Two Miatas, $900 invested so far, what would you do?
Okay I have two Miatas that I bought for $900 total. One is a '91 Auto with a blown auto trans. The interior has problems, it has a red title and the drivers door doesn't close great. It may just need a new door. I think they just patched it up minimally. The car is mostly rust free. My long range plan is to turn it into a Monster Miata using Martin's kit. I've owned lots of Ford Mustangs so a 5.0 drivetrain and tuning the engine etc. will be easy. I'm not worried about the swap at all, but its a few years down the road.
I have a 14 year old son. I want to teach him how to drive a manual, and eventually get him a Mazda3 as it's a good first car.
So the 2nd Miata is a '94 1.8 with bigger brakes and it runs and drives good. It's also a manual transmission. It is very rusty. It's rusted out at the quarter panel where the rain rails drain. The rain rail drains were clogged long ago and never cleared. The car is a disaster for this reason.
Now I'd like to get the first car ready for the V8 conversion roll bar, reupholster the interior (I have 4 seats to pick from now), do the body work and paint the car etc.... So in the meantime I'm thinking of swapping over the 1.8 the manual transmission, and why not grab the brakes and rear end too. For $900 and some time, I can have a great driving car to teach my son to drive a manual. I can also probably get enough cash in parts and scrap metal for all my left overs to reduce my total investment so far.
All of the 1.6 to 1.8 swap articles I've found say to use the 1.6 electronics, but I have a complete car, harness ECU everything.....
So what would you do if you had a rusted out but decent driving 1.8 car and a not running well stuck in 1st gear won't go over 20 mph 1.6 auto car?
I have a great new '13 Mustang GT to drive everyday and the wife has a '12 CX-9 so it's not anything I need to actually drive for a while. I can also teach my son about cars while we fiddle with it. Once he knows how to drive, I can begin the V8 conversion. I will be buying parts over the next few years.
I've decided to just get a 5.0 crate engine from Ford versus rebuilding one (almost cheaper) and to get a rebuilt or new T-5 for the swap. I can source all the other odds and ends needed in the yards or on the local mustang board.
Input and ideas would be appreciated. I of course will be willing to sell any parts I do not need cheap.... since I don't have much in the cars I mean cheap. I wanted to see if I could build a Monster for around $10K. I think I will go over that budget with the new crate engine now, but not much. And I really don't want to pull and rebuild an engine shortly after the conversion.
The 3rd option would be to part out and or sell both cars and get a nicer NA to start with. I could afford to do that easily enough, but I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to projects sometimes. I have too many hobbies.....
