So clueless.....

Okay here's what's going on. My boyfriend is in the military, just left and won't be home for about six months. Well he has a civic that he worked on and has raced and won car shows with. Well while he was home this past month he wrecked it....pretty bad. So what I was going to do is try and fix up this old car of mine for him for when he gets home. however i have absolutely no clue what I'm doing. I have a 98 Mercury Tracer LS. It's a standard and nothing has ever been done to it. That's all I know about it. So my question is if I was going to do this for my boyfriend where would i start? My brother is a mechanic so he can put in/on anything i want but aside from that he can't tell me what I need to do for it to be race worthy i guess. So I would really appreciate any help you guys could give me. THANKS!!!

Ooo... a Merc Tracer. That's going to a tough one. With a 2 liter engine with only 110hp on tap. It doesn't look like you're going to have much luck 'fixing' it up.

Like most econo-cars it's designed for moving people from A to B with out much drama. That and there isn't much of a 'following' behind the Merc Tracers like say, Honda Civics. So the world of Aftermarket support will be rather small to say the least.

I would just concentrate on saving your money at this point. Being it's 10 years old, it probably has over 100k miles on it (guess of roughly 10-12k/yr). If you start to 'tweak' on the car now and drive it hard with 'racing' the only thing you'll probably accelerate is the deteriation of the car itself and start to see reliability issues.

I could be wrong.

The only thing I can think of that may be possible is, since it's a 2 liter 4-banger... is that it may have some relationship to Ford's Cosworth division. Mainly where the motor mounts and such, I'd say see if you can't get a Cosworth 4-banger in that little puppy and have yourself a sleeper Tracer. Chances of that being possible are slim, but any thing is possible with the right amount of money... which is another factor. How much money are you looking to spend?

The old Hot Rod saying is "Fast, Reliable, and Cheap... you can only pick two."

If that doesn't make sense then... I'll break it down for you (and anybody else who maybe confused by the saying)

Fast + Reliable = Not Cheap
Fast + Cheap = Not Reliable
Cheap + Reliable = Not Fast

Get it? I knew you would. :)

I can't resist.....

http://www.synapsepc.com/Hosting/Images/Funny/Contractors%20Pyramid.jpg

if the tracer came with a 6cyl option(2.7 or 3.0 likely) i know Cosworth built a ford 3.0l up to 600hp and put it in a Supervan(car shows only, retired in 01), that'd be one hell of a car. though 600hp and thte fwd would not be simple.

how badly was the civic hit?

also depending on how much the insurance gave him, you could likely find a cheap civic for him to build up(bigger and better than b4) or another car for him to play with. or save and get a car that has the go and racing abilites, just not the best in show(new camaro/mustang) or try a g8

Honstly I think you would have better luck with another vehicle. If my remember corectly the tracer is the higher end escort. They had the 2 door sport series but there were not many mods out there for them.

If his car was in compitition showroom condidtion it's going to be hard and expensive to make something like that again.

As far as what to do to it, find out what he like the most about his old car and have thoes mods done first.

Thanks you guys have been awesome! I didn't even think about getting another car duh! He hasn't done anything with the insurance yet but when he does we're going to use that for a family car. I think what i'm going to do is go out to a salvage yard and find a civic with a pretty good body and just change everything he did to his to that one then get it painted to match his old one. since he still has like four different hoods and all that went with it. I know the body was too messed up on the old one to do anything with but the motor and all was still good. sound like a good plan??

early 90's ford escort gt. i've seen some with mustang engine's and everything.

With nothing but the upmost respect for you and yours...

Why the hell does everyone want to fix up a POS? Seriously?

Best of luck and all that, but just get a better car.

And tell yours to keep his head on a swivell and stay safe.

it's gotta be a POS, it's gotta be cheap. so fast+cheap= POS

Hey man, lots of racing potential in those Mercs....:D

Just go with the civic idea and throw the engine in the new one.

Hey man, lots of racing potential in those Mercs....:D

Assuming Merc is short for "Mercedes Benz AMG..."

I was kidding, sir :D and no, I meant mercury.

But of course, how could anybody doubt a good AMG?