v8 Miata Forum - Home of the v8 Miata Conversion - OBD1 NB as a donor? Read on...

So I've been thinking...

With all the red tape involved in swapping anything in a post 1996 (OBD2) donor, and the fact that all OBD1 Miatas in the east are pretty close to dust at this point, I've been thinking about different ways of getting clean, rust free donors that I can use here in PA. One idea is to fly out to the south west to buy a 1990-95 donor. I thought about this and most likely my next donor will come from that. However, this morning, I had an epiphany and maybe came up with another possibility...

I knew a guy in our local Miata club a few years back who had a old-style VW beetle from the 1990's. He had it imported from Mexico where they still made them up until the "new beetle" came out. In order to have it registered, the company that imported it would take the trans tunnel from a dead 70's era Beetle, cut out the new one and weld the old one in the new car. In this way, the car was now a "restored" 1970-something Beetle. I also read about another company making up "new" 1957 Chevy bodies. The way they get away with it is to use the cowl from an actual '57 Chevy and attach the new sheet metal to it making it legally an actual 1957 Chevy.

This got me thinking; there are plenty of rusted-out basket-case 1990-95 Miatas going for as low as $500. Since one has to cut and widen the tunnel in LSx conversion anyhow, how much harder would it be to simply cut out the whole firewall and weld in one from a dead, clean titled, NA? Could one say that they "restored" the original 1990-95 Miata using sheet metal from an NB and still keep it titled as a 1990-95? If one could, almost anything could be dropped in a NB and be, sort of, 100% legal!

How much of a titled car has to remain to keep the title?

Hmmmm...

Any thoughts?

-Jason