Hello all! I created an account so I can be involved in the community finally! I have a 1997 mitsubishi mirage sedan 1.8, 5 speed. I have been building /tinkering with this car for a very long time and it is VERY special to me! Just a little backstory, My dad bought this car for 100 bucks because it had an engine fire and my little 12 year old behind barely could reach the pedals but nevertheless i would always throw the gears around and reach for the clutch and try to "learn". When I was 20 I moved the car to my house and redid the wiring harness as well as spiffing up the engine to make it a running project! I have since bought the car and am ambitious eager and ready to start building a motor to swap in! I've skimmed the forums for years looking for options and Frankenstein motors and turbo setups! I'm knee deep in options and eager to make a decision

Goals: make as much power as possible while staying reasonable on swap compatibility.
plan is to keep the car in my yard and pull it out every now and again for fun so it won't be a daily but it has to be somewhat reliable 🤣
I would like to really know what my best option is for bottom end? 4g94,4g93,maybe swap to a 63 or 64? How about top end? Is the dual overhead really worth it's crackers on the 93 and 94 bottom ends? I do plan on turboing it and putting as many forged components as I can and even possibly sleeving the block. I want to go standalone ecu and make ROUGHLY in the range of 250HP.

Please be gentle on me as I am only just a hobby enthusiast and am by no means an expert! This is my baby we are talking about so constructive advice helps!

 

Welcome to the board, I normally just come back through here for info every here and there and haven't posted in years, I'm mostly on IG. But anyway, I only do Mirage and Lancer swaps and from what I found to be the easiest and fun practical turn key swap, would be a 4g63 from an Evo 4. You can use the transmission but the xfer case and diff/viscous must be modified to run FWD, AWD is a whole different story. You can also use an Airtrek motor if you'd like and it'll still be fun. But when you want to make power, forged internals are the way to go. Wiring is truly easy, damn near plug and play. The main issue would be, since those motors are for a RHD, you will have to extend them. My first Evo 4 swap I didn't any HVAC in the car so I just used the hole the AC lines were in, and just reemed the hole a little for pulling the plugs through the firewall.

Airtrek swaps are super cheap, that might be the way to go, if you don't want to spend a bunch, but be mindful that that motor is a tad weaker if I remember correctly. Evo 4 motor is also not as strong as the 5 - 8 IMO from what I've dealt with personally.

 

you may want to visit the Mirage Forum. It’s mirageforum.net . There are many people there that have swapped engines and awd swapped them including rhd swapping for evo 1-6 conversions.

 

How is everything going?