Posted on 05/21/2012 1:11:56 PM PDT by GeorgeWashingtonsGhost
The light was changed green for quite a while for the guy with the camera.
Don’t have a WRX. Don’t have a Subaru. Don’t even own any Japanese cars at the moment. Do have two Japanese bikes, though. And a couple of Jags, one supercharged. The other soon to be running a turbo and 24psi of boost. And a big Powerstroke 7.3 turbo diesel truck that’s going to be getting some upgrades soon.
People have put Pilot Sport 2s on things like Chevelles. No, they don’t run 10s. In fact, they don’t even get much faster if the rest of the car is stock. They do hook up a little better, that’s about it. The rest of the suspension is so miserably set up that they can’t take advantage of the additional traction modern tires provide - you have to give someone like Hotchkiss a call to get it to do that.
Cars *had* weight loss. These days, most family sedans are back in the 3500-4500lb range thanks to mandated safety equipment and features. That Taurus SHO is over 4300lbs. A
1970 Chevelle SS 454 LS6 weighed in at.... 3390lbs. Don’t believe me, go look it up. So much for ‘weight loss.”
I never said that no cars could go that fast in the 60s and 70s. Just that the ones people were posting and claiming speeds for couldn’t possibly go as fast as claimed. The Cobra 427 could go over 160. It also got wildly unstable starting at around 150 so it was a really, really bad idea.
As for the old man thing... I have no problems with older people talking about their vehicles, just when they make ludicrous claims about what their vehicles would do back in the day. I had the great privilege of having a couple of conversations with Carroll Shelby about 8 years ago when I worked for his son. No problems with him or his cars because they actually did what he claimed.
Someone coming in here and claiming their (stock or otherwise) Buick Wildcat back in the Stoned Age would go 195? Oh, hell yes, I’ve got a problem with that.
Another point - sure, if you apply all the modern technology to an old muscle car it improves. But this tech wasn’t around pre-1980, and back ‘in the day’ you literally couldn’t even get close to it. What these people are saying is that their (for example) 1970 Chevelle SS LS6 ***as it was when they owned it in the 70s*** could pull off all these amazing feats, defeat any car then or now, go a billion miles an hour and pass anything except a gas station.
That’s simply not true. The tech wasn’t there, the historical record of both stock and upgraded/hot rod cars then doesn’t even begin to support that assertion and modern recreations (I’ve been involved in some and worked for companies that specialized in GM classics and muscle cars of the past as well as present day product like the Corvette) with period-correct parts, techniques and advice from the experts that were around at the time do not support the claims these people make for the old hardware ‘in its prime back when.’ And that’s the problem I have.
“The tech wasn’t there...”
In shopping for a new vehicle I pretty much decided on one, and then did a bunch of searches on it. One I found interesting was a Road and Track type article that compared my 2008 vehicle to a Porsche 356 from years ago.
My new vehicle beat it out on cornering, the slalom course, braking, and was pretty close on acceleration IIRC.
And even though the Honda Odyssey mini-van I bought is nice, I would STILL rather have an old Porsche!
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/soccer-moms-revenge/
I saw some guy’s hood fly open and wrap up over the windshield once. It was a junky Japanese car, and the speed was probably only about 50, but the driver must have **** a brick.
Muscle car getting eaten by a minivan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EPg0ObAchs&feature=related
More minivan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_eJlPd59x0
It’s just as fun in a imported car ;) Blurry trees (or in my case light poles) is fun no matter what kinda car your in.
I got to meet Carroll too, back in '84 when he was in New Orleans for an auto show. He was there with the Dodge guys for the debut of the Omni GLH. A buddy of mine who worked at a radio station (near my office) called and asked me if I could meet him for lunch, and when I got there Shelby was seated at the table too. Carroll was going to be an afternoon guest on the station's local talk-radio show, discussing his new cars.
My friend knew just enough about Shelby to know I'd be interested in meeting the guy, but sat there stunned when I asked Carroll how it felt to win Le Mans. No "bench racing" B.S. from that guy.
That’s impressive.
That’s just rude! I bet he doesn’t make many friends a the dragstrip. I wonder what he has for a motor? 4 cylinder turbo? 6 cylinder?
He had (IIRC, that particular guy has recently died - some health issue, not motoring related) the engine you could get in those minivans - the 2.2L Chrysler “Turbo II” I4. Other people have made similar builds since; another favorite is to stick the 2.4L turbo engine out of a Neon SRT4 into it - it drops right in.
Why would someone take the engine from an SRT4 out of a neon and put into an old minivan?
Because the previous pilot of the SRT4 ran it into a telephone pole, or flipped it, or any of the other number of ways SRT4 pilots commonly killed their cars. They’re cheap fast econoboxes and have the typical demographics of that class.
I think I would try to find an older 2door neon to put it into.
This is a little off topic but I have recently noticed pickups are greatly overbuilt compared to what they used to be. I remember when a basic work truck with the base motor would struggle to pull a large camper up a steep hill and the brakes would fade rather quickly. A half ton pickup meant you were getting close to the limit when you put a half ton of weight in the bed. Now a half ton pickup is RATED for something like one ton payload and you can go WAAAY over the rated capacity if you take care when driving. I have a 1999 3/4 ton ford that almost never has less than a ton of equipment on it, and I have an oversized flat bed mounted on it that is meant for a dually.
Yesterday I was impressed by the towing ability of a ford explorer. It had the optional engine, optional suspension, and extra low gears...a tow package I guess. Some aftermarket stuff too. That thing has way more grunt than a 3/4 ton pickup of 25 years ago. Before yesterday I always wrote off explorers as being “pretend” trucks. This makes me wonder why a person would buy a diesel one ton dually to pull a camper. That’s overkill by a factor of about 4.
Yes, but everyone and their brother has already done the SRT4 into older Neon swap and there’s no sleeper value there any more. A stupid fast minivan is always a surprise, not to mention hilarious.
As for the trucks: People kept seriously overloading their trucks, so makers responded with ever more enhancements so they would avoid customers leaving in disgust, even though they themselves caused the problem. Plus, the Asian makers showed up with real, serious, honest-to-God full-sized trucks for the first time and everyone *had* to go way up on payload ratings as everyone knows that you can overload a Japanese truck and it won’t complain.
As for the towing crew, depends on the weight of the camper. Also, the diesels still get better fuel mileage while towing and you can convert it to run on WVO in addition to diesel. Also, until relatively recently you couldn’t get a good-sized crew cab in the half-ton class. And with the advent of the PowerStroke 7.3, Cummins 5.9 24V and their successors, if you’re going to get a three quarter ton or one ton truck, you might as well get a diesel.
And yes, the recent Ford Explorers (prior to being converted into a Taurus wagon for 2011) were decent trucks at hauling, especially with the optional V8 but even the bone stock 4.0 V6 wasn’t really a slouch. Yes, it has more grunt than a 1980 F-350. That truck’s brawniest engine was the 400 cubic inch V8 pumping out an ‘earthshattering’ 136hp and ‘unbelievable’ 310lb/ft while weighing something like 6000lbs. The base engine, the 300cid inline six made 120/229, which makes a lot of people wonder why they bothered.
The last ‘truck’ Explorer with a V8 weighed in at about 4500lbs and had the 3 valve/cyl 4.6L/281cid engine out of the Mustang GT with some tweaks for better truck suitability as an option, making 292hp and 315lb/ft. Even the base V6 made 210hp and 254lb/ft. And it had to haul around 1500lbs less truck while having more usable cabin space.
Once again, I have to argue with you on performance specs. First of all, for towing, horsepower means jack shit. Second of all, the torque value IS important but so it the RPMs at which those torque values are developed. A hypothetical example...an engine that produces 300lb-ft of torque at 1200RPMs is vastly superior to one that produces 350lb-ft at 4500RPMs. You undervalue the 300 six by not recognizing the uber low RPMs it developed its torque figures at.
No, I’m undervaluing the 400M engine. People don’t wonder why Ford had the 300/6. They wonder why Ford bothered with the 400.
Further, I’d like to flip back a point you made earlier - gearing can move that power around to a more usable point anyway.
Sure but you’re gonna wear out engines faster...not to mention use more fuel. Its better to run an engine that can pull at a low RPM. Those higher RPMs are useless for anything other than drag racing.
You wanna see impressive towing specs? Look up a two cylinder diesel John Deere...aka “big wheel”...aka johnny popper...aka model 730.
You’re probably right. I know he had rebuilt the engine and done some upgrade work - different cams, exhaust, etc. I drove it in ‘71. Also, I just know what the spedo needle did.
So, let’s blame it on what some earlier poster said — you couldn’t trust the Chevy spedos.
Bottom line, it was d*** fast and I’m glad my friend and I are still alive. LOL - Thanks for the feedback!
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