98 Saturn SW1

[Holter]

Welllllllll, My names Jonah and I'm 16 years old, and I just picked up my first car yesterday.
1998 saturn sw1. Not exactly a powerhouse, but I dig it.

Mounted my roof rack. The cross bars are a little wide, but I got the whole setup for 50 bucks off my girlfriends dad. Gonna trim them down and put the caps back on.




I couldn't afford coil overs, but I wanted more low than lowering springs, and I didn't want to cut the stock springs because then it would ride like shit.
So I opted for these "coilover sleeves." They are essential just drop springs with adjusters from 1-4" of drop.

Gonna be installing them hopefully some time this week, but I'm pretty swamped right now between work and school.

Things to buy:
Rims/tires (dimension suggestions would be great!)
wheel spacers
air intake
ECU chip
O2 sensor chip
strut braces

any suggestions/who would follow?

[Randomofodication]

Diamond steelies are pretty cheap as far as rims go and you can get them in any offset/size you like. Ecu chip and o2 sensor chip won't do anything noticeable for the car. Guy the catalytic converter is pretty cheap and helps a little. Also if you have an auto tyranny you can't get a "true cold air intake" (tranny filter gets in the way) so you might have to do a bit of engineering to get it right haha.

Car looks good tho, I'm in to see where this goes

[Holter]

It's manual so no need to fuck around with intake stuff.
I was doing some research and some people said the chips make a noticeable difference, you don't think it's worth the cash?

Also, I'm painting the grey bumpers/skirts white. They bug the shit out of me.

[Randomofodication]

On bigger engines or stuff with reputable names like aem or hks etc. those are good but the stuff for our cars are all no name. I wouldn't use the money on them.


Also junkyard bumpers may be cheaper and save you some work. White seems to be a fairly common colour, only the back bumper may be hard to find as sw2's aren't as common

[herpfreaks]

It isn't worth it to put the effort out if they were free. For those chips and our ecus are chipped/hacked yet.

If low is your goal try going with 16x7 rims.
17 inch looks slightly to big. 15 s look too small.

Ride ability will suck with those coilovers, alot of saturns have had better luck using springs like H&R and chopping dead coils off to keep performance and get decent ride height.

[Holter]

Hey guys! Lot of updates goin on.

So a couple days ago work started


Cleaned up the motor a bunch


found some "Rally" style lights in my garage, never been wired up.

And found this basket on craigslist for 20 bucks. It's got some surface rust, but I'm gonna clean it up and paint it all. (My friends like to ruin my pictures.)




Then I cut the cross bars down, looks soooo much better.



We also own an SC2, and it had some decent 15" aluminum wheels, so we swapped those for the ones on it. They were beat to shit, but we clean them up and painted em, so they look alright for now.

before:


after:


Coilover sleeves installed. I didn't take any in process pictures like a dumbass, my bad.
The front currently sits 3/8-1/2" higher than the back. We've just got to adjust them down a bit to even it out, then might drop it another 1/2"-1" all the way around. Looks lower in person, well get better shots in the daylight tomorrow.





That's all for now. Looking for wheels right now! So be on the look out for that.

Comments and suggestions always welcomed.

[Holter]

Well shit I found a fat deal on some 15s i like but I feel like that's to small for the car. It would look awkward. :/
Thoughts?

Also, better photos:





Pictures still don't look good. But it's dropped about 4" from stock all the way around.
Gonna go lower at some point, but there's not much travel right now and idont want to bottom out every two seconds

[Kyle_Eagleton]

Cool project bud. And cool to see more Saturns here

[ajnardo]

pardon me for asking, but why are saturns all of a sudden so popular? ive never even heard of lowering a saturn until like the last couple of months.

at any rate, looks good, not a fan of black wheels though.

also you should get a lip and paint the valences white. (imo)

[Holter]

pardon me for asking, but why are saturns all of a sudden so popular? ive never even heard of lowering a saturn until like the last couple of months.

at any rate, looks good, not a fan of black wheels though.

also you should get a lip and paint the valences white. (imo)

Idk, I found this beauty with 50k miles and bought it cause I wanted a car that would last long.


All the grey is being painted white. Looking for a lip I can make fit at the moment.


I'm not sure where to go on wheel color yet. I was gonna do high gloss black, because I like the black but these are dull

[Holter]

Anybody know some cheap low end coilovers that will fit 98 s series?

[Randomofodication]

Neon coilovers can fit with some work. Probably can get some cheaper by doing that

[Chuckdee]

Neon coilovers can fit with some work. Probably can get some cheaper by doing that

Truth.

Those ebay coilover sleeves you got doesn't do shit to lower ANY car and they ride like crap. Car looks ok so far, just need a real coilover setup to gain some actual lows.

[Holter]

Neon coilovers can fit with some work. Probably can get some cheaper by doing that

How much work? I saw your build thread but it didn't go into much detail

[Ent]

pardon me for asking, but why are saturns all of a sudden so popular? ive never even heard of lowering a saturn until like the last couple of months.

at any rate, looks good, not a fan of black wheels though.

also you should get a lip and paint the valences white. (imo)

Well, Saturn SL/W's are pretty low to the ground in the first place. It may just be the initial appeal. Plus, people like to explore new ground with new cars and Saturns haven't been done up that much.