How much for a direct engine swap?

Its a days work, if i was doing it i'd charge at least £200. At a garage i'd guess 3-400 maybe more once you stick vat and sundries on top.

garages are often unwilling to do this sort of thing, especially if the relacement engine is "unknown" to them. I would expect many places to refuse or fob you off with a massive price. If you find somewhere that will do it, I wouldnt expect to see much change from £400 -£500.
PLus factor in the sundries as said above - oil, antifreeze, filters, timing belt / rollers if needed, manifold gaskets, maybe give it new plugs etc while you are at it....this stuff alone could rack up £100 easy.

Get a few friends round and attack it yourself imo.

I would be more than happy to help, I'm not too far away but I've got a lot on in the next few weeks.

Have you got an engine crane? can borrow one? Is it a straight swap? Have you got all the parts you need?

I'm in Bridgnorth, so not too far, maybe an hour.

For a garage, unless you're swapping exactly like for like, you can see why they may not want to bother. If he discovers that there's some sort of widget that the 1.8 doesn't have but is essential on the 2.0 and you can only get them from the Belgian Congo and the next boat isn't until March, it's his ramp occupied for the duration.

Beer/burgers/barbeque has to be the way to go.

I have been involved in a few "liike for like" swaps where after gettting the new motor sitting in the bay we discover that its not exactly like for like and there are several subtkle differences which turn the project from an afternoon's jolly to 3 or 4 days of .

Even worse than that is when you asume you can build the engine out of two donor lumps, same capacity, same model, same spec but 2 years different... All it was was pull the motor out, swap its good head onto an engine with a known good bottom end but a knackered cam carrier, refit into car. No chance. Shims and dowls all different etc.]

On a Volvo a mate did a 4 cyl to V6 in the new V6 ECU wouldn't run it until he swapped a load of gubbins from the 4 pot back into the car. a couple f weeks of trial and error and replacing sensors later, it ran.

So I can see why garages won't give a set price for this sort of thing. Too many variables.

If I'm available on the day you can have some Akku-Fu on the job. Offer of burgers clinched it.

If its on a weekend i could probably chip in with a few hours of tea drinking and making an ad hoc 'drum kit' with spanners and car parts.

Ok, ive just found out that the 1.6/18 and 2.0 engines ARE different but its a case of blanking off breathers and modyfying the distributor. The gear on the bottom of the 1.8 dizzy needs to be changed for the gear from the 2.0 engine and an adaptor ring also needs to be fitted as the hole in the block on the 2.0 lump is physically larger. Luckily theres a company that manufactures such a conversion kit!

www.tsr-performance.com/pages/engineparts.asp

All this isnt going to work out particulary cheap but the end result should make it worth it and it will teach me not to neglect cambelts and tensioners!

Where do you find the code? Are ABK lumps 2 litre? Theres a low mileage 80 in the local scrappers with an identical dizzy to mine. I remember when it came in and I was sure it was only an 1800, hence the same dizzy. Youve made me doubt myself now.