ST engine swap, 4agze, or 4age, or 3sgte Options

[96stgreendemon]

thinking about a potential swap, was looking at a 4agze and wondering if it would be the easiest motor to swap with the st, or just put the head on my 7afe block, or put the 4age head on my block, or just swap it for a 3sgte, which would mean new mounts, harness, ecu, exhaust, and tranny, thoughts?

[CelicaST_CALI]

4agze engine=1500$ from venus,they claim thats everything under the hood and the ecu,no tranny.Then lets say 1000$ in misc crap..The 3sgte swap is about 3k for the engine,400 tranny,200 axles,mounts...it averages to about 4500.This is how i personally see it,2000$ less for a 4agze swap,but about 100 hp less.Please tell me if you disagree,im sure michelle will haha

[GriffGirl]

4agze engine=1500$ from venus,they claim thats everything under the hood and the ecu,no tranny.Then lets say 1000$ in misc crap..The 3sgte swap is about 3k for the engine,400 tranny,200 axles,mounts...it averages to about 4500.This is how i personally see it,2000$ less for a 4agze swap,but about 100 hp less.Please tell me if you disagree,im sure michelle will haha

I don't have to disagree, Jim already did it for me

From my perspective, OP is looking for a nice little "kick", on a budget, and with solid dependability. It seems that a motor swap is going to offer more dependability than a turbo project, which is why the swap even came into play here. Obviously though, a swap isn't going to be within any sort of college-kid budget, which is why I think a head swap is the best option. He's not looking for big numbers, and he's not looking to drop a ton of money into this. He just wants a car that isn't slow as sh1t, and is still a reliable DD. Being in the SAME shoes (except for the college kid part, I'm just a broke-ass adult hahaha), I've researched this whole thing time and time again, and it comes down to this, quite simply:

You want a little kick, but you can't spend $1000, do a head swap. Throw in intake, exhaust, header, all said you're looking at under $1000, maybe even under $500 depending on the exhaust. I've seen 16v 4age heads on CL for really cheap, like $100 or less.
You want big power and money isn't an issue, do a 3sgte swap.
You don't care so much about big #s, you just want a great build that's a little less common, do a 4agze swap.
You want instant gratification on a bit of a budget (compared to a motor swap) and +100 HP is enough, do a turbo project (on stock internals).