What is Furious_E going to swap an LS1 into?

In reply to patgizz:

I spoke with the claims rep this morning and let her know I was probably going to buy it back. She said I should either have it towed to my house today or towed to their salvage lot. I elected the salvage lot and got my stuff out of the car before it was supposed to get towed over there this afternoon. So there it sits for now, they said I should hear about a settlement Tuesday most likely and I would be given a buy back option then. I wonder if not having it towed straight to my house was a mistake, in hindsight.

Since you seem to be rather familiar with the LSx donor market, care to venture a guess on the buy back cost? Does the insurance man know the value of the parts, or is it just another junk car to them?

I'd look for something like a Chevette, Monza, Vega, or even a Cressida, 929, LS400

From cars already discussed and you wanting something smaller than pony car RX8 seems best.

240z would be fun but good luck on finding one at reasonable price.

Maybe 240sx?

Speaking of bimmers....what about a z3? Been done and a unique German miata. M flares and a Lotta rubber crammed under it...or maybe finding a z4 cheap

might be worth seeing if there's a blowned up clownshoe anywhere on this side of the country..

While on subject of BMWs....what about a 318ti

bluej wrote: might be worth seeing if there's a blowned up clownshoe anywhere on this side of the country..

Now that's an interesting idea...

Build a hot rod

In reply to edizzle89:

The ls1 to z32 trans kit moves the z32 trans. From the kits I've seen.

I wrecked a 95' M3 at Deal's Gap in NC. Of course insurance company called it totaled. They would have let me buy it back for about $900 if I remember correctly. I believe they gave me about $2,500 to walk away. I took the $2,500 because I had neither the space nor the time to take it apart. And I didn't have money for another car to swap the good parts into. That should give you some idea what to expect there.

As far as the swap goes, I vote the E36 or E46 but I'm biased because my intention when I bought the M3 was for it to be a track car and weekend street warrior. Doing it on a po' boyz budget I didn't plan to do any upgrades to the motor. Just drive it until it gave up. And then swap an LS into it when financial circumstances allowed. I am a muscle car guy from birth. Grew up around not too slouchy machines like my dad's 71' AMC Javelin (he has a 72' fixer upper in his garage right now), my uncle's Plymouth Cuda' (a real one), my other uncle's Dodge Charger and my neighbor's 69' Camaro. Not to mention all the stock car races I went to at WIR and Slinger Speedway.

However, when HPDE presented itself as the quickest, cheapest and easiest way to actually get on a track, I opted for an affordable ride that could handle the twisty's reasonably well right out of the box but with V8 potential.

I took the insurance money, bought a 93' 325is, have tracked it about 8 times and if I don't have to sell it to generate revenue, still plan to swap an LS into it some day. Car is darn fun like it is but would be epic if it rumbled and had about 200-300 more horsepower.

All right. All this talk of LS 944s got me thinking. Does the 928 have the same transaxle? I can think of little that would be sweeter than a resto-mod LS 928.

I'm going to guess you'll get it back for 2k or less. It's a 14+ year old camaro to them, they don't care or know a t56 is worth 1500 out of the car.

If you opt to go away from the t56 i could be a customer

I would buy a nice condition healthy running rx8 for 2500 and sell the power plant and trans for 2000 as the Reman engines go for 5500. The swap is well documented and pretty reasonable to do.

Furious-E meet this guy, this guy meet Furious-E

I'm with nepa...

nepa03focus wrote: Do you need a truck? I'd find a beat up 70 or 80s Chevy Truck and throw it in there, then lower it and put some nice wheels on it

Crater soft 8s would do nicely

Drive it like this for a bad ass cruiser

or this E46 for a killer track car

or

Easy, cheapish, fun button. 240... Basically bolt in with adapters. Fun street car, decent track car, multi discipline settup.

Putting a LS in a fintail Mercedes would be such a pain in the ass. You'd need to move the firewall and make a new floor just to fit the t56. And completely change the steering.

It's a bitch swapping anything in those cars.

240SX. Relatively large aftermarket for that swap, handles decent

They typically let you buy back at 10% of the value of the vehicle pre accident.

Ross413 wrote: Furious-E meet this guy, this guy meet Furious-E

Huh, well the price is definitely right. I'm sure someone else will likely scoop it up before I'd be able to go get it, but one to keep an eye on.

In reply to patgizz:

OK good to hear, $2k is I think the magic number of what is going to be really easy and quick to part out from the car - springs, sways, Konis, wheels, ect. Under $1k would be awesome and if 84FSP is correct it definitely would be.

My gut feel is that the sell back price is gonna be low, but so is their valuation of the car. KBB and NADA both show something like $4500 clean retail but I've never seen an LS1 6 speed car locally asking anywhere close to that. I'm preparing for a fight.

In reply to 84FSP:

That's probably exactly what I would do if going the rx8 route.

Rx8 and E36 are the leading candidates at the moment. 240sx is probably out just because i haven't seen a clean one in years at anything remotely resembling a reasonable price, everyone is asking $4k for rollers that look like they've been through a demo derby because drift tax.

What I like a lot about the rx8 is the LS seems to fit the engine bay pretty well and access for service and repair seems much better than the bimmer. The Hinson and V8roadsters kits are also much cheaper than the Vorschlag kit for the E36 and there seems to be more space for routing headers. The platform is a decade newer and only now hitting the bottom of the depreciation curve, handling probably a little better out of the box (I need to find one to go drive), and probably more usable room.

On the flip side, the wiring seems to have an added degree of complexity, especially in terms of interfacing with the can bus and getting things like the gauges functional. I would need OBDII functionality to pass emissions as well, whereas with the E36 I could source an OBDI chassis and only have to worry about visual inspection for emissions (Can any fellow PA residents confirm my understanding that the swap just needs to pass OBDII port testing for legality if 96 or newer, and visual only if 95 or older??)

How rust prone is the rx8? I feel like I've seen a few with pretty bad rot on the rockers and rear wheel wells? Are the diff and half shafts up to the task?

Not convinced you need to buy a kit. Major bits as I remember them are.

-generic Ls v8 weld in mounts

-steering rack relocation

-shortened driveline (I hear the pathfinder works well)

-if you find the lsd stock rear end it's supposed to be good for 500hp

-hooker shorty headers

-custom exhaust ala local exhaust shop

-canbus hack is the hardest part as I think it is all about chasing wires for running all body components

-gm ecu is setup to run drive train and is supposedly the easier section of the wiring

-cooling choices abound and it seems you can spend as much or as little as you want here

-subframe brackets seem to vary from tweaky alloy to basic steel welded up

-unsure what is needed to bolt in the T56

Hope that helps

http://madison.craigslist.org/cto/5850936063.html

Now, here me out. Selling a perfectly good drivetrain could make this a $2500 car. Then you'd have an amazing car after your swap.

With access to an LS and a T-56, I'd replicate Roadkill's Muscle Truck. You could have stupid fun in a 73-87 C-10 short bed.

I really like that Jag suggestion. I just wonder about getting everything else working after you swap ECU's.