Since my attempts to register my evo as a kit car have failed , I'm now considering merging bits from the lancer over to a mirage, or the other way around. Right now I sort of have the impression that the VIN and title stick with the vehicle body. But then, how much of the original mirage body do I need to keep, in order for it to still legally be a mirage with the mirage title and VIN? Seems to me body shops are routinely swapping stuff around.

It'd be great if all I had to do was keep something like the firewall. I could convert mine to left hand drive, and get a VIN # and title all in the same step. Does anyone here know how much you need to keep? I suppose I should probably call a few body shops, but they're going to be pretty confused.

Whatever I do, I want to make sure it's legal, so my liability insurance is valid.

-Robert

 

MMM....do you have the Mirage now?

Let me go see my car, and I will let you know.

 

i dont have a mirage now. i'm pretty sure swapping firewalls wouldn't be difficult for a body shop to do. my question is more aimed at what's legal. how much of the original car body do I need to keep to still have the mirage title and VIN be valid?

-Robert

 

First off, I'm no expert is this, but my guess is as long as you have all the VIN tag on your car and your chassis is not modified, that should be legal. (You might want to check with an RI on this)

I just look, funny thing is there is on the driver side B-pillar, two on each side of the edge of the front fender (very strange place to put.) and the engine code metal plate is in the middle of the firwall.

However, just I mentioned in another thread, the Mirage body is not the same as the EVO. You have to cut out the trunk spare tire well from your EVO to swap in the Mirage (don't worry, this won't touch the chassis) in order to make room for the rear transfer case.

My advice is call TAD Motorsports and talk to Mike. They have done the Mirage to EVO conversion and they have a rally team of EVO's. You have the EVO, it's much easier for you than for me (I only have the Mirage and no $$$ ) to do this.

Anyhow, good luck!

 

BTW, TAD is a Registered Importer (RI). This is a post from another board. TAD is located in Lake Zurich, Illinois (spelling?)

I really want to see you can put this out!!!

 

Just talked to a guy I know who runs a body shop. Bad news for me I'm afraid. I guess I was a bit naive thinking it'd be this simple. In so many words he basically said, "yeah, anytime I ever do something like that, someone always tries to put me in jail." So swapping firewalls doesn't look to be the simple answer.

I'm not wild about hacking up the car and using a mirage body. A remotely acceptable mirage would probably be minimum $5k, probably more. Making all the rear susp and driveline stuff fit doesn't sound like fun. Perhaps if I was starting with a crashed EVO, instead of a nice relatively new one, chopping it up would make more sense.

Ahhhhhh!!!!! Why aren't these cars legal here, yet you can drive some ridiculous POS pile of Ford Excursion!?!?!? :soapbox:

Perhaps I should be talking to evolutionimports, or plesk, or TAD.

My car might be up for sale soon if anyone's interested.

-Robert

 

Sorry to hear about all that, but it never hurts to do more research (evoluationimports, TAD).

Agreed on the POS Ford Excursion comment. And also I mean if the smoke-releasing, oil-buring, gas-gulping old pick-up trucks with no standard safety feature are legal everywhere in US, why don't we have the EVO??? Just mind-boggling...

:soapbox:

 

Robert, don't give up. There's always some loophole in the system... just have to find it.

Mark

 

i no, how can geo metros run around on the street when the Evo or Lotus Elise can't?!:soapbox:

 

the mirage chasis wouldn't be able to handle the evo components...the evo is a much heavier car with many more components to it.
better luck getting your evo legalized by an importer

 

there are lotus elise's driving around in U.S.A however, they have a B18 Integra Type R engine in it.

 

If the US market really open its doors for the Evo/WRX/R34-vspec [just to name a few] to run freely here, what's gonna happen to the Mustang or Camero or even Firebird owner ?

We may have to wait for them in 2nd gear, and we will get bored real quick.

Or we may have to start chasing the bigger guys, like the 911 turbo or Vipers.