I've ran into a dilemma here, For my 1990 Firebird, I am getting my GI bill backpay and will be more then enough to pay off my bird, I took a $2k loan for it, paid 1200 for the car and 375 for rear axle, suspension, and driveshaft, as well as wheel spacers for the front. Anyway, $1900 is how much I owe on it still. I also picked up a good TH350 core for $50.

Anyways, I found a used 36,000 mile 6.0L (Vin "U" LQ9) from an 02 truck. It is for sale for $1500 and comes w/ a 90 day warranty. It may or may not come w/ all accessories and coil packs. Its hit or miss w/ those at the yard Im looking at. I obviously wouldn't swap it in right away, Id at least pull the oil pan and replace the cam. I would put it on a stand and piece the rest of the build together.

What should I do???

 

Help!!!

 

Pay off car. No doubt.

 

pay off! No doubt about it!

 

The thing about it is that if I pay off the car, Ill likely have to take another loan to do the Swap. I dont know. The car is only $100 a month

 

Why don't you just pay the car off and then start saving for the swap?

That way you'll pay for it in cash and have NO payment.

Just a thought..

 

Yeah, I agree.

Not to be an ***, but here is a little financial advice...financing mods is a VERY bad idea.

 

Pay Off Car First

 

sounds like you already have you mind made up on what your going to do.

I personally would pay it off then save up the money to pay cash for the mods.

But if you are hell bent on getting a loan to pay for mods I would figure out what the interest rate would be. If it is higher than what your current loan is take the $2k from the Goverment and buy the engine. If the loan for mods would be lower interest pay off the car and get the loan to buy the engine.

 

Regardless of anything, I'd pay off the car. How old are you? When I was 18-19 I made a few dumb financial decisions and it took me almost 4 years to fix them...I've only been in a good financial situation for about a year now (I'm 24) and it's been the best year ever because of it. Wait until you have some cash saved up and buy an engine to swap in. A 6.0 swap isn't going to happen for the $1500 you're buying the engine for, so wait until you can afford the engine outright and afford the downtime with the car for you to figure out what else you need to buy, and save up and buy it. I'm paying off my truck, so the most "mods" I've done to it is a decent stereo and sylvania silverstars, I own my car, so I'm going a bit nuts with mods on it, which also means it's taking me a long time because I'll save up some cash, decide whats next on the list, buy it, then do a lot more engineering/fabrication while I save up more cash for the next phase. It' sbeen worth it at the end of a logn day when I can sit down and not think "should I go get a second job to get out of debt?"...instead it's "lets find out what stuff will cost, and then figure out how long I'll need to wait to buy it outright"...and that usually isn't very long at all.

 

another vote for paying off car, then saving for a motor.......

 

Here's another option, keep the ol 6-banger in the 1990, which is worth a hell of a lot less than your 1998 T/A, and just DD the hell out of it. There is a lot to an LS motor swap into a 3rd gen. I say you should pay off the car, then start saving money and mod the hell out of the LS1 T/A, make that one your racecar.

 

I say pay off the car first, then start saving for a motor.......

 

Sounds like a great option to me. You've already got a car with an LSx in it, why not just mod that one and keep the other as your daily driver?

 

^^^Also, if you take good care of those 3.1's, they will run a long time. I just sold my 1991 Camaro RS, and it had like 184,XXX miles on it and ran great.

 

Im probably gonna wait a little longer. I dont need it as a DD, I got an ultra reliable 95 Saturn(just drove 400 miles yesterday to Detroit auto show). My 90 is def. getting the swap at some point. I know that the engine isnt the only thing Id have to buy. Id still have to build a tranny, front suspension, wiring, fuel, exhaust. I may just wait and buy a complete pullout engine & trans. Looks like I'll pay off most of it plus an old Credit card bill.

I just get too excited about this stuff and when I got it it aint nothing to me.

 

No Question. Pay off the car first. Then save your money for the 6.0L. They will become more plentiful and cheaper as time goes on...

 

You could sell the nittos you dont need for that 3.1.. haha

If you just pay it off and save for a few more years youll have enough money to do what you want and the engine/parts will be cheaper and more available.

 

Pay It Off!

 

Some the best advice given to me when I was young was "Only finance cars and homes. Nothing else."