Quote Originally Posted by opethmike View Post
So, as someone who actually owns an engine swapped car, and likely has owned his car longer than a good portion of the folks commenting, a few realities of look at engine swap cars:

1. Saying that engine swap cars sell for less (or would) is baseless. It's unknown. There simply haven't been enough swapped cars sold to have any sort of idea what it actually does to value. The Supra powered D put together by Eddie G. sold for VERY handsome money, but it's a single data point, so I can't say it raises value either. I tend to feel that engine swaps probably do lower value overall because people that want an original DMC aren't going to look at the car when considering a purchase, and people that like engine swaps are probably going to want to do their own. But again, there is insufficient data out there.

2. I personally strongly prefer swapped cars, as the PRV is an absolute slug of a motor. I'm sure I'm going to upset a number of people by saying that, but; sorry, truth hurts sometimes. Depending on how you feel about speed/power, this may or may not matter. I am a horsepower junkie, so it matters to me. Power aside, the PRV is reasonably easy to work on, there's a huge knowledge base out there for the motor, and of course you have vendor support for it. If you don't do your own wrenching, this is very important, and leads me to point 3:

3. Don't buy an engine swapped car if you don't have the skill to engine swap a car. Engine swaps, especially into a not great for swaps platform like the DMC, are highly customized by their nature, and when (not if) things go wrong, you're likely going to be on your own for figuring them out.

4. Especially don't buy an engine swapped car with the plans to return it to stock. The 2.85 PRV found in the DMC is absolutely stupidly overpriced, and the expenses for undoing the swap won't stop there. A swap touches pretty much every system in the car, so you're going to have buy a whole lot of parts and then figure out how they were originally put together. But if you really do want to return it 'close to stock', the 3.0 PRV can be had for a few hundred dollars, and while not a drop-in, is definitely easy to do by engine swap standards. Another benefit (again, as an 'if it matters to you') is that the 3.0 doesn't typically ruffle purist feathers as it is still in the PRV engine family. From a technical standpoint, it also has a few minor but still nice benefits over the 2.85 such as EFI, the smoothness from being even-fire, and less likely to explode from a turbocharger so much as merely looking at it.

5. Michael is a very handsome DMC owner, eclipsed only by how phenomenally well taken care of his mostly stock car is, and can give great advice on how to use turtles to clean the interior of your car.

Great post....solid hit on all 5 points.

I'd like to see the engine bay as well, and for 20K I'd like to consider buying it if it's sexy enough and the OP passes on the deal.