what would you do?

[bazooka joe]

so i've got an sunlight silver 02 p5 with 156k miles, engine is good, autotragic, boosted with a mam sleeper kit (gt28rs disco potato) @ 6psi. EMS is a simple begi rrfpr and the o2 voltage clamp. the car itself is in decent shape, not even a door ding...but alas, the rust is taking it's toll. the fenders are good but the strut tower on the passengers side is just rotting away and the seam at the bottom of both front doors is rotting as well.
here's the reason for the question: a friend is giving me his 02 sunlight sliver 5 SPEED p5 for free. he's got 160k on it and it's been his DD since new. some bubbling starting on the rear wheel well, but other than that he indicates it's rust free. i haven't looked at it in a while.
i was thinking of this as a donor car until this past weekend when several mazda peeps asked me why not swap the turbo kit and my interior to the donor 5 speed? the owner is a smoker so the inside is pretty stinky. i continue to use the p5 as my winter car (have the msm for the summer), nov-march and would like to keep it as long as possible.
your thoughts?

 

[o0n8]

Send me the lip for starters. It sounds like you want the 5-speed for the winter beater so switching the interior would be a good move. As far as switching the turbo setup over I think that would depend on any hp or mpg levels you'd want.

 

[bazooka joe]

ya, i'm getting 26+ on the auto now so if it's the same or better that would be fine...more hp is always nice...it would be a ton of work though, the car being so old

 

[Tusch]

I say throw the turbo setup and interior over. You always throw in a newer/younger 2.0 once the miles really get up there.

 

[tweety2300]

If its only for winter manuals do way better in snow. Plus just having the manual trans will be a power increase over auto