Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

If u had a completly stock car. what would be the 1st 3 things u would do to the car (within 5k limit).

mine would be the following

Looks = Body, New paint, Sound system(still kinda looks lol)

Performance = exhaust, FMIC, power FC

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/115541-what-are-your-top-3-mods/
Share on other sites

  • Replies 63
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

don't know whether you can ever have too good brakes... could vary from just pads, to rotors,calipers and braided lines... - i think a really good set of pads should very much be something up there with initial mods...

full exhaust

suspesion

boost controler

wouldnt even bother upgrading brakes, factory are fine for what u would be chasing with 5k

by brakes i mean

braided lines

good pads

good fluid

and maybe slotted rotors

IMO

Turbo-Back Exhaust ~$1500

PowerFC & Tune ~$1500

Suspension ~$2000

This is providing a good condition stock motor and a good set of tyres. Prices could vary alot with even these items and it would be pretty easy to get a few trick mods done within the budget aswell.

Being a tad more realistic. Good tool kit, jack, and stands. $500 should easy cover it.

Not knowing what the car is but assuming its a turbo...

Stereo, at least a head-deck if the orginal is a bit RS. But I could EASY spend $10k on a car stereo and justify the cost.

Brakes as mentioned, just the normal if the lines are fine just the fliud pads etc. Say a good $1.5-2k there if your paying for labour. Maybe $1k if your lucky getting stuff on the cheap and do the stuff yourself.

Suspension. Probably worth while doing all bushes to be safe anyway, new suspension coils and shocks, sway bars, blah blah blah then install and a proper wheel alinement... $2-3k quite easy.

Then with the $50-400 you have left depending on how much you spent on your head deck... You could get a better filter, and or a bleed valve, and maybe someones cheap 2nd hand exaust, maybe...

You need to learn how to drive the wheels off the car before getting more power, if you dont know the car more power is pointless.

If I had 5k and a stock car..

I'd ditch the stock air box, and replace it with cone filters.

Buy a good turbo back exhaust

Buy a wideband

Buy a remappable ECU (AEM EMS, or a PFC)

Spend a long time researching how to tune the above ECU.

Buy a boost controller

And then some dyno time, and tune it yourself.

I know its more than 3 things, but its 5k's worth.

Ben

I was adding up a mods list last night and it came in under $5K

K&N panel in stock airbox - $100 - here

3" turbo back exhaust - $700 - here

Turbotech manual boost controller - $40 - here

Boost gauge - $40 - any auto store

Generic FMIC - $100 - here

Piping kit - $230 - here

Fuel pump - $180 - here

PowerFC w/ controller - $950 - here

Tune - $600

Total so far: $2940

Clutch $320 here + $300 fitting unless you can DIY.

Front and rear stabiliser bars - $460 - here

DBA rotors - $450 - here

Pads - ~$100

Total: $4570

Most of those prices include delivery,. The parts listed are all pretty easy to fit if you have a decent set of tools.

Thats $5K for a car that will produce ~200rwkw and turn and stop reliably.

I presume you liked the look of your car to begin with or you wouldn't have bought it, so why not leave it that way and avoid unwanted attention. And as far as the stereo goes, I'd rather listen to my car most days.

edit: throw in a HICAS lock bar from GTRgeoff and a set of pinepples to use up the remainder (bad maths skills):(

Pineapples - $60 here

HICAS lock - $150 - here

revised total $4780 :D

Edited by Lazy-Bastard
I was adding up a mods list last night and it came in under $5K

K&N panel in stock airbox - $100 - here

3" turbo back exhaust - $700 - here

Turbotech manual boost controller - $40 - here

Boost gauge - $40 - any auto store

Generic FMIC - $400 - here

Piping kit - $230 - here

Fuel pump - $180 - here

PowerFC w/ controller - $950 - here

Tune - $600

Total so far: $3240

Clutch $320 here + $300 fitting unless you can DIY.

Front and rear stabiliser bars - $460 - here

DBA rotors - $450 - here

Pads - ~$100

Total: $4870

Most of those prices include delivery,. The parts listed are all pretty easy to fit if you have a decent set of tools, so we'll soak up the remaining $130 in hardware along the way :D

Thats $5K for a car that will produce ~200rwkw and turn and stop reliably.

I presume you liked the look of your car to begin with or you wouldn't have bought it, so why not leave it that way and avoid unwanted attention. And as far as the stereo goes, I'd rather listen to my car most days.

edit: throw in a HICAS lock bar from GTRgeoff and a set of pinepples to use up the remainder :D

Pineapples - $60 here

HICAS lock - $150 - here

....i went $80 over budget ;)

$80! :( Not good enough! jks

That seems to be the best cost analysis so far! Im down with it!

$80! :( Not good enough! jks

That seems to be the best cost analysis so far! Im down with it!

A lot of people will not like it because there aren't any brand names involved, so they can triple the price and get the same performance. Oh, and pay someone else to do all the work and learn absolutely nothing about their car along the way :D

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • The average previous owner for these cars were basically S-chassis owners in the US. Teenagers or teenager-adjacent. I often tell people that neglect is easier to fix than something that was actively "repaired" by previous owners.
    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
×
×
  • Create New...