Get a stock 13BREW motor with the twins. Look around for a smashed FD and try to get the driveline from teh guy. I think you can tell if it's a manual or auto by looking at the connector side of the ECU. Does the VIn tell you if it's a auto or not? I'm not sure.



The bad thing abuot rolling shell is you can't be certain what is good or bad on teh car. You can't take it for a test drive. You don't know if the shocks are blown, if the heater core leaks, if the rad leaks, if the oil cooler are fubar. Stuff like that ads up, especially if yuo have to go buy new bits from the mazda dealership. I would try to find a car with a blown motor that the owner wants to get rid of.

 

rolling chassis, unless you know the previous owner and know what else if anything was bad, are only good as a track vehicle, for reasons already stated above.....



and believe me, its no mustang.

 

I would recommend an already running car for your first rotary, however, should you decide to try it- I sell BRAND NEW, dyno tested motors and anything else that you could need regarding OEM pieces, performance pieces, etc. PM me if you're interested.



Thanks-



Lance

 

[quote name='EricUrS4' date='May 2 2005, 06:46 PM']I work at a used car dealership with a lift and everything, the car is a rolling shell just minus the motor and tranny as I previously stated. I'm not sure if the car was an auto or manual though. The title is clean and I could probably walk away with it for around 5k or so. This is my first rotary project, and I have wanted a FD for a while now, but figured if I bought the shell for cheap. I could build the motor to what I want from the start rather then buy a full car and have to pay someone to take it out, do the work, and put it back in. Worked well for the mustang I had, so I was unsure how it would fare with the FD. Thanks for the input.



-Eric


[/quote]



if you had to buy an fd 1 part at a time new it would cost easily over 100k. there are plenty of little $500 bits that could be missing and you'd never know it.



best way would be to find a jdm engine/trans, that should get you fairly far. but even with a complete engine/trans theres still like $5000 of other **** you're gonna need. if the cars cheap enough, or you dont care about the cash, have fun

 

There is a chassis in VA i'm considering...it's missing everything though. It has all the body panels and glass, but thats pretty much it. The guy wants 1k for it. I have a decent amount of parts laying around, but i'll definatley need a lot of stuff. Apparently it's got a salvage title, but I'm pretty sure the frame is straight. I'm gonna go look at it this week. If i rebuild this puppy can I get a new title for it? I'm not too familiar with that kind of stuff.

 

[quote name='Scrub' date='May 8 2005, 10:40 PM']There is a chassis in VA i'm considering...it's missing everything though. It has all the body panels and glass, but thats pretty much it. The guy wants 1k for it. I have a decent amount of parts laying around, but i'll definatley need a lot of stuff. Apparently it's got a salvage title, but I'm pretty sure the frame is straight. I'm gonna go look at it this week. If i rebuild this puppy can I get a new title for it? I'm not too familiar with that kind of stuff.


[/quote]







Being "pretty sure" you have all the parts is not the best way to be. Little stock parts can easly total up to many thousands of dollars. Im talking SMALL things, but LOTs of them ie all the ducts, undertray stuff, engine bay stuff like stupid shields and braces, under car sheilds. And all the extra body stuff that it will just ever so greatly not have when you buy it. Its a big headache trust me, and stock parts arn't cheap but they are ALL needed to have a solid car.