Your ideal car if your budget was 9k?
 

I'm in the market for a new car and have around 9,000 to spend. Looking for something with decent performance and a comfortable ride, 2 or 4 doors doesn't matter.

Twin Turbo Dodge Stealth. :)

That'd be nice... but insurance would kill me being under 25.:(

How much money would you want to spend on buying the car, and how much would you spending modding the car?

9k it towards buying the car. If it was less, part of the remainder might go to modding the car. If not, probably just a few hundred every now and then.

Buick grand national


or an ls1 powered f body

Oh yeah... I kind of screwed up my left foot fairly well for a few months so anything now has to be automatic.

are you looking for speed, comfort, drivability, etc? What do you desire from the car?

Speed and drivability would be most important. Right now I'm looking at a 98 Grand Prix GT.

EXACTLY.

lt1 powered fbody....cheaper performance parts....

LS1 > LT1 for one reason. Optispark. Other than that, the LT1 would be cheaper by far to mod out.

Well stock for stock the LS1 is way faster...Close to 300 RWHP Stock , LT1 are what ..mabye 220 ?

I don't know the specifics for the LT1, but my buddy who stuck one in his 928 is easily putting 300+ ponies to the ground, no mods that I know of (NA)

if its stock its not 300 to the ground

LT1 will lay down 245 to the wheels quite consistantly..



I say that Turbo Integra thats in this forum ;-)

But there are so many ideal cars!

Legacy GT Wagon.
Skyline GT-R.
Possibly a Toyota Altezza, but these are probably still too expensive, even used.

Of course, that's on the NZ market. YMMV in the US>

9k could prolly find you a nice 2nd gen turbo mr2. 2 doors, good performance, turbo makes for many modifications if you so desire. Awesome handling, toyota reliability and absolutely dead sexy looking body

Good choice!

I totally agree on all points, for under 9 grand and MR2 is very sexy and affordable...however, you cannot get a Turbo MR2 with an automatic...you can get a really nice non-turbo MR2 for 4-5 thousand and then do some nice modifications to it (shocks/springs/brakes/wheels/stereo/header/intake) for another couple grand and have a very nice ride.

I say a clean LT1 F-body

For about $8-9k you could have a 94-97 LT1 with probably less than 50k miles. And you will eat that MR2 alive :D :D :D

LS1 would be nice but the car will be more expensive and the insurance will kill him.

By the way,

My LT1 put down 280 HP and 305 lb-ft at the wheels...only real power mods are a K&N and an exhaust cutout :D

Most LS1's put down around 290 HP and 300 lb-ft to the wheels stock. 305HP/320lb-ft has happened but thats not the norm at all, regardless of what everyone says (I spend WAAAY too much time on F-body forums lol).

And the Optispark isnt that bad...if youre not afraid of it.....they are like $150 from Autozone right now, and you and a Haynes manual could replace one in an afternoon if you had to.

In that price range, I'd be torn between an LS1 F-Body, or a Lincoln Mark VIII LSC. F-Bods look and sound mean, and they haul ass. The Mark isn't as fast, but it's far more luxurious and is nice and quick once it gets moving (290 hp..really high torque peak though).

1990-1996 300zx (Twin Turbo or non-TT) either way it's a sexy car. Twin Turbo is plenty fast, you can take it to the drag strip or the track, either way it's an awesome car and can be had for 9k if you look around.