ohh i see - a full body roller with a full swap powertrain and ditch the rest of the car.

 

You're not likely to find a roller that will be in the pristine condition your car was in before you wrecked. I say get the car partially apart, and go get a full no bull**** (well once we do this we may find more) estimate from the body shop you already went to, and another body shop. While fixing your car may be expensive, getting a roller can also very quickly and easily snowball into being very expensive.

 

i anticipate if i dont find a clean one and am unable to do the work myself, it's going to be a wash. i don't think the current car's frame is that bad

 

That's thing with getting a roller. Guys usually don't part out minty cars...

 

I 100% agree with letsgetthisdone. Also, swapping everything over to a roller is a crazy amount of work.

 

Ideally you would find someone who is selling because of a blown engine/drivetrain. So it would have all the necessary body panels already etc. A bare metal frame would be intense, but just swapping over the drivetrain and suspension etc wouldn't be too bad. With a roller your bound to have left over stuff that you can probably sell and help recoup some costs too like glass, motors, steering components brakes etc etc. or just keep around as hot spares for the track car.

Anybody have any idea/estimates on what the going rate for an Evo with a blown motor/drivetrain is? I would wanna say 10 tops, but evo prices are kinda weird now.

Hopefully the damage really isn't that bad and you can pick up all the panels/parts you need at a good price.

 

Right, but he works full time and goes to school on the weekends. I really don't think a roller in any form is the answer for him.

 

If yours is toast get a roller. Swap isn't that hard and any extra parts left can be sold. For example if say your headlights are good...
Mine was from a guy blew up his engine then builder burned him. Shell is better than mine was. Too bad it was 8 and needed wiring pulled or it would have been a piece of cake to do entire swap.
If it's just engine and drive parts you could be running in a weekend.

 

FWIW the exact breakdowns from the shop are

body work, including straightening out what they see as well as cutting and welding in a new rear qp - 2,052.20
paint labor - qp, and assumes hood, fenders, and bumper - 1,525.20
paint material - 836.40
"misc" - 25
= 4,438.80

so this does include straightening out the frame, but does not include "more" if there is more under the hood they find. he said it seemed unlikely given no buckling, but that it could be up to 2k.

the other side is the parts - parts, assuming oem dealership orders, was quoted at 6,388.01. sales tax on everything, 669.24.

i've sourced most of the parts for roughly 3.6k used and new knick-knacks, saving around 3k. the bumper will prob need a respray, but otherwise i can save painting labor and materials on hood and fender. so i'm estimating about 8k for the repair, plus an additional 2k for additional stuff if they find it - so up to 10k.

however, this doesn't include new headlights. i can't tell on the rear bumper, but i've got one for a decent deal that i will likely pick up also.

 

Plan ahead and take a week off work. Swapping an engine can easily be done in a week.

 

I'm not suggesting that he should drop the roller in his driveway and do the swap himself. At the end of the day it comes down to costs and desired end result. The labor to drop the entire front assembly to put the frame on a jig is basically going to be the same as to drop it into another chassis.

 

Not gonna lie, at 10k before the snowball, I would be in the market for a clean roller with no accidents. Sell off the extras and the end result will be a 0 accidents car you can feel confident about on the track. Not that a repaired frame isn't track worthy.

 

i think in an ideal world, i would do that. in reality, for me, this will have to do. may cost more, the money sucks, but also storing 2 cars, parting out, all that shiz, i just dont have the time for it at this point. the money sucks but in the end i just want it back to what it was. yea i spun it on a cold day, but the car was running REALLY well time-wise - like I was planning to compete in GL Street and do decently, level. Would be nice to get back there.

 

Not to be an *** to Sam, but I think a drivetrain swap is way over his head to get done in a weeks time. He's not exactly a mechanic. He usually manages to get things done, but always has lots of questions and hang ups. It's probably not the best thing for him to attempt in a time crunch.

 

The damage to this Evo isn't even that bad. I had a shell that took a hit that crunched up an engine rail and the fender support. I took clear pictures of the damage and sent them to my body shop. The preliminary estimate was 5k from a body shop in San Jose.

Specifically, the estimate was to repair the engine rail and fender support and put in a new radiator support. Not to replace any panels.

The quote is high for your area. I would get a second opinion. Try to source an used radiator support. Pop the hood and let's see what other parts you could get used to bring down the cost.