I’m becoming increasingly paranoid about my transmission. That, or it really is developing more interesting noises.

I’ve been noticing more noise trying to engage second lately (not grinding, though, thankfully), and an obnoxious shifter rattle at certain RPMs. All of it is quiet enough to masked by the radio, or even by wind noise, so it’s a distinct possibility it’s always been there and I’m just now noticing. I already knew it needed to be rebuilt at some point, but it’s not something that can be done cheaply, so the longer I can stretch this one the better.

I’ve also been pondering an STS2 build-up to do in phases on the car. For the time being, I’ll run stock on street tires (cheap cheap cheap), but the first phase is wheels and tires. Depending if I can get them used or not, that could be anything from $400 to $800.

Next is suspension goodies. This is where any attempt to fit this to my current years’ budget goes out the window. I want Ground Controls and Koni Sports, but that’s freakishly expensive. Panducky has a package deal on KYB AGXs and GC springs and perches for $700, but if I find that I do want the Konis, only the springs are universal. Which means another big outlay. Besides, at the price these things run, the extra $200 to get the Konis in the first place make cheaping out on shocks seem kind of stupid. A rear swaybar is a must too; this wouldn’t be chump change if I did it the hard way and got a junkyard special, or about $200 for an aftermarket bar.

Next on the list is adding lightness; the cheapest part of this would be removing the A/C. I’m torn on this; while it’s already broken and I’ve been getting through the summer fine without it, this car is still my daily driver and cool air would be a nice thing to have next year. Next would be a racing battery, about $150 or so, and then racing seats. With harnesses (and that’s half the point of having a racing seat, really) that’s about $500 a seat. I don’t really need two racing seats but it’d be another ten pounds of weight savings.

Finally, after all that, engine goodies. I’m not even sure if a full-blow cold air intake is available on my car; the cheap thing to do would be to pull off the resonator on the existing intake and do a little ghetto plumbing with some dryer tube, but that just reeks of cheapness. I need to figure out if any of the existing kits can be adapted to the DX’s DPFI setup, and if it’s even worth the effort. Headers and exhaust will probably run about $1000 for street-legal, non-obnoxius-ricer kit. I’ve heard good things about the RS*R catback, and DC Sport header would be nice. If I can find a legal excuse to replace the stock cat with a Magnaflow I’ll do that too.

And those are the big ticket items, in about the order I’d be phasing them in. $3500+ of go-fast on a $2000 car. Yup, I’m nuts…