make a custom high pressure p/s hose. What about the passenger side engine mount? Seems to me like I'd have to use the L-body engine mounts but I'm not sure if it will clear the TIII cam sprockets.