hey everone,
i am hopefully going to be buying another car in the near future, i am unsure of what i should get but i have taken interest in the swift gti's, can anyone tell me if they have much grunt for a small car? being close to stock form.
is there anything bad with the swifts?
i'd imagine they would be a good little car to poke around town in.

any info on swift gti's or reccommendations of any other small cars that are around the price of a swift would be greatly appreciated.

The new Swift or the Old model?

I can tell you the Old Models go damn hard.. The 1.3ltr revs hard and they handle great.. One seriously quick little car, but mild enough for nana to put around town in too.


The new ones ..? No idea, never driven one. They do look cool though and alot of reviews seem to think they go pretty well.

the older models, there's no way in hell i could afford a new one,

i figured it would be a good choice as there is alot of aftermarket stuff available for these things, and they look awesome when done up right.

just not totally sure about it yet as most i see have high amount of K's for a 1.3L.

www.redlinegti.com

Get on the forums and have a poke around

how much money do you have and are you restricted by law to a non turbo car?
starlet turbo's are very similar cars, but with more power and more potenetial
guys have got 350hp atw from those 1.3l engines
currently i'm getting 208hpatw on stock internals
checkout www.austarletclub.com

hey intercool, no i'm not resticted to a non turbo car, and i am going to apply for a loan to buy the car, not a huge loan but something around $5k (hopefully) that i can easily pay back. so i think a starlet GT is a bit out of my price range and plus insurance(under 25),but thanks for the recomendation.

just a thought u can get a 5th gen celica for around$5000-5500. They look more better in shape and r prity quik for a $5000 car.

my mate has one of those and i reckon if i get one then there'll be too much competition between us. they are a nice looking car but i don't really like the interior in them. thanks anyway.
i don't mean to keep rejecting everyone's comments but i'm pretty much sold on getting a swift GTi, probably cos there's not many of them around where i live.

other car in mind is a AE93 corolla SX hatchback with the 100kw engine.

me and the missus had a AE82 hatch with the 100kw motor in it and it was a quick little car. had a couple of runs against a CULTUS (import swift gti) that rev better and are faster than the australian gti and still bet it.

if i was u i would go the AE93 as long as it is the 100kw 4AGE. they are a great little car to drive and power to weight is awsome

I used to have a 1.8 L DOHC 16 Valve Toyota Sedan back in South Africa.

It went hard Was only about 93 KW I think though. I would imagine it would be similar to the AE93.

I used to nail that car all the time and never really got into much trouble (Death-wise ) It was also very strong and reliable mechanically from the factory.

LVI.

thanks for the info about the corolla, i guess i'll just have to wait until the time comes to actually buy the car, i'll have to test drive a swift GTi and a AE93 and pick which one i like best.

go to toymods or twincam.org for all your info on the corollas, you can pick up a good nick 4agze (supercharged) for around the 5K mark. my money would be on the corolla.

my extensively modified starlet only costs $1100 / year comprehensive to insure, i live in sydney and am male U25...
you'd be pushing to get something good for $5k...

i'd definately look at the corolla's. maybe an ae86 sprinter! mmm rwd 4age! 4age's are great motors, lots of potential

best thing to do would be to save some more and get something good to begin with. even though i love my car, i wish i could have waited a while longer and bought something else.

i'm still looking for something under $5k, not really into the swifts anymore.

my mate is selling his '94 VR commodore S pack 5 speed for around $4000, i'm trying to get him down on the price to around $3800. it has about 260,000K's on it and just needs a new clear coat of paint on some areas mainly the boot lip/spoiler, the colour is dark blue with a red stripe around it, interior is standard and A1 and it has standard S pack mags and bodykit . just had a service done and replaced a few things like all the belts, alternator and some other things i can't remember. havent got any pics yet as it is in brisbane.

does this sound any good?

open to any other suggestions on a decent car under $5k other than what's already been posted.

dont know if holden is the way to go, they arent that reliable, even though i too like holdens, when it comes to holden vs ford. Also 260000km is alot .
Did u change your mind on the corolla? toyota's r prity reliable. Another car, maybe the honda prelude, pulsar, celica "cough""cough".

The VR will serve you well, The old buick 3.8's go for ever .. generally over 400,000 without a rebuild.

And, its a 5 speed! Personally, I'd buy it!

Plus, there are parts for them everywhere .. and if at some point your chasing more power .. an old 5 liter will slot in easily and they are easy to mod and make good power .. upgrade to VT brakes .. theres heaps of stuff you can do for cheap cheap.

i think that the only way i wont get this VR is if he wants too much for itor gets crashed or something , even if i get it and the engine dies, it wont be too hard a job for me and the old man to drop in another one.

i've been looking for a decent pulsar n14but can't find anything i like, all the preludes in my price range are mostly auto, if i buy a 4 banger it's gotta be a 5spd.

can get a white nissan pintara TRX 5spd for $3k in good condition.

A lady friend of mine has a swift gti. Doesnt have her licence yet, so i get to drive it around.

Hers is lowered a bit, with headers and an exhaust.
One of the funnest cars i've driven, they just pull hard right up to the very high redline. Too easy to light up the tyres mid-corner. really love to be flicked around too.

A Ford laser TX5 turbo, pretty sure can be had for under $5000

Quick lil car for what they are

FWD though!

i'm suprised no-one has said anything about a nissan NX. i've seen some for under $5k manual aswell, is there anything wrong with these?

a swift is still on the list, just not up the top, same with a corolla.

I dirve a Nissan NX-R

The SR20's go very nice for what they are

If you wait untill the end of the month I'll be posting some pictures of mine, with some very nice custom mods!!! (If I have it back by then)

For $5k they wouldnt be in the best of shape,as you see some averaging near the $8-9k mark, but if you can get a good one for $5k go for it...

NX-R here too.
Love mine.

Errr.... that's it, LOL!

Selfdestruktor,

Wait till you see pics of my mods

jonnypotsmoker, If you do go for an NX, make sure its an NX-R has all the fine little details that the NX doesnt have

ok since i'm not going to be able to afford to run this VR commodore, i'm gonna try and get a nice looking 4 banger, i want something with some decent power to boot around in.
a corolla with a 4AG would be great but i can't find one in my price range, so i'm considering a swift GTi, n14 model onwards pulsar, mitsubishi mirage ( i know they havent got much power but i reckon they look good) '91 onwards civic (has to be 1.5l or 1.6l), NX or NX-R, any others i should look out for?

as for a mirage, what power do they make? i know it isn't much but my n12 pulsar is only 1.5L and i reckon it only has about 50kw. surely a mirage has to have a bit more than that.

celica has 99kw

LOL

sorry mark, i'm just not a celica type of person. thanks anyway.

i also forgot to mention in my last post that i don't want a turbo.

haha i tried.

i have a question regarding the laser TX3's, since they brought them out in turbo AWD and non turbo FWD, will the insurance on a turbo one be the same as a non turbo one?

(any model but looking towards a '91 KF)

just got me thinking that if it is the same then i don't see why i shouldn't try and go for a turbo one.
only bad points are fuel consumption and tyre price for 17inch mags.

any bad things about the TX3's?

i'll have to find out tomorrow when i got to the bank.

this help is greatly appreciated , i just dont want to waste my money on a crudbox.

hey mate you can't go past a sx corolla...
should be able to find one in good condition for 5k.
heck i'll be selling mine with a 20v 4age in it for aruond the 5.5 mark when i get it back...
and it costs about 3k+ to have a 20v dropped in.
have a look on www.twincam.org

i might be buying a 1992 N14 pulsar Q with an SR20de 5spd in it tomorrow for under $3500. in decent condition with no real problems as it is completely stock standard and never been thrashed. can't wait to take it for a drive. just needs a good set of mags and a pollish.


oh and a good stereo.

bought the n14 today and couldn't be happier with it. just have to get some nice mags and put my stereo in it. the SR20DE really is a great engine , it feels like a v8 after driving around in a crappy 1.5L carby n12 for ages.

it has a sports exhaust and is lowered with king springs front and rear, front is lower than rear so i might get the front raised or the back lowered more to match. the paint isn't the best but hey i only paid $3200 for it. it has 240 xxx kms on it.

nice hopefully it wont cause u any problems in the long run.
My car just died on me. But nothing to do with the engine, related to a ignitor or something similar. But still that was a surprise death haha, since the engine is in very good condition. But i guess these things happen.

Wow, just looked at the specs for your car, and man 105kw for $3500. Thats a good buy.

sorry to hear about your celica mark, hope all goes well and the celica gets back up and running. yeah i thought it was good buy too, i couldn't let it go fr that price especiall when we talked him down a few hundred dollars.
to be honest it could use with a complete respray but i'll have to save up a bit for that and wait until i get a decent kit for it so i can get it all sprayed and fitted at once. it is bright red by the way.

ye my celica is also needing a respray, coz the toyota red is known for fading.

i'm gettin some mags for it real soon, not gonna go too big so i'm just gonna get 16's to make it look half decent. looking at gettin something from CSA, something like the pursuit style ones or maybe the attack style ones.

anyone know of a good style of 16's that would look smick on a bright red n14 that's lowered?

You should have gone the Swift have seen a write up in zoom mag apparently the swift motors can happily produce 350+hp atw and rev to 9500rpm all day the only critical part is making sure you get the tuning right on as that is there only weakness not tolerent of poor tunes. There is also a suziki tuner that sells 130kw atw's kits for about $2500-$3500.

i'm really happy with the pulsar, i dont regret buying it at all.

SR20's can also produce alot of power at the wheels and more than a swift .

how high can the SR20's rev?

from memory they rev out pretty low. It's not how high an engine can rev out to. Infact a high revving engine would prolly be bad. Moving parts moving at even higher speeds, just isn't nice.

The sr20 is a damn good choice as it produces torque well down low and power throughout it's entire rev range

Theres a trade off m0n. A strong engine can handle big, low down torque, whereas a high-revver 4cyl might be more suited to boosting at higher speeds, rather than trying to trying to overly HAMMER the power on early, onto relatively lightweight components.

Its like comparing, i dont know, and old hemi muscle block to a f1. Different principles. A hemi would go up to 14000 rpm too happily, and a f1 would blow up if you tried to get it making huge torque below 4000rpm.

You have to choose, based on personal preference and driving style.
Are you a cruiser, a street warrior, a hills fiend. Do you like downshifting at 7000rpm, etc.

The NA sr20DE Rev out around 7500RPM. Well mine does close to that, havent driven it for a while so yeah.

The sr20DET (Turbo version) not 100% sure what they rev to.

But either way they make awesome power for a 2L engine

they rev out at like 7000 from memory, due to the turbo they have to lower the CR in the engine hence making it rev out less.

ok, i need to know why a lower CR makes a car rev lower.

this is what i assumed... heh, engines like honda's usually have insanely high CR's... specially with vtec, and they rev out to 9000rpm.

Generally also from most n/a to turbo you need to drop the CR and also drops the rev limit.

Wrong, dropping the CR doesnt neccesarily mean you have to drop the rev limit, at all. It just means you'll make less power naturally aspirated.

anyway i finally got my rims on it today, got a set of 16"x7" CSA dominators in shadow chrome, i must say it looks a thousand times better. just have to get the rear lowered to match the front and it'll be all sweet.

if you want pics then someone will have to tell me how to post them up.

I have an honda integra... the engine revs high redline is 7000 rpm. With a Cold air intake extractors and exhaust, it goes hard. I beat a comodore wagon off the line today... Not a huge acheivment but it was fun and this is a natrually aspirated 1.6L 4cyl here. I just flogged it in 1st 2nd and third got to 100km/h and stopped he passed me then, but I want going to get a speeding fine. lol. There were suppoded to be speed cameras on that road today and there wasn't. :@

High rev engines are fun, I was looking at one of those pulsar Q's with and SR20, but they were all flogged or in bad condition for the price. Got my almost perfect condition integra for $5200, just need to get a small amount of rust removed, wont cost much. And a service to make sure it all in good working order. Which worst case senario might bring it up to $6000. but thats still a good deal in my oppinion.

Hope your happy with the plusar, a guy at tafe has an ET turbo, peice of crap lol. Its always broken, needs a rebuild badly. Supposedly runs 12's when it working.

yeah i'm extremely happy with the pulsar, it has enough power to satisfy me for time being, just gonna work on the cosmetic side of it atm.

not sure what to do next though, i already have tint, exhaust and now mags.

might get a cannon tip put on or a set of headders, i wouldnt mind a bit more of a growl out of the SR.

could also get another set of kingsprings to lower the rear to the same hieght as the front, or get the cloth trim on the doors retrimed in red leather or vynil or maybe even a nice steering wheel and gearknob.

open to suggestions

as far as i know all bottom ends take about the same amount of load. i think its about 3000lb/ft.

the max revs are dictated by this strength AND the valve setup. AFAIK it has nothing to do with CR or torque cruves.

take a pushrod V8 and a twin cam 6 cylinder. one can rev because of the design and layout of its valves and the other.

Tips dont do much for exhaust note. cannon? dont do it without adding a resonator, which warrants a cat-back exhaust re-piping at hte least, otherwise you get that irritating wet fart sound. Headers would add a growl AND probably some performance.

King springs. ugh. they sag over time, and are regarded as the nastiest cheapest crape out there. but hey they do work, but only for about a year.

also, whenever your upping the spring rate/lowering the car, its a damn good idea to change the shocks too. The second you lower your car, you put load on the stock shocks that they just arent designed to handle. They will be working their very hardest just to keep the car level around smooth corners. short story, they will wear out/blow very quickly, give it a year at most. Then, you'll be up the cost of new shocks, AND you wont have the stockies to put back in case you sell/crash it. Oh, and bouncy bouncy once that happens.. in the mantime, no traction. It'll probably feel hard as crape and handle like it too.

ok so it looks like i will be investing in some decent headers for the time being, at the moment i have the sweet SR20 sound that comes when it revs at about 3000rpm.

and then i'll get some good shockies cos atm i feel every single bump i go over but it handles excellent. what other springs are there that are better than king springs but wont break my back in price?

i'm deciding if i should get a bodykit for it or not but even if i do, it'll have to wait until i get new springs cos the way it sits now a front bar wont last too long, i'm pretty sure i'm bordering 100mmm off the ground for the front.

is it normal for when you get bigger and wider rims to notice the car feels slower to pick up speed?
is it cos i now have more rubber on the road or something else ?