I fully understand the gamble in buying a car with a quarter million on the clock... Especially a car with which I am not familiar... I will keep the Lucas product in mind when I change the tranny fluid... Right now a high priority is the exhaust system, as the fumes are making their way inside the cabin at rest/idle... I can't have my wife or son sucking exhaust... Then brakes, followed by tires and anything else needed... If I can get another 50k out of this car, I would be ecstatic...

As long as you fix what you know needs fixing and keep up your regular maintenance, I think you'll be okay for a while. Gotta take care of the spouse and kid first and foremost.

On an exhaust related nite, what size piping would be best for the l61? Most performance cat back systems for cobalt or ions are 2.5" I'm looking at a new cat, o2 bung, resonator, and muffler... I am going with universal parts, so I am using a cherry bomb glass pack for the resonator, a flow master cat, and I'm not sure what muffler yet...

As I live in a state where exhaust system rusting out is not much of a problem at all, exhaust system installers bend their own tubing up and weld things together which means ALL exhaust systems are made to fit.
As far as tubing sizes for a quarter of a million million mile beater? What ever the factory put on it works for me and here there is a generic high flow cat available for about $139.00 installed and a cherry bomb muffler is about as far as I would go and stop there. Of if you don't want the buzz of listening to one, don't use one at all just put a generic muffler on it and let it go at that. If you live where rust is an issue you will generally be working with mild steel which rusts quickly anyway and will need replacements but with that kind of mileage on the car in the first place it should last about as long as the car will.
To my way of thinking that would be the most cost effective way of doing things. The last small engined car I did that with was done some 14 years ago (the OEM sized high flow generic cat and a glass pack) and is still working fine.

I not sure what size is stock on an l series behind the L61, but I figure while I'm in there, why not upgrade the system? If it were mine, the cherry bomb would be all it would get, but for my wife(she wants it quiet) I will try and make something similar to stock but better flowing, and cheaper than OEM... The longer i own the car, the more i like it and the longer I want it to last... I have set an optimistic goal of 400k for the car... So I am going to try and make all my repairs at the best quality I can do given my limited budget... I'm not going with stainless tubing, but the tubing I can get locally will probably last at least half the remaining life in the car, provided i achieve my goal...