[Zen31ZR]

There are some differences between the turbo and nonturbo motors. For starters, there is at least one extra sensor. You'll have to swap the wiring and the ecu from one car to the other. The engine swap will be easy, it will bolt right up. My advise is to leave the nonturbo transmission in place, it is actually stronger than the BW T5 in the turbo car. A far as the electronic suspension goes, don't sweat over it. It's pretty much garbage anyway, I left mine on firm all the time.... There are some fundamental differences between the 2 suspensions, the nonturbo car will not accept the turbo suspension parts anyway, unless you want to swap hubs and other stuff around. The boost gauge is also garbage, if you up the boost at all you'll want to buy a better one. My advise is to remove the 2 center guages, pretty much worthless in both cars, and install at least a boost guage. The other guage is up to you. The stock guages are there mostly for show, and at this late date will not only be inaccurate, they don't have much margin for if you do any modifications.

As far as the turbo glowing orange, this is pretty typical of all turbo cars. I'd worry if it didn't glow....

 

[Zen31ZR]

Thanks!


The reason I wondered about it is that there appears to be some heat damage to various wires and hoses that are near the turbo. Is there supposed to be a heat shield around it to protect all that?

At this age, that is also fairly typical. The T3 on the Z31 was a bit short on heat shielding. The only thing I'm aware of that was actively shielded in that area was the master cylinder. There are heat shields on the manifolds, or should be, and on the crossover pipe as well. I'd have to look at my car, but I don't think the turbine area itself had any shielding.