Can $3000 be turned into a good fast car?

What can I do with $3000? I would like a sports car, but cannot really afford a 20k one.

That depends, what kind of car do you want? Do you want one thats fast at drag racing or one thats fast around a track?

Also, what kind of experience do you have with working on cars? everything you do could easily have it's cost cut in half if you can do installation/service yourself.

give a little more information as to what you'd like and then I'll make some specific suggestions.

I can do minor work myself. I'm looking for something reliable that looks nice and is decent, speed wise. I was looking at the older 1st gen 300zx's but the high miles on most of them turned me off. I was also considering an older CRX, but the low HP turned me off of that. Recently I have been looking at 240sx's.

3K isn't much to work with especially when it also involves the purchasing of the car. If this is to be your daily driver, you'd be better off not looking at a sports car.

I think the CRX is a good idea. You could find a '91 for 2k or less (I saw one in good shape for $1800 the other day). Sure, the engine sucks, but you could get a fairly new D-series engine for pretty cheap. The D16Y8, for example, has 127 hp, and it would be at least a '96 engine. 127 hp doesn't seem like a lot, but in a car that weighs less than 2000 pounds, it'd be more than adequate for fun driving. You're not going to run 10's, but it'd be a fun, reliable daily driver.