5mge mx73 daily drifter?

[Barrington]

Basically, I have an na toyota aristo as my daily, which im considering selling and downgrading, that way I have left over cash to get my jzx73 track car project moving alot faster. I also want to downgrade and buy a cheaper car coz I dont want to be thrashing an expensive/real nice car.

Im aiming to get about 9g for the aristo and im confident that i will get around that price, then im deciding between an s13 na sr silvia or an mx73. I really only wanna spend around 5g on another car, depending on what I get for the aristo. I really want to stick with toyota but the s13 really is so much more practical for what I want. Parts are cheap, already comes factory with a good engine and manual gbox and I could most likely snap up a modded s13 for 5g. But if I went with the mx73, to make it beable to drive the way I want it to, it would need a manual conversion, wheels and suspension. I would not beable to afford a jz conversion, plus I cant drive turbo at the moment. This would mean the cressida would be either a 5m or 6m manual. i reckon I could do all this for around 5g aswell.

My question is, will the mx73 still have enough power with the 5m or 6m manual with good suspension to still have some good fun in it? i just want to get other peoples opinions.

[mattysshop]

you would probly be best of starting with a 7MGE in the 73..... with a new head gasket ofcourse

with a manual, you should be able to have a decent amount of fun... the guys in japan seem to drift 2J-GE manual GX71 and MX73's pretty well... and were only talking about 15hp, and 25-35nm difference stock for stock....

[Barrington]

so your saying that the 7m's notorious blown head gasket problem is fixed completely with a new head gasket and different torque settings? My idea was, going 6m (7m block+ 5m head) because to me this seemed as close as possible to a 7m without having head gasket issues. The 6m seems to be a midpoint between the 5mge and upgrading to a 7mge

[thechuckster]

buy MX73 with BHG, buy 1J front cut or engine package without box, W58 & pedal box to suit chassis, buy gravel-rashed rims for drift, R32/Z32 calipers for front brakes as per the MA61 brake upgrade threads on here, buy/make welded diff for competition and get used to swapping it in/out ... should still have change out of $9k if you do it yourself.

If you want a workshop to do any conversion work, $9k wont be enough.

Example of doing a very fast cressida on the cheap if you have the skills: Cressida - 13s for $1300 project - PerformanceForums