If they dont then walk away. If they wont let you inspect the car or barter on the price then give them the finger and leave. Youll end up finding a better deal if you wait. I know its hard, hell I didnt even listen to my own advice A comp. tester should run you like 5-45$ depending on the quality and the nifty-ness of the tester.

 

Actually, there's about 200 more pounds of junk that you can remove from a base model if you are hardcore. The base model with performance mods and an LSD is a great car.

 

I'd have to agree there. Not having power windows saves on having to fix them down the road.

The only thing that entices me about the GTU is the LSD, but they can't be that bad to swap out, are they?

As far as purchasing, if he goes for $2k-ish, I'm going to try and get a personal line of credit for it. My wife and I just bought a house and want to have as much cash as we can in hand and I don't think a personal line of credit will screw up the mortgage approval process. Has anyone had any experience with them?

 

If you want a fun n/a, a base model is your best bet. I would get some taller wheels though, those 14s are damn light, but that sidewall will flex on you.

Fo $4,000obo , you could buy my rebuilt, streetported, highly moddified, and freshly painted 87 n/a.

 

Oh, I'm sure there's always more that can be taken out...But I prefer my cars to have an interior, a real dash, and prefer to be able to listen to the radio without having to compensate for massive amounts of road noise.

 

I would have to agree with you. I have heard it is not worth the hassle of taking all that extra weight out, when you could do some carbon fiber **** which would be a lot cooler.

4k is quite a bit for that "base" model. But seriously, do you think a Touring 93 sucks? Hell no. That base model is fine. I have an 88 Base and it looks no where near the perfection of that, it has 70,000 more miles on it. So I would say that 3k is enough for that 7. You do a streetport, exhaust, and cone filter setup and you will be practically unstoppable. Don't give me ****. As many of these kids driving around here with civics, you can easily slaughter them up and down the road all day long with those mods.

Just do what you want, it is your money. People will say you can buy a TII for that much. But to me, I would rather have a streetported N/A S4 or S5 any day. At least that way it is much more reliable. Or you could do a bridgeport

Good luck with the buy.

 

My 88 SE left me searching for more. A lot more. In Fact after 3 months of owning it I made my mind up I would not mod it. It would cost too much in the end. The only thing I did was add a racing diff mount and front koni struts because they went bad.

The 88 SE is 4 lug single piston with smaller suspension pieces and no LSD.

I paid 2k for mine w/ 140k on it but it was my first FC and I did get hosed a bit but oh well. You live, you learn.

I would search for a NA with the 4 pistons. Most every NA guy wants them and it's just a PITA to install(that's one reason why I'm stalling on the TII rearend).

I luckily had a guy come up to me selling a 88 GTU. The next day I bought it(thank you bonus check!).

Try to get the 88 GTU since it's a TII but with less stuff.
It's basically what the GTUs was based off of.
4 piston brakes, TII suspension, LSD rearend, and no power windows and other stuff.

A GXL will have the 4pistons as well but has the extras.

 

for #3, every fc I've ever sat in has had a loose shift, and kind of sloppy, thats just how they are, I like the way they are loose like that though

 

I'mnot familiar with the early sport models so other guys can fill you in on them. I don't know if they have 5 lug or 4 pistons on them.

 

I got my 1990 GXL for 1500, put 330 into a coolen hose and rear brakes.. runs good so far.

 

Get the car if the price is better I actually read your post so i'm not gonna worry about the price like you said. Shifter was like that in my 86 base bushings and it'll be fine. I love the base it's pretty quick bein so lite i have only intake and exhaust and rims and I ran a 15.2, the light wieght of the base will make it faster that say a stock gxl

 

I'm not too worried about all the extra stuff on the GTU. If I can't get a damn good deal on this, I'll definatly pass and wait for a GTU. I don't plan on racing much anyways, and want this to be a daily driver. The only things I plan on doing to it are adding a car computer, 12" sub, and some nice speakers all around. The exhaust on it looks pretty new, so I'd feel bad ripping it off, but if I did, I'd slap in a nice racing ebat exhaust, and I thought it would be fun to try and put a TII hood on and use the scoop for intake.

 

I agree...just as long as we are talking about cars and not women here

-Joe

 

None of my FC's had floppy shifters, but then again the bushings were always replaced just before I bought them.

 

I still haven't heard from the boss, he must be sleeping in today or something. If I can't get this car for $2k or less, I'm definatly going for a GTU. I just dinished readong the sticky on top about the standard features and all that.

The LSD, speed sensative power steering, and the higher 5th gear ratio (I do about 80mph to work everyday for ~30 minutes) make it worth the extra wait, but this current FC is pretty clean, and I forgot to mention it has AC and it blows nice and cold.

 

What in gods name do you care if you have AC for in Minnesota!? Your winters are almost as bad as mine (Upper Michigan!) And your summers can't be all that much longer than a week like we have! Rip it out, dead weight!

 

Me too, which is why I didn't remove my interior, oem dash, and the foam insulation stuck to the bottom of the carpet. As for the 'sound' insulation . . that's all gone. Rotary music is good enough for me.

 

I just took another look on the way to work today. I'm going to take some more pictures tomarrow. I noticed it's got a new exhaust on it, and the mufflers definatly have bigger pipes coming out, so I'm figuring that's a plus. I found a bit of paint bubbling on the driver's side rear quarter panel about half-way up the wheel well. It doesn't look too bad, but if they'll haggle, that's all the more to work with.

I got a hold of their e-mail too, and sent a nice message with a picture of the blue book value. If they go to $2,200 I'm going to go for it, because the Accord is about to die. I lost power steering today. I put new fluid in, but it went out after driving to work, and the tank was only half full. What was left was all black and oily too. Definatly not paying to fix that.

 

Hmmm... another quick question.

I'm bringing my buddy's compression tester along. What size spark plug socket do the FCs use? I don't want to be carrying around a ton of tools.

 

4k? retarded.... anywhoo, mine was a piece and i was so enthraled that i still plunked down 1800 for the damn thing. best 1800 i ever spent though. tell them to **** up a rope and suck the wet end, and that you will give them 2500 or you will walk with 10 of their customers behind you! or tell them youre a secret shopper for mazda and your going to report them if they dont come down on the price!