1997 Hyundai Tiburon SX review from Australia and New Zealand

Drivers window Regulator failed at 110000.

Original Battery failed at 102000.

Clutch Master Cylinder failed at 92000.

Dash Clock became erratic at 70000.

Drivers window Regulator failed at 42000.

O2 sensor failed at 14025.

Exhaust manifold was cracked pre- purchase.

For it's price, this car out preformed all others. I test drove every sports car, both new and used, in it's price range before purchase and the coupe outdid them all.

Right from stock I was aware of the mod potential of this little Korean sleeper.

Modding on a budget became a realistic exercise.

A replacement exhaust system with tuned headers, 2.0 inch cat-back to a single offset muffler gives a noticeable HorsePower increase.

A RamPod style ColdAirIntake, matched with a larger throttlebody, also a noticable HorsePower increase.

The clutch Slave and Master cylinders were replaced with genuine hyundai parts, the clutch was replaced with a 5puc brass-button race clutch plate. This matched to the stock flywheel provides a drivable city car as well as a performance car on the race track.

Suspension lowered on 2.5inch lowering springs gives a much tighter feel on the road, but can be rather bumpy on poor road surfaces.

Anti-sway bars are required, as well as front and rear strut tower bracing.

Camber adjusting bolts are readily available and allow easy minor tuning for track and speed events.

The interior is very servicable. The stock seats are comfortable and hold the body well at high lateral loads. Cabin heating is efficent, but the windscreen demister is rather poor. Mainly due to the large size of the front windscreen.

The stock Phillips car audio system, tape deck FM radio, was adequate. A high frequency noise was present at purchase, and even noise reducing capacitors connected to the coil pack and stereo did not remove this problem. An after-market CD stacker and head-unit mated well with the original speakers. It was a very neat and easy install.

The paint is of poor quality. It is not very durable as far as stonechips, bug splat acid, or bird droppings. The latter, if not removed very soon after the act, will eat into the clearcoat over the metallic paint. This leaves an unsightly 'scab' on the paintwork.

The door and guard panels are very lightweight metal and do not react kindly to the car-park door syndrome. Small dings are easy to remove if they have not bisected a crease.

Most body panels are easily sourced and surprisingly inexpensive.

Replacement brake rotors from the dealer provided to be comparable in price to High performance DBA rotors. High temperature brake pads are available in ranges from street use to full endurance track racing.

The Factory 15inch alloy wheels are now shod with kuhmo racing rubber and only appear on the track. For everyday use 16inch polished alloys on low profile tyres still give the original outside diameter of the stock rims and rubber, so no adjustment and re-calibration of the speedo is required. Soft compound tyres do tend to wear quickly though.

The overall stock vehicle weight is rather high. This affects body roll on stock suspension and tyrewear. A lot of weight is lost by removing sound deadening materials, this will however increase the cabin noise conciderably.

This little coupe gets driven by my wife on a daily basis, and gets an absolute hammering on the race track every other month. It has been raced from 100% stock to it's current configuration, and the mods performed have contributed to a marked reduction in lap times.

This is a relatively cheap modder, and alothough high performance parts are available, most speed-shops won't understand what you are talking about when you say hyundai. Some specialty Hyundai modding shops are opening their doors in Australia, but the large on-line community dedicated to this car, esp the online forums, are the places to find performance goodies for this car.