Tuner Cars

Off Topic
41

I am still for the imports if you like cornering quickly. Some domestic cars are decent once the suspension is upgraded, but that will just match the handling ability of a stock import, most of the time. Additionally, you stated that you don’t have the money for many upgrades either.

Domestics are attractively inexpensive, easy to get massive power out of, but it is difficult to get around a corner quickly with a large engine in the front with rear wheel drive.

My vote goes for an early model WRX, with a turboback exhaust and a protune (under $1,500) you can get to 60 in under 5 seconds with plenty of confidence around the corners.

42

I always liked the Twin Turbo Supra (up to '98) but even the older 3.0 Supra Turbos were pretty bullet proof.

The TT 300ZX was fast as shit, too.

My father has sold cars for over 20 years and I was fortunate enough to ‘play’ with these cars in my teens.

The 90s were truly dominated by the Japanese: RX-7, 300ZX, Supra, even the 3000GT VR4 (though I believe it had a Diamante engine…not very reliable). And who could forget the Acura NSX? Clutch is super expensive to replace, though.

43

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I always liked the Twin Turbo Supra (up to '98) but even the older 3.0 Supra Turbos were pretty bullet proof.

The TT 300ZX was fast as shit, too.

My father has sold cars for over 20 years and I was fortunate enough to ‘play’ with these cars in my teens.

The 90s were truly dominated by the Japanese: RX-7, 300ZX, Supra, even the 3000GT VR4 (though I believe it had a Diamante engine…not very reliable). And who could forget the Acura NSX? Clutch is super expensive to replace, though.[/quote]

Yeah those cars still go for 10 grand though. Does artem want to put that kind of money into a car?

Artem how much money do you have to spend on one because that is going to narrow down your options right there.

The fastest car I’ve ever DRIVEN was a wrx turbo with mods. Great car. The fastest car I’ve ever RIDDEN in was a 200sx with a 5.0 supercharged cobra motor swap. Scary fast.

44

Nice. I’ve always wanted to drive a WRX STI.

One of the cars I learned stick shift in was a '96 911 Turbo. I remember hitting 85 mph in 2nd gear, and when the car was idling in the driveway the wooden railings inside the house would barely rattle. Nuts.

Best handling in everyday driving? 1999 BMW M3

Craziest torque and most fun to drive all around? 2003 BMW 540i Sport, stick shift.

The TT 300ZX was a fun car, too. Super light…

45

Artem needs to pay for herpes testing first.

But then again, he might need the car to get the hell away from the girl that gave him herpes.

Tough call at this point.

46

[quote]elano wrote:
haha, I didnt even think those things had back seats… my friend had one of the ones that the back wheels moved, you know what I’m talking about? He could u-turn on 2 lane roads and stuff.[/quote]

Yeah AWS, all wheel steering. Neat concept, rear wheels counter steered. I’m pretty sure some of the 4th gens had them for a while. Not the most practical or cost effective thing though.

47

I will cast my vote for the Euro crowd…

Go with a VW Jetta or Gti, 1.8T motor.

An ECU reflash and turbo back exhaust and you will have a car thats fun to drive without it being so ridiculous its unreliable. Thats my current setup, 30+ mpg.

The interiors are well thought out by those crafty germans, and all the materials are high quality. Seats are comfortable, and you can get em heated too.

Some might bitch about maintenance, but if you do it yourself, the parts cost just about as much as any other car, its the stealership that bumps up the price.

I would say you need to forget about a 240 or a domestic, you live in Ill and unless you can afford 2 cars, RWD in the snow is no bueno.

Just save your money, take your time. Don’t jump on a shitty car because you want something different right away. We can all offer advice, but truth be told you should make a list and test drive a few cars to see what you prefer.

SS

48

[quote]masonator wrote:
Say what you will, but I’d really recommend a Scion TC. Cheap, gas efficient, and easy to mod. If you want more power, you can get a dealer-installed supercharger (covered under warranty). I have a supercharged TC and LOVE it. Quick and handles very well.[/quote]

I have a TC! Woot!

It’s not s/c yet…but if; after the winter, i decide to keep it…that’s what I’m gonna do. I have a friend who is a mechanic for toyota…so he can get it @ a discount for me and install it for a few brews…

What else is done to your TC?

I just modded mine out with some winter tires…oh yea!

49

But yeah…don’t buy something just to have it. Take it from us “wiser” (read: older) guys here…save some cash up. I’d much rather have 3k in the bank and a $500 car that works then have a loan on a car and HAVE TO work to pay for it. (current situation and it’s gay) {no homo}

50

[quote]sicilianspeed42 wrote:
I will cast my vote for the Euro crowd…

Go with a VW Jetta or Gti, 1.8T motor.

An ECU reflash and turbo back exhaust and you will have a car thats fun to drive without it being so ridiculous its unreliable. Thats my current setup, 30+ mpg.

The interiors are well thought out by those crafty germans, and all the materials are high quality. Seats are comfortable, and you can get em heated too.

Some might bitch about maintenance, but if you do it yourself, the parts cost just about as much as any other car, its the stealership that bumps up the price.

I would say you need to forget about a 240 or a domestic, you live in Ill and unless you can afford 2 cars, RWD in the snow is no bueno.

Just save your money, take your time. Don’t jump on a shitty car because you want something different right away. We can all offer advice, but truth be told you should make a list and test drive a few cars to see what you prefer.

SS[/quote]

Most of the VWs have pretty soft suspensions though. If you’re terribly worried about handling, you’ll want to make some upgrades.

51

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
sicilianspeed42 wrote:
I will cast my vote for the Euro crowd…

Go with a VW Jetta or Gti, 1.8T motor.

An ECU reflash and turbo back exhaust and you will have a car thats fun to drive without it being so ridiculous its unreliable. Thats my current setup, 30+ mpg.

The interiors are well thought out by those crafty germans, and all the materials are high quality. Seats are comfortable, and you can get em heated too.

Some might bitch about maintenance, but if you do it yourself, the parts cost just about as much as any other car, its the stealership that bumps up the price.

I would say you need to forget about a 240 or a domestic, you live in Ill and unless you can afford 2 cars, RWD in the snow is no bueno.

Just save your money, take your time. Don’t jump on a shitty car because you want something different right away. We can all offer advice, but truth be told you should make a list and test drive a few cars to see what you prefer.

SS

Most of the VWs have pretty soft suspensions though. If you’re terribly worried about handling, you’ll want to make some upgrades.[/quote]

I agree, but unless you want to autox or have a track car, its really irrelevant.

52

Wow it’s good to see so many young guys interested in cars. I thought it was a dying interest these days.

I have only bought one new car in my life and will never do it again. I love buying the used ones and fixing them up myself. I go more towards pickup trucks or 4 wheel drives. The Jeep Cherokee was my favorite 4wd to fix.

I think I’m in the mood to go find another cherokee for this winter.

53


Haha, snow tires aren’t mods yall. These are some of the “mods” I will be adding over the Christmas break. That along with a 383 long block and th350 tranny conversion. Oh yeah.

54

420×525 36.7 KB

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55

I went browsing for some WRX’s and Elano was right, it is hard to find a good one under $10k. I had to look into regular 2.5 RS’s. This one has pretty high mileage, but it will last forever if you take care of it and maintain it properly. Stock 0-60 sucks at 7.5 seconds but a well spent $1,500 can get you there in the high 5’s. Obviously you won’t be looking into this one because it is in MD, so I am just showing you so you can get an idea of the pricing.

56

Oops sorry for the double post, but yea I’m hoping to get an extra 100-200 horses outta this stuff.

57

not to sound like a dick, but most of these suggestions are not well thought out…if he is really on a tight budget and wants performance, hes NOT going to care if a car has heated seats, or even comfy seats, as long as they’ll hold him tight around the corners or any other stupid shit like that

-to the op, expect to spend (after tax and registration and everything) atleast 6 grand CAD (if you’re canadian…i guess you might have more selection in the states) for almost any semi-performance budget car t hat isnt a honda and/or front wheel drive…at your budget, a crx or similar tiny frontwheel drive car with a 3000 engine swap (including install) sounds about perfect…and mayyybe as low as 4000…beware of it being beat to shit but if you’re going cheap, its either going to be a risk or its going to be slow/terrible handling or something…

ELANO, as much as i love the availability of domestic (ie 350’s and such)…how fast do you consider fast that you can get a reliable iroc to do a 1/4 mile for say 4-5000? (partially disbelieving as its not a light car, partially interested as a maybe future project if legit)

when i was looking for cheap performance, my two rules wer no front wheel drive, and no automatics, so alot of cheap options are out

for cheap performance (around 5-6g say) this is what i mostly looked for

priorities were (after standard and rwd/awd)

  1. price
  2. speed
  3. performance
  4. comfort or anything like that

(you have to figure out your priorities and it would help the more details you give us to try to help you select something)

basically you have the
-misubishi 3000gt tt(fast straight line, heavy car)
-nissan 300zx tt (NOT a light car, sorry to the poster who said it was, but still in my opinion one of the best deals out there…except if anything goes wrong, expect to pay a lot, and engine bay is so tight i’d be suprised if you could do much of anything yourself
-nissan 240 sx with sr swap (or turbo’d KA)
sketch as far as wear goes, can be hard to find cheap ish, so far i’m running a fair bit more boost with no worries, and its pretty quick (aka i’d be probably be suprised to see a Reliable iroc beat me for the same price while weight like 600lbs more, but very possible i suppose)
-toyota celica turbo’d ( think they might be front wheeled but i dont remember to be honest)

although it would have been slightly out of range (you should always have a stash of cash for hidden costs/ unexpected fixes etc, i tried for the 300zx but circumstances left me crying at the end of a deal fallen through, and i went for the 240 shortly after
i picked it up for 4000 expecting to have to put another 1000 for safety and etest, but it turned out to be about 2000 extra, plus taxes and everything, so total start up costs for it ended around 6500, but since then, it has been pretty touble free for the year-year and a half that i’ve had it (engine is now prob 1-120 000 km, and the body has a good 300 000 km on it)

hope this is somewhat useful for reference

edit wow Elano, just surfing auto trader and i didnt realize how much cheaper cars are now than just like 2 years ago when i was searching heavy (i still look now and again just for fun and “what ifs”)…i guess with the economy down the tubes and car prices going down…Anwyays…i just found a 1995 Camaro LT1 for 5000 flat, tested!(i dont know if its manual…better be!) eff, i wish i saw that last summer, i would scoop that up for sure!!!

58

[quote]brian.m wrote:
not to sound like a dick, but most of these suggestions are not well thought out…if he is really on a tight budget and wants performance, hes NOT going to care if a car has heated seats, or even comfy seats, as long as they’ll hold him tight around the corners or any other stupid shit like that

-to the op, expect to spend (after tax and registration and everything) atleast 6 grand CAD (if you’re canadian…i guess you might have more selection in the states) for almost any semi-performance budget car t hat isnt a honda and/or front wheel drive…at your budget, a crx or similar tiny frontwheel drive car with a 3000 engine swap (including install) sounds about perfect…and mayyybe as low as 4000…beware of it being beat to shit but if you’re going cheap, its either going to be a risk or its going to be slow/terrible handling or something…

ELANO, as much as i love the availability of domestic (ie 350’s and such)…how fast do you consider fast that you can get a reliable iroc to do a 1/4 mile for say 4-5000?

(partially disbelieving as its not a light car, partially interested as a maybe future project if legit)

when i was looking for cheap performance, my two rules wer no front wheel drive, and no automatics, so alot of cheap options are out

for cheap performance (around 5-6g say) this is what i mostly looked for

priorities were (after standard and rwd/awd)

  1. price
  2. speed
  3. performance
  4. comfort or anything like that

(you have to figure out your priorities and it would help the more details you give us to try to help you select something)

basically you have the
-misubishi 3000gt tt(fast straight line, heavy car)
-nissan 300zx tt (NOT a light car, sorry to the poster who said it was, but still in my opinion one of the best deals out there…except if anything goes wrong, expect to pay a lot, and engine bay is so tight i’d be suprised if you could do much of anything yourself

-nissan 240 sx with sr swap (or turbo’d KA)
sketch as far as wear goes, can be hard to find cheap ish, so far i’m running a fair bit more boost with no worries, and its pretty quick (aka i’d be probably be suprised to see a Reliable iroc beat me for the same price while weight like 600lbs more, but very possible i suppose)
-toyota celica turbo’d ( think they might be front wheeled but i dont remember to be honest)

although it would have been slightly out of range (you should always have a stash of cash for hidden costs/ unexpected fixes etc, i tried for the 300zx but circumstances left me crying at the end of a deal fallen through, and i went for the 240 shortly after

i picked it up for 4000 expecting to have to put another 1000 for safety and etest, but it turned out to be about 2000 extra, plus taxes and everything, so total start up costs for it ended around 6500, but since then, it has been pretty touble free for the year-year and a half that i’ve had it (engine is now prob 1-120 000 km, and the body has a good 300 000 km on it)

hope this is somewhat useful for reference

edit wow Elano, just surfing auto trader and i didnt realize how much cheaper cars are now than just like 2 years ago when i was searching heavy (i still look now and again just for fun and “what ifs”)…i guess with the economy down the tubes and car prices going down…

Anwyays…i just found a 1995 Camaro LT1 for 5000 flat, tested!(i dont know if its manual…better be!) eff, i wish i saw that last summer, i would scoop that up for sure!!![/quote]

haha yeah! thats what I’m trying to say. Anybody who has rode in an LT1 knows they will straight up put you in the seat completely stock.

I would say that you could get a good running camaro with good paint, interior, and a v8 for ~3000. Just make sure it has a 350 and not a 305. If you have basic mechanic skills, you can buy a bigger carburetor (if its not fuel injected),

a new intake, some headers, possibly a cam, flowmaster muffler, and a new intake for pretty cheap and have a car that runs high 14s in the 1/4 mile for under 5000 easy including the car.

Find a used 373 posi rear end for $200 to put in there and youve got a low 13s car. Still not fast enough? Pull the heads off and replace with some quality aluminum ones for $1000, get a paid of street slicks for $500 bucks and you have yourself a 12 second car for 6 or 7 thousand total.

Want scary shit your pants fast? Take the route that I took and buy a 383 kit or even just buy an already assembled long block and start building. You will have an 10 or 11 second car for under $10,000. Not that mechanically inclined? Just open up a jegs or summit magazine and buy a 454 big block crate motor for $6000 and drop that sucker in with a built tranny. For under $15,000 you will have a car that stomps all over z06 corvettes, dodge vipers, ferraris, everything else on the street in a 1/4 mile race.

The possibilities are endless and used parts are all over the damn place. You can pick up used shit for even cheaper than I have listed. The up side is that you don’t have to fuck around with all the electronic crap that the newer cars have.

59

Too lazy to get into it right now…just going to say I’m casting my vote for the V8 option.

60

V8 for cheap straight line speed. But don’t expect them to be reliable, get good gas mileage or handle as well as most imports.

Otherwise, you can find go with the following:

  1. Mazda Miata 1990-2002
  2. Acura Integra GSR 1994-2001
  3. Honda Prelude 1997-2001
  4. Nissan 240sx
  5. Subaru WRX 2002-2005
  6. Nissan 300zx 1990-1995
  7. Mazda RX7 1990-1993 (could be a nightmare)
  8. Toyota Supra 1992-1995
  9. Honda CRX 1989-1991