97-99 Eclipse GS engine and drivetrain swap (LS)?

[randizzle420]

I've owned an Eagle Talon TSi awd manual and Eclipse GSX manual before. I been interested in getting another GSX but the lack of drivetrain parts is concerning for me.

I know people have done LS swaps before on the car not sure if anyone has done an LS swap with AWD but I rather have a LS swapped drivetrain that way I wouldn't have to worry about finding parts for it if something broke down. I know it'd be a huge project but it's something I'd like to have done in the future.

Honestly I couldn't legally do it if I had the money since I live in California and pretty sure you can't even do a GS-T to an AWD swap because smog will instantly fail it because the VIN will say FWD and you're trying to smog a car that's AWD and they'd want to put it on a FWD dyno not an AWD dyno.

 

[Ludachris]

So what is the question exactly? I've only seen one V8-swapped DSM, maybe two (I can't remember). They're both RWD. It's a major fabrication project that should only be taken on if you're really good at fabricating and building pieces from scratch, like firewalls, motor mounts, drivetrain tunnels, tubular frame pieces, etc. If that's what you do for a living, or are REALLY good at it as a hobby, then go for it. Or maybe you have tens of thousands to pay a shop to do it, I don't know. It's nowhere near as straight forward as most of the LS swaps you see on the road.

And the emissions shops would still try to test the car as a FWD, which it would almost certainly have to be a RWD build - would probably have to go to the state ref for testing every time. It'd probably be better to pick an easier chassis for that swap than the DSM. But people do hard things all the time in the car scene. Do what you want. Just know that you'll have to do a lot of trial and error, and very few in the DSM community will have the expertise to help you out since it's not a common swap.