Remakin a car

General Discussion
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1

waht all do i need to do to change my 1991 mazda 323’s motor and tranny into a 4.3 twin turbo with a 5 speed?

2

and change it from front wheel drive to rear

3

You need to re-engineer and rebuild the entire car. This will cost thousands, probably tens of thousands of dollars, and the result will probably not be legally drivable on the street.

Have fun.

4

If you require an emissions test, forget it…If the VIN and the engine don’t match, you fail…

5

would it be worth it?

6

Two easy steps:

  1. Sell your car
  2. Buy a car with a 4.3 twin turbo motor and 5-speed tranny

Twotone

7

theres nothin light enough or anythin with a 5 speed manual

8

I’d say to just deal with the extra weight. You can find one with a manual if you look hard enough.

9

First, tell us the total amount of money that you have available to spend on a total rebuilding of that car. Once we know the amount of money that you plan on spending, we can tell you if this idea is even possible to consider.

10

waht all do i need to do to change my 1991 mazda 323’s motor and tranny into a 4.3 twin turbo with a 5 speed?

and change it from front wheel drive to rear

I like the last one, kinda tossed out as an afterthought but it is the most involved, all encompassing retrofit you could undertake. You can start by stripping the entire car down to the main chassis. Stripped bare. I wouldn’t even consider such an undertaking without the benefit of a rotisserie. Then design and construct the firewall and tunnel to accept the trans and driveshaft. Next, revise the rear end of the chassis to accept and entirely different rear end and suspension. Fab up the engine bay to accept the new motor and orientation and then work to reinforce and stiffen the entire chassis to handle the new configuration and power. You’ll need to fab up a support for the trans tailshaft too. The front suspension and steering would be next. If you have to ask about how to do ANY of this, you’re in over your head. And this is just the beginning…

11

Wouldn’t you be money way ahead buying a 90’s v8 Mustang with a 5 speed as a starting point? Home made + 400hp + rwd conversion = death trap…if you have to ask, that is…

Here’s more what you need:

You will find 100X as many folks that can help you drop a small block into a Beetle as convert a 323 to RWD.

12

Hell no, you’ll easily spend 20-30 times the value of the car. Look at it this way, you could buy a new Covette and take it to Lingenfelter for modification and still have money left over.

13

I agree. If you have to ask about how to perform this exercise in engineering, you’re probably not qualified to attempt it.

14

No, I would say that if this person has to ask, then he is definitely not qualified to attempt it.

As TT pointed out, the part about converting the car from FWD to RWD reveals a real lack of automotive knowledge and also reveals a lack of reality as to what could be done on a practical level.

15

60k

16

For that amount of money, you could buy TWO Mustang GTs, and still have cash left over. And, in the process, you would have cars whose suspension was scientifically designed for their weight, weight distribution, and power output, rather than the jury-rigged new suspension that you would have to put on this totally redone Mazda 323.

Trust me, that theoretical Mazda might accelerate very nicely (for a while at least), but once you came to a sharp curve, you would be at the mercy of the laws of physics as you fought to keep that little overpowered, poorly-suspended car on the road.

The Mustangs would handle better, be more reliable, have multiple warranties, and be equipped with safety equipment that cannot even be added to that redone Mazda.

17

I’m thinking you want to make a “Sleeper”, correct?
what you may want to do is take apart the entire car, and build or have a tube frame built, and just use the body panels.

and for those that say this would be “illegal”, or “unsafe” you’d be surprised at what you can make road-legal.

18

How about getting a 10-year old Vette, do the same thing?

19

I once combined a Mustang-II V8 and a Pinto. The result was a 302 (5 liter) Pinto… another visit to the junkyard produced a 500CFM Autolite 2V carburetor off a 390 P/U truck. A little tweaking here and there and a $600 total investment produced a VERY quick little car. Its astounding performance was a direct result of its light weight, not tremendous horsepower…

$60K to build a 6 cylinder rice grinder? Are you nuts?? You still end up with a POS…For THAT kind of money, you can field a street legal Sprint Car, something REALLY cool…