Following this thread with great interest. I'm thinking of a swap sometime in the future, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can. Couple questions: are you putting higher (diesel) gears in the Toyota tranny? I would think that if you just bolted up a TDI to a gas tranny, max speed would be about 60... Also, why the mix of block/head? Are the B5.5 motor mounts in better places for a longitudinal swap?
My swap idea is to put an ALH in probably a first-generation Toyota MR2. Very light, mid-engine, great handling, cheap buy. I chose the ALH, because that's what my daily driver has, and a lot of the left over parts can be used multiple places. Plus, having only one engine type between my DD and my project car keeps me from having to learn a lot all over again. Any reason to think the transverse ALH would be a bad choice for that application? I'm looking into whether or not it's doable to remove most of the body around the mid-engine-bay. Otherwise, it would be a horrible pain compared to a regular front-engine. I looked at a mkii MR2 over the weekend, and the Toyota turbo looks like a MUCH bigger engine than the TDI, so there should be lots of room.