What's the best junkyard upgrade that you've done to your car?

In reply to mad_machine:

Sweet! $100 interior!

Koni's and the hard to find shift knob for my SVO.

My Wife's biggest fear when we got married was that I was going to open a U-Pull-It...I should have.

J30 LSD diff, 240sx HICAS model rear sway bar, matching s14 seats, and an uncracked dash for my old 240sx. Those were my only notable scores, and I was most excited about the dash lol. Uncracked ones are unobtanium!

There was an S10 sitting in the weeds, big pile of crap on it's hood. That truck had been there untouched for as long as I could remember and the hood-release cable had long-since snapped. I spend 30 minutes getting it open and low and behold, the S10 had a 454 V8 swap with new Demon carbs and a Turbo 400. I grabbed it all for $100.

PSYCH! I grabbed everything I needed for a Honda Mini Me swap once for $50 though.

Not technically from the junkyard, but by buying other people's castoffs I upgraded the brakes on my e30 from solid front discs, rear drums to vented fronts and rear discs. Cheap too!

My favorite part of going to the junkyard is wandering around way in the back - that's where they keep all the cool stuff.

Mustang gt rear springs for my Celica, 20$. Explorer 8.8/ short side axle 3.73 FD and working lsd- 60$

In reply to pinchvalve:

Nice!

finding a solution....

from this

To this....

Hey good topic. Are you a new guy?

In reply to tuna55:

Yup, I'm new around here. Also new to car ownership.

In reply to G_Body_Man:

Is your profile accurate? 15 years old? Cool.

There are a lot of very smart and patient folks here that I wish I had at 17 when I first started car ownership. I had a 81 Camaro with a two barrel 305. It ran 17.44 quarter mile times all day. I won many a round of bracket racing with that pig. I'll give you some info in your other thread about that. Welcome!

In reply to tuna55:

Thanks! Yup, I'm 15. Although I look like I'm 12 in photos. The reason I got a g-body was because FB RX-7 prices jumped, and my friend has a panther, so G-body it is. I've actually wanted one for around four years now, and now I have one!

Put a tach cluster in my 5 speed Prizm, other the swapping the speedos(for odometer readout) and plugging the outdoor temp sender into the socket in front of the radiator, it screws right in.

In reply to Kenny_McCormic:

Nice!

I found a koni/5-lug suspension for my Dad's 914 project and a Miata roll bar for about $30.

In reply to Lof8:

Cool!

I found an Impreza wagon in the junkyard and got it's washer fluid tank, tubing and spray nozzles. The wagons have a rear wiper and washer, so the tank has two pumps mounted to it instead of one. It dropped right in place of the tank on my WRX sedan and I used the second pump as an intercooler water sprayer.

I grabbed a pair of IPD swaybars for my wife's Volvo wagon. They were two of serveral items I had in a canvas bag at a pull-a-part $25 day. That's all you can carry, for $25 a trip. When I was in eastern PA, the yards would have $25 days just before they rotated stock.

tuna55 wrote: Oh, and Curtis can attest to this, taking stuff from a van in the JY is amazing. We pulled it in the rain, and we were nice and dry and toasty in there.

Amen to that, brother.

I upgraded my Impulse Turbo from "backyard grass killer" to "junkyard bound".

Best day ever. I danced over the creepy yellow grass that was growing over the spot where that car sat.

In reply to belteshazzar:

I have to admit I find it funny, and awesome, that you paid for access to a dyno twice but still bought junkyard parts.

I love this forum.....

^Perhaps that's part of the reason he could spend the extra cash for dyno time ;)

Shoot I feel positively spendy compared to you skinflints.

I bought a torsen rear end (complete) out of a '99 miata to replace the open factory unit in my '97. $250 and they pulled it out for me along with a second one for a friend of mine and his wife went to the yard and picked them up for us.

The newer unit is a 4.3 ratio replacing the 4.1 so technically it improved the car in two ways

paid 150 bucks for an 87 turbo coupe. got to drag it home, pull off everything i needed to swap my mustang and only had to send what was left back to be crushed. that was in 07 lol. no huge deals since then.

Most of my stuff has been for my Galant VR4. Front and rear Suspension Techniques sway bars, and a four bolt limited slip rear end came from a Pick N' Pull. Come to think of it, I saved the car from a scrap yard. I bought it from a tow yard 15 years ago for $750 with a broken tranny. I then bought a tranny from the junk yard for $100 and fixed it.