Added an 89 Spirit ES to the fleet

I picked up an '89 Spirit ES today. It needs a head gasket and a few other things, but it's really clean. This has been a Wisconsin car since 1989. I bought it from the family of the second owner. He bought it in 1995.
The Spirit never saw a Wisconsin winter because he parked the car in his garage while he wintered in Arizona. There is no rust on this car. It's amazing.
143,000 miles, but it was well taken care of. The interior needs a headliner and the steering wheel is worn. On the exterior, there are a few dings and some scratches on the bumpers.
It came with a trunk full of parts too.

wow....we just don't have cars like that down here...ever.

Great looking Spirit, congrats...all you need now is a white Omni!

Kudos for snatching them up while you can, as you're aware the good examples are disappearing fast :clap:

Nice car, another rust free car from the great white north, who would of guessed.
greg

Nice find! Digging the trunk luggage rack - that's got to be rare on an ES!

I'm jealous! Congrats!!

So, how bad does a 2.5 vibrate without balance shafts?

Since the head will be off for the gasket replacement, I'm planning on adding a ported exhaust manifold, garrett TII turbo and doing some work on the head to get it to flow better.

Is there anything a 2.5 responds to better than the usual 2.2 mods?

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Originally Posted by ajakeski

So, how bad does a 2.5 vibrate without balance shafts?

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It all depends on how well the motor was balanced when it was put together. When I had my 91 Spirit ES turbo we took the balance shafts out, it vibrated enough to where I had to take out the poly mounts and put the stock ones in and that car had only 45k miles on it. Were as my friend had a 91 Daytona C/S 2.5 turbo, he took his out, and you couldn't even tell they were out and he had all the poly motor mounts and the solid bobble strut.

Stock AA mounts I doubt you will even notice.

I had them out in my 89 Van which has smaller mounts and would notice a slight shake at certain rpm's, it was fine.

Gary