Lex Luthor

Picked this one up for $1500, guy was in the middle of a run when a tree jumped out in front of him. Needed a 3/4 nose, had the whole car back together for about another $500 or so, and there was already so much work done to this thing, the gauges and the built TH400 were worth it alone, not to mention this guy had scienced out the suspension pretty well, once I sorted it out it used to see some air even on a DOT.

Lex Luthor

Screw it, let's turn this into a mini tutorial on budget speed, this one was a T-Bird turbo coupe I picked up for $1700 (yes, no typo), it was in amazing condition, got it from a dealer who thought it needed a turbo, a wastegate, etc. At least that's what we told him when we looked at it, bought it on site, replaced a $2 vacuum hose and it ran like new. Put in a $3 fish tank valve and turned up the boost, and it was like a different car for 5 whole dollars. I put some more money in on mods after that, but not a ton, had that Thunderchicken runnin' lovely, disgraced many many Mustangs and Musclecars. Sleeper to the extreme, to those of you not in the know, it's the 2.3 litre turbo intercooled SVO motor and T5 stick, you can wring gobs of power from it, just ask Turbo Joe Morgan.

Lex Luthor

Traded the T-Bird plus $500 with my friend and got his Formula, GTA seats, low mile L98 crate motor with alum heads, TPI conversion from carburetion, BW T5 stick, RAM 3-finger clutch, Australian 9-bolt 3.27 rear, 4 wheel disc, $700 stainless headers, etc, only needed a ring and pinion. Once we did an SLP fuel injection, a built short block, a nice shot of N2O, and a better rear, that thing dethroned many local legends. After five motors, I got tyred of it and sold it to a friend for a grand, the wheels/tyres/rear were worth more than that alone. He has since wrecked it in a nasty crash at speed, but it's parts live on in a half dozen or so cars.

Lex Luthor

Bought a layed-down low mile Ninja from a friend, rebuilt it for less than a grand, traded it straight-up for a friend's Mustang, I had built the car for him a few years earlier. Rippin' carbureted 302, stick, 4.10 rear, completely reworked road race suspension, SVO alum driveshaft, custom grey leather, 10spkr sound system, and a funky-@ss 'bowling ball' paint job (Not my taste at all, but it was all a blur in motion anyways, hehe). That thing only needed some electrical work, which i solved immediately, and it ran like a champ, took it out to the Hamptons every weekend with the top down and raced Porsche cabriolets and M3's. It had a World Class T5, but third gear finally went, as they all do, traded it for a lifted Bronco with a worked 5.0 litre and a Gateway laptop brand new in the box. Shall I continue? My point is, deals are always around, easy to go reasonably fast for cheap, but a turbo Lexus is worlds above these creations, and can be made to everything - cruise, race, show, corner, club, you name it. I used to drive around in a totally reworked GN, and i'd pick up a date and she'd say, 'oh, you have a Regal, I used to have one of those,' but the Lex will never put you in that situation. Have I made my point?

Bean

iTrader: (1)

budget speed?

I got all the GN stuff beat

Buy a old early 70s Mazda R100 or RX2. It weighs around 1800lbs. Buy a low mileage JDM-spec 13b-turbo motor... upgrade the turbo to the Hitachi/T04E hybrid. Get 720 injectors, AFC, fuel pump, a straight pipe out under the passenger side door... convert the stock IC to a Air/Water unit... run race gas, some good boost...
fit a Ford 9" rear and drag suspension setup and a roll cage... get some drag slicks

make about 330rwhp...

What do you think 330rwhp does on a 1800lb car with drag racing suspension? Try high 9sec 1/4 mile times or low 10s; this is on the stock T2 tranny too

You can go MUCH MUCH faster if you want. You can upgrade the turbo to a T60-1 or T66 with a standalone and run BIG fuel and more crazy boost and you're looking at 8sec times without any nitrous... on a 1.3L motor these turbos spool enough to run on the street... and you can STILL port the motor for more power. A Peripheral ported 13b with a drag racing turbo in a RX-2 will run low 8s before you start gutting the car and transforming it into a full tube chassis and all that crap

Lex Luthor

Bean, we're talking about street cars here, and a big turbo, big fuel system, narrowed 9", full race suspension, and cage are not budget. My point is most of us would still take the Lex over any of these cars, the other qualities make up for the lack of hp.

P.S. - Ever try driving a real quick R100? Try going straight!

Manaray

Ask an ye shall sometimes receive...

CmputerWiz

BLING BLING! No love for the regal. Lex's get along MUCH better with the ladies.



SR

darthmaul

hey, i'll give you $10K for your ride dude..hehe

yeah, those prices are INSANE if you ask me.

no flaming please.

i'm coming from my other boards which i'm on (twinturbo.net and some m3 forums).

seems like if you want a cheap and fast car (relative to a used lexus) you'd have to get a 300zxtt. you can get one for $10K and modify it to hell for only a couple grand.

400hp by only spending $2K seems cheap compared to a $12K engine swap.

i've seen euro engine swaps into E36 M3's for about $10K. that's going from 240hp to 320hp.

you can drop in a supercharger (dinan) for about $8K which is still a rip.

how much do used supra tt engines usually run guys?



but on another note:


i'm thinking of getting an sc300 5-spd and want to know your opinions. i strictly drive stick shift cars and want to know if the extra power from an sc400 is that much substantial than what you'd get out of a manual tranny sc300.

thanks!

darthmaul

oh btw...

THIS is BANG FOR THE BUCK guys!!


Turbo Bar Stool

lex400sc

Stock for stock a 5-speed SC300 is about as fast as a pre-98 SC400. If you have any consideration for performance aftermarket in the future, get the 5-speed SC300.

That barstool looks fun!

darthmaul

thanks for the info!

how would you compare the handling of the sc's? any difference between the two models?

does it handle like a boat or better?

thanks

lex400sc

Handling is about the same, though I believe the SC400 is marginally heavier. The good thing about the SC is that it'll take anything from a Supra TT including oem suspension and braking pieces as well as all the aftermarket stuff.

Unnatural

Hey Lex Luthor, how about this one?

I bought an '88 GTA in good shape for $3000; nice RED paint, black laced wheels (not the gold ones), digital dash, leather seats, L98, 9-bolt aussie rear axle, etc.... Swapped in a built 700-R4 (Art Carr stuff). Then bought a TTA engine complete with TTA headers, wiring harness, motor mounts, intercooler, turbo, absolutely everything for $1500. Swapped the L98 out and sold entire engine for $400 and swaped in the '89 Turbo Trans Am V6 mated to the 700-R4. For about $4000 I had built a basically stock TTA that would run w/ slightly modded LS1 powered F-bodies and Vettes...cool! Everyone used to tell me "I thought they only made these in white." That was my first turbo car and now I'm an addict!

BTW currently in the process of doing another swap into a 92 Z28 for a friend of mine.
~Brendan