Last week it started spilling oil out of the timing cover, and was also in need of new ball joints and has just been a little more maintenance than she wanted for her DD so she finally sent me the message I've been so patiently waiting for. The car became mind for the price of scrap and a few extra bucks for holding that deal for me for so many years.
The car has an original 123k on the ticker, and other than the oil leak and needing ball joints the car is ready to get back on the road. It was her DD up until last week. I'm hoping the oil leak is just cam seals or oil pump, but Ill be replacing everything under the timing cover as long as it's not catastrophic failure from something.
The first order of business is a complete maintenance of all fluids, spark plugs, etc after isolating the oil leak and its respective repair and replacing the ball joints. She'll need a good exterior and interior detailing, but overall she's in wonderful shape for her age. After that the fun comes.
The short term modification list:
- Whiteline sway bars and end links
- Wheels of some sort, thinking something like Sparco 17" Terra's or some other rally inspired wheel
- A "stage 2-3" type modification path. I'd like to cover exhaust, up and down pipes, fueling system, intercooler, etc. But as I disclose below, I'm not exactly sure how to go about that on this car that is pre "just take your accessport and car to the local tuner".
I'm hoping in the future to use this car for some amateur rally cross or maybe even some stage clearing work for larger events. I may or may not use it in autocross, because I do also have an early 2000's Mini Cooper S coming into my possession that I will probably dedicate for that use.
Nice to meet everyone and hope to share my progress as it comes along.