Installing without rebuilding

Git has a very clever Makefile.  Sometimes its a little overly clever.

1) I use stow to manage my /usr/local directory.  With many other  
programs I am able to build with a prefix of /usr/local and install  
with a prefix of /usr/local/stow/$program.  Git detects a change in  
the build variables and recompiles pretty much everything.

2) If I remove the old copy of git before installing the new, git will  
notice this and again start a (smaller) recompile because the GIT- 
VERSION-FILE file changes from something detailed like  
"1.5.3.5.622.g6fd7a" to "1.5.3.GIT".

Is there a way to tell git to be a bit less clever and just install the already compiled program? If not, would changing the Makefile to read something like the following be accepted?

----- 8< -----

install: all install-dumb

install-dumb: # No rebuild!
   # Current install process

----- 8< -----

~~ Brian