Thread: '96 Grand Prix GTP

Hey guys, I'm new to the forums as you can probably tell by my post history. I've lurked a lot of other forums for a while and this one seemed to be the best group of guys.

Saturday I picked up a '96 Grand Prix GTP for $170. My girlfriend's dad said he was tired of fixing it and wanted to get rid of it, luckily for me by the time I picked it up he had already dropped a couple hundred dollars into new tires, brakes, rotors, alternator, timing belt, etc. The list goes on, really.

There is almost nothing wrong with the car. The key is broken off in the ignition and the driver's door handle is... well, missing. I've found a few replacements on eBay and at the local part yard in the sub-$40 range, so it's not an issue.

The body is in great shape, other than a good sized dent from backing out of the driveway and clipping my mom's boyfriend's bumper. I had done it myself a few months back and it's on an easily replaceable panel. It's also got the paint/clear fading these cars are notorious for, a few scratches/knicks/dings, and the wheels are in pretty bad shape.

Here are a few pictures. I can take pictures of anything else if anybody really wants them.







Now that I've gotten the car, the first thing I did was take the time to clean a year's worth of trash and godknowswhat from the interior. That took a good 2 hours of time. I'm surprised by how clean the interior actually is now that I've got the car all cleaned up. The seats have a few tears, but nothing all that bad. I'm sure I could pick up some new seats or just throw covers on them... as much as I hate the idea of seat covers. I've pulled, cleaned, sanded, and I'm about ready to either paint or polish the valve cover. All of the filters, plugs, wires, and gaskets on this car are new - checked them off of the list of things to replace.

Is there anything else I can do to this car that I should add to my list? Any thing I should check before I get it on the road?


Here's my current list:

- Fender well intake
- E3 plugs
- Performance wires
- 2.5" exhaust (later down the road)
- 180* thermostat

As you can tell I've done quite a lot of reading before posting here. I'm really excited about this car and I hope to have it for quite a while. I used to want to buy a Honda Civic Si and blow loads of money on it, but I'm liking the LQ1 a lot so far. I understand there isn't much as far as performance parts for this car, but even stock this engine puts out a hell of a lot of power and it's not a race car.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Berlusc0ni

...luckily for me by the time I picked it up he had already dropped a couple hundred dollars into new tires, brakes, rotors, alternator, timing belt...

Timing belt has been replaced.

Thanks!

Thanks - I spent quite a lot of time cleaning it up!

Window tinting would be awesome, but the local police are serious assholes when it comes to window tint. The law in Indiana is that window tint must not be higher than a VLT of 30%. Cops around here don't seem to understand what the difference is and are handing out tickets left and right for people with tinted windows.

Which reminds me, my first Grand Prix ('94 SE) had purple tinted windows and it was the most horrendous thing I have ever seen.

I definitely will enjoy it, it's a really fun car. I didn't buy this thing for the performance, I bought it because it was cheap and I just got lucky enough to get another Grand Prix and a GTP this time around.

I'll do the upgrades that everyone around here seems to do to theirs. The main reason for posting is so that I could check/replace parts these cars are notorious for early failure. All I've read on so far is the timing belt.