Here's a car that's distinctive, practical, and old enough to be easy to rebuild, upgrade and maintain. Unlike the wretched modern cars with their sideways engines and trannies and everything else all crammed into a space in which you can hardly put your hand, much less spin a wrench, THIS is a REAL car, made of metal, not plastic, and the engine is set fore-and-aft as the gods intended. This is a car for old guys like me who are skeptical about trusting computerized EFI and other such systems, but who have the hot-rodding skills to upgrade the (carbureted) induction and exhaust systems, tighten down the squish and compression, and tune the upgraded machine for good efficiency.
I think this would be an impossibly cool daily driver and parts-getter for some gearhead here. I have too many projects, and an '87 Dodge Colt Vista 5-speed, 2/4WD micro-wagon that I've upgraded to serve the purpose, and is an obscure enough vehicle to satisfy my contrarian tastes, otherwise I'd love to do the Pacer.
AMC built very tough engines with plenty of cast iron, and not the super thinwall castings that led so many of the engines built by the Big Three to crack cylinder heads. The downside is that the 258 inline six in this Pacer is rather heavy, and eventually is hard on the rack and pinion steering. The easy way to take some weight off the front end is to move the battery to the back of the car as drag racers do. And when you upgrade the engine with an aluminum intake (and a better carburetor) and steel tube headers, you'll take off some more weight. AMC guys say that the 4.0L head is the thing to put on a 258 smogger to make it more efficient.
Much more weight could be removed and more fuel efficiency could be gained, for more expense, by replacing the AMC 258 with a Ford "small-six" 200 or 250 bottom end and the aluminum cylinder head developed by a member of the wonderful
Ford Six Performance Home/Index website.
This Pacer has an automatic transmission; I don't know what it is but am guessing some version of the 904 Torqueflite. Chrysler built some nice overdrive automatics to replace the small and large Torqueflites, with lock-up converters. Or for a lot more work you could go manual with a version of the A833 4-speed that has an overdrive top gear. That's with the original AMC engine; if you used a Ford small six or something else, it might be easier to go with one of their trannnies.
The car has sat in the open for years. I took a fast look under it, and didn't see any remarkable amount of rust (which makes restoring a unibody car much harder). The body is straight but for some non-rusted whacking of the passenger door, which a bodyman can handle without getting another door. The chrome on both bumpers is amazingly good. The windshield has cracks, and I can't locate new glass, so you probably need to find a good used one. The right side vent window is missing, but can be had new. The headliner is shot, as are the front seats, but the dash looked okay.
And it's free. Property owner wants it gone. There's no title, but it has been abandoned for so long that getting a new one should not be difficult, and there's a receipt from DOL for tabs for a previous owner which might help.
This Pacer needs your love. Phone "Mike" (he sounds like he's Indian or Pakistani) at 206-369-4049, tell him you were referred by Smitty.
--Smitty