Hey guys so I have a '90 MM, it's a decent clean little truck. Body is straight, needs new seats. Electrical all works, very minimal rust. I picked it up 5 years ago for 300$ to save it from going to the salvage yard. I've been wanting to project this thing for a while now, and finally have the time to do it. It's got a weird ghost problem, like many of these trucks do, I have yet to get it fixed. This unfortunate problem means the trust isn't reliable enough for me to use it for more than occasional home depot runs. When it runs, it runs great. Better than great. But sometimes, mostly at stop lights (But randomly, definitely not every stop light) it will either die, or start running really bad. Sputtering, zero power. If it dies, sometimes it will restart, sometimes not for a few days. When it loses power and starts running badly, if I can nurse it home, it diesels for a few seconds after shut off. What I have done it it, off the top of my head (It's been a few years now), Basic service, oil change plugs wires coil packs. Pulled intake and throttle body, cleaned them all out. New coolant temp sensor. Redid timing and water pump. New o2 sensor, and an entire new exhaust (when I got the truck it had a big flex pipe clamped to the exhaust manifold, and a muffler clamped to the end). New throttle position sensor. Electronics have been for the most part gone through. My gut feeling leaves me with ECU or MAF problems being the remaining options.
Fast forward to today. I am retired, and have a nice new vehicle under warranty, and rental car coverage. I can afford to put this into the shop it rip it apart. Since I want to do a turbo project anyway, I feel like it would be a waste of money for my to send the ECU off for repair.
My question is this. Would it make more sense for me to try and locate a donor vehicle to pull the engine, turbo, and all accessories (And maybe a transmission), rather than piecing the parts together on the internet? And if so, what would your donor car choice be? And what reasons. Be it availability, ease of transferring the parts, or more power potential and a bigger parts after market. I am very familiar with power train swaps. I have limited specialty tools in my shop (Mig welder, air compressor with grinders, wiz wheels etc), very intimate knowledge of cars, and how they work inside and out. This will be my first big project since finishing my Chevy 350/Mustang swap. What I do NOT have, is intimate knowledge on foreign cars. This is my first one, and my first project mitsu. I can pick it up quickly, and I greatly value any and all input on the subject. Please point me in the right direction.
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