Oh and reliability isn't a big deal either considering there are people with 70000 miles on their turboed lancers without so much as a hiccup. Yes maintenance needs will increase but only from economy car levels (which aren't exactly high in the first place) to maybe sport compact levels (ie. equivalent maintenance to if the car was a WRX, Evo, SRT-4).
If you're happy with your decision to trade in your lancer, great, I'm happy for you. Go on some of the "better" car forums (ie. corvettes, porsches, etc.) though and I bet you'll get people who say that modding a WRX is stupid for exactly the same reasons you just used against modding a lancer. With a corvette you can get over 500 hp with just bolt ons and head work and still have a perfectly drivable car. Try to do that in a WRX and I doubt you'll have that luxury. Does this mean you should just wait until you can buy a corvette? Hell no, you mod what you have.

 

anybody can get speeding tickets and rack up high insurance rates, somebody who pays that much for his car is so stupid he deserved those tickets. WRX has way greater economy that a turbo lancer because i have had a lancer for 5 years, hang out with the wrx community here in houston, and my car seems to be runnin great. My warrenty is not void cause all i have to do is in weld my exhaust and put the stock one back on which i kept, and unplug my 3 by 5 inch access port from a USB port under my stearing wheel. I dont brake hard, take too many fast turns, or launch my car so my tires stay in good shape. And they cost way less than the evo's tires if you want the stock ones. Dont get me wrong i love to do nice 2 throgh 4th gear pulls. My clutch is fine, and the wrx clutch is great stock >The wrx cant handle 300whp on the tranny though which is why im at 276whp.

I dont think modding a lancer is dumb, im showing everyone the glass half empty aspect of the matter.

This is not a short sided arguement, its just an opinion like i said above.

You do have some valid points though, and i acknowledge that and respect that. But my opinion will not change.

 

think of the prices of those cars. If the price of modding the evo or sti was equal to the price of a bolt on Z06 then it would slighty rash to mod the evo. But the 505 hp Z06 has a 70k price tag. Spend a good 10k on the evo or sti and you can get 505 crank hp. thus making the value of your evo/sti 42k. What im saying is you can get an equally fast car for AN EQUAL PRICE! This corvette talk is rubbish and you are blowing this out of logical porpoprtion.It should not even be a factor. Your not even seeing my point.

if you watch top gear the show they semi put the evo in the 80K exotic class. Its all about starting from a good platform of a car to build. The lancer is not a good platform it has low

potential. If you want a car the same price as the lancer with potential study others cars engine specs, displacment, and what not.

Look at the NBA draft in 2005 when people said pick okafor over dwight howard. Okafor had great current skills but his potential was horrible, so howard was picked 1st and his potential is way higher. And he is having a better season that okafor. Or from a football stand point, Reggie bush has potential to be the next barry sanders with his ability. Unlike i forgot his name.. grrr but you see my point.

the evo and sti are the best potential cars all around performance wise you can buy for less than 50k. Behind them are the cars i stated wrx, ms3, civic si, etc.

oh and as for some people having there parents buy them their cars then what i say does not apply to you. Because...well. You dont have to work to pay your car note. I payed for all my cars since i was 16 and worked for it. I dont know what you do, but if you didnt buy your own car i dont care what you say cause thats weak speaking about all these prices when you dont even pay for your car, and understand the value of a dollar that you work for in order to pay for something as costly as a automobil.

 

I'm still skeptical on the fuel economy thing but I'll have to do more research on that one. As for the warranty issue, if you went into a dealership to get work done with your exhaust in place and your computer on there would your warranty be void? Yes, just like if someone went into a dealership with a turbo on their car. It's a risk you take. I waited till my warranty was up before I dove into the deep end. In regards to tires, the exact same thing applies to turboed lancers, if you drive carefully and responsibly your tires will last just as long as on a WRX. Same goes with all wear items like the clutch and brakes. It also sounds like a WRX is limited to the same hp as a turboed lancer, so it's not if you go to a WRX you can suddenly crank out 400 hp. It's 6 of one and a half dozen of another, for every problem people associate with a turboed lancer the same could be said of a WRX, or different problems arise.

 

If u r saving up for a turbo just buy an evo. don't waist money on it intake is ok it makes it sound better but there are no real gains. Just save up for an evo.

 

That's if you buy the corvette new. My brother in-law has a trans am with a corvette engine dropped into it making 500 hp. A 500 hp evo is not equivalent to a 500 hp corvette, for one 500 hp evos have all kinds of problems, just go over to the evo forums and you can see that. What is the point of "you can get an equally fast car for AN EQUAL PRICE!"? If they cost the same, perform the same, have the same maintenance and such why buy a new car other than for the hell of it? The corvette talk is not rubbish as it helps address my argument.

 

Like we have never heared that one before.

Someone likes lancer doesn't necessarily mean that they also like EVOs.

 

A base Lancer just does not have much potential when it comes to performance modification. A 1998 Civic EX has more potential in terms of power and handling. Hey, whatever floats your boat, I guess. If I had a choice between a Civic and a Lancer, I would get the Civic for the fact that is has more potential. I also don't care if everybody has it. I could care less about being unique.

 

Performance, yes, handling might be a toss up though. With coilovers and proper setup lancers can handle pretty good. Realistically though how many people would actually push the limits on either car? Most people on this forum don't want a 300-400 hp lancer, they just want something a little faster in the 170-230 range. For that there's no difference between a civic and a lancer as both are perfectly adequate for the job. I'd actually take the lancer over the civic for that since the lancer has more torque especially when turboed.

 

The standard corvette has 400hp my friend. The C6 Z06 has the 500 hp you speak of, and that cars is 70k. I can keep up with the vette from a roll and a dig til about 80 then its gone. The WRX can take more than 300whp but you cannot launch it too many times or bang gears or the tranny will break. People make easily 350whp with stock wrx trannies. Or they upgrade the weakest gears 2nd and 4th with RA gears. Or the whole set, or even get the ppg dogbox gears, or the sti swap of tranny and a 18G. And you can get 400whp easily which is almost the 500hp you speak of in the corvette. And all this would cost about 8-10k.

And yes a civic has more potential than the current lancer, and wider and cheaper performace parts. But this new lancer has hands down better potential than the curent civic. But damn everybody has one, so i agree with you on that point id take any lancer over a civic.

 

Yes but he didn't put a stock engine in, it's modified (I think mainly exhaust and some head work). Now then, which do you think is harder on an engine, going from 400 to 500 (a 25% increase) or going from say 250whp to 400whp (a 60% increase). Basic logic tells you the answer. Sure it would cost 8-10k$ in parts but what about repairs and maintenance not to mention losing your warranty? Every argument you have used against the lancer I used against the WRX and you answered just as I did.

 

hehe nice you got me

 

TheReasonsf3 has alot of good points, I think thats why I decided I wouldn't mod my lancer anymore, my brain finaly told my heart that the amount of money I'd spend wouldn't be worth it.

Ok say you buy a lancer, full cash... 14,000$ out of the lot..

3 months pass by you decide to put a new Greddy Catback exhaust on to increase some performance.. About 700$ lets say..


5 months pass by..
Ok well now you decide to put some new rims on your car, and you would like to lower it with Tein Coilovers... 800$(rims, im being easy) + 1300$(coilover kit)..


another 4 months pass by..
You finally decide, damn I'm gonna buy that turbo kit.. lets just say about 3500$
You realize you can't install it yourself, so you get someone to do it for you.. about 1000$..

6 months pass by, you decide to get a piggyback ecu ver 2.. 400$

3 more months.. new cam and head.. 400.. 1400$....

ouch..

You start to notice your brakes aren't as good.. there goes another 100 dollars


another few months.. you finally realize you need a strut bar.. all that heavy racing your doing out in public

180$ for front.. 100$ for back.. Oh the tier bar to! 100$..

Ok so lets just add this up, this is not including other mods you can get


14000
700
2100
4500
400
1800
100
380

Oh lets not also forget.. Oil changes you had..

Almost 2 years.. so an average of 30,000 miles gained on your car..
And you changed your oil every 2,500 miles @ 19.95 an oil change.. 12 oil changes..

240$ right there also..

So lets add it up

23980...


Now lets say you bought an evo at 25k... And you know.. you were happy with the performance, you decided to do nothing to it, Oil changes, thats it..

25,000 + 240(will use the same base oil change rate as the lancer)..

25,240...

The thing is..

Your lancer
after 2 years
voided warranty
worth...
7k..
Your astonished
when you try to trade it in
on how much your gonna get
with all the money you put in it..
and after 2 years
your lancer is old
no one supplies the parts for that model as much anymore
no one needs em
has 08's...
good luck gettin someone to buy em

 

 

Yea but the difference between taking 3 months to save up enough money for a catback and getting a bigger loan payment is huge. If I bought an Evo my payments would go WAY up and my insurance would go up even more.

I can save money for mods at my leisure. I can't afford to pay double what I pay now for a faster car. But, I can afford to save up a couple hundred dollars over a few months to buy something to make my car faster.