This has been on my mind for some time too, i grew up in England, i reckon there are now more diesel cars there than gas, the europeans have invested heavily in developing diesel over the last decade, and it shows! All my family over there drive turbo diesels, they are quick, quiet have tons of torque and get great economy (they also dont have that wait for the glow plugs to heat annoyance anymore either), my dads Renault wagon gets 45 mpg and just flies along, oh and they usually run for 300,000 plus miles so long as you keep the oil clean.

Joe you sre so right that here in the US diesels have a bad name, noisy, smokey old tubs with the performance of a tractor! Sure diesels are not gas engines, they have very different charicteristics, but that doesnt make them bad, i love driving a diesel, specially a turbo. I dont see media influenced public opinion changing anytime soon either but that doesnt mean we cant take advantage.

We used to be able to get low milage used engines complete ready to drop in very cheap in the UK, they came from Japan i beleive where they used to scap cars after only a few years, something to do with very heavy registration taxes as a vehicle gets older or something like that.

Not sure of the federal mport restrictions on bringing a motor in, i know its not easy any more to bring whole vehicles, i just scraped by with a handbuilt motorcycye when i moved here 8 years ago but almost had to send it back again.

I'd be very interested in a turbo diesel conversion though if anyone figures out the logistics (too busy/lazy to do it myself, hey at least i'm honest!)

Pete