The chita kit makes sense in an 86 since it just tries to make the 20v fit in all the same way as a bigport as far as the cooling goes. Personally i prefer to base such decisions around the motor, not the chassis.

Kudos for not paying a fortune. I've never seen the chita kit advertised for less that the $700 mark, then add some shipping and exchange possibly. Thats also around what the t3 kit costs. The t3 kit gives more for your money since they custom make almost every part in there.

If you honestly rate the importance of having fewer connections in the system to leak from, you would do it the way I have done it (and described above) and use only 4 hose clamps in the system.