Hey everyone, I don't know if this is the best place to ask this or not so if not please forgive me.

To make this as short as possible. Im building a short track race car and we have to run 2.2 single cam cars. I have a 2000 2.2 5 SPD car that was going to be my build car. However like most of the cars these days it is eaten up with rust along the "frame" railing in front of the rear tires. Now I also have a 2004 2.2 ecotech automatic car that has very little rust, and also looking at a 2004 LS 2.4l automatic car for parts that isn't as badly rusted either.

My question is has anyone swapped a 2.2l 5spd drive train,harness,ecm and all the other stuff into one of these ecotech automatic chassis? I'm a believer in a car that is left "as designed is better then a "Frankenstein" car. But I was wondering how much of a process is it, is it worth doing just for less rust or should I just plate in the rusted spots weld the cage in and go since it is just a racecar that's going to take some abuse.