Thursday Twister: A Swap Too Far?
Is there anything sacred left in this world? First, the Spice Girls fragment into a few less-than-stellar individual acts, and now somebody swapped a Mopar 340 V8 into a convertible ’73 Mustang (tip from Rock On!)? For today’s Thursday Twister, I’d like to ask you when has a swap gone too far.
I guess this fits into the category of “why” for engine swaps. I’d understand if you shoved a late model twin-turbo V8 from a Mercedes-Benz under the hood, but here it seems like the builder just had an extra Mopar engine sitting around in the garage and wanted to kill some of the resale value for his/her Mustang.
Where does the line of good taste for engine swaps sit in your garage?
If it had the original engine/trans, it might be worth what he wants. Now I wouldn't want it, but if forced I'd offer him about seven grand.
I find it interesting that he starts off with info that is to suggest the car is a good find because it came with a 4-barrel Cleveland engine… only to kill it with the 340 Mopar info…
I am so confused, is it Found On Road Dead or Mostly Old Parts ALL Rusty?
LOL
My rule of thumb is that I generally would prefer sticking with an engine that's "in the family" if there was an engine from the same brand that would have approximately the same "personality", horsepower, and budget. And that I generally tend to be less bothered if the car is fairly common and "expendable" compared with something rarer. I tend to be particularly bothered by Chevy engines in Mopars for some reason – probably because I'm a Mopar fan and this seems to have a "Mopar engines aren't good enough" mentality. Some examples of how this works out:
First gen small block Chevy in a '68 Dodge Charger? Blech.
LS1 in a '68 Dodge Charger? Slightly more understandable, but you'd be cooler with a Gen III Hemi.
BMW S50 in a '68 Dodge Charger? OK, getting that sort of power out of a Mopar slant six would have been a tall order. You've got something interesting.
Anything swapped into a Cavalier? I doubt you could find an engine out there that would make me upset on the J-body's behalf.
LS1 in an RX7? Makes sense; what Mazda V8 would you have gone with?
13B in anything that came with an LS1 from the factory? OK, that's trolling at the expert level. I salute you.
I love this response, especially the last paragraph! Haha
Plenty of Fords running around under SBC Mouse power cheaper to build for sure and a ton of parts. I love 340/LA motors so i like the swap yes think it does hurt the price a bit.