I have been wondering if I should begin work on my beater Isuzu Impulse RS. The mechanics are fine the body is not (unless I want to keep it a beater). The motor will swap into a Isuzu Stylus or Geo Storm with no problems. The awd tranny takes a bit more work to get in. There is a guy in Sarasota (Jim) who posts on this site that got it done to his Storm. On his webpage he shows some details of what went on to get it to work. I'm wondering do to mechanical knowledge and my everyday workload if one of the better shops around that do Nissan or Toyota swaps could pull it off? And what kinda $$$ would this cost me to swap motor and tranny. I can grab a clean Stylus or Storm for under $750 and I already have the hard to find car with the stock turbo/awd and all wiring etc. If this is too much trouble I just may take the beater over to Sebastian to work on the body and paint. It's only for a weekend fun car, not a daily driver.

Heres the link to what was done: http://members.aol.com/JGregg2/GarageWagon.htm

 

damn.. are you sure it's worth the money/time?
In either case, good luck with your project man.

--brandon

 

Not sure if its worth it myself. Probably just drive the beater for a few more months and sell it or trade it in when I get my truck. I just like the Gemini Irmsher (jdm stylus) ... the engine swap itself is straight foward, but car would be fwd. If I can get it awd it would be a neat car for me, to have in my garage. I prob would leave the car gutted, put on new suspension and have a great weekend car. Folks do swaps that are harder on this site, the sr20det into miata and such.

 

good idea

 

I say go for it, I love to see unique cars with a lot of custom work though...

 

Do It!

 

im all for custom cars and shit.. but

if you got the money to dish out then go for it buddy

--brandon

 

Just outta curiosity, Why are you looking down on this project?
It's a simple strait-forward swap, cheaper than a WRX, more reliable than a DSM, and quite unique.
Only problem I see is that parts are getting kinda rare now since only 800 were imported and the cars are going on 16 years old.

FYI Kalik, My dad is slowly converting a storm to turbo/AWD since he totalled his RS a few months ago... lots of spare parts off the RS so if you need any generic parts, let me know.

 

I'm simply saying, If he's got the money to dish out on the car, have at it.

I'd like to see the end product as well.

 

lol, this coming from a DSM owner? talk about having to dish out money on a car(naw, I love DSMs, will eventually get around to buiying one) I personally engine swapped and turboed my neon for less that it would have cost for a used GST....not all projects are all that expensive...and some are cheaper than the alternative