I am going to be turboing my 97, and the engine I'm building outside of the car is an nb motor. Would I need to get a prefab nb kit or an na kit? And if so what is the difference between the two?

 

I don’t have any direct experience but based on research for my project you need the exhaust manifold for an nb engine and a custom cat pipe to connect the turbo outlet to the NA exhaust. The NB exhaust can’t be used as is because the exhaust hangers on the nb are in different locations than the NA8.

many turbo kits have options including an NA chassis with NB motor

Typically the ecu needs to match the chassis

i suggest reading as many build threads as possible to help you understand what is involved. Also read the definitive vvt swap thread that is stickied in the engine performance section, there is a lot of valuable information about swapping a nb motor into a NA chassis

good luck

 

Mostly you'll be choosing your components based on the chassis. The differences will be the exhaust primarily, NA and NB have different hanger locations. Otherwise the 1.8 motors are pretty much the same as far as external hardware is concerned.

 

I had a kraken hotside when i moved to nb2 engine, I had to notch the frame rail slightly for contact with the compressor housing and beat a small channel for the steering shaft into the downpipe.
1.8s are roughly 10mm wider on both sides is what I was told someday somewhere. If you have the option between na8/nb, I'd take an na8 setup or see if you can get a 1.6 exhaust fitted to nb manifold/downpipe.