My Car! What do you all think?

A good alignment from a shop that is versed in chassis set up can completely change how a car feels, some of the best money I've ever put into the many vehicles I've had.

Swank Force One wrote: Such econobox. Wow. Very gas mileage. Much commute.

QFT, I wouldn't modify it at all......save for a "fun" vehicle on top of the reliable DD.

I wanted to comment on this thread a couple of days ago because I was where you are now not terribly long ago and I just got to where I really want to be recently. However, 12 hour days 7 days a week 40 days straight so far doesn't lead to much time off for forum writing!

I am fortunate enough to have a gear-head father. When I was your age, he gave me his 1992 Mustang GT convertible. It was in perfect shape, it only had 60,000 miles in 2001 when I got it, and you know what I did to it? Nothing. Well, exhaust modification to make it growlier, but I kept all the original stuff. I enjoyed it for what it was, I took it to the drag strip once (I had just discovered drag racing before I sold it), but I always valued it more the way Ford put it together than I did with anything I was capable of doing to it. The same goes for my '94 Viper now. It's still got the factory cassette player! (and I'm looking for tapes baby! YEA!) That car will never be modified by me and that makes it more valuable to me.

I focused modifications on my Miata--ironically the slowest vehicle I've ever owned. By far. But! It has almost no monetary value (so killing it at the track won’t ruin me financially) and I bought it and built it cheap enough to enter the GRM 2008 Challenge. (yeah. Should have entered.) So, my modifications focused on taking advantage of the things the car was already GREAT at (handling, braking... carrying speed through corners) and not so much on the things it couldn't EVER do well with its low power output. Drag racing was out with my 16.1 second 1/4 mile (even though I was getting more track time per dollar than anybody at the strip). Auto-x was where I started, but I wanted to go road racing. I have ALWAYS wanted to go road racing. Coincidentally, the Miata was almost born to road race!

If I were you, I would pick one discipline. Go fast or go for show. You probably don't have an unlimited budget so find out what would make you happier: going to car shows, which is a great time, or going fast. If you go fast, keep it off the streets. I know that's cliché, but I'm not telling you this because it will get you into a heap of trouble... I'm telling you this because spending 30 seconds trying to see if you can hit 130 on the highway and risking a ticket is boring in comparison to spending 6 hours trying your damnedest to shave off just 1/4 second more from your last lap time at Summit Point Main. Bragging to your friend in the Prelude who missed a shift that you outran him on I-83 pales in comparison to bringing home a trophy for coming in third (out of three cars!) at your local autocross. Rolling start drag races suck compared to unleashing HELL at 3,500 RPMs and running the piss out of your car for 1,320 feet and then to the timing shed to pick up your slip showing your 16.3 second quarter mile (but hey, you had a .550 reaction time... that's better than last run!). No kidding, you'd have no desire to even break the speed limit on the road if you were racing somehow on a facility designed for it. (I'm not saying that I haven't seen 130 in the Viper on that one stretch of highway between Montoursville and Route 11 that one time on the way home from my friend's house... I just don't do it that often.)

We can help you if you can help us by focusing your discipline a little bit. I recommend the following (THIS IS WHERE I GIVE YOU FREE MENTOR ADVICE THAT I WISH I HAD WHEN I WAS 16). It’s not a road map or an instruction manual, just more of a guide based on my experience where I wish I had help and guidance. This is important too: try to get your parents on board. This will all make you a better driver, and I am convinced that it will keep you safer on the road by introducing you to handling limits and corrective measures in a safe environment, devoid of trees and head-on traffic, so that you can handle emergencies like when that guy suddenly comes around a corner and is in your lane and you have to jolt the car to the right a little bit to miss him, but you don’t want to over-do it and wind up hitting a huge tree.

First: SCCA Solo: Go to this website: http://www.scca.com/solo/. Solo = autocross = Auto-x. It's the same thing. Basically, and this will sound stupid until you try it but trust me it’s not, a local chapter of the SCCA will hold events in parking lots where participants bring their cars and race through a course marked by cones. You race from one gate to the next until you hit the finish line. Usually you get four runs in your session, and your best time of those four counts as your "time" and you find out at the end of the day if you won. There are usually four sessions (it's been a while since I've done this, gang, please feel free to correct me), and you race in one and you WORK in one. Both sessions will be a blast. You could have a job chasing cones around one particular corner, or you could do announcements, or you could line up cars on the grid... it's ALL a hoot! NASA (the National Auto Sport Association) may do this too, but I don't know enough about it to provide insight. Make friends here and LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY.

Keep your car the way it is until you try one of these events. They're usually around $40 or $50, so they're an easy way to "benchmark" your car. You want to know how your car performs NOW so that you can pick your first modifications to address weaknesses. Also, you can have a better idea about how modifications are helping you (if they are helping at all) by knowing what your car's baseline is. Be prepared to wear down tires very quickly with auto-x and accelerate the wear on your brakes a bit.

The next step I'd look into might be your second year of auto sports. You can do it in your first though. Look for something called a High Performance Driving Event (HPDE). This is usually a non-competition event where you show up to a road course, sit through a classroom session, then actually drive on a road course. To be clear: road course = racing facility, not a course set up on the street (I think I was confused about this way back). Think, Lime Rock Park, Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway, Road Atlanta, Sebring, etc. By the end of one of these days, you will probably have spent 80 minutes on the track, 40 minutes or more in various classroom sessions, and you WILL BE A BETTER DRIVER FOR IT. In your car, on most road courses, you can expect to exceed or approach triple-digit speeds on longer straights. And believe me, you won't even care to look! Tire wear will probably surprise you—it doesn’t seem to be as bad as auto-x. I’ve gotten 20,000 miles out of super soft Falken Azenis tires on my Miata doing 6 track days a year. Brake wear will be SIGNIFICANT and your first modification will almost certainly be to your BRAKE PADS!

HPDE and Time Trials (time trials are timed road racing events) can be trickier to get into unless you know where to start. I don't know where you live right now, but I could make some recommendations for you. I started Time Trials with a group called EMRA (I even helped run it after a few years). I spend time with IMG now since many of my friends are there now but the principle is the same. These groups (and NASA, and SCCA's non-solo groups, and others) rent racing facilities for certain days of the week or weekends. You pay the group and show up to the group’s event, play by their rules, and compete in their championships. Most of these groups run on multiple tracks in a given region, so you get to see the country a little bit. Be prepared to shell out a little bit more money for this. Events cost about $250 or more to enter and you will probably want to rent a motel room for a night so you can drive out the day prior and get a good night's sleep--add $60. Some tracks let you camp which is fun, so you can bring a tent instead. Trust me though, in dollars per minute of track time, this blows them all away! By the time you are running time trials, you will probably start looking for a race car to go wheel-to-wheel racing... this gets outside of what your question is since you won't want to use your daily-driver. But you CAN drive your daily driver to a time trial event, HAVE A BLAST WITH IT, and then drive it home. I've been doing ALL of these things since 2005.

If you choose to modify the appearance of your car, do yourself a favor and stay away from body kits, wings, and stickers. They look tacky and they're usually cheap quality parts. If you want the car to look good, maybe put some 16 or 17 inch wheels on it (nothing too big--match the size of the car), lower it a half inch, and watch it transform into a completely different car. My best friend won lots of car shows because he kept his modifications (however numerous) tasteful. He turned what looked like grandma's VW Passat into one of the coolest cars I've ever seen (I know... a Passat... Really!) with 17 inch five spoke TSW wheels, a slight lowering kit, and some neat-o performance things under the hood. You'll be amazed at how little you have to do to completely change a car and make it what you want.

To be honest, I love having beautiful cars (and ugly ones like my crusty Miata), but I never cared what other people thought of them. I like it when others like them because it's fun to chat and what not, but the attention can get a little weird. Driving the Viper is pretty strange because people take pictures and videotape me driving to work... (Is videotape a word anymore?) I guess what I'm saying is, do what you want to it because it's something that will make you happy. Don't worry about what other people think about your car (including us) because there will be haters out there mixed in with the fans—why try to please any of them?

Believe me, you don't have to do any of these things to have fun, or you can do more than one thing. Also, racing doesn't have to be a progression. Autocross is insanely fun and I have yet to grow tired of it if I will at all. It's just the most logical place to start if you want to explore all that motorsports has to offer. And you can bring a show car to an Auto-x and have fun, but you don't want to hit cones with a cheap fiberglass bumper... Auto-x is also usually a pretty good place to introduce the parents to motorsports and try to get them to enjoy it with you. Mine never fully engaged, but they understood once they saw it that it’s not dangerous. Oh, and they have to sign the waivers.

Go into this all with open ears. This forum is a great place to go for help because it’s not devoted to a specific make or model of car (well, except Miatas), and nobody here seems to focus hatred on a specific model or type of car (well, except Miatas). Buy a subscription to the Grassroots Motorsports Magazine and read every one. When others offer advice, consider their experience before shrugging it off as some “old dude” telling you what worked in the 50s (you are here asking for advice, so I am keenly aware of the fact that you are light years ahead of your peers).

To answer your question in a few words though: buy a Miata. It’s always the answer to every question.

Sorry about the huge post. I had put some thought into this for a few days. Hopefully it complements what others have said in previous posts. I don't think I contradicted anybody.

In reply to confuZion3:
Well stated.
Contrary to screen name it is devoid of confusion rather than confuzion cubed.