David Sosna's points on his conversion are right on, and on re-reading my
post, I realized I may have been more negative than intended. I think
conversions are great things. When I redid my car, I went the "stock"
Holbay route rather than the 2 liter overhead cam Ford route I was thinking
about. To this day, I don't know if I did the right thing. Though, I will
say that when I made the decision, I did not know of Joe Rodriguez's work.
Who knows, I may have gone that route had I known of it.
As to reliability, the Alpine engine does tend to be very reliable. In my
23 years of ownership, I have never had a failure because of anything
engine related. I have had one (just one) alternator go bad. I have had
one starter (just one) go bad. I have had hydraulics go bad. I attribute
the hydraulic failures mostly to excessively hard use by a teenager (me 21
years ago) and then poor rebuilds by that same teenager. But, other than
that, the car has just keep on humming as a daily driver - until someone
else hit it, and my recent problem with my tranny. So, don't run away from
the engine on those grounds alone.
Ok, here I go again getting negative on a swap. I repeat, it's a great
idea. Just do it for the right reasons and with the right expectations.
Jay
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