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Hello, I'm almost a proud new owner!

Jonnymac

Jonnymac

New member
Hey guys just joined the forums, I can tell I’ll be on here quite a bit looking for advice. I will be buying my Mother’s 2002 GT with 54k miles on it just as soon as she gets her new car, sometime next month. Haha, I took her to the auto show to speed up the process! Anyways, the thing is spotless and has been garage kept since day one. Today I buffed the whole car with some compound and ended with a wax, it made the paint pop again and looks great. It erased the microscopic rust pocks behind the wheels and it already had an amazing shine to it. Ill post some pics soon. Honestly the car is flawless, the door jams are clean as a whistle and everything. Even the clear coat on the rims is not flaking at all. The only thing I dislike about the car is that is has cloth seats, oh well. It’ll be a hell of a lot nicer than my 2004 dented up P.O.S rusty Impala with over 60 cigarette burn holes throughout it, so I really cannot complain (bought it that way). The interior is in great shape, no wear and tear on the floor or even an elbow rub mark on the driver’s door. Nothing! Although the car looks immaculate bone stock, some of the things I would like to do are… Quality 3M tint, wheel spacers, red calipers, and tinted headlights… those sort of things. However, I don’t know much about how to increase performance under the hood and need some guidance from you guys! What would you do? I’ll be keeping any stock parts in case I sell it down the road but I might just keep it forever and buy a new daily driver at some point. I’m glad it’s not going to some teenage kid who doesn’t appreciate how well taken care of it is. To say the least I can’t wait to get the title in my name, this will be my first car I can be proud of. Cheers!
 


Clean car for sure.

But I'd highly recommend not tinting the headlights, one for being semi illegal and the other is that light output is not really awesome to begin with. Tinting them will make night time driving worse and that's not a good idea. A slight tint to the tail lights to give them that smoked look is alright, many do that. Also wheel spacer at stock right height might look goofy because of the wheel to fender gap it's still going to have.

As for performance mods, there are many that you can do but the gains are always so small on the NA 3.8. Anything from an custom intake for sound (no power gain to had there) to exhaust work like a downpipe.

The biggest things you can do for maintaining the car is get it up to snuff right away. If it still has the factory intake gasket at 14 years old, those should be on the to do list. Factory coolant aswell needs to be gone for sure if it has it. Transmission fluid should be changed if original too, at this time it's worthwhile to install a shift kit to furth protect the transmission from a possible issue that they can suffer. (long shift codes)
 
Hey thanks Five for all the info, I had no idea about the shift kits to keep the transmission on point. I know the driving style of the vehicle will change as soon as its mine so a transmission fluid change and a new gasket aren’t bad ideas. I think I will skip the spacers for now. I thought it would be a cheap way to get a more aggressive look but I don’t plan on lowering it. I don’t want it to have that goofy 4x4 look, that’s for sure. As far as headlights go I found some online that have the smoked look I’m interested in without being too dark. I think the stock taillights look good. I just bought a new stereo today and ordered the wiring harness as well.

Thanks Destroyd 1gtp, as soon as I found out the car was going to become available I jumped on it so fast. She even went as far as to take the original center counsel insert out and stored it in the basement along with the original floor mats!
 


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