I have a 93 Del Sol Si manual

mechanically is in great shape. But exterior is crap.
Paint is all faded and cracked. Dent on the front fender, driver door (rust), hood bend, and driver quarter panel has a big dent (basketball size). Interior is gutted (I have gotten all the interior parts already).

I just picked up a 1993 Del Sol S automatic with blown engine but car is completely repainted and in excellent shape exterior. Interior also in decent shape.

i have dug thru the sticky. But I really don’t have idea which of the two option would be most efficient and cost effective

Option 1-
Swap the bumpers, both front fenders, both doors from the S to the Si.

Benefit- legally smog, less involved mechanically as all swap is just metal parts.

Con- car will still need repaint and quarter panel fix. But I only need to fix and paint the quarter panel and A pillar.

Option 2-
Swap the drive train, cluster, and rear disc.

Con- not sure if I can legally smog the S as Si. And I think swap powertrain is much harder given it’s automatic S and I need to swap everything from Si over.

opinion?

 

option 3 - ask other people

 

Without pics, i would probably swap stuff to the Si.

 

Where are you located?

Unless you are in California, I do not see smogging the car in the good body regardless of the motor you throw in it being a problem. The car is OBD1 so no OBD2 hookup to their machines, instead they have to use the old tail pipe sniffers and check for the catalytic converter being present under the car and exhaust condition. And they will do the dyno (rolling emissions) test with the tail pipe sniffer.

Move your good motor and ECU to the good body and go.

 

I do live in CA- land of smog ****.

Although being OBDi- the only thing CA check is like what you said, scan the door sticker, check the vin on the dash, run a dyno.

So basically my plan would be

1. Move the Si Vin to the S body- move the dash vin, heat gun for the sticker. Is there any other location where vin can be found?

2. Move the engine, transmission, ECU, rear disc to the S.

3. Move S vin to the Si body- then junk the Si body

 

Isn’t swapping vins illegal? (Grounds for crushing?)

 

option #4: Move out of Kalifornia