I believe I am about to embark on a historic journey. I am attempting to convert my 91 fwd n/t automatic to awd. It is already been converted to 5speed turbo. No, I'm not going to sell it to just buy an AWD, and no I'm not doing it to be unique. I'm doing it because Ive had my talon for 6yrs, basically as long as I could drive, and I'm attached to it. Also, Ive have yet to see a 1Ga as rust free as mine. I plan on having this car a long time.

That being said I am about ready to start this. I have aquired a donor car, a 93tsi with a good running 6bolt as well as a 16g and 2.5" ss cat back. As everyone knows it has the big brakes, 4bolt rear and LSD. The body is fairly rusty underneath and i HATE the look of 1Gb, so I have no qualms cutting it up for the cause. Overall I think it was a hell of a buy. I intend on installing my FWD stuff on it and selling it when I'm done to recoup some of the costs. This weekend I am intending on getting the rear AWD suspension mounted in my car. Hopefully I will have some pictures up Monday night.

I have spent considerble time studying this and is dosn't seem as bad as everybody thinks. Two of the four mounting points are already there and the other two can probably be transferred from the other car. The worst /most invasive to my car will be removing the spare tire well, and mounting the gastank.

So has anyone seen it done, or will I be the first?

Lastly, I already know that I would be better off just buying an awd, but I like my car, I built it from nothing. So anyone who says anything discouraging will get pimp slapped through the computer.

Well good luck on the project. I plan on doing this somewhere in the future. I really love my car, but its just FWD. Ill be tuning in on this thread. Let us know how easy/hard it is. and how much you spend.

keep us updated.

It has been done a few times before & believe RRE has done it atleast once before. The 1g fwd to awd swap is defently more involved then the 2g swap (which is mostly bolt in) & requires a good amount of fab work from everyone I've talked to. The general consis seems to be its not worth all the effort/time & to just buy an awd. But if you love your car & don't mind putting the time in, I say go for it!

I got the rear suspension out of the awd tonight. I ran into the first potential roadblock tonight, the rear shocktowers are about two inches farther rearward on the AWDs. i don't think this will be a huge ordeal, but we'll see how it goes. it looks like I will be either relocting the shock towers or relocating the shock mount points either way we'll se how it goes when i go to mount it up. All else fails, I will use a 9in ford in the rear.

Where's the pictures?

Trust me the shock location is the least of your worries.

Front suspension fwd (note central engine brace)


Front suspension awd (note t-case location)


Rear suspension fwd (note single solid rear axle layout with onle two forward mounting points for suspension and completely different floor pan in trunk due to relocated fuel tank)


Rear suspension awd (note how it looks like a completely different model of car)



Best of luck as this will be anything but easy or straight forward.

True it will take some fabrication, but its not like its completely foregin parts. If the lilevo guy got it done on a mirage, it's certaily possible on a 1gFWD. granted this isn't somthing that can be preformed by your average tooner, but someone with some actual fabrication skills should be able to get it done.

The good news is two of the four rear mounting points are allready there.

Yup, RRE was the first to accomplish this, and they said one was enough.

You got your hands full, dude. Good luck with it and document everything thoroughly!

You have to drill the spot welds out of an AWD car and then take the front core out of an awd.

I can only see this being valid if you had acquired an wrecked awd shell and had a fwd car as well.

I would like to do this on a Dodge Colt/Mirage. That would be beastly. I think with the time and fabrication that you are going to go through, no matter how rusty that AWD shell really was, you couldve made it look brand new again.

Progress has been made, I'm almost ready to get the rear suspension mounted. more pictures tomorow. heres what i got for now Kurt Dr.x Stuart's Photos - my car! | Facebook

Wow, cant believe your really going to do it. I wish you luck, but still dont see why you just didnt fix the body up on the AWD car. Then you couldve had 2 DSM's.

good luck.

I love the dedication to fabrication, but youve got a good headache ahead of you.

Good luck! Make sure to keep it updated.

the awd is junk.. look at the suspensions. look how cruddy the awd is and clean the fwd is.

anyway its really not that bad to do. harder than a 2g, but its very doable. there will actually be very little fabrication. most parts will be transfered over from the awd.

Thats awesome to here. I do hope everything goes well for you.

Any new pix?

hopefully i'll have somemore pics tomorow. Looks like cutting the rear suspension mounts from an AWD and transfering them is not feasable. I will be fabricating some mounts. hopefully be mid next week i'll be tackleing the front end!

If i was to do anything like this i would make a rear engine rear drive one.

well the rear suspension is in. it dosn't look like i'll need to relocate the shock towers. more pictures at
Kurt Dr.x Stuart's Photos - my car! | Facebook

bastarddsm said:

well the rear suspension is in. it dosn't look like i'll need to relocate the shock towers. more pictures at
Kurt Dr.x Stuart's Photos - my car! | Facebook

Click to expand...

You may want to look into re-inforcing some of those mounts. A few of those look a little small for the kinds of loads they'll be seeing. Good work though.

oh that by nomeans finished. I just got the bare minimum done to get the car on the ground. now its going to the alignment shop to make sure it will align. this way if it dosn't its alot easier to cut stuff loose and fix it.

I've always hated fwd cars. Totally!!! To me, a fwd dsm wasn't even worth dealing with. Figured the traction would suck and getting them to go fast would be harder than on an awd. I bought my current fwd with the same idea of turning it into an awd.

But then I bought it and realized just how wrong I was. I saw how much of a headache it would be to do all that. I saw a lot of pluses and minuses of each.

Pluses for fwd. Could tow the car with a tow dolly. Wouldn't have to worry about swapping in a 4 bolt rearend if you don't already have one. Much easier to do clutch swaps. Much MUCH easier to drop the oil pan. If you have aluminum rods, it'd make it much easier to check on them when having to drop the pan. The car is much lighter. Less parts to have to deal with. Less worry about crankwalk because you don't have to get a really heavy clutch. Throw on slicks and it's just like having awd again anyway. No worries of breaking the driveshaft, replacing u-joints, or carrier bearings.

Minuses for fwd. Traction will suck on the street compared to an awd. Torque steer unless you get equal length shafts.

Well, I think that pretty much sums it up. It took me nothing to get my car going fast with the fwd. I'd love to have an awd for launching on the street but really try not to street race anymore anyway. Good luck with it though if you decide to complete the project.

I got the fuel tank back in, so i drove it today. still fwd, but it seems to handle the same and it dosn't dog-track so i'd guess it is ligned up pretty well.

Got the car back from the allignment shop. It is within spec on all measurements (Camber, toe, wheelbase, trackwidth) on the first try. Hopefully the eengine will be out tonight to get freshend up as well as to install the xmembems. I'm shooting to have it back on the road at the end of the month.

Well my car has a trunk floor again, the gas tank is mounted, and the driveshaft is as well. the front suspension is also mounted. Expect pics soon. I'm shooting to have it running thursday!