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Originally posted by: ElBarto
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imports? your mechanic is an idiot. not all imports are hard to work on. the one i posted, engine from 80's 300zx into a maxima, is basicaly taking the old engine out and putting the new one in (plus changing the intake/exhaust for a turbo). The sr20det swap into a 240 is the same thing, take the old engine out and put the new one in.

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Yes "imports", that's how they're referred to in the auto shop world, whether they're made in Japan or Kentucky. And, no, I can assure you my mechanic is not an idiot, and has more years as being a mechanic than I have as being alive, which gives him considerable more years on you. I didn't say that he said that all imports are hard to work on, that's not true. That's like saying all domestics are easy to work on, which also isn't true. It's just that, on average, the "imports" are more complicated to work with. The main reason that engine swaps were more difficult (when he talked to me, we'd been talking about the Camry, not a Nissan maxima or 240) was that there weren't that many engine offerings on most of those types of cars, so the engine bays were designed very closely to fit the engine. This is mainly true, just look under the hood of my Camry V6. The engine fits in there just about perfectly, there really isn't much room for anything else, so if I were wanting to upgrade to a different Toyota engine, I'd almost definitely need some modifications done to make it fit. With some Chevy vehicles,(the example he used) they'd have five or six different sized engines, so the engine bay was big, open, and easy to work in. I wasn't trying to say that every single import is hard to work on, and neither was he, just that engine swaps are generally more difficult on cars with only one or two engine offerings (like many imports) because the engine bay is designed FOR those engines.