Nothing beats a parts car for keeping an old vehicle going without breaking the bank. If the price is fair and you have a place to keep it, you will almost surely be glad to have the parts car in your possession!
D24T swap into a 244 is not difficult and gives a very nice boost in performance. As ngoma points out, adding turbo parts to a D24 is also a viable way to get some or most of those performance gains, albeit with the question of long term durability if the engine sees consistent use of the full power of the turbo. A +T on an otherwise healthy engine would probably survive a long time in relatively gentle terrain and in the hands of a conservative driver understanding the limits. Frequent hard driving in mountain territory or hot weather might be more risky, mainly due to the absence of piston cooling oil squirters in the NA block and some different materials. But with a good running NA engine as well as a turbo motor that you could rebuild or scrounge +T parts from, you could create whatever solution matches your usage best.
Either way it sounds like this would give you additional options for getting the 244 on the road, if you can make the practical aspects work.
