The Civilier

[Chuck Most]

This is an MPC '82 Chevrolet Cavalier, powered by a Honda B16A2 and five-speed transaxle from a Revell '99 Civic SI. The wheels are Watanabe RS-8 from Aoshima, and the smoked glass unit came from the '83 Cavalier kit. Paint is Testors Blazing Black. This was basically just a "spare time after work" kind of project from last week. 

[shucky]

Quite the mash-up of parts! I love it!!

[slusher]

Chuck neat and cool model. You have a talent to m is and match parts and make some great models...

[michellej]

very cool idea and build 

[vintagercr]

Looks good!

[Fast Floyd 2]

Sweet!!! I saw this earlier on Face Book!1 nice build Chuck

[Daddyfink]

Well, that is one way to increase the value of a Cavalier! 

Nice job!! 

[Intmd8r]

Neat kitbash.

Don't recall the actual weight, but the J-bodies felt like a heavier car than the Civic & Integras that the B series was made for. A small group of J body enthusiast used to swap late gen Grand Am GT engines in place of the tired 2.8 V6. Some with fabrication skills used to swap in supercharged 3.8V6 from the Grand Prix GTP. The 4cyl engines were boat anchors, but would last forever.

 I had a '93 Cavalier Z24 with the rare V6+5 spd manual. Did the Grand Am GT swap. Tame by today's standards, but what a sleeper back in the late '90's.

Yet another reason why I like this forum & hobby-one is only limited by the imagination.

[Chuck Most]

 Thanks guys.

Neat kitbash.

Don't recall the actual weight, but the J-bodies felt like a heavier car than the Civic & Integras that the B series was made for. A small group of J body enthusiast used to swap late gen Grand Am GT engines in place of the tired 2.8 V6. Some with fabrication skills used to swap in supercharged 3.8V6 from the Grand Prix GTP. The 4cyl engines were boat anchors, but would last forever.

 I had a '93 Cavalier Z24 with the rare V6+5 spd manual. Did the Grand Am GT swap. Tame by today's standards, but what a sleeper back in the late '90's.

Yet another reason why I like this forum & hobby-one is only limited by the imagination.

Believe it or not, I actually did a little research after my brain farted out this idea.  I wanted to see if such a swap might have merit in 1:1. The '82 Cavalier is only about 100 pounds heavier than the '99 Civic Si donor, ditch some of the needless junk like sound deadening and the back seat and you might be able to get it close to the Civic's curb weight. Maybe less Obviously I didn't go that route on the model- I even added some weight- like the speaker boxes behind the (non-deleted) rear seat. Considering how easily tunable the B engine is, you could get it considerably making more than the original 160 it came with without even tearing into the internals. Given the original Cavalier engine made about 90, I'd be more worried about that flimsy GM unibody holding together under the strain of almost twice the power from a powertrain that enjoys a good redline slam-shift.  Even if you babied it you'd enjoy a lot more passing/merging power, and you'd have an engine that wouldn't sound like gravel being poured down a sewer grate, the way those old GM fours always did once they had a few seasons on 'em. 

My original idea was to use a Toyota 4A GE, because that would have tied into the GM/Toyota partnership (which led to an actual badge-engineered Toyota Cavalier in the J-car's second generation), but did not have one handy at the time I started the project. Maybe next time...

Edited November 30, 2016 by Chuck Most

[Erik Smith]

That actually looks really cool - well, let's leave it at cool. 

Great job Chuck. 

[jaymcminn]

Only change I'd make would be to add JDM fender mirrors and really mess with some people. Very cool!

[espo]

Nice clean build. I like the idea of the power train swap. The color and wheels look perfect together. We got my wife a new '90 Cavalier Z-24, 2.8 with a 5-speed, and enjoyed it for over 100k miles. It had an exhaust note somewhat like an old Jaguar and it was never at a loss for power.

[Chuck Most]

 Thanks, guys!

Only change I'd make would be to add JDM fender mirrors and really mess with some people. Very cool!

I was thinking of doing something more subtle and putting "Type R" graphics over the original "Type 10" badges in the rear windows, but didn't have anything suitable for the job.  I may still add a Honda badge where the bowtie used to be, as I sanded that off because it was a tad malformed. 

[MeatMan]

I like it too! I'm a bit of a swapaholic and this is right down my alley. Well built!

[JerseyRed]

That's a good looking little car. The name has a nice ring to it too.

[Erik Smith]

 Thanks, guys!

I was thinking of doing something more subtle and putting "Type R" graphics over the original "Type 10" badges in the rear windows, but didn't have anything suitable for the job.  I may still add a Honda badge where the bowtie used to be, as I sanded that off because it was a tad malformed. 

Add a Toyota badge - side profile is very similar to Corolla...

I have a whole sheet of Honda chrome decals, though, if interested in one or two.

[Erik Smith]

 Thanks, guys!

I was thinking of doing something more subtle and putting "Type R" graphics over the original "Type 10" badges in the rear windows, but didn't have anything suitable for the job.  I may still add a Honda badge where the bowtie used to be, as I sanded that off because it was a tad malformed. 

Add a Toyota badge - side profile is very similar to Corolla...

I have a whole sheet of Honda chrome decals, though, if interested in one or two.