Originally Posted by Tom_Jones
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I had a fourth gen with a 5-speed, it was affectionately known as "The Shit Brown Honda O'Doom". I got it from an ex-girlfriend's dad for free, he had bought it about 15 years before when they lived in Ohio. So it had about a dozen Ohio winters on it, with no washes, when I got it. The rust in the rear quarters was...impressive.
The shocks and struts were collapsed, so it was "naturally lowered" and the 2.2 had 160k miles on it, when I got the car. It leaked 3-quarts of oil if it was parked for longer than a week, it burned 3-quarts of oil if it was driven 80+ for 2.5 hours. I bought oil by the case and kept the case in the trunk and just filled it up once a week. I drove that thing like it was stolen and beat on it like a rented mule. I put a set of Kumho ECSTAs on it and went to every autocross I could take it to in central Texas from 2006-2008. It did several runs with the UT Austin car club down the Devil's Backbone, running hot on the heels of a C4 Corvette, a WRX, and a frat kid's daddy-paid for M3. I beat that thing so hard, I once broke a brake pad and ruined a rotor. Which I couldn't fix, because I'd gotten the brakes so hot, I welded the rotor to the spindle. So, I swapped in a junkyard spindle and new rotors with Hawk HPS pads.
Then there was the infamous "slipping clutch fix". A buddy and I decided to fix my slipping clutch, which I was about 90% sure was slipping, because of oil leaking onto the clutch disc. So, I did a gnarly one-wheel, e-brake aided, burnout in a parking lot and then quickly drove the car up on ramps. We yanked the starter and squirted a bottle of rubbing alcohol onto the pressure plate and all over the inside of the bellhousing. I would not advise doing this without a fire extinguisher nearby when done on a hot clutch...Fortunately, the fire was easy enough to put out, I shoved the starter back in the hole. It worked, the clutch hooked up great after that. So great that I credit that fix with the beginning of the end for that car.
Since I never drove it...nicely...nor treated it nicely...you had to know it had a limited lifespan. The first sign of trouble came when I was driving home from work one afternoon on a flyover I buried the gas pedal and rolled down the flyover and hit the freeway at about 105mph. All the sudden, power starts surging in the car and then, it's lights out, car shuts down. Nothing seems "wrong" per-se. I pull over and crank the car back up, but it has a gnarly rumble and I know it's only running on three cylinders. I finally diagnosed it with a bad HT lead and fixed it and it drove on. But that was the first time it ever actually let me down mechanically. Then I started having intermittent electrical issues. As you might guess, I eventually traced it to a number of rusty grounds.
But coupe de grace came at the last summer autocross. It was scorching that day in San Antonio, easily 130 on the blacktop. And for some reason the course layout was a long one that had two slaloms and two hairpins in it and a straight that had the faster cars reaching 65+ on it, before jamming hard into a shallow braking zone and executing a hard left hand turn into the finish. I watched easily a dozen cars that day blow it all on the last corner.
Well, I beat the car hard that day trying to get a class win (I didn't, I ended up 3rd after taking a 3-cone penalty on my final run of the day.). On the drive home, it finally decided it had enough. I was less than a mile from my apartment, when the car coughed, coughed a little more, and then the temp gauge shot-up. I shut the car off and let it cool down, when I cranked it back up, it ran, barely, and I limped it home. The next morning revealed the ugly truth...a blown head gasket. When I checked the overflow tank it hard more oil in it, than the car did. I pulled out the dipstick and found a bunch of green anti-freeze inside the block.
I sold that car for $150 on Craigslist three days later and bought a '93 Mustang to replace it. In all, I got two years, 30k miles, and it cost me in the scheme of things, one junk yard spindle, one set of brake pads, two front rotors, three cases of 10w30, two oil filters, one set of Kumho ECSTAs, one spark-plug lead, and one bottle of rubbing alcohol - Less than 500 bucks all said and done, not counting gas and insurance, and I recouped 150 of that.
I miss that car.
I'm guessing you already know the new Supra is a rebadged BMW? Like the Subaru BRZ/Toyo FR-S/86.
Also, I forgot to add: the Toyota Supra. However, they are actually bringing that one back soon, so someone is clearly reading my mind out there in Japan.
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I love to see my favorite straight 6 AWD - R32 GT-R, with HKS stoker, V CAM, revised oiling, etc. The late 80s/early 90s were awesome for all the benefits of fuel injection without all the cheap, complicated crap we have today.
How bout a factory 3-rotor FD as well... 10krpm dorito rips on the mountain passes pls.
Rebadged BMW Z4 to be accurate.
I mean, I guess I'm kind of a split mind.I love to see my favorite straight 6 AWD - R32 GT-R, with HKS stoker, V CAM, revised oiling, etc. The late 80s/early 90s were awesome for all the benefits of fuel injection without all the cheap, complicated crap we have today.
How bout a factory 3-rotor FD as well... 10krpm dorito rips on the mountain passes pls.
We have better factory cars today in 2019 than we had in 1989 or even 1999. More horsepower, better interiors, more reliable, etc. I mean, currently Mazda recommends a 10,000 mile interval between oil changes and the current MX5 has 181 horsepower, that's more than anything Mazda made in 1989, except the RX7 Turbo II (and good luck going 10k between oil changes on that thing...
Meanwhile, you can actually just build a 3, or 4-rotor, FD, or updated R32 GT-R and register it for the street and have no problems. While it's fun to wish Mazda would build a factory 4-rotor FD, in some ways, maybe it's more fun that Mazda didn't. Because your 4-rotor FD won't have the compromises that a factory Mazda car would.
Just look at the situations that occurred when the first R35 GT-Rs came out and they wouldn't output full power, unless they geolocated to a track (in Japan at least). That's not the kind of nannyism I want in my car. Simultaneously, if Nissan had settled for the R34 as being good enough, we would have never gotten the amazing R35.
I wouldn't mind having a '66 Shelby GT350. Cars like that can be fixed if something goes wrong. Not like today's computer controlled cars.
With liberty and justice for all...must be 18, void where prohibited, some restrictions may apply, not available in all states.
I’d love to see the FJ40 Land Cruiser make a comeback. I’ve always wanted one.
Just a dog chauffeur that used to hold the dumb end of the leash.
I'd buy a brand new BMW Bavaria on the spot!
-All views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect those of the author's employer-
Less goes wrong on today's cars and they can be fixed when it does. A code scanner (cheap) and a multimeter covers a lot of troubleshooting needs.
I'm not sure where this myth about modern cars comes from, but it just won't die. They're more complex, but not unknowable. I find the hardest part of working on new cars is all the interlocking plastic bits.
Chris
Non-Outback Subaru Legacy wagon. It was great for hauling canoes and kayaks — a long flat roofline for good rack spread, and an easy lift. Handled better than the lifted versions. Good in snow.
The new Ford Bronco will have something the Jeep Wrangler doesn't
According to the attendees, who spoke to the news outlet on condition of anonymity, the Bronco will also have a fully-removable top that can be stored on board, and will be offered in both two-door and four-door models, which Ford hasn’t yet publically confirmed
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
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