So after watching the ebay/autotrader market on a daily basis since about june, a car popped up that met all my desires and was close enough to actually go see.
http://www.carad.com/eBaymotors/view...listing=908560
Right now i'm driving a real beat up old 1993 Chevy Blazer with a wonderful 188k miles. I'm so sick of it its not even funny. the shocks are shot, engine sounds like its coughing on its last leg, and then last week it was broken into (so back window is smashed in), and the cd player ripped out and stolen. so needless to say i was rather eager to get out of it.
after starting out car shopping with a rather broad spectrum of cars i would consider (rx7s, stealth TT's, 3000gt vr4's, firebirds, porsche 944's, 300zx's) i finally settled on wanting a TA/Formula primarily.
Narrowing it down even more, after researching them completely, I finally said I wanted a 1996-1997 Black or blue WS6 Formula (preferably, but a TA was more than fine), with a 6spd, ttops, leather, low miles, within my budget, and close enough to where I am so that I could at least fly there and drive it back. At first I was sad because I wanted the 98+ body style, but the kbb value as well as the average prices i was seeing were well above my budget of $11000 max. usually around $15k or $16k, especially if it was a ws6. And the more and more I was looking at 96's and 97's the more i liked those versions, especially the formulas which had the normal front end instead of the TA front end. The sub-97's were all much more attractively priced, i think with a retail of around $10.5 and private party of $9.5.
So after about 4 months of searching I'd gotten a routine down pretty well. Everyday i'd go into ebay and search for ws6, 1996-997, under $11k. I'd been at it so long that I could actually chart trends in the ws6 market, sometimes there would be a whole influx of them and other times they were non existent. I had one close call, it was a 97 TA, 6spd, ws6, 76k miles, black, but with cloth seats. I didn't care. It was in fort worth texas, and i was (for the first time) going through the process of getting a loan and figuring out what it would take to get out there. Was extremely apprehensous about basicaly buying a car sight-unseen and was making plans to take it to a dealer before driving it the 600 miles back to atlanta.
Eh, either way, it ended up being sold before i could do anything and i sighed, but went back to just searching and searching.
So FINALLY, yesterday (friday), i sat down to do my regular search but my favorites had been deleted somehow so i had to re-do it. this time i just figured i'd look at them all, from 1996 and up, just to see what was goin on.
And sitting there, about halfway down the page, was a 1998 Formula, 69,000 miles, black, t-tops, 69k miles, 6spd, leather, tons of pictures, it was on a no-reserve auction sitting at $5500 with one day to go, and most importantly it was only a 45 minute drive away. This was THE first car I'd looked at yet in the last 4 months that was even REMOTELY close to me. The majority of them were in florida, texas, and callifornia and I had no idea why. Suddenly I was *Very* interested. the 98's have 305 HP stock, which was WHY i wanted the 97 ws6 -- just so i could be in that 300+ club. Why have 285 when you're so close to 300? EIther way, the gears in my head started turning on whether I'd be happy with a non-ws6 firebird, so i figured i'd at least drive out to look at it.
I looked up all the prices for it first. KBB said it was worth $12,600 at a dealer, edmunds said $11,500. Private party was around $9900. So it was close, I knew it would probably end up selling for around 10,500 at least, which is pretty close to my limit. But I figured there was a chance I could get lucky since it was no reserve, and be able to afford it.
On the drive up there, discussing it further, I decided that if, after seeing it and it all seemed to check out with no problems, I'd offer the guy an insane low-ball offer of $9000 and just see what he said. Couldn't hurt, right? And I was more than willing to go up to around 10,200 or 10,500 even. Hell I didn't even know if he'd be willing to end the auction early.
So we get there, he pulls up next to me, and it was an instant "oh hell yeah" from all of us. Sleek as ****, rumbling nicely, I was getting excited. Walked all around it multiple times, looked under the hood, looked for drips or leaks, listened for any clicking or sliding noises. Checked to see if the front bumber had been scratched or bottomed-out, checked all the mouldings and seals around the doors, basically just gave it as good a work-down as I could.
So then I got in to take it for a test drive. I was pretty apprehensious, as the only stick i had driven really was a 5spd mazda 626. Had about a 180 hp V6 I think. The hydraulic clutch on the formula was a little hard to get used to, but at least I didn't stall it once. And boy, once you pressed down on the gas it was like you could feel the power jusr *pour* on, with no limit in site. I dont think I ever got it above 4.5 RPMS, and about 55 mph cause of traffic. I did some hard accelerating (or as hard as I could will myself to do), some hard braking, etc. I loved it. Steering was like it was on rails, so responsive compared to my car.
Anyway so I was more than happy with it. Only "problems" i could find with it were some very very small nicks or scrapes at various places on the car, nothing that couldn't be buffed out. The back tint on the hatchback wasn't in the greatest shape, had peices of it that had peeled off. I didn't really care, it was hard to tell there was even a problem until you were staring right down on it. And then finally, there is a peice of plastic that goes under the wiper blades but on top of the hood/glass, kind of connecting the windsheild to the engine area. For some reason it had come loose and flapped a little in the wind. Probably a $30 repair at the dealership, or $5 worth of superglue.
So I get out and we're standing there and i'm like "yeap... I'm definitly interested in it.... *ahem*". The dude is like "well we'd end it early if we got a good enough offer..."
And for a few seconds neither of us said anything, when I was *about* to throw out my $9000 offer, he says
"Yeah, we had another feller lookin' at it and we told him we'd take it for $8300."
I literally had to bite my lip from yelping. $8300! $8300!! what the ****!? i walked around the car once more, and said "mhmm mhmm, 8300 huh... and you're sure there's nothing wrong with it mechanically that you're not telling me?" and he's like "no sir, as far as we know its in perfect condition, i've been driving it myself and I haven't noticed a single thing go wrong, with the exception of that plastic peice that we noticed tonight".
So I'm standing there, and one last time i'm like "So 8300, eh?" and he said "Well, yeah..." and he started to go on to say something else, like he had to convince me of that price, and I just said "Hell. I'll take it. right now." and he was like "You'll take it??" and I said yep and we shook hands and I jumped a little.
So then the boring stuff with loan amounts and downpayments and all that crap had to be hammered out. Looks like now I'm going to pick it up around tuesday or wednesday (today is saturday).
BUT, thats not the best part! eighty-three hundred? I litteraly think I came a little when he said that. tiny little orgasm in my wallet. So the super duper cool part of all this.... ?
My loan is for a maximum amount of $12,600. I said I'd be perfectly happy with $11,000 but not a penny over it. So I'm still gonna go ahead and get the loan for $11,000. That way it will take care of the downpayment, the $700 tax, title, tag, registration, etc etc. After all said and done i'll have roughly $2000 left over from the loan and a $250 / month car payment. Thats just ****ing sweet.
So I'm just gonna take that $2000, add a $1000 of my own and invest it all in the car. Needless to say i'm going to mod it, at least the basic stuff:
1. Very first things first, the **** rims. Take a look of the other pictures... they're 16" Prime rims and i just about gag whenever I see them. They are definitly the first thing to go. I want to get either 17" WS6 rims, or i'll shop around and see what I can get for about $750 or $800. Any suggestions? I want some sort of 5-spoke racing-type wheel, no swirly chrome anywhere.
2. Second I want to get the WS6-Ram Air hood, with the ram-air kit. Cheapest price i've seen online is about $1200 for the full kit, already painted. However, whats the best kind of hood to get? I've seen hand-lain fiberglass, carbon fiber, and some kind of OEM GM Plastic (which was what kind came in that pre-painted kit). Any comments on whats the best kind of hood to get, and what kind to stay away from? Also any ideas on how much it cost if i bought an un-painted hood by itself, and then the ram-air box by itself, and got it painted and put together? Can I save any money doing it myself?
3. Next would be exhaust. I've always had a liking for flowmasters, I just like the way they sound, as well as that nice straight round pipe coming out the back. I'll probably look at borla's or something and do a little research on this and see what i really want.
4. Then comes the intake (if i dont get the ram-air kit right up front).
5. then finally i'll get a new ECU.
After that the list just kind of deepens into "what if" land, which depends entirely on how much money i have to blow, and exactly how unhappy i'll be with 345+ HP (which i doubt i will be).
Anyway so thats the whole story. I'll probably be on this forum a lot asking questions and advice. If anyone has any suggestions on good places to get the parts, let me know!
http://www.carad.com/eBaymotors/view...listing=908560
Right now i'm driving a real beat up old 1993 Chevy Blazer with a wonderful 188k miles. I'm so sick of it its not even funny. the shocks are shot, engine sounds like its coughing on its last leg, and then last week it was broken into (so back window is smashed in), and the cd player ripped out and stolen. so needless to say i was rather eager to get out of it.
after starting out car shopping with a rather broad spectrum of cars i would consider (rx7s, stealth TT's, 3000gt vr4's, firebirds, porsche 944's, 300zx's) i finally settled on wanting a TA/Formula primarily.
Narrowing it down even more, after researching them completely, I finally said I wanted a 1996-1997 Black or blue WS6 Formula (preferably, but a TA was more than fine), with a 6spd, ttops, leather, low miles, within my budget, and close enough to where I am so that I could at least fly there and drive it back. At first I was sad because I wanted the 98+ body style, but the kbb value as well as the average prices i was seeing were well above my budget of $11000 max. usually around $15k or $16k, especially if it was a ws6. And the more and more I was looking at 96's and 97's the more i liked those versions, especially the formulas which had the normal front end instead of the TA front end. The sub-97's were all much more attractively priced, i think with a retail of around $10.5 and private party of $9.5.
So after about 4 months of searching I'd gotten a routine down pretty well. Everyday i'd go into ebay and search for ws6, 1996-997, under $11k. I'd been at it so long that I could actually chart trends in the ws6 market, sometimes there would be a whole influx of them and other times they were non existent. I had one close call, it was a 97 TA, 6spd, ws6, 76k miles, black, but with cloth seats. I didn't care. It was in fort worth texas, and i was (for the first time) going through the process of getting a loan and figuring out what it would take to get out there. Was extremely apprehensous about basicaly buying a car sight-unseen and was making plans to take it to a dealer before driving it the 600 miles back to atlanta.
Eh, either way, it ended up being sold before i could do anything and i sighed, but went back to just searching and searching.
So FINALLY, yesterday (friday), i sat down to do my regular search but my favorites had been deleted somehow so i had to re-do it. this time i just figured i'd look at them all, from 1996 and up, just to see what was goin on.
And sitting there, about halfway down the page, was a 1998 Formula, 69,000 miles, black, t-tops, 69k miles, 6spd, leather, tons of pictures, it was on a no-reserve auction sitting at $5500 with one day to go, and most importantly it was only a 45 minute drive away. This was THE first car I'd looked at yet in the last 4 months that was even REMOTELY close to me. The majority of them were in florida, texas, and callifornia and I had no idea why. Suddenly I was *Very* interested. the 98's have 305 HP stock, which was WHY i wanted the 97 ws6 -- just so i could be in that 300+ club. Why have 285 when you're so close to 300? EIther way, the gears in my head started turning on whether I'd be happy with a non-ws6 firebird, so i figured i'd at least drive out to look at it.
I looked up all the prices for it first. KBB said it was worth $12,600 at a dealer, edmunds said $11,500. Private party was around $9900. So it was close, I knew it would probably end up selling for around 10,500 at least, which is pretty close to my limit. But I figured there was a chance I could get lucky since it was no reserve, and be able to afford it.
On the drive up there, discussing it further, I decided that if, after seeing it and it all seemed to check out with no problems, I'd offer the guy an insane low-ball offer of $9000 and just see what he said. Couldn't hurt, right? And I was more than willing to go up to around 10,200 or 10,500 even. Hell I didn't even know if he'd be willing to end the auction early.
So we get there, he pulls up next to me, and it was an instant "oh hell yeah" from all of us. Sleek as ****, rumbling nicely, I was getting excited. Walked all around it multiple times, looked under the hood, looked for drips or leaks, listened for any clicking or sliding noises. Checked to see if the front bumber had been scratched or bottomed-out, checked all the mouldings and seals around the doors, basically just gave it as good a work-down as I could.
So then I got in to take it for a test drive. I was pretty apprehensious, as the only stick i had driven really was a 5spd mazda 626. Had about a 180 hp V6 I think. The hydraulic clutch on the formula was a little hard to get used to, but at least I didn't stall it once. And boy, once you pressed down on the gas it was like you could feel the power jusr *pour* on, with no limit in site. I dont think I ever got it above 4.5 RPMS, and about 55 mph cause of traffic. I did some hard accelerating (or as hard as I could will myself to do), some hard braking, etc. I loved it. Steering was like it was on rails, so responsive compared to my car.
Anyway so I was more than happy with it. Only "problems" i could find with it were some very very small nicks or scrapes at various places on the car, nothing that couldn't be buffed out. The back tint on the hatchback wasn't in the greatest shape, had peices of it that had peeled off. I didn't really care, it was hard to tell there was even a problem until you were staring right down on it. And then finally, there is a peice of plastic that goes under the wiper blades but on top of the hood/glass, kind of connecting the windsheild to the engine area. For some reason it had come loose and flapped a little in the wind. Probably a $30 repair at the dealership, or $5 worth of superglue.
So I get out and we're standing there and i'm like "yeap... I'm definitly interested in it.... *ahem*". The dude is like "well we'd end it early if we got a good enough offer..."
And for a few seconds neither of us said anything, when I was *about* to throw out my $9000 offer, he says
"Yeah, we had another feller lookin' at it and we told him we'd take it for $8300."
I literally had to bite my lip from yelping. $8300! $8300!! what the ****!? i walked around the car once more, and said "mhmm mhmm, 8300 huh... and you're sure there's nothing wrong with it mechanically that you're not telling me?" and he's like "no sir, as far as we know its in perfect condition, i've been driving it myself and I haven't noticed a single thing go wrong, with the exception of that plastic peice that we noticed tonight".
So I'm standing there, and one last time i'm like "So 8300, eh?" and he said "Well, yeah..." and he started to go on to say something else, like he had to convince me of that price, and I just said "Hell. I'll take it. right now." and he was like "You'll take it??" and I said yep and we shook hands and I jumped a little.
So then the boring stuff with loan amounts and downpayments and all that crap had to be hammered out. Looks like now I'm going to pick it up around tuesday or wednesday (today is saturday).
BUT, thats not the best part! eighty-three hundred? I litteraly think I came a little when he said that. tiny little orgasm in my wallet. So the super duper cool part of all this.... ?
My loan is for a maximum amount of $12,600. I said I'd be perfectly happy with $11,000 but not a penny over it. So I'm still gonna go ahead and get the loan for $11,000. That way it will take care of the downpayment, the $700 tax, title, tag, registration, etc etc. After all said and done i'll have roughly $2000 left over from the loan and a $250 / month car payment. Thats just ****ing sweet.
So I'm just gonna take that $2000, add a $1000 of my own and invest it all in the car. Needless to say i'm going to mod it, at least the basic stuff:
1. Very first things first, the **** rims. Take a look of the other pictures... they're 16" Prime rims and i just about gag whenever I see them. They are definitly the first thing to go. I want to get either 17" WS6 rims, or i'll shop around and see what I can get for about $750 or $800. Any suggestions? I want some sort of 5-spoke racing-type wheel, no swirly chrome anywhere.
2. Second I want to get the WS6-Ram Air hood, with the ram-air kit. Cheapest price i've seen online is about $1200 for the full kit, already painted. However, whats the best kind of hood to get? I've seen hand-lain fiberglass, carbon fiber, and some kind of OEM GM Plastic (which was what kind came in that pre-painted kit). Any comments on whats the best kind of hood to get, and what kind to stay away from? Also any ideas on how much it cost if i bought an un-painted hood by itself, and then the ram-air box by itself, and got it painted and put together? Can I save any money doing it myself?
3. Next would be exhaust. I've always had a liking for flowmasters, I just like the way they sound, as well as that nice straight round pipe coming out the back. I'll probably look at borla's or something and do a little research on this and see what i really want.
4. Then comes the intake (if i dont get the ram-air kit right up front).
5. then finally i'll get a new ECU.
After that the list just kind of deepens into "what if" land, which depends entirely on how much money i have to blow, and exactly how unhappy i'll be with 345+ HP (which i doubt i will be).
Anyway so thats the whole story. I'll probably be on this forum a lot asking questions and advice. If anyone has any suggestions on good places to get the parts, let me know!
)
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