[ZTWsquared]

shadowzx3,Nov 10 2008, 05:35 AM Wrote:Ok so its almost 4:30am, I woke up randomly to some stupid noise and had an odd thought.

I don't really have much experience with cars as of yet, my pool of knowledge is growing though and being mechanically inclined helps drastically. I just bought my 2001 black zx3 a month ago. The engine in there now has about 159,000km on it. Still runs really well for a 7, almost 8 year old car though.

I'm currently looking for someone that owns a shop and loves working on cars to help spread some knowledge. I'm going through university, don't really have money for tools and if I would ever like to put a dime into upgrading the car, definitely need somewhere to work on it.

Once that is all taken care of, instead of bolt-ons and different upgrades. My dream has always been and if possible, my plan, is instead of rebuilding the engine I currently have, taking away a car to drive for a bit, would be to slowly save up every dime and penny I can and build myself a new engine. So I'm talking from ground up, so either finding a used zetec 2.0L from somewhere and getting maybe the displacement up, increase the flow or building one from the ground up. Forged internals would be a must because when my car would be complete, turbo or supercharged is definitely in the plans. When it comes to something like this, I would rather be a little tighter on money and a car that can take the stress then going cheap on parts that can ruin the whole point after it all.

Is this something that slowly could be afforded, given that I slowly buy stuff as I can afford such? I realize this maybe completely out of the question and would at the very least love to discuss pros/cons and the whole process for even education purposes at the very least.

I just feel it would be pointless to put money into upgrades for an engine that's getting older and older and maybe a brand new engine may be long-term the better route to go. My thinking is the more upgrades I slap on the car without attending to the motor, the older the motor gets, the more stress its going to have to put up with and well, I can't have it dying on me anytime soon.

At some point in its life, its going to see a track, maybe not next summer but maybe after that for sure.

Would love some input from you everyone here because if you don't ask, you'll never know.
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Two things you can do almost right away (while saving pennies for the FI) is upgrade the brakes and suspension ... relatively inexpensive and typically DIY and you get immediate enjoyment every day of the year ... not to mention that these are sigifnicant wear items that need to be replaced regularly anyway.