Save the rotten 16V or transplant into newer TXi?

[JMH]

Max! You have made an old man very happy!
Late 2019 I saw K908 BEW in a car park adjacent to the motor club at RAF Henlow. It was looking a bit neglected and I tried to find out who it belonged to so I could save it from being unceremoniously destroyed by a possible non-believer.
Various names were given and tried but I could not get any joy (not really surprising as Military people do disappear for periods). Over a few months every time I passed I stopped and had a look and nobody had visited it. It appeared to be better bodily than my own daily (in the same grey) and I asked Rob at Chevronics if he knew it as they are just down the road. (He didn’t which is unusual as not much in the area passes him by!)
Post lockdown I went for a look and it was gone and I assumed the worst.
You now have shown that it has a whole new life in front of it!
Thank you
Jonathan
PS if I could work out how I’d post a pic or two.

[David]

I wouldn't even consider a 'temporary swap', personally. So many components to switch over, the risks of damaging or losing something along the way is too much. You also lose the originality of the TXI, as it'll never go back the way it was.

Just my two 'penneth, though.

You could have a point there. I've never worked on a 16v so I don't know what's unique under the bonnet on one. I've put a GTi 8 valve engine in a txd car, and that went together very easily, asides from some of the connecting wiring harness being missing, so I just assumed that the 16v engine would be similar in principal.

If it entails removing the full car wiring harnesses, then it would be difficult and time consuming, but if it was plug and play, just requiring the engine harness to be swapped then it might be possible. The 8 valve engine, for instance, has everything that it needs incorporated into 2 engine harnesses, so it just needed them both connecting to the original car txd wiring harnesses.

The exhaust would need to be changed, but as it usually needs to come off to remove an engine anyway, it shouldn't be any extra work really.