Please Help me decide which to buy...

[streetknight]

I have a delima. I'm looking at buying another TR. I've got 2 cars picked out as of yet. Keep in mind that my goal is to have a nice looking "driver" and a car that will run mid 11's.

The first car is an 87' GN with 45K miles on it. It was a stolen recovery car that came back with a clean title. The engine compartment, interior looks great and car runs and drives nice. Down side they scratched up and banged up the car enough it needs an all over paint job with very minimal body work. (which I cannont do myself)

The second car is a T Type that is gorgeous cosmetically and as far as apperances I have to do nothing. Downside is the car has 140K miles and the engine has developed a "tick". He said he didn't know what it was, it wasn't present at idle while warm or cold, but around 1500RPM's it gets audible and progressively worse. I was thinking a rod bearing, but I haven't gone to look at it yet.

Both cars are priced within a few hundred dollars of each other. Both cars are going to HAVE to have mods to go as fast as I want to go. SO, would you buy the one that definatley needs engine work, or the one that needs body work?

Sorry for the long post, but appreciate any feedback.
Thanks

 

[turbosam6]

The 87 GN.

 

[sweetv6]

87 GN with a good check up
oil press.
compression

stolen car can be beat very hard

IMO

Claude

 

[Drac0nic]

Originally posted by sweetv6
87 GN with a good check up
oil press.
compression

stolen car can be beat very hard

IMO

Claude

Yeah, I think there was either a fellow here or a fellow with a Typhoon that got his ride ripped off, the idiots ended up turning his engine into a piece of scrap metal. If the GN checks out good I'd quite frankly rather start with a fairly clean sheet of paper if you know what I mean, that way you're not trying to fix someone else's "improvments"

 

[TR Custom Parts]

Wait until a better one comes along. Either one is going to end up costing big $$$$ to fix up.

 

[streetknight]

Thanks for the info everyone.

 

[gndemon]

I would try and find anther car. A good paint job can be big $$ and a anock could mean a complete new motor. Try calling A&I automotive at 770-972-1122 they are in Snellville GA. They have a nice t type for sale.

 

[streetknight]

Thanks GNDemon, I'll give them a call

 

[turbowannabe]

Well if your going to want to run 11's chances are you will need to somewhat build your block anyways. I'd say with buying either of those cars you would want to tear the motors down and do some refreshening with bearings and what not, and think about getting heads ported, a good cam, maybe some billet main caps to be safe. I'm no expert nor am I trying to be one, but with either of these cars your taking a chance of getting yourself into some problems anyways, and starting by checking everything and freshing things up would be a good idea I think. If you wait to find out you may have the problems I had, motor started knocking and I ended up having to spend more money than it would have cost before. Just trying to be of some help

-Dan

 

[streetknight]

Thanks everyone for the info. I went and looked at both cars this weekend. The GN is going to be too much work for me (since I'm no body man)

And the T Type, I'm pretty certain it has a spun rod bearing. It is a very nice looking car, but I think I'm gonna take some advice from here and keep looking for a while. I thought the one that needs the engine work would be a good building block since I needed to go into the engine for cam, heads, etc. anyway. Was hoping it could be picked up reasonable enough to justify the purchase, but I think I'm gonna hold off on making an offer for now.

Thanks again everyone

 

[turbowannabe]

Good idea, just take your time and look for the right TR for yourself. Don't rush yourself that can lead to some bad mistakes. Since winter is comming up soon, it can be a primo time to pick up some good deals here in a few months. Look on whatever web sites you can, there's plenty of TR based sites and you never know what kind of deal you may come across on autotrader or something along those lines. Good luck and let us know what you find.

-dan

 

[TR Custom Parts]

You can always low ball the offer to the T-Type owner. Never know, he might take it.

 

[Little6pack]

Save your money & buy better