Have fun out there. It really is a great couple activity, and getting out of the house together WITHOUT the child is a crucial thing.
To step away from car advice for a moment. When I was married we did lots of stuff together, then came children and we became professional "parents". Only after several years did we try to reconnect as a couple again and by then it was too late. I think maintaining more couple related interests would have helped (no guarantees YMMV etc).
As faw as the car, Saabs are great cars. My brother had an '05 9-3 and it was awesome (especially in a big crash, very safe). But all that Saab awesomeness doesn't translate well into autocross. I'd say anything under $200 that actually makes the car daily better is worth it. Just don't do any more because the platform is the wrong one for the task at hand. The autocross season is about over anyway, we have 2 events left here. Run those, make sure she enjoys them, talk up the fun of getting out of the house for a few hours (seriously, I can't stress this part enough for new parents) without the baby.
Here is the fun part: over the winter while nobody is driving convertibles and prices are down: buy your wife a cheap NA Miata. Find one with a bad title and no rust for under $1,500 and call it Christmas/Valentines/Birthday/whatever but it's for HER. Then in the spring autoX it together and enjoy parking lot racing so much more than the Saab was ever going to do for you.
alfadriver wrote:
There's a solid thread here about getting a car, modifying it, which basically ruins it for normal use. Don't do that.
The whole greatness of the sub-$200 modifications I suggested, though, is that they IMPROVE daily drivability. The subframe brace was originally engineered to decrease the car's tendency to pull you into another lane every time you leave a stop light, and they decrease the car's tendency to tram line on the freeway as well. The fact that it also offers a tangible benefit to steering feel is just extra greatness. I don't get why anyone WOULDN'T buy one for $100 while they are still being manufactured!
Modding the car to make it a better daily is one thing.
To spend $200 to improve shifting and brace the subframe to make the car a faster autox car is ridiculous. How many times do you shift in the average autox course (in a big car on E36 M3ty tires)? Once. And usually not under power (in a corner) so shifting speed is arguably irrelevant.
Surely if the subframe brace makes such an amazing performance difference there are numbers somewhere to back it up.
In reply to ProDarwin:
Wow, apparently I really set you off! I don't think many people are out there autocrossing these cars, most of them are used for HPDE or (God forbid) drag work, and most of that is in the UK. But my point is that for a couple Benjamins, these mods certainly aren't going to hurt anything, and going on the absolutely gushing reviews they get from 9-3SS owners on the Saab forums, they drum roll are probably worth the minimal investment!
I really have no idea why you're trying so hard to make me seem like an idiot for suggesting that less torque steer and better shifting may translate into a car that is easier to autocross. I've always been a track day guy myself so who knows if they will make the car quicker around some cones, but OP already said they are not going to go try to set FTD, so I have absolutely zero idea why making the car easier to control would be a BAD INVESTMENT like you make it out to be...not to mention there ain't gonna be a Saab performance aftermarket forever, so might as well get these (again, CHEAP) performance parts while they still exist.
