my '99 neon has a blown engine and a going tranny. about how much would it cost to get both replaced. i have an engine and tranny from a donor sohc. my friend and i also know a decent bit about replacing engines. only thing is ive only replaced v8's with a carb. would it be more diff to do it myself than to have somebody do it or should i just get it done at a shop? any and all sugg. are greatly appreciated. thanx

 

I don't see why you could not do it. Its really not that hard. Just make sure either get a book on the car or pay close attention to where things go. Mark vacum lines and such. How many miles are on the donor engine and tranny? It might be worth it to have the tranny serviced and the motor done while its all right in front of you. I know its gonna cost me $1000 to have both my MTX and engine done.

 

Is your car a SOHC as well? What year is the donor car?

You can just pull the entire engine/tranny combo with a cherry picker. Once all the wires, manifold, etc. are removed, it can be done in a couple of hours. Just tilt the engine side up about 30 degrees (or tranny side dow, depending on how you look at it), and it comes out pretty easy. Ditto going back in.

The DOHC and SOHC harnesses are different, but that's really not much of an issue. There were a few sensor changes from year to year, but as long as the donor car is a '97-up, you should have no problems at all. If it's a '95-96, there may be a few sensor connections to cut and splice, and you'll want to use the PCM (and wiring harness) from the donor car as well. Other than that, not much to it.

Best of luck!