Parts are very easy to obtain and cheap. Standard parts can be purchased from a number of suppliers or online with little trouble. In Australia we have a great parts supplier who will get parts anywhere in Australia overnight.
Places like lada sport in Europe do custom parts such as 4.7 diffs and 3:1 transfer case ratios. You can also get both locking and torsen type diffs which turn them into an absolute weapon.
In Europe you could get a diesel version using peugeot/citroen engines. This would be a good swap and one that is done by a lot of people who started with the petrol engine. The legendary fiat twin cam engines also mate up to the lada gearbox and can be fitted with a few modifications. This engine was found in the fiat and lancia cars of the 70's, 80's and early 90's and pushes out a grunty 120bhp in standard 2lt form which is about 40 more than the standard engine. The really keen could go for a lancia supercharged engine.
The Poch Dakar racers which finished in the top 5 several times in the early 80's, used different engines (Ultimatelly the Simca type Peugeot engine based on the peugeot 505 turbo), but still used the standard transfer case, diffs and suspension set up with around 250 bhp.
As stated before the basic design has stayed exactly the same since the car was introduced which is why parts are easy to obtain. They were designed to be able to be reapired by any workshop that had what was reqauired to maintain a harvester. They come with a very good tool kit which allows you to do most tasks on its own. They are a real diy specialists car. A 2 inch lift using an old bread board is easy, and it really lends itself to fidling and making improvements. They come with skinny 16 inch wheels as standard, but most people in Oz use suzuki wheels like the ones on mine which allows you to fit a wider range of tyres in common sizes.
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