Dodge Omni!!! The GLH-turbo specifically. Very cheap parts, easy to work on, but not much to look at. You should be able to find one of these setting around for under 1K. There are 1000's of turbo dodges in the junk yards to pull parts from too!
Don't let the box fool you, it is a lot faster then it looks! 0-60 in the high 6's to low 7's with tons of torque! Great for autox. Take a look back in Grassroot Motorsports a couple months back when they did the $2002 dollar challenge. I think the turbo omni won the 1/4 mile test with a time in the 12's I believe. I knew the 2nd gen turbo RX7 drivers that were there. They are very good autox'ers here in Oregon and they were beat by over a second on the autox course by the thing too! (BTW their 2nd gen 7 ran the 1/4 in 13.4 or 13.7 can't remember, but anyway it was not under powered)
