Buying Advice

[Cseibert96]

Hello,
Im 18 and in college and looking for a little bit more sporty/powerful car then my 2000 monte LS. Ive been looking at 2g GST and GSX for awhile now and love them, but living in Illinois, the winters suck anyone have input on winter with these little cars? Also for performance wise im putting the Eclipse against a 3000gt VR4, Toyota MR2 Turbo, and a 300zx Twin Turbo. Anyone have kills on these vehicles and with how much horsepower were you running? Not from a halt usually from a roll, I dont want to kill the trans... can they keep up and outrun V8's?

The top concern with this car has to be the crankwalkl, it scares the hell out of me. Is it more costly to repair the engines? Is there room to work on them myself? How reliable is the car itself? And with my car rust is a huge problem from the previous owner, are they rust magnets?

Thanks! Please dont flame me...

(Performance wise, are they easy to get around 250-300hp and be a daily driver?)

 

[FWD_CHAZZ]

Crank walk was a problem from from 95-97
If you can find a 98/99 you should be in good shape
Or don't try and push a ton of power...the clutch won't hold up and when you throw a better clutch in then hour putting to much stress on the crank...
Iv had a mr2 turbo and it has no problem keeping up and beating v8 s all day
Most v8 s are over rated and seeing there face when a 4 cylinder kicks there ass in priceless

 

[Type1DSMr]

I assume the racing your talking about is at a track and not street racing. Seriously crank walk only happens in 2% of dsms. Most are from poor rebuilds and if your a broke student then a dsm may not be for you. Now if you got some money and some good or willing to learn how to do most repairs yourself than your set. As long as you do maintenance and drive smart they can be very reliable. Yes they rust check the strut towers for rot and check around the rear.

 

[StrokerMax]

My advice is to be very careful when buying a DSM. Take your time and learn all you can before buying one. These cars can end up costing a lot of money in the long haul. Find the one thats been sitting in grandma's garage (Thats a hard find but not impossible ).

I bought my car out of state... It had all the parts I wanted... stroker crank, Garrett GT35 turbo. 6 bolt bottom end, Shep Tranny, meth injection, and much more. The body was good and interior was perfect but I knew the motor needed some work (OR it needed tuning according to the guy I bought it from).

Turns out that I ended up pulling the motor to discover tons of hacked mechanic work. Like the guy did his own machine work or something. The motor had signs of detonation, low compression, clutch and flywheel were smoked and a ton of parts were JB welded on.

I spent $2500+ rebuilding the motor alone... Get the motor in and 10 miles later that so called Shep tranny broke. Pulled the tranny and had Jacks Transmission redo it right. It didn't appear to be a legit shep tranny anyways just had an upgraded center diff and was probably put together by the prior owner.

My cheap race car became really expensive and it took me months of hard work to eliminate the hacked mechanic work. If I had only done a compression test before buying the car. I hit points of being really frustrated with this car but I kept going. I think you need mechanical skills to own a DSM unless you keep it all stock.

The car is now a blast to drive... It keeps up with most crotch rockets just fine. I have stopped counting how much I've spent.

Good luck with your search.

 

[FWD_CHAZZ]

Yeah take your time
Learn what to look for
Always ask for a second opinion. So if you got a buddy that knows take him with you

 

[jimsgsx]

Get the gsx. The awd is awesome on the snow. I live in wa. State which gets pretty snowy here. I had zero problems in the snow. Regardless of snow the gsx is always the better choice.