Originally Posted by
b1lk1
The more I read and learn makes me wish I had just stuck to a completely stock suspension. Even just refurbishing one of these cars to stock isn't cheap, trying to do it on a small budget is worse. I already have $5K sitting in this car and it's in my garage with not a piece of front suspension in it, and from all accounts I have $600CAD of the wrong rear suspension in it already.
Always wanted one, finally got one only because it was an inexpensive shell. Only could afford mostly used parts, but now that I am at the suspension refurbishing stage I wanted all new parts. I dropped a wad (to me) on the 17" rims and I budgeted $500US to do the front suspension as I figured what I had done out back was good for a DD/weekend cruiser. Minimum I'm finding good front end stuff, as I need everything other than my stamped arms and spindles are fine, that is being recommended is over $1K US. Not happening. Even scraping up $500US is going to be a couple month ordeal.
Now I've built cars, mostly lifted trucks, many many years ago when I had the money to play. Money now is tight, I buy/sell computer parts and make a small bit of coin, but we;re talking $100-200 a month. Some of that money also has to go towards rebuilding my 1992 Dodge B250 which is my DD. At $120+ a fill up, it leaves me precious little to squrrel away and every now and then the wife tosses me a few bucks to keep my project going. I have never been under the illusion that it was going to be cheap to build a car. I'm not upset at what I have spent, I just honestly expected to be further along by this point. Sadly, I have mis-spent a good $500 so far, one step back but not a big one to say the least.
What I am trying to accomplish now is to buy a setup that is within my budget and make sure there is the ability to upgrade over to better parts without throwing away anything expensive. To me, $200 CC plates are exotic parts, I wasn't even dreaming of spending that much a year ago, now I have cornered myself into an almost impossible situation where either I buy them or go back to a stock setup.
If you managed to wade through all my whining, at this point I am either going to have to go with the UPR stuff I have posted earlier or just stop and be in limbo for quite some time. I truly appreciate honest answers given, again, I never expected this to be cheap. I guess my next question is would the parts I listed work with the KYB GR2 struts I have (they are new at least) since I can't return them and would I get at minimum a stock type ride. I would think at a minimum I'd get a better ride due to what I read on the MM site, but my budget will never allow anything better, not for a long time.
I'm to the point that I just want to drive my car. Until I figure out the mess I made and how to make it bearable, that ain't happening. I still have body work and major interior work to do as well. I was aiming to make it 100% on the mechanical end first.
Man, just realizing a very hard lesson, I should have just saved a few bucks and bought something in one piece (stock) and driven it. Building lifted trucks (we're talking back in the double solid axle days) was easy. This is just an exercise in frustration unless you have a minimum $10K sitting around for mechanicals alone.
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