What the fuck is wrong with me?

I took a day off work this week to drive down to Bloomington in a borrowed Chevy 3500 van loaded with garage door repair supplies and tools. I'm thinking the thing got 12 mpg.

It was also about a bazillion degrees outside. I drank about a gallon of Gatorade and was still dehydrated.

I went there to pick up this car. It was free. I was also offered a shitload of extra parts and stuff that I couldn't take because the van was full of the aforementioned garage door parts.

It's a 1988 Mazda 323 GTX. Turbo 1.6L B6 4-cylinder engine making 130-some horsepower. Yeah, the Miata got a version of the B6 that made 120 hp without a turbo. That may be what I put in it if I ever get it running. Oh yeah, and this engine is blowed up. 

This thing also has 4-wheel drive with a lockable center differential. The transaxle is not in the car. It's not even currently in my possession. I've been told it's "rebuildable." So who knows.

The owner was getting rid of it for the magical price of zero dollars for all these reasons, combined with the fact that the city told him to GTFO OR BAN. Well, get rid of the car or pay $100+ every day it's not gone. So now I wait for my parents to get the same ultimatum, as it sits in their driveway with a hacked up wiring harness, Vice-Grip pliers for a steering wheel, an engine hanging on by one motor mount, and... whatever. I have no idea.

And as it turns out, it's a BF chassis, not a BG. So who knows if anything will actually bolt up to it. I had planned to swap the drivetrain bits to make an AWD Escort, but now compatibility is suspect. Hopefully I can still use the rear hubs for my eventual mid-engine Escort.

This is a project for later. Picking this up made me realize I already have more projects than I can handle. It was a healthy reality check. I've gotta focus on LeMons.