swap or crap

i have a 92 mitsubishi eclipse gsx that the motor went on i found a place that sells motors for 1,500. i figure around 800 for installation. i picked the car up 4 free from a friend so i figure for around 2,500 i could have a nice car with around 30,000 miles on the motor. the only thing that concerns me is that the trans will still have around 140,000 miles on it. i plan to replace the clutch and flywheel at the time of the swap if i did all that the car would have costed me around 3200-3500. should i swap it or look for another eclipse with lower mileage?

My impulse is to tell you to go and buy a new car, but if that's out of the question, an engine swap isn't that difficult, especially when it's the same engine.

Save yourself the 800 bucks and install it yourself. If it's exactly the same engine, it'll be incredibly simple. Just jack up the car, drop the old engine out of the bottom (don't actually drop it, of course) and raise the new one in its place. Connect everything that needs to be connected. Bingo!

If you don't have access to the appropriate hardware necessary, or can't rent the appropriate equipment, having a shop do it should work out ok.

Have a leakdown and compression test performed on the engine before you take delivery. If you're planning on modding it heavily, build it while it's still out of the car.

Swapping an engine for the same engine is practically child's play.

I'm not really sure if this post is going to help at all, because I lost my train of thought about half way through it.

if you like the car then swap the motors, the transmission should last you till you can get some more money saved to replace/rebuild when it goes out. i've seen cars with 200,000 on all original engine and tranny so you should be alright. so it is up to you if you want a change or not.