I have a chance to buy a 96 sunfire gt 5 speed with the 2.4 LD9. If I do buy the car, it will be used as a race car on a 1/3 mile ice oval during the winters. The car will see about 30 laps a week for probably about two months out of the year. As of right now, I do not know much about the car except that is has over 200k on it.

There are two main questions that I need help with.

1) What do I look for when I go to look at the car to make sure the engine is going to be somewhat reliable? I've read a little on the forum and know that the water pumps are a known problem. What is a good indicator of a bad water pump? Low reservoir levels? I know that there are also some head gasket problems, which is fairly easy to detect. I've heard of the oil pumps cavitating too, but I'm not sure if there's anyway to check that other than taking it apart. I plan on also doing a compression check before I buy it. Are there any other obvious things to watch out for?

2) Are there some simple things I can do to improve the reliability? I would be capable and willing to doing some engine work, but don't really know where to start in these engines.

The car is priced for 350, and after putting a roll cage, racing seat, harness, and some other basic racing needs, that would put me at about 1000 without doing any engine work. I wouldn't mind putting 500-1000 into the engine if I was confident it was going to be reliable. I can do all of the part fitting and simple stuff myself, but would have to outsource machining, polishing, etc. Just curious what I could do for that price range.

Thanks guys for your time, any input is appreciated.

For 350 I would say that it is not going to be a very nice car. And there is not much sense in looking everything over trying to knock the price down lol.
But what do look for is that the clutch fluid reservoir is not black, and that the clutch is quite solid. The slaves start to go around 200k.
Make sure it is not blowing black or white smoke. These engines do make a lot of noise. But just let it run for a bit, see if it misfires at all.

Ok, thanks for the input. I don't expect too much for 350, but I also don't wanna put over a grand in the car to get it on the track and blow it up right away. I'd rather spend more on a better car from the start and have it hold together.