Alright so my girl and I were talking the other day about what we want to replace her Eclipse with in the next year or so. I like the new Subaru Legacys but she doesn't. We had it narrowed down to a Civic EX sedan or possibly a Nissan Altima(not sure which trim yet). Then we were driving yesterday and I saw a Mazda 3 and I go "oooh Matty likey" and she says that I can get one if she can drive the truck(she hates the look of the 3's and won't drive it). so now i'm thinking get the 3 or should i just keep the eclipse?
let me give a little background on the eclipse. it's an '02 GS with about 13,000 miles on it. i think its begining to develop some sort of vibration in the engine somewhere. cracked rear bumper because it got snagged on an automatic car wash somehow (i don't ask questions), dent in front bumper because she hit some garden timbers at my apt., and a scraped front bumper at the Taco Bell drive-thru.
Her: ooh they put chips in my kids meal
Me: Babe watch the curb
Her: ok
and then followed the excruciating sound of plastic scraping along a concrete curb. we had a similar incident in her mom's sundance when we first started dating. she was driving down the ally behind her house drinking a slushi and she takes the corner, hops the curb, flattens the front right tire, and busts the oil pan open. needless to say i don't let her eat when she's driving anymore.
anyhow so what i'm getting at is should we keep the eclipse fix it up and then start playing with it or should I get the 3 and play with that. i'm kinda interested to see what Matty has planned for the 3.

 

my wife chose the 3S over the Rx8, new mustang GT and FX35 (nissan suv). It's a great car. It feels MUCH nicer than you'd ever expect a car in this price range to feel. It really felt a lot like the infinity we drove but only $20K less...

My plans for the 2.3L are pretty simple. I'm going to be looking into designing a supercharger system similar to whats on my P5 but I have also thought about making a nice turbo kit for the car. I already have a spare motor and it would be fairly easy to develop the manifold and properly sized turbo. There is much more room BEHIND the motor where the header is than up front where a supercharger would go.

A very EASY design would be to create a supercharger similar to what JR does with their Miata kit. It holds the blower as the actual intake manifold. A problem with this is that you lose all of the power made by the manifold. All those small eaton blowers have to spin very high to make any decent power. I'm not a fan of Eaton's so if that is the only way to fit a blower under the hood I will probably be working on a turbo instead.

Once I get the flange made and cut it wouldn't take me 3-5 days to get the rest of the header done.

I've also thought about making a very nice 4-2-1 header for the car using some new toys from my piping supplier. They have specific collectors/resonators that they are saying actually increase torque and power and don't cost that much extra. If I could make a header for $300 and have it pick up 10/10 all around I think everyone would be very happy.

p.s. I'm also going to be taking some of the money from the supercharger sales to import the p5 and 3s body kits from postert along with my new rims. It looks as though I'll just be the only one!!

 

i'll have to find a way to sell her on it. even if we don't mod it it's still going to be nicer than a civic IMO.
now as far as all the damage to her car she wants to fix it up before she sells it. but i personally think she should just sell it as is. she says she's not going to get enough on the trade-in the way it is but i told her paying to fix it up to get more for the trade-in isn't going to regain the total cost of fixing it up. am i correct in my thinking or just blowing hot air out my ***?
Matty I can't wait to see your P5 all done. when do you expect it to all come together?

 

sometimes it's better to fix it up and sometimes it's not. If you can replace some of the damaged parts cheaply i would. Why didn't insurance pay to fix any of the damage....thats what you have it for!

I'm expecting to get my car all done by middle of next year. I have to sell a bunch of blowers to come up with spending money! I'm not making a whole bunch on these so I'm going to have to sell in bulk or sell the design to Powerdyne for a lump sum + points. We'll see what happens though.

 

i guess she could still claim it on the insurance(she's still on her mother's policy). her stepdad just had every dent and scratch on his truck accumulated from his many years of drunk driving fixed and if they have another claim on their policy i think they're going to be dropped. and i'd rather not have that on my policy seeing as i already have high rates because i'm so young

the quote given to us by the bodyshop to fix just the rear bumper was $650. so we're looking at about $1200-1500 to fix it all.

 

yuck....in all honesty though Eclipses (3rd gens)...dont have ANY re-sale value. I would go to Edmunds.com and do a used car appraisal. See what your car is worth in good-excellent condition and then say what it's worth in fair condition...if the difference is greater than $1500 then I'd repair the car.

I usually spend $150 on having my car detailed prior to going to the dealer...sometimes I realize I really like the car and don't ant to trade it badly enough...if not then it usually appraises for more than $150 higher!

 

looks like i might have to eat my words once again. it's about $1400 difference. i might go to the body shop and get an estimate on getting it fixed

 

cool deal. Also since this wasn't a "wreck" situation it shouldn't count against you. Just a little finder bang up that was repaired recently...make sure to keep the receipts though to show the new/potential buyer of the eclipse.

 

IMO, the 3 is better. honda has no torque, nissan has been having reliability problems (i believe). good luck man.

 

i still want the subaru but it's a little out of my price range. i probably won't move on anything until this time next year so i can take advantage of all the rebates. of course i said that about my truck and 2 weeks later i was sitting in a new truck.

 

hahah

 

oddly enough i found the exact car i want not to far from me. to bad i have to work tonight... maybe i'll take her for a spin tomorrow night.