1998 Beams Motors

buy the motor from a local importers. save you alot on shipping and if there are any hassles with wrong parts supplied etc. follow TREE, he's doing the swap at the moment using the greytop beams.
 
very hard to find a redtop from an mr2, so inevitably you'll need to fit ether one from a celica or rav4/caldina.
 
how much do you have to allow for this swap?

Finding a BEAMS half cut isn't an issue. It's finding all the little bits to make it work properly in your SW20 that all add up. 
What sort of budget are you thinking you can spend? If you can afford to bring in an original SW20 Beams half cut, you'll save yourself a lot of pfaffing around.  
This is the advice I gave Tree a couple of weeks ago. He didn't use it, but maybe you might:
 
The cheapest "minimum-hassle" solution you could find by far is to buy this MR2 BEAMS clip from RPM Garage: www.rpmgarage.com/new/detail/?tid=20151

A few weeks back, I saw that the price of this clip was temporarily dropped to $2499, so you'd get it for that... and it would have every single part you require.

It will cost you $850 for shipping to Australia, then on top of that you'll have to pay customs clearance costs (which you'll need to do through a broker) and transportation to your mechanic... then whatever the mechanic charges to put it all in.

You'd also need to make sure its shipped on a plastic pallet otherwise you'll definitely incur a quarantine steam cleaning fee... which you might get anyway if customs are feeling narky and having a bad day when it arrives.

You may still need the help of an auto electrician for the wiring even if you have the proper MR2 beams engine loom. I did.
 

I'm not suggesting that buying the MR2 BEAMS half-cut is the cheapest solution, but I am suggesting it's the most effective solution if you want the best result for the minimum hassle.
 
Also, in the long run, it does actually give you the best bang for your buck – because you also get the correct airbox set-up, which IS important for best BEAMS performance, plus you get a new gearbox and every other part you'll need, plus a BEAMS gauge cluster – which eliminates the need for a tacho adapter, newer & stiffer engine mounts, all the correct looms and pipes, etc, etc ... and a whole pile of other spares.
 
For me, keeping my car tidy and not  hacked together was worth paying a bit more for.
 

 
 So Spudman, what you probably need to work out up front is whether you need to do your conversion for the cheapest price, or want the cleanest result. I wanted my car to be fully legal and as close to a genune OEM BEAMS as I could afford. 
 
 
 

i've just completed a grey top conversion out of a caldina into a SW20. no real hassles for us once we sorted out the electrical info. a lot of the wiring diagrams and related elec info that has been posted is just wrong, but we got there in the end with some help from a few locals plus some overseas, to sort out correct data.  basically, what you will find is every engine has at least one or two wires that dont appear on the diagrams or are wrong color, funny labels etc
we got this one running on the factory computer and then swapped it to a haltec
we modified the tacho so no idea why others are suggesting a BEAMS dash is needed
i cant see what new OEM parts you would want to buy if the engine you buy is complete
if you want to discuss it, call me at work sometime