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Hmm... not to echo too much here, but I had my days trying to get an '85 T with 150k mi on it to be a performer. I spent $5k total (bought the car itself for $2100) "fixing" it up before I was even going to get into serious mods. Well, on my crap salary at the time, this was a pricey and extensive lesson. After a "new" (rebuilt) steering rack, a rebuilt clutch, new brake parts (rotor+caliper) some bushings, sportier shocks, SPG springs, a K&N, a custom 2.5" "sport exhaust" and my own fussing around with the APC and the wastegate, I had a $5000 money pit that was still limping along but pretty fun and quick. After learning that I needed somewhere between $1,300 to $2,000 to replace the dying tranny, I gave up. For the year I owned the car, I spent about $400 a month...
Now, this was fall of '99 so I went out and, getting a $1K loyalty bonus and some other incentives, leased a 9-3 HOT for a lot less than that. With the sport exhaust and a K&N, I had a brand-new, warrantied Saab that would smoke my old '85 as well as every other silly little semi-modded Civic, GTi and A4 that thought it couldn't run...
BUT - a leased car is a non-modded car and I was pretty much at the peak of the performance I could get without some stuff that might upset the waranty folks (like a MBC). I knew it would be a long time before I could buy a car and I wasn't going to buy out my lease (I was waiting for the rumored Evo or WRX to show up on US shores) so I skulked in the background, reading about all the cool things folks on this board were doing to their Saabs. I stopped reading and posting in defeat, per se, but I still loved drving my 9-3.
The lease is up in September and I don't care. Why? Because I bought a Suzuki SV650S that can satisfy my speed cravings like my Saab never could. 0-60 under 4 seconds? Sure, no problem. Leaning into corners mere feet away from the road surface - this is a rush I can't equal in my car. Nothing is quite like it. Winter presents a problem, but that is when the 9-3 comes in handy. So, if you want a performance machine for far less than a Stage III trubo system, look at the two-wheeled machines. Just don't look for a hatchback version.
-Aaron McD
posted by 207.242.54...
, Mon, 23 Jun 2003 10:00:39
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