Motors modded cars?

IMHO the suspenson and tires matter as much as whether it's rwd or 4wd. A good suspension and sticky tires will on a rwd will probably outperform crappy tires and suspension on a 4wd. of course, those sticky tires and good suspension on a 4wd would be the best.

There's also the matter of which car you put it in. If you've got a 1960s-1970s muscle car, then put a big V8 in it with RWD. If you've got a smaller, more modern car, then put a I4 with 4WD in it.

My $0.02

 

Why am i not surprised to hear a comment like "Let the flaming begin" from someone like jaguarking? And do you have to deliberately spell every second word wrong?

Anyway i really don't see why people need cars with 6 liter engines.
Like why does someone who has 2 kids and lives in the city need a huge gas guzzling lousy performing SUV like a navigator or suburban? My family has 5 adults and a medium sized dog and an ordinary medium sized station wagon with a 2 liter diesel gets us anywhere we want, and that includes to our secluded summer home our in the middle of the wilderness. That car costs like less than half the price of a huge SUV, generally accelerates faster, is easier to park, less noisy, cheaper to run, and goes over 1000km on one 55 liter tank of gas. Gas mileage is a bit over 5L/100. My parents used to own one of those huge gas guzzling SUVs but now they see how little need we actually have for such a vehicle. I live in a country where we often get a foot of snow overnight and we can get by just fine without an SUV. I don't see how someone living in a big city, who never ever goes offroading needs an SUV, especially in a state that gets no snow. Oh and i also live some 30k outside of the main city so you could say we have long work trips here as well. Bottom line: you don't really need a car that size for anything.
I can see how having a car with some horsepower can be fun, but it's not practical. You don't need a 400hp engine when you can't legally drive over 120km/h anyway. You can go plenty fast enough with a 1.4 liter engine if it's in a small car. How often do you actually use your huge v8 for driving fast?
One of the most ridiculous sights is watching some uber sports car stuck in traffic and getting around faster on foot. You don't drive fast 99% of the time anyway. A car is a car is a car. It gets you from A to B.
If you want a good stereo system to listen to while you're on your way, that's great, don't we all? If you want to improve the looks of your car by modding it in a classy way, great, i'm happy for you. I really don't see the point in most performance mods for cars though.
Having a fast computer can really make a difference. Having a fast car makes practically no difference cause you have to obey the traffic rules anyway. Getting a car with 400 hp for getting around is like getting a 4ghz computer for running windows. You really only need that extra HP if you're insecure about yourself.
Kinda reminds me of this ad.

It's funny cause it's true.

 

i see what you mean, but i dont agree with not needing that much power. On a daily driver, anything over 150 is unnecessary, but fun.

Same reason someone puts 100 hours into a PC case would someone mod a car to look amazing and perform amazing. Because its fun and getting compliments on something you own is always a positive experience. People like to be better than one another. Look at Zap and Gnome. They are better than us but its that will to be the best that drives industries forward.

 

I personaly Like the muscle car look feel and atitude and dont forget that most muscle cars are weekend drivers or track cars. Also I love the ac cobra (british body and american iron). I dont condone those large suv's but all I can say is that not all of em are used to get a family of 3 around most of em are used for work purposes. My god pop owns a suv (benz ml320) its got a v6 3.0L chrysler in it and its fine for his purposes (ocasional heavy load and get 5 ppl back and fourth to the office). he also owns a 1999 benz clk 320 also a v6 and its a fun car to drive but my friends 89mustang (old school corburated car) is far more fun to drive. Took that thing to a local racing place "legal" and its a dam fast car, it does 0-60 in under 4.5 and its 1st gear tops out at 84mph b4 he shifts into second and glazez over the 120mph mark and the car has 4 speed manual tranny and is got a 93cobra 5.0L engine thats been tweaked to hell (we suspect its putting close to 650hp to weels) with the aid of a supercharger. its never been dynoed but its dam fast. and it handles like its on rails on corners withought extreme slow down. But he also owns a ford probe gt 2.5L engine on that and about 6psi of boost good for around 250hp to weels and pulls 13's at the track but its his daily driver and he gets gr8 gas milege from that.

But my aim is to have a muscle car thats a daily driver with close to 450hp and still pulling around 25-30mpg.


Also when i refered to the flat head ford I was refering to a type of engine that has been fulishly droped from the face of the earth as it would be perfect for high compresssion ratio turbocharging. The heads on this engine are non existant as the head and block are 1 pice and the valves are built into the block. eliminating the need of high compression gaskets. Do a web serch on google for more info.

 

I agree completely with Altron on the suspension and tires thing. You can get a front driver to just about handle like a rear drive car by changing things. My brother had a '95 Ford Contour (Mondeo), that he put Eibach springs, good struts (Bilstein I think) and a fat rear sway bar on it and it handled amazingly well. A friend of ours races a new Toyota Celica and does really well. I road in and drove that car hard around some parking lots here and it's friggin' nuts! Rear drive cars are the same way. Even muscle cars can handle really well if they're set up right. Lots of people race old Camaros and even Chevelles in some of the high speed road races like the Silver State Classic. Check out www.detroitspeed.com and www.pro-touring.com for examples of handling technology applied to muscle cars.

Anyone worried about mileage and emissions isn't a hardcore gearhead imo. Not that car guys don't consider the impact they haven on the environmet. There's just certain tradeoffs to be made. I also don't think that having horsepower directly relates to overcompensating for a lack of manhood. I definitely think having a red Ferrari might though. Or a Trans Am, or the latest Vette...

Damn straight I care for cars a great deal and love modifying things. I view any factory car as more of a parts bin or at least a clean slate than a finished product. And that includes daily drivers. Maybe I have a frail ego, but I can't stand to drive something normal, let alone mundane every day.

Jaguarking, I agree with most of what you've got to say, but I think you might be a tad off base on a few things. First, the flathead engine design is archaic at best. Ever see how they work? Extremely inneficient. And the head is NOT one piece with the block. But, the valves are in the block. They definitely still have head haskets to worry about. Even a supercharged flathead with a filled block and aftermarket heads won't make much horsepower. In the '30s, when hot rodding was born, there were aftermarket overhead valve and even overhead cam heads available for the model T's flathead four. Also, Mustangs had EFI starting in '86. If your friends has a carb and a four speed (which I'm not saying I doubt), then they were both added later. Addign a carb to the 5.0 in those is the cheapest way to make power, but it runs against my nature to go backwards technologically. In fact, one of the first things I did to my '77 Caprice coupe was to add Tuned Port Injection from an '86 Trans Am. There's that parts bin thing again. Also the engine in the ML320 is not a Chrysler engine. And if your buddy's Mustang is hitting 84 in first gear, he must have the higest rearend gear ratio I've ever seen. That'd explain why he's only getting 13's out of a light car making 650hp at the wheels.

 

Hes got a old school tranny in that thing with extreme close ratio and tranny that he loves to race with. it has a 5.0L cobra engine from a 93cobra that he converted to a demon carb and that thing is way funn to drive. Im not saying its a good race car but its dam fast and it cost him less than 8 grand to finish. He bought the 89 body with engine mount modfications for less than 4500bux and the rest was second hand stuff like tranny and engine only the carb 600bux was brand new and boy is that thing a monster. That car is a freak of nature and thats what gives it character. As far as the mustang goes hes never 1/4miled it but the probe gt hes got does 13's with about 6psi of boost. The thing about the flatheads being ineficient is just a point of view and if you take a flathead and stuff in some real good stuff and have it machined rite it will run nicely and it will also produce a good amount of power. well over 450hp. Reserch and you will find a shop called motor city flatheads and they can do amazing things with that engine. Also there are gaskets I guess I was wrong but the head is definitly diferent from a normal 1.

 

Who the hell would want to do 80mph in first gear?

You're either bull****ting or he's an idiot...

*n

 

He's got a custom tranny he got off a friend of his that had it on a dragster.

And no im not bull***ing you but thats his setup. I told him it wasent rite but he only drives that thing once in a blue moon and its a freaking beast. His probe gt tho is a nice car. He olso owns a fiew more cars that he wants to do em rite. His mustang was his first build so its not that great of a car. His tranny is tuned for the dragstrip and its meant to be behind a 1000+ hp engine. Did I mention that he also has a buick rear end?

Ill have to ask him what brand and model tranny hes got so you can see for yourself but I realy dont see that guy too often as he works at nite and sleeps during the day and I go to school during the day and work in the evening.

Do some reserch and you will find true dragracing cars may have even closer ratio trannys as the shifting takes too mutch time. And also if you go far enuf into reserch you will find that top fuel dragsters dont even have tranny's at all just a large clutch that transfers power to the rear end. When your 1/4 mile on a top fuel is 3-5seconds you dont have time to shift at all.

on another note does any one read car craft?
They had a interesting article in the last fiew months that was dealing with a muscle car with 300Hp to weels and still gets 25mpg and it meets with all the smog regulations imposed on new cars. If im not mistaken it was a pontiac but I dont remember so well.

 

25mpg is TERRIBLE fuel economy, dude.

Hell, my dad's old Golf would still get 35...and over 40 on motorways.

*n

 

ot: that golf rocked

did you dad sell it in the end or did he keep it

 

In the US, 25mpg is considered very good fuel economy, 20 is average, 15 is bad, and 10 is horrible. I don't think any american-made cars get more than 25mpg, i don't think any foreign cars (barring trucks) get less than 25mpg.

 

Remember this is a modified 2.5L ford/mazda engine and its giving out around 35% more power than stock and thus it has a higher fuel consumption. its puting out areound 250hp and its doing it gracefully. And yes in the US 25mpg is concidered good but not gr8 as the stock probe gets around 35on higway and 30city if you go easy. And yes I am aware that golfs get 40mpg on highway and thats the reason I was looking into them but I found out the 1.8L engine gets that and not the 2.5L v6 that I wanted so I droped it. But if prices keep going up I might settle on a golf gl and just do a ecu reprograming and maybe 6-10psi boost if money allows me to. But on the other hand my pops chevy astro gets 27mpg on highway and 23-24city if he goes easy and that pupy has a 4.3L v6 and the body weighs allot (I belive its somewere around 4500pounds in weight) And this thing is a van and seats 8 and a dog, two if they are small dogs .

 

no the one penski is on about is a mk2 golf tuned to hell and back

 

My dad's Golf was a mkII with a mkIII 2.0 16v engine bored and stroked out to 2448cc (or thereabouts) giving nearly 350bhp, had full front and rear subframes and dual wishbones at all four corners.

Depending on the ECU, gearing and wheels/tires it would give as little as 8mpg when absolutely caned.

And it looked absolutely standard outside when it had the BBS alloys on.

Stick some slick-shod compomotives on it, select another ECU and it'd thrash Scoobys.

[edit: he sold it in the end...he now drives a....White mkIII 2litre Golf Estate *shudders*

I keep hinting that he could drop a 3.2litre supercharged VR6 engine into it and enjoy 450bhp....]

*n

 

ah so the golf legacy is not dead

long live the new golf


/me looks at insurance and curses that i cant have a golf

 

But...

...The guy he sold it to blew the engine over xmas

managed to wipe out the entire front end at the same time.

My dad told him that he shouldn't rev it over 8,500...

Abstrad

*n

 

that is disgusting, to destroy a car of that caliber

i feel like hurting him myself as it sounds liek that was one of if not THE best mk2 in the uk (and unlike a lot of tuned golfs it was a daily usable car)

 

Thing is...The guy he sold it to is a mechanic by trade and preps rally cars for a living...

apparently it took the bonnet and most of the front end off...

*n

 

how can someone who supposeld does it for a living do that to the mk2 from hell

morbid curiosity in my says id like to ahve seen it happening but really to do that to well the only mk2 like it in the wrolds basically is sickening

 

R.I.P the gold must have been one mean machine. Like i said I was looking into a golf but thats still not ruled out. I would not bore the engine tho as with proper gaskets and cylinder heads and crank u can run up and exeding 25psi on it and that would equal 500+hp on it but I would not ever take it that far with that engine. Id rather do it with a 350small block chevy engine as with very little modfication I can get 500hp and loads of tourque. But that thing must have been a beast at 350hp.

1 thing tho, have you ever drag raced it and what was the 1/4mile on it? must have been in the 12's or maybe 11's.