How far is too far?

I was wondering how far any of you in the whole "modding stage" plan on going? I know it's hard to stop, lol. But what do you picture adding to your ride within the next 6 months? and what Ideally would you like to have on yours. then last but not least, how long it would take to accomplish your "Ideal Car."

I was going to do a total engine rebuild with all beefed up parts to handle alot of boost. As well as redoing the exhaust with bigger pipes and a high flow cat. Then slap a turbo in her. Drop the whole car about 2". Replace the trunk with a cf trunk as well as swap out my invader cf hood for the newer gen invader cf hood that has a raised split in the front scoop.

Now though Im not doing any of that. Come next year Im giving my cavy to my wife and getting the 2.4 cobalt to play around with.

Well right now, im sitting on new wheels/tires and a cold air intake. Pretty good place to start. I "plan" on buying a whole new exhaust within the next month, and then doing whatever I can to get money and saving up for a turbo kit till round the end of the year, where ill somehow talk my parents into paying for the extra cash i dont have at the moment. And "if" they do decide with the generousity of their hearts to lend me some money, then I "plan" on kinda throwin in some engine parts around april, cuz its my birthday. And I know that sounds like "WTF is he talkin bout? What is he, like 12?!?" butttt my parents have already saved alot of money for my college and if I can pull off 95+ average in all my classes, (considering this is my junior year and its the last one that matters), im sure they wouldnt mind taking a few bucks outta it to help. =D

Over all future plans? Everything. Major goal is a complete turbo'd/n02 2.2 ecotec crate engine from jbodyperformance.com. I could make a christmas list of the things I wanna do, that would look like 20 kids list's all together as one but yeah not gonna bother because people don't take "future plans" seriously because they hardly ever get accomplished, talk is cheap. But as for the 6month stuff, I'm sanding/painting my entire interior, including the lower dash and backseat side panels, painting the headliner black or red, and painting the sunvisors red or black, fiberglassing in 6.5" speakers where the stock speakers are in the doors, fiberglassing in 6x9's in the rear dash and throwing in red neons under the dash and seats, putting red led's in every vent, fiberglassing in liquid neon rods into the rear side panels, and possibly fiberglassing in Lumin disks next to the 6.5" speakers in the doors or something, not too sure yet about those

I really dont know if you can go ''too far'' with mods. I guess the end would be obviously when there isnt anything left to mod on the car.

Hmmm... 6mos.. that puts us at february. My car will be sitting under a car cover still then, so it won't be having anything done to it in the next 6 mos. However I plan on being a work feen, gona have a large paint bill come spring. ;)

If you said in a year from now, well that would be a little different.

shit 6 months ago, my car ran right, had all four gears and wasn't wrecked lol

Too far probably is when you start adding stupid un-needed shit to your car.

Too far probably is when you start adding stupid un-needed shit to your car.

so that's like now for me then lol

so that's like now for me then lolUmmm if you say so. lol

well technically you don't need anything unless your car doesn't run... but yeah..

I guess I started this thread I might as well reply to it...

Within the next 6 months I will have:
BZ/Drift Body Kit
Z3 Fenders
Custom Turbo
Greddy style Exhaust (high flow cat)
Halo LED Projectors
Triple Gauge Pod
Lowering Springs
White Neons (underneath)
Red Neons (inside)
2 JL Subs, and custom trunk box for a total of 4 subs (2 10", 2 12")
Car Alarm, Keyless Entry, PW, PL, P Mirrors???
Z24 Gauge Cluster (white face, red lighting)
Repainted Interior.
Auto Stick (lets you shift an automatic like a manual)

I have already ordered:
Turbo Manifold
White Neons
Shift Kit
PW,PL,KE, Theft system.

down the road...I dunno I ran out of ideas, lol . I guess if I mess my pistons up I'll get new ones, or like anything else... lol.

I would hold off on alot of that stuff if you plan on turboing your car bro... ie neons, and cosmetic things.

There is alot of costs i don't think you took into account and plan on alot of down time on your car. Here is why I think you need to consider this...

I'm not sure you were on the site for very long, but this is what occured the night of a huge car show around here @ 1am in the morning bringing the shops first turbo'd creation out. Needless to say we were up all night till 5:45am trying to figure out what went wrong and this is what happend.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7789/cidpicture02fa3.jpg

Chris was running 19lb Grand Prix Injectors off a 3400 engine to accomodate the higher requirement for fuel along with a walboro pump and B&M FPR. He wasn't running a wide band or any type of monitoring system besides a narrow band A/F thinking all would be well. We were babying her to the show but did do a couple quick pulls to 4500. Well the car started to sound like a diesal engine and his Narrow band was burrying itself into the red while in open loop.

We thought a couple welds gave out, so we limped the car back to the shop its now 1:30ish and we wait around for 30 mins with fans on his engine trying to cool it off, then we tearing everything off to try to inspect the manifold. Did see anything wrong and put it all back together and noted his wastegate tubing was loose from the downpipe, so we thought that was the problem. Started the car back up... still wrong. Then we find the problem. The flange that was made out of aluminum to raise the turbo up a bit had given out under all the heat from chris's car running lean. So tore the engine turbo setup apart, turned on some Pantera, gabbed some redbull and made a new flange out of 3/4 Stainless steel. Limped her to the show under no boost ( granny drove her) and learned out lessons...

So with that in mind...I hope your ready for a few headaches and some empty wallets. I have a list myself of everything needed to do a quality setup. If you would like to see it, lemme know and i will send it your way so you can start pricing a lot of shit out. So there is alot involved here so you don't have this happen to you bro, FMU's, tuning software, there is alot of reading.

http://www.rdfabs.com/galleries/images/project_vehicles/2000_sunfire/sunfireturbo2.jpg

good luck man.

I've accounted for all the turboed expenses. Like I said,one part at a time. thats why I needed to know the piping size of my air filter..Could figure out if it was a 2.5 or 3 inch pipe. yeah I've hopefully accounted for everything, I have a good working knowledge of each part and it's operation in the intake/exhuast process and whatnot...So hopefully I can piece her together in a few months.

I've accounted for all the turboed expenses. Like I said,one part at a time. thats why I needed to know the piping size of my air filter..Could figure out if it was a 2.5 or 3 inch pipe. yeah I've hopefully accounted for everything, I have a good working knowledge of each part and it's operation in the intake/exhuast process and whatnot...So hopefully I can piece her together in a few months.


From the turbo itself through the IC, and basically for the most part, i would use 2.5" tubing. Then before the TB size it out to 3". I'm glad you took the time to do your reasearch. Not many people do.