Quote:
Originally Posted by Dezoris
It's been over a year and roughly 15k give or take.
For your $15k that you spent, you could have bought a Spec Miata for $5-6k, $1-2k in updates (belts, pads.. maybe tires) and the rest on half a season of road racing. IMHO, it would have been monumentally more rewarding than modifying a street car, especially with the distaste you have displayed for "garage time". Of course this assumes that racing is desirable.
SO WHATS THE POINT?
What is the point?... No seriously. I think this should have been answered before you spent your first dollar. However, usually we don't realize that until after we've spent several thousand of those first dollars.
And the truth is, there is fine print with most parts you are going install.
Some need tuning, others don't fit or just don't do what was intended. Other require maintenance or won't hold up in the cold or salt. Some cost way too much money.
Exactly! Often times an aftermarket company is using a fraction of the budget and talent to try and out-engineer an OEM with a significantly larger budget and talent pool. Not very often are they successful at this.
"But most of all, anytime you spend in the garage installing parts, fixing things or doing anything that keeps you off the road is defeating the purpose of owning this car."
That's the hard truth about modifying.
I feel that it defeats the purpose of owning any daily driver. If I wanted to spend all my time repairing my daily driver or having it repaired I'd own a BMW.  Either it's a weekend toy, a project car or a track toy but constantly wrenching on a daily driver sucks.
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I went through this about a decade ago. Lots of money in a street car that became a time/money pit and for what? I was tracking it and it was fast but I didn't have a clear goal, a clear
reason for the money being spent. Every track day I went to I found a new target to chase that was completely arbitrary. At first it was another Honda, then a Sentra SE-R, then an M3 and so on. I was adding intake manifolds, ecus, straight pipes, stickier rubber, LSD's, big brakes.. Like drag racing an 18 second car. It's pretty cost effective to get it to 15's or 14's but going from 14's to 12's is twice as expensive!
The money pit has no bottom without specific goals.
If I was a 1 car person and I wanted to modify it, knowing what I know now, I would sit down draw up a completion plan. The "plan" will answer these questions: What's my goal? How will I know I'm done and what does finished look like? The rest of it is all about getting there in the easiest, most reliable and cost effective manner.
Another way of asking the question: How do I get "done" reliably, affordably and safely while maximizing enjoyment?
I have applied this approach to my racing pursuits and it has worked out quite well.