Share how you got your GSX!!!

[dangan]

I fell in love with the turbo DSMs when I was 17-18, 24 now, I wanted one something fierce. I was a borke kid and got my first job and busted my ass to be able to have one. My mom had a stroke in Jan of 00 and my dreams were put on hold for quite sometime. I stayed home and took care of her for about 2 years while she was almost completely dependant on me. Things went from bad to worse and shortly after she got sick my family had to declare bankruptcy. I sold the Mystang I had and gave that money to my parents. Once she was doing better I went back to work and tried really hard to save up enough to buy a GSX outright or to make a down payment on something.

I worked the next year throughout the summer and winter without a car at all. What always kept me going was the thought of a local GSX that I had gotten to know the owner of. He emailed me one day and said it was for sale. I immediately went to the bank and they told me to #### off without a cosigner. My brother offered to help me out and we went and drove the car. Everything was set and the day before I was going to buy it my brother backed out on me. I was utterly, completely, heart broken.

I shortly there after inherited a shitty Escort for a daily beater and got a new job. I worked at it for a little over a year and decided I wanted something new. After getting ####ed on several DSMs I was looking for an SUV and they were the furthest things from my mind. Browsing the auto maket one day I found a GST for sale. I ended up buying it and I was completely in love. I drove it for two years and payed it off last month. Shortly after pay off it got hailed on, and I took it in for an estimate. They gave me $1500 bucks. I was intending to use that money to mod it when one day I was browsing my local car forum and came across a 90 GSX for $700 bucks.

I called the kid to ask him what was wrong with it and why it was so cheap. He said "It boosts slow, and it needs a fender" I went and looked at it the following night and disocovered that the mbc was hooked up wrong and it was missing like 4 exhaust mannifold bolts. I bought it... Now 3 weeks later and and with some new bolts and a few odds and ends it runs great. I aslo though talking to a local DSM'er who was familiar with the car it has a Big 16G on it. As trite as it may sound I achieved a life goal that night when I bought my GSX. I gave up a lot when my mom got sick when I was so young. And I stuggled and clawed and got my heart broken so many times when I was younger trying to buy one of these cars, coming so close on so many occasions to finaly having one and having them slip through my fingers, now several years later I have 2. And it makes me really happy to walk out side and see both of them parked together and knowing they're paid for and mine.

 

[Syndicate13]

I had a friend that was looking for 1G's in early 03. For grins I looked for a few 2G's on AutoTrader. I found 3 initially, a black 96 for 4500 which of course was sold. A Durango Copper 95 for 9k, overpriced. Finally I found a one owner red 95 for 5500. Drove to Miami to look at the car and it was immaculate. Semi high mileage at 115k but he did commute for work. Car was bone stock except for the cut dump tube. Over 3 years later I've invested quite a bit into the car and had a lot of fun. I think I'm just about to the point of moving on though, I'm getting a little older and I think it's time I get a grownup car and not a toy. Car currently needs a tune on the new setup and after it lays down some good numbers it will probably be for sale.

 

[tstkl]

I was in love with this 1991 dodge stealth rt/tt that was for sale in PA, and was trying everything I could to get it. My dad did some research and found some sites that over exadurated the speed of those cars. Everyone on 3si.org was talking about the perfect daily driver was a 1g awd dsm. The awd bug had already bit me, and so when my dad went out of town for buisness, I asked my mom if we could go look at a 1g in sf that I wanted to buy. She had a doctors appointment in sf the next day while I was at school, so she went by herself and bought the car on the spot without me even seeing it.

1990 eagle talon tsi awd
$2200
90,896 miles on 2/17/05
black/grey


the woman who she bought the car from was moving to argentina, and needed to sell the car fast. She said a lot of "weird people" had been calling her and were very interested in the fact that it was awd. She said she only let my mom come to look at the car because my mom sounded "normal". I guess us tuners sound creepy to some people. The first owner actually lived in the same town as me, so I might have seen my car when I was a little kid and never noticed. He sold it to his co-worker (this woman) and she sold it to me.

the car has 95,451 miles on it right now (8/21/06). 4,555 miles on it since I bought it. about 8 miles a day.

 

[T_K]

I had my RS for a few months when I decided it's just no fun and then all of a sudden this ~low mileage (105K) and clean (exterior and interior at least) TSI AWD came up for sale on my local DSM board. I was sort of blinded at the moment and bought it just after a little test drive completely ignoring all the crap I knew I should check, not to mention it was beat by the previous owner. I paid $2800, later I realised I really overpaid a lot. And you can say that very soon the price doubled with lots of maintenance the car needed.

It's the most favourite mistake of my life yet. I hope to keep the car for a long time.

 

[gehoee]

i was in need for a new car. was looking for about 2 or 3 months in the auto trader magazine. i finally saw the ad of any dsm'er dreams. 1995 eagle talon awd 58k miles, baby on the way must sell. i show up the first time to scope out the car. the car was spotless, clean, stock, some old rich guy that had 2 more cars had it as an accesory. seats were covered in wool seat covers, old school granny dash protector. i almost pissed on myself on how amazing shape this car was in, and low miles. i showed up in less than a week with $6,500 cash to pay and drive that sexy black awd dsm home

 

[Naatan21]

I married my wife to get her 1995 GSX .
Believe it or not, it was soo messed from her driving it and taking so good care of it *wink wink* that it has taken a lot of work on my part to get it back to normal...
When I got the car,
- There was absolutely no oil in the car
- The turbo was destroyed
- There was about 12 PSI in all of the tires
- 3 lugnuts had snapped on one wheel and the other 2 about to fall off...

Thank God I took it over when I did .
Now I have upgraded the car with a new 4g63T engine, water/alcohol injection, 16G turbo, FMIC, 550cc injectors, 255lph Walbro fuel pump, and a new 3" cone air intake.
Not to bad of a start...

 

[EdwardNorth]

Wow, thread brought back from certain death!

I guess I'll share my story then.

Back in January/February of 2004, a few months after picking up my FD, I realized that I was going to need a new daily driver soon as my 95 T-Bird was apparently on its last legs. Originally, I tossed the idea of getting a new Cavalier around, a manual one so I could finally teach my Wife to drive stick so she could enjoy the FD as more than just a passenger also. I had recently started admiring DSMs and for fun, I began to look at listings.

As I looked at more and more listings I started to get the urge to go with one and forget about a new Cavalier. I read up on all the gossip about crankwalk and the like, and originally decided to look for a 2G NT and perhaps turbo it down the road so I could avoid worrying about that happening. Posted a few messages on here and got people's input, realized that CW is blown out of proportions on the forums, and then saw a listing for a 1997 Talon TSi AWD with only 11,000 miles on it, and the person selling was fairly local to me. I got ahold of him and went over the details, found out that it had quite a few mods on it and had been more or less a show car for the first few years of its life. He had gotten it 2 years earlier and taken it from about 5,000 miles to 11,000 and decided to sell.

I test drove the car and it truly looked, smelled, sounded, and felt like a new car. I decided that with the money I would have spent on a new Cavalier, I could instead have what was essentially a "new" turbo AWD DSM with a few toys on it. I gave the car a thorough inspection, verified everything through CarFax, and my wife and I decided to go ahead with the purchase and picked it up for $15,500! The purchase included about a gazillion factory spare parts that had been with the car since the original owner (Mike Dembrowski, does that name ring a bell by any chance?).

I bought it with the plan to drive it as is, and focus on the FD as my modding toy, but I gave in to the urge and have been building a full E316G setup ever since... I just couldn't help myself!!

Now it has 21,000 miles on it and I try to drive it sparingly because my bloody T-Bird is STILL running!! .

 

[lordnikon_04]

where to begin. Well my first one was a white 90 GSX that i just saw in the paper one day and said ya know i've always wanted one so i bought it for 2,500(young and stupid). Anyways, after 1 year and about $3,000 worth of repairs alone i decided it was time to get rid of it.
175k, $2,500, 1990 GSX, White,$3,000 repairs-$0 mods

After about six months of dieing without a dsm, i found a 1991 TSi AWD for $2,000 so i bought that. After about 4 months and $1,300 worth of mods, no repairs thankfully, i traded it to a good friend straight across for his 2000 CBR 600.
160k, $2,000, 1991 TSi AWD, Red, $0 repairs-$1,300 mods

Once again, i couldn't live without a dsm in my driveway. So i went to look for one about an hour away in a bigger city. After about 9 dealerships i stopped at the last one. Salesman had no idea what a dsm was so i talked to the sales manager and told him 95-99Eclipse GSX or Talon TSi AWD would be ideal. As luck would have it, he took one in the night before on a trade for a jeep and hadn't even gotten it back from the detailers yet. I filled out the paperwork and picked up 3 days later for $8,500.
125k, $8,500, 1998 GSX, Red(originally silver soon to be black ), $0 repairs-$3500 mods

And finally, we are selling my girlfriends 1996 ESi tomorrow for $4,000 and picking up a 1995 TSi AWD for $2,500. It's not mine but i figured i'd throw it in. This one i saw in the paper the other day then saw the price and knew it had to be either mine or hers. After talking to someone about buying her car we testdrove the new one today and she loved it so we pick it up Tuesday.
159k, $2,500, 1995 TSi AWD, Black, unknown repair and mod cost so far but soon to change

Sorry bout the long post but 4 AWD dsm's in less than 3 years between 2 people takes a while, not to mention one N/A.

 

[spinz4]

Which one? Im on my 33, 4th or 5th, .

The last one was one of the best though. 91 GSX, with a ton of mods brand new head, ran before they swapped the head. So I give him a grand tow it home and take the head off. Guess I didnt need to do that though because the only problem was a sock in the turbo! Guess he put it in there so he didnt drop a bolt in it. So I took the mods I needed for my other 91 and swapped them over and have a nice daily driver.

 

[Thomas91169]

found mine on craigslist with a title reading "mechanics special!" so i instantly knew it was the one. checked it out, felt it just skipped timing and valves were tapping the pistons, grabbed a new rebuild head for cheap, slapped on some arp studs and a mls gasket(so i can run 25-30psi in the future), threw the new head on with a new timing belt and timed it right, and viola! she runs perfect. now just gotta diagnose a pesky CEL and a boost leak (getting fuel cut at night) and get her registered/smogged and then the fun begins. bought the car for 900$ and around 600$ later in miscellaneous parts (head, studs, gasket, sbr old style exhaust manny, ss exhaust manny studs). 1500$ for a running 1g is pretty sweet imo.

 

[Afroclipse]

My mechanics shop is right across the street from where i live, I usually go to him when i need parts, borrow a tool or whatever. I noticed he had a 3 eclipses mind you I knew nothing about eclipses except they had a big ugy hump on the hood. So one day i went to look at them for fun 2 where sticks so i paid them more attention and just by passed the maroon, 2 regular tire 2 donut tire, spiderweb and spider infested not to mention lizards and extremely dirty automatic sitting in the corner . About a week later I was going to get a torque wrench when and ask for a valve cap he told to get it of the mitsubishi in the corner so i opened up the hood and i noticed that it faced a different way than the other and alas it had a turbo so i was like hhmm. I opened the driver door and it had a leather interior, everything was dirty but could get very clean, Outside was nasty last time reg sticker on wind shield showed was 01. I looked looked under the car and there was a weird poll going to the back of the car, i followed it to the back and there was a differential AWD. I asked him who it belonged to and he said it belonged to a guy who couldn't afford tranny work so he left it there. So i said sell it to me he said ok gimme $500 dollars for it and $500 to get it reg in your name. After i got it started believe me it took a while he did compression tests the works and gave it A+ for engine and F for Tranny.

IN summary $500 for car, 35,000 miles auto leather 6disc changer you know the rest

 

[laserspeeddemon]

Well, I was in Germany and I was saving money to make my 90 Laser RS (N/T and Auto) a fast car. At that time I got on to DSMTuners. AND I had just seen The Fast and the Furious. It was a bad time to get into cars, because that movie skewered my opinion of what a fast car is. After alot of DSMTuners reading. I decided that I needed to ditch the Laser Project, and find an AWD car. A short while later I found a 1990 Eagle Talon TSi AWD being sold in Germany (VERY RARE) in the Armed Forces Newspaper for $3500. Not only is this a hard car to find in Germany, but I called the lady up and it happened to be the one right down the street from me. I took a look at it and took it for a test drive. FELL IN LOVE RIGHT AWAY. I had NEVER been in a car this fast. Bought the next day.

About a year later and BAM:

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

No more car!!!

The same day I wrecked my car ANOTHER 90 Talon TSi AWD popped up in the AFN Newspaper classified With a blown motor. I called the guy up and a lady answered the phone, she told me she wanted $500. I called the number and a guy answered I got directions and off we went. I showed up cash in hand. I took a look at the car (BEAUTIFUL) and gave him the cash. With a puzzled look, he said, "The car is $1000." I told him his wife told me $500 and that all I have. He walked away and called his wife, he was talking quitely, after a few minutes he started yelling and hung up. He walked back over and said, "FINE! $500 it is." I handed him the cash, he signed and handed me a title. I took the car over to the shop where my talon was started to pull the motor out my old Talon.

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5452538"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/5/13311493323.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5452539"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/5/13311493324.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

Finally we got the motor out and the red Talon was off to the grave yard, never to see road again, I almost cried as it was compressed onto the back of a truck and buried under two beamers.

Next it was time to take the motor out of the new Talon:

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5101752"><img src="http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/8809483657.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

Here is the Motor after we got it out and taken apart (wanted to see why it the motor was bad, and BAD is an understatement) Here is what we found:

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5453056"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/5/13312443961.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5453057"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/5/13312444078.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

So we dropped in the good motor into the good talon (with a clean VC):

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5453137" target="_blank"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/5/13312540936.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5453136" target="_blank"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/5/13312540950.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

 

[laserspeeddemon]

Cleaned it all up:

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5101750" target="_blank"><img src="http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/8809473570.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5101751" target="_blank"><img src="http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/3/8809483629.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

And then proceeded to make it all dirty again.

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5137275" target="_blank"><img src="http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/4/9215464670.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>

<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5213739" target="_blank"><img src="http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/4/10208215419.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge."></a>


And thats my story

 

[Gsturbo88]

i bought my gsx a while back all stock even the stereo jaja pretty good huh

99 gsx miles 100k 7k Silver A/T

 

[blkendgsx]

My brother sold out and went to hondas, gave up on the 95 GSX. He owed $2200 on the car so i waved $2500 cash in front of his face, came w/ 2-T25's,extra motor,extra rebulit transfer case, 2-trannys and 1 rebuilt rear end. ....sold and thats that.At least its still in the family, I'm not gonna knock him for the 2000 Civic Si w/ 16422 mi. on the clock, w/ many bolt ons spared at no expense from the previous owner paying only $9500.The Gsx was spankin' Civic when it was running, but now I have clutch issues so its parked.

 

[MrBentley]

Well mine is kinda lame but i like it. This requires some back story too so here it goes.

It all started with how i became to love DSM's. My cousin got a 98 GS-T and he showed me what a turbo car was like. Then he sold it for a 99 GS-T and started modding the shit out of it. Scared the crap outta me when we hit 163 one time and i swore i would get a GSX (i love AWD).

So that was all the way back when the 99s were bran new. Fast forward to 2005. I just get the okay to start looking for a car. Of course i go looking for a GSX..... no where to be found.

I looked for 3 months and then found this beautiful Red 98 GSX with less than 50k on it. I start droolin' but the price is too big. 14 grand for the thing. My price limit was like 8.

i brush it off and keep searching and found two more GSXes. Both in bad shape. I wanted this black one but the thing was poorly taken care of. Then i was going to go for this charcoal GS-T but that was all shit too.

Finally my dad goes "hey lets just go look at the red one.... cant hurt to look right?".

We go there and this thing was immaculate. No fade on the paint, looking fine as hell. But i thought "shit this sucks, cant get it but its soo good" Then my dad after inspecting it straight up says "well take it".........

Almost brought a tear to my eye. And i swear no matter what im never letting this thing go.

 

[Thomas91169]

Started with dsm's with my 97 GST Spyder (see profile). got sick of fwd and needed something more fit for daily driving and long distances, but still something nice that i wouldnt be embarrassed to be caught in. sold the GST and picked up a 02 GT Mustang, with the intentions of getting a 1g awd later to make fast (SOHC 4.6L's are a bi*** to get power out of, and super costly, especially compared to a dsm).

later down the road still no second dsm and im really loving rwd but need power and miss having a car i could mod. test drove a Evo but i was less than impressed. test drove a 03 Cobra and left the dealership with a large grin, found a great condition but rather high mileage one for 22k which i snatched like a mofo a week later, with the intentions of selling the GT and just having one really nice and fast car, rather than one car being nice but slow and another car being fast but not very nice. the GT would not sell for the life of me, after trying at $10k (2k under what i owe) nobody still wanted it, gt mustangs in my area depreciated shitloads once the 05's came out. i put a feeler for the cobra on svtperformance for shits and giggles and was offered 24k for it. Sold the cobra later that week.

got a bike from the profit i made but didnt like riding in my area (too many idiots), sold that for a bit more profit (bought it for 1000, sold for 1500, sold my gear for another 600 and broke even on that).

took that money and sat on it for a while, payed off some bills, bought some computer parts. was online one day extremely bored and once again missing a moddable car i could look forward to working on. found a 1g gsx with skipped timing, said "Mechanics Special" on the craigslist ad for 900$. trailered it home the next day and immediately began work on taking the head off (mainly to check for any valve or piston damage), found a fully rebuild head on craigslist for 300$ which i got a week later, slapped on the new head and retimed it, also added arp head studs, mls gasket, SBR Cast Manifold (stocker cracked) old design, car ran beautifully. Had a CEL that came on which was alleviated when i pulled the harness and fixed a few troublesome looking wires and connections in the positive wires. now it will get smogged this week and be fully registered soon. needs new windshield and axles, and the tranny is really notchy. EPROM Socketed ecu is already on its way for DSMlink, which will be the first real mod it gets, i will probably get the fuel system done first (255/afpr/1600's) and max out the 14b while i save up for a built tranny (###### TRE), a gt35r and some suspension goodies.

 

[Deadmoans]

Found a 95 TSi at a small local dealer in 2001, 45,000 miles $7000. The mitsu dealer in town had a 95 gsx, (leather ok), 80,000 they wanted $12,000. Guess which one i bought.

Tranny imploded on the 95 - sold it on autotrader, $3000 no tranny. Ready for this.....

BOUGHT A 04 WRX - spun a main bearing (dealer replaced engine & turbo) then my wife got hit - $10,000 worth of damage. Oh, did i mention she also got hit in the 99 Accord about 5 days before she got hit in the subie?????!!!!!!

Then my parents moved to Australia for three years and my dad was going to store his 98 gsx. it took me a while but i talked him to giving it to me. Spun a balance shaft bearing in that so i rebuilt the motor last june. Now the tranny is out, just waiting for shepard racing to ship my new one.

 

[92dsmtalon]

Well, if you count a Tsi AWD, I bought mine off of a guy my brother worked with. Its a 95 Talon Tsi AWD, 5spd, power everything, Electric Blue, got it in Columbus, OH for $2k. Had 124k on it when I got it, has very minor body damage, just the fenders by the headlights were dented, which I since popped out, and the roof clear coat faded off. Wasnt really looking for it, I had just gotten my 91 Tsi FWD running, then it broke down, my brother told me about this one, we went up and looked at it off of 5th Ave in downtown Columbus, actually seen a guy get cuffed and stuffed by Columbus P.D., gun pointed and all, and then like 2 or 3 days later handed him the $2k cash, drove it home, and has been my DD eversince, which that was just in like March.

 

[1fast97gsx]

Back in 2002 I found a white 1997 gsx that was literally SPOTLESS and had a 16g with full supporting mods. The car was also dropped and had really nice rims. At the time the car had 42000 miles on it with perfect compression, records of all mods professionally installed and reciepts for every oil change. Previous owner was in his mod 30s. I paid $16000 for the car and it ran high 12s the way I got it on pump gas without touching a thing.

Not even a year later I got stupid, took the motor and trans out and built everything. The car at this point had 60k on it and not a single problem. After 2 more years of going through problems, not getting it to run how I wanted I finally got a solid setup in that ran good and didn't have any problems. Before the problems came back I decided to sell it even though I really didn't want to. I sold the car for under 10k$ with at least 25k$ worth of reciepts in aftermarket parts to go with it as well as a perfect body and only about 70k on the chassis.

After that I got a camaro and a new project started. The camaro is def. a lot faster and more fun, but in a way I still missed having a dsm. I ended up buying a 1997 gst with a t28 and supporting mods from my friend which only had 48k miles on it.

After about a month I decided that front wheel drive sucks and I wanted another gsx. After looking at a few and seeing what was out there I pretty much wanted one just like my old one. Not even a few days later the guy I sold it to contacted me because he jsut had a question about something on it. I told him if he ever thought about selling it to let me know, I may be interested in buying it back. He said he actually is planning on it, not even a week later the car was back at my house in the garage.

Sorry for the long post, interesting story tho. Here's some pics of it and a video of it exactly how I sold it ... untuned, pump gas, fresh driver first time racing it.


http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/8/web/776000-776999/776053_19_full.jpg

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/8/web/776000-776999/776053_105_full.jpg

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/8/web/776000-776999/776053_104_full.jpg

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/8/web/776000-776999/776053_106_full.jpg


http://youtube.com/watch?v=zF_CbhhezcQ >notice brake lights coming on too half way down and a not so good launch and 1/2 shift. I can't wait to take this car to the track again on some c16 and high boost!

 

[DSMinduction]

bought a gst, then did an awd swap haha. got a gsx the hard way

 

[Jeff822]

November 05' I bought a 00 subaru impreza 2.5rs then realized I shouldve gotten a WRX because i wanted awd+turbo. After looking at all the WRX's around they were way overpriced. I stumbled upon a 1998 GSX in December 05', had 70k on it (bone stock) and was owned by an older couple (50's, early 60's) who were the second owners that had had another turbo 2g also, had all receipts of the maintinence work done, so it had had the timimg belt done just before I had bought it. They wanted $10,500 for it but i got them down to $9,300. They were selling the GSX because the husband just bought his wife a restored 66' vette or something for there anniversery.
Car was garage kept and had house carpet over the floor mats, and seat covers on to keep the leather in mint condition. Needless to say after I bought the GSX I sold the 2.5rs about a month after I had got it (It actually sat for a month while i drove the GSX). Now i've had the car for well over a year.

 

[7RBOAWD]

I had a buddy who used to love my eagle TSI, i Totaled it a year back T-bone a beamer. I ran into the same buddy 2 years later. He had a blue 1990 GSX with a handful of mods. (actually all the mods on my list in my profile.)

i told him ill buy it from him for 3 grand. he said yeah. Here i am now, back in the game.

 

[mini zilo]

Found mine on the driveway.

 

[THE_ARTIST_]

money