What is the average cost of a drive train for an evo 8/9? I'm looking for shells and was wondering how much it would cost to buy a drive train and install one. Thanks.

 

Figure $1k for stock tcase. $650 for stock rear diff. $1500 for a stock trans. Motor will vary a lot more. Buying a shell is not a good way to put together a "cheap" Evo.

 

I'm trying to build an evo for the experiences and stuff. But yea I'm kinda new to the whole rebuilding scene but I do have the resources to put an Evo together. Just gotta find the right parts and stuff. Thanks for the insight!

 

If you want to build a car, I HIGHLY recommend just finding a high mileage one in decent shape for around $14-$15k. Buying a complete car will save you A LOT of headaches.

 

Finding a high mileage as in a shell right? Cause at that point I'll be putting all the parts in that makes the car run.

 

To be honest, I dont think its a good idea to buy a shell and try to piece everything together. How much time do you have? whats your budget? Even if you get the cheapest OEM parts of craigslist and cobble them together properly, then you may have a working evo. But for how long? probably not long. I bought mine from a joe shmoe dealer that had multiple high $$$ cars and all they had to do was put and engine in. I have taken just about everything but the engine out and I may have to take that engine out in the next couple weeks.

You also have to consider the time investment you have, because I dont know about you but even in high school it made more sense economically for me to work and save money versus spend all my money fixing a car as budget as possible.

unless you want to pony up and buy a pristine evo (which costs more $$$) then youre probably going to have to get to know the car well anyway seeing as most evos are 10 years old and a lot of people did not care for them properly. and maintenance.

I get what youre saying that you want the experience, but from my experience working on a car that you know you have everything for and you know that everything fits is a lot easier than having to find obscure parts, and chances are a shell may not have stock parts on it making it more of a headache.

Driveshafts can cost up to $600 new but you can find them used for $100-200 each depending on quality

 

This^^^

 

No, a complete running car.

 

The drivetrain is the simple part. You have to think of all the small stuff. Brackets(shifter cable's? radiator holddown brackets, short or long bolts for the accesories, etc...), hardware, little stuff. That's the things that will eat you alive both time and $ wise.

 

Evo IX propeller shaft shipped to my door a year ago this month = $1609.00

 

Yea, makes sense but I do have time, I plan on investing more than 2 years on the build as I have resources as a whole shop to work on the car. I also have a budget of around 15k. I want to consider the car more as a long term project. I get what you're saying on saving money versus spending all of my money to fix a car as budget as possible. But I was highly considering it because of my available resources in which the shop is owned by my friend and he is willing to help me with the build.

 

So you're 100% sure that your friend who owns a shop will let you use ALL of his/her available resources and storage for 2 years? For 15k it would make loads more sense to buy a car and then take it apart. Also, a shop can have a ****ton of resources or nothing at all. If you have a budget of 15k, you could fix up an evo with problems. I bet with just 3 months of overtime you could buy a fine evo. and $15k isnt going to get you very far even if you try buying performance parts instead of OEM refurbished.

You want to spend 2 YEARS building a stock or close to stock evo? Have you ever restored a car before? What confuses me is that if you have a whole shop as you say to work on the car but only $15k budget. It sounds like youre trying to resell the thing for profit more than actually build a car.

^^ Also how do you plan on going about this? Buy another shell another parts car? In order to do this with a $15k budget you're more than likely going to have to buy and resell parts to get to where you need to be.

Economically, I dont see the reasoning here, as building a stock evo over 2 years is a lot of work for minimal payoff in my opinion. Sorry for derail.

 

There is NO WAY you're going to buy a shell and build an Evo for $15k.

 

You could try and buy a roller and a totaled evo and combine them together into one. Thats probably the only way this would be possible with your budget, and maybe not even then. Super bonus points would be to buy a roller and then a totaled evo from another country and import all the parts to get the good stuff we didn't. I'm not too sure how that's all done though, I think they cut the cars in half and you would buy the front clip..someone more knowledgeable could probably chime in.


P.S. EVERYTHING goes over budget, especially when it comes to cars. So I hope that 15k was more of a flexible target then a hard line in the sand.

 

Hardware is one of the biggest challenges in buying a shell and trying to piece together all the other parts. WIthout all the OEM hardware, its not likely youll find the right bolt lengths and pitch (mitsu is fine on everything, coarse is more commonly available locally) to get everything together properly. You can scour a pick-n-pull for bolts but you're still guessing at what bolt goes where.

I would absolutely start with a high mileage or salvage car rather than a shell I was planning on putting an original motor into.