What to do with 2 early 80s 924s?

Ok, so 3-4 years ago, I spotted two early 80s 924s ('s' as in plural not 'S' as in 924S) for sale locally for $1000. Neither ran, but supposedly, one needed a clutch and the other needed an engine rebuild. The idea was to piece together the best of the two cars. I was slightly familiar (as in knew they were decent performance wise) with the 944 and thought these couldn't be too far off. Subsequent to the purchase, I began reading about these cars and buying some replacement parts. After getting one new and one slightly used clutch kit, some over-sized pistons and some other odds and ends I realized that the 924 isn't near the car that the 944 is. My enthusiasm for piecing together a decent car from the two faded rather quickly from there. About a year ago, I started thinking about doing something with them. I began seriously considering stuffing a 5.0L Ford into one of them, which led to the purchase of a 97 Explorer engine (w/ GT40P heads and intake), a manual trans bellhousing and some other odds and ends. Somewhere along the way, I lost enthusiasm for this too, probably when contemplating all the work that needed to be done in order to get one driveable and the associated expense. So now I'm trying to decide what to do with these cars. My thoughts are as follows and in no particular order:

1) Sell them for scrap/part them out, try to recoup as much as possible.

2) Piece one together with an original engine, possibly with a custom home-made turbo setup.

3) Go forward with the V8 transplant even though the chassis and the transmission aren't really set-up for it (i.e. 1st would be useless).

Between the two, there is a fairly straight body, one decent black interior, one supposedly decent engine. Other than what is visually obvious, nothing else has been confirmed. I've never driven one of these, and my concern is that the performance to labor ratio is on the losing end of the scale. Any thoughts are welcomed. If I get ambitious and anyone is interested, I might post pics of the one at my house.

First, if the interest isn't there the project will never get done. If that's the case sell the stuff and be done with it.

I'm not real familiar with 924s other that the fact that a neighbor owned one when I was a kid. I have an RX7 in my garage that has a 5.0L sitting in it. Seems like the 5.0L should fit in the 924 about the same as the 1st gen RX7. However, if that's the rought you take I would go ahead and pick up a Ford T5 transmission to use with it. (That is unless someone on here who knows 924s thinks the stock trans is fine.)

I think I've known that deep down for a while. I guess I just needed to hear someone else say it. Looks like I'll need to add these to the classifieds.

JoshC,

If you're parting them out, I'll be your first customer. I'm one of the (approximately) four people on the planet that actually like those cars.

Brian

I'd prefer to sell them whole, but we'll see what happens. Where are you located? I'm in Easley, SC, but one of the cars is in Landrum, which is about an hour away from here.

Josh C,

I'm way up in Massachusetts. I need all manor of little stuff, like the wiper switch, fuel pump relay, etc.

I also need door panels if you have a good set of black, crank-window panels.

No rush - my projects creep along as well. If you don't sell the complete cars, feel free to send me a message and I'll buy some parts.

• Brian

Id agree, if your not into the project, move on. they are great cars when properly set up, and many of us have them out performing 944's for way less $$ than youd think. megasquirt and turbos can do wonders.. if you want to take a look at some examples and projects, i have two of mine up on cardomain, link is in my profile.. they are not intended to be drag racers though, and never will be, these are twisty road cars (witha few custom built exceptions)...

put em up on the 924.org classifieds, but only if your listing them cheap, and theres a good chance theyll go in a short time.

Can you say LeMons