I own a 96 with the 2.2l, it is my daily driver and wanna keep it, but being the 4th or 5th owner I went to change the oil and found shavings. My friend has a 2.2l motor out of his s-10 since he swapped in a small block.
Will this motor work for me?
It can be done, as both are basically the same 2200 l4 motor, but there are some differences that may cause you a headache. If I remember correctly, you may need to swap heads (I think that was the main difference between the Cavy and the s10 Votech versions). If the s10 motor is from a '96-97, then the camshaft is notched in a different place than the Cavy version, and will result in your timing being off (most likely some pre-ignition problems that are going to cause you a bit of power loss). You're going to need to swap in an ECM from the s10, and I believe those plugs are different (as are a lot of sensors), so my guess is that you are going to need the entire wiring harness from the donor motor. If it's coming from a 98 s10, I think the compression ratio may be different (the piston dish is different) so again, all wiring needs to swap to be able to run the correct ECM.
Regarding the ECM, you can also try Wait4mePerformance if they are still around, they can reprogram ECMs. So you could try to keep all the original Cav wiring, and send them the ECM and have the timing retarded or advanced if needed (If that donor motor is in fact from a 96-97 w/ the different crank notch).
All in all, yes you can, but it certainly won't be plug and play. I would suggest before going through that hassle, just look for a cheap motor out of another cavy.
Thanks bro, I appreciate the info.
I found someone that has a donor car with a 2.4l and manual and 2! 2.2l motors for me for free, you all can hate me later....