Advice for an old 89 GTU

[berettaslinger]

Hey friends, looking for some advice. I have a 89 GTU that I bought from a fellow board member many years ago. I also bought a 3400 SFI engine to swap in for a bit of a sleeper Years have gone by and it never happened. Worse yet, water leaked into the driver's side floor and there's definitely mold - it smells like one of those 100+ year old house basements. It's incredibly sad. It did run with around 120k. Honestly, i wouldn't drive it with the state of the interior without a major overhaul of ripping out all of the carpet, and mold treatment. Wondering what you guys would do. Find a good base and rebuild from that? Part it out? Hate to see it like it is. Appreciate any advice

[Rettax3]

When I bought my Yellow Indy, the car had been daily-driven, but the previous owner didn't have much mechanical aptitude, and had issues with an improperly installed front wheel bearing (twice). So I had to trailer it home. Worse, he was a bit of a slob: when I pulled the seats to repair some of the foam and wash the filthy fabric, I found layers of mold, ketchup, and french-fries under the driver's seat. I intended to buy new carper -ACC still offers it in a variety of colors and if you shop around, their prices are still very reasonable and as far as I know the quality is still great (use Rock Auto as a base-point for price shopping, they are reasonable if not the absolute best price). I never decided between picking either original grey or livening it up with the rich yellow they offered, but ended up saving the original carpet by pulling it, hosing it down and scrubbing it with laundry-detergent -three times if memory serves... It took a few spare days over a couple of weekends to do the seats and carpet, but it was a pretty extreme case, and it came out fine. Bottom line, it is all fixable. The GTUs are pretty rare, I would definitely lean towards saving it, especially if the floor-pans aren't rusted through. Sounds like you have the 'dread firewall leak', my '89 GTU has that too, unfortunately. So do both of my '95 Z-26s... [Sigh]

As for the 3400 swap, you don't get THAT much more from a 3400 than from a well-tuned 2.8 MPFI. More pep, and a goodly amount more on the top-end, but not really a 'whole new world' of performance. My 'old' '95 Z-26 really never was that much quicker than the 3.1 in my Indy, and the 3.1 was never noticeably more than the 2.8. My 'old' '95 Z didn't have a full-on 3400 swap but does have a 3400 top-end and I can feel the difference with it. Still not revolutionary performance though. On the newer Berettas, it is a 'drop-n-swap' installation, on the older ones you need to fabricate a front engine-mount bracket, since the 3400s are missing the mounting bosses. I made a few, still have one on a shelf in the shop. But it is a cut-and-weld piece, not a bolt-and-go. The 2.8's ECM can probably handle the 3400 if you swap-in the 2.8's injectors or ones similarly sized, but you are missing the "SFI" function without a more modern PCM that can operate them Sequentially vs "Batch-Fire", as the 2.8MPFI is. No loss in top-end performance, but some loss in efficiency in daily-driving fuel mileage. So, ideally you want a 3400 PCM, wiring-harness, and have to integrate that in. Easy enough to piggy-back the PCM, I've done that a few times, but it is wiring work that scares-off a lot of people. And on the older Berettas, the fuel-lines don't just plug-in either, since the 3400 uses the newer-style 'Quick Connect' fittings instead of the threaded "GM Double-Flare". Then we get into exhaust...
Honestly, if you feel squeamish about pulling seats and washing carpet, I can't say I would recommend diving into an engine-swap right away, unless the current engine is toast. I would love to see pics of your car -I am having GTU withdrawals since my six-speed transmission seized up a couple of weeks ago...

[woody90gtz]

I'd keep it too! Always liked the GTU styling. And parting out a Beretta is never a big money maker.

Interior in my current project was also really nasty (the common firewall leak) but it's not that much work to clean it up. I've bought a couple ACC carpets and they're pretty good. Will be buying another one for my current project too.

You can also get a 3400 to run really good with your existing OBD1 computer & wiring. It won't be SFI, but that's not a big deal. I daily'd mine that way for a dozen years. And the 3400 has more power everywhere than a 2.8. You can run the 3.4 on the stock 2.8 tune with 2.8 injectors, but those style injectors are known for failure, and the 3400 injectors are much more reliable. You can run them with the old computer with just a new chip. I have a 3400/5spd tune that I'll give you if you go that route (if you're auto it won't work though).

[Styluss]

KEEP, IT.

It is incredibly easy to get all of the replacement parts you need, though you may need to source them from out of state. From someone such as myself! I have a SLEW of parts at my house as well as two Z parts cars right now. Can I help you??

Though it sounds like your only issue is the carpet really. You can pull that easily and take it to a self serve car wash and spray the living hell out of it and it will be fine. Then fix the firewall leak of course!

Bottom line, don't scrap the car! Save it!! BUT... if you do decide to sell, please let me know. If you're not far from Colorado I'd be interested!!

[berettaslinger]

If you guys are still around - appreciate all of the great advice. I've been hanging on to it, but haven't been able to do much. The 2.8 runs (at least last start) and only has about 120k on it. I remember seeing someone else doing a 3400 SFI and I got a wild hair about it. It is auto unfortunately.
The previous owner was a board member from Texas. No rust, but the paint and plastics were really baked. Since it's been sitting so long the mold inside is definitely the problem with the firewall leak - it's not just the carpet, it's on the steering wheel even just to give you an idea of how bad it is. Not safe to drive at this point. I planned to tackle it this summer but my health took a turn since last post and just trying to stay above ground. Wish I had some garage space to get it out of the weather while I worked on it. I'm over in NE Ohio Styluss so a bit of a drive I'll try to get a few more pictures.

[Rettax3]

Yeah, we are still here. Glad to hear you are hanging on to the car, still hoping for pics though... I hope your health improves and you are able to get some quality wrench-time on the GTU soon.