I have a 1.7 motor that I want to rebuild. My question is - what should i do? How can I get ALOT more horses out of it and keep it a daily driver, and NOT go broke doing it.

Thanks,

sell it and get a Honda

seriously, do have a realistic budget?

A HONDA - Thats why I want to rebuild the motor

Budget - $2500.00

Forget the idea of "A LOT" more horsepower, together with a lot of reliability if that's your budget.

--DD

Dave's right, thats about the budget for a stock rebuild job, that's done right, not much more.

Find yourself a good used, running, complete 2.0 d-jet, thats good for 15-20hp. You want to hear it running and it would be nice to get a compression/leakdown test.

Do it yerself turbo could be under that mark and with the low compression 1.7 you would have a good start
but youd be buildin it from scratch

or if ya like short lastin engines and refilling bottles go NOS

A turbo is the only way to get alot more hp out of a 1.7l for $2500.
For a 15-20hp increase locate a good used complete 2.0L engine with Djet or with dual webbers & carb cam. That will satisify the hp crave for a few years until the six bug bites.
Geoff

One of the big questions not answered is are you going to do all the work yourself or pay a shop to do it?

If you pay a shop, $2,500 will get a stock 80hp rebuild.
If you do it all yourself (excluding machine work) you have more options.

-Ben M.

For 2500 dollars, you should be able to pick up a pretty solid 2.0 motor with heat exchangers - maybe not a fresh rebuild, but it should be something ready to bolt in.

-Rusty

I will very soon be selling a complete turnkey 2.4 engine with low miles. Somewhere around double the power of your 1.7 for somewhere around your budget target. I do have a couple of potential buyers locally, and I have no idea where you live (not shown in your profile), but the point is that a transplant is probably your best bet by far. As the other guys mentioned, good stock-or-better engines are listed for sale fairly frequently, by guys who've upgraded further, or are abandoning a partly completed project.