Project Cars--You Get to Vote on "Hold 'em or Fold 'em"

andre1969

Cleveland, I've got to agree with these guys. How did you pick the 3800 anyway? Do you aspire to a GN motor? To do all that work, the 3800 is nothing special and has a couple of well known trouble spots, especially the plastic intakes.

Mitsubishi makes a 3.8 V-6 nowadays; they currently use it in the Eclipse and the Endeavor SUV. I have the feeling that's the 3.8 he's talking about. It has 265 hp and 262 ft-lb of torque. I thought it was offered in the Galant as well, but it looks like it only offers a 4-cyl these days.

I'd imagine stuffing that engine (and might as well grab the beefed-up transmission too, either a 6-speed stick or 5-speed automatic) would be a tight fit in the older-style Eclipse. I'd also worry about that much torque, as well. I don't think the first-gen Eclipse is exactly a featherweight, but I doubt it was designed to take that much force, so it would require some considerable beefing-up.

My guess is that if you want more power in a '95 Eclipse, you'd be better going with one of those hot little 2.0's that Mitsu currently offers in the Lancer. Or, what about the turbo that they offered back in 1995?

I could see doing something like this 3.8 swap if you were very well off financially and had money to burn, and did it as a true labor of love. Heck, I've fantasized about putting a 426 Hemi, or a 440 Wedge, in a 1979 New Yorker, but most likely that will remain just that...a fantasy!

andre1969

which one would be a better performer, with all things being equal (vehicle weight, configuration, transmission)? The supercharged 240 hp 3800, like what's in my Park Ave, or the old turbocharged 3.8 that put out around 230-240 hp, that the Grand National used? Now, NOT the GNX engine...that thing was a whole different beast, rumored to put out 300+ hp, although it was really more like 276.

For instance, if you found an old 80's Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Regal, etc sitting around and wanted to do something with it, which engine would be a better choice for throwing in? Anybody know how much torque those old 3.8 turbos had? I think my supercharged 3800 has 280 ft-lb.

I wonder how hard it would be to take a FWD engine and make it work in a RWD setup? Considering the engine was originally RWD, and made to work with FWD, maybe not TOO hard?

Mr_Shiftright

The turbo would be a much better choice because you can modify them much more easily---it's not hard to turn up the boost, put in larger injectors, bigger intercooler air box, headers. A SC has more complications if you want more power---you can reduce SC pulley size but you run the risk of mayhem if you try to reduce it significantly.

fintail

Says a lot about the bigger socio-economic picture in general.

fintail

Interesting...I bet some of the bigger city papers have some fascinating ads for both cars and housing. I'll have to save some of the better images I run across.

fintail

I have a similar fantasy about putting an AMG V8 or V12 in a fintail...heck, even the old supercharged V6 could be interesting. A nightmare project without unlimited funds too.

qbrozen

And here goes the Benz.

Still debating on whether or not I'll sell the Z. If only I had an extra garage space.

oregonboy

Looks pretty nice, for a black '92. But, whenever mileage is not given, I always assume the worst. :surprise:

Best of luck with the sale... now what are you going to buy to replace it ???

bumpy

wonder how hard it would be to take a FWD engine and make it work in a RWD setup?

It depends. Most examples I can think of offhand had a number of changes in starter, distributor position, etc to accomodate the change; enough that its easier to find the correct orientation motor in the first place rather than trying to convert one into the other.

qbrozen

d'oh!! thanks for pointing that out. Wonder why that dropped off. Fixed now.

Replacing it? Well, not really. The bimmer is gone and now this will go and 1 convertible will take the place of both.

oregonboy

162K... low miles for an 18 year old car!

I remember now. You were shopping convertibles with a $10k limit. Let me put in my vote for the Solara. An attractive car. Should be a comfortable, reliable, economical cruiser.

People "bad-mouth" Camrys as a boring drive, but the V6 is purported to be a gem. I recall the phrase "the sound of ripping silk" from a C&D road test. I would expect that a rear sway-bar and a set of Bilstein shocks would do wonders for the driving dynamics. :shades:

I don't know if these fall into the sludge-troubled years. That may be something to check before purchase.

qbrozen

I think someone else was shopping for one up to $10k .... which reminds me, there is an '03 S2000 by me with 55k miles for $11,995.

Anyhoo... our limit is half that. I am borrowing my dad's Saab for a little while to see how we like it. Nice car for $4k. A bit sluggish and in desperate need of a detail, however.

Mr_Shiftright

Yes, then you'd have a boring car that stayed flatter around curves! :P

steine13

Agreed, the Solara is one of the most boring cars around. And the convertible's handlimgn is worse yet, because the body is not stiff enough and the car shakes a good deal.

But it is one heck of a commuter/travel car.
Two friends of mine have these, and they are really nice for what they need: Quiet on the freeway, good gas mileage (30+ hwy -- 4cyl) -- or power (80-90 mph; 6cyl). They look good, lots of people (cough, chicks) don't know what they are, and both cars have worn extremely well at 10 years and ~ 100 k miles.

For a trouble-free, quiet, good-looking hiway cruiser with good looks, I don't know what would make more sense. It's quite an achievement, really.

The guy with the 4cyl also has an '06 RX-8. He gets all the excitement he needs from that. Wankel, baby!

-Mathias

fintail

Wouldn't the steering still be numb and the brakes less than communicative?

My mother drives a Camry...reliable, well built, etc...but man is it a dull drive.

qbrozen

Drove it to and from work today (yes, I had to go to the office on a Sunday! ARRGG). I can't say it is necessarily "fun to drive." After 70 miles, my opinion is just "eh." My wife is taking it to work tomorrow, so we'll see what she says. It is for her, after all, so as long as she likes it, that's all that matters.

andre1969

How would a first-gen Solara compare to a 2001-2006 Sebring convertible, I wonder? I know the Sebring ain't no great shakes, but I'll admit I find myself drawn to them. But, I like the first-gen Solara, too.

What I probably need to do is go out and drive a Sebring, see how bad it really is, if that's the case, and get it out of my system, once and for all!

texases

I'm kinda surprised about how poorly Saabs have done the last 10 years or so in Car and Driver comparison articles. They used to love 'em, now, not so much.

stickguy

I test drove a used one of these a few years back. I think it was a 2001? I guess it would be the vintage before the current one. If there were 3, the middle one!

it was a GTC, so the "sporty" model. With a 2.7l engine. Actually drove pretty well.

Oh, and of course, it was the rarest of rare animals. A 5 speed stick. How many of those do you see?

the stick/clutch was pretty good too, better than I expected, and the car felt pretty quick with that set up.

andre1969

Well, my luck with storing that '52 Benz for my friend has finally run out. On Saturday, I got a housing violation notice from the county citing "Premises has unlawful storage of wrecked, dismantled, inoperable, and/or unlicensed motor vehicle(s)."

Now, there's a house two doors down from me, and its address is different from mine by one number. The mailman gets the mail mixed up between the two fairly regularly, and one evening, I even caught a tow truck driver trying to dump a wrecked Mountaineer in my driveway, because it was meant for them and he got the addresses mixed up! There's an old white school bus on that property, as well as a wrecked Concorde and a Cabriolet that's sinking into the ground. Nobody has lived in that house for about 5 1/2 years, although a church group bought it in late 2006, and then started dumping cars, vans, the bus, etc on it.

I called the inspector this morning, hoping he had just mixed the addresses up, like many people do. Unfortunately he didn't. In fact, he told me that they had a whole slew of violations against that other property, and the county is actually taking the owner to court!

However, they didn't nab me for that Benz, specifically. The inspector mentioned a black Cadillac. Well, from a distance, a midnight blue '79 New Yorker might look like a black Cadillac to the unwashed masses. While my New Yorker is tagged, the front license plate isn't on the bumper, but up on the dashboard. So, from a distance, it looks like an untagged car.

Unfortunately they're going to come back out and re-inspect, so I'm going to have to get rid of that Benz. I don't want to take a chance on them spotting it.

I'm gonna be kind of sad to see it go. While it's just an old heap and probably not even a good parts car anymore, I was kinda curious to see how it holds up over time, in a "Life After People" sort of way!

fintail

Too bad. That's the reason I am glad I don't have a little piece of land - eventually the old heaps would start sprouting up, and then the meddling local public sector types would start nosing around. Hopefully that old pile will go somewhere where at least one part can be used.

qbrozen

We ran out on Saturday to preview a couple of Sebrings for the heck of it. I was ... shocked is a strong word, but let's use that... at how poorly they seem to hold up. Looked at 3 examples. And '02 w/70k miles, an '02 w/undetermined miles, and an '05 with 45k miles. Even the '05 looked like it had well over 100k miles. Worn and torn carpets, worn driver's seat, interior plastic loose and falling off in places. And they ALL looked like this, which leads me to believe all Sebrings are destined for such rattiness. While maybe not a fair assumption, it is a conclusion I've come to nonetheless.

andre1969

Hopefully that old pile will go somewhere where at least one part can be used.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping, as well. I called the owner of that Benz a few hours ago, but only got his voicemail, so I left a message. This thing was supposed to be a parts car for another '52 Benz that he's been trying to restore, but the last time I heard, that car was in multiple pieces scattered about his garage and basement. He retired a few years ago, and I've mostly lost touch with him, although I did see him at a work related party a couple months ago. I have no idea how old he is...my guess is upper 60's or early 70's.

I've been storing this parts car for him for 6 years now, and I remember him talking about his '52 Benz since as long as I've known him, which must be about 15-16 years now. So, sadly, my guess is the car he's trying to restore will never get done, and the one I'm storing for him will, get junked. The passenger compartment and trunk are loaded up with boxes and baskets of extra parts though, so maybe there's something of use in there.

Other people at work have said this guy tends to start projects of all sorts, but then never finishes them. So it looks like this car is just one of his many victim projects.

andre1969

Worn and torn carpets, worn driver's seat, interior plastic loose and falling off in places. And they ALL looked like this, which leads me to believe all Sebrings are destined for such rattiness. While maybe not a fair assumption, it is a conclusion I've come to nonetheless.

That's really a shame. I wonder if that's an indication of declining quality in Chrysler's more recent years, or maybe these things were just rentals that were abused? I was impressed at how well my 2000 Intrepid's interior held up over the 150,000 miles I had it. The seat showed very little wear and tear, and the carpet looked like new, although the driver's side floor mat was getting worn at the area where my heel would go. There were no squeaks or rattles, although the passenger side window did creak a bit when you rolled it up. It started doing that when the car was only a couple years old, but never got any worse. I was afraid the motor would fail, but it never did. The little cover over where the ashtray would be, if it had one, had gotten loose, and would open up if I hit the brakes too hard. But, that was about it.

I think Chrysler put more effort into those LH cars than they did the Stratus/Sebring, though. They weren't perfect, but based on my experience, I would've bought another. Heck, when my Intrepid got totaled, my first thought was to go out and buy another! Only reason I didn't is that I figured that life's too short, and after 10 years, it was time to experience something different.

Mr_Shiftright

I've been storing this parts car for him for 6 years now, and I remember him talking about his '52 Benz since as long as I've known him, which must be about 15-16 years now. So, sadly, my guess is the car he's trying to restore will never get done,

You know Andre, that's a pretty good guess I'd say :P

texases

Sebrings seem to be the poster child for the disaster that is Chrysler's recent product mix, aside from the 300 and Ram. Very sad.

Mr_Shiftright

You could either buy a Sebring or drive a dinner fork into your head--the choice is yours.

Actually it's not a bad-looking car but it does not enjoy a very palatable reputation.

There's nothing unusual about a new model struggling for a year or two, but if the product simply will not improve year after year, it begins to take its toll---consider Saab and its stagnating reliability and identity problems, versus Hyundai taking the bull by the horns and doing something about it.

The 21st century is another one of those big "shake-out" periods in Automotive History, much like the 1930s and the 1950s.

boomchek

So are you allowed to store parts cars as long as they're hidden in a garage, or nothing at all?

andre1969

So are you allowed to store parts cars as long as they're hidden in a garage, or nothing at all?

Our county will let you have one untagged/non-running/parts car/etc, as long as it stays in a closed garage. However, I don't see how the county would find out that you had more than one, if you kept them all inside. I guess if you happened to have the garage door open at the time a code enforcement officer pulled up, maybe?

When I talked to the guy this morning, he just asked me to turn my NY'er around, so they can see from the road that it's tagged. I'm also glad that they're cracking down on the place two doors down from me, with the school bus and other junk. If I found out I was being singled out, I'd be really miffed!

I think they busted one of my other neighbors, too. She used to have an old Ford Ranger pickup that her son owned. It didn't have tags on it. Well, yesterday when I was in the back part of the yard, near her house, I noticed it was gone.

boomchek

I find it pretty silly that someone can dictate what you keep on your own private property, but I guess they just don't want people to turn their lawns into junk yards which might make the neigbourhood look ugly and cause a drop in property values.

But even then I think if you have 10 non running junk cars, it should be nobody's business if they're hidden away in a garage.

qbrozen

My father has had issues with this in the past. He owns an old farmhouse and barn on a couple of acres. Been there about 35 years. When we moved there, it was that house and a working farm about a quarter mile down on the other side of the road, and the next sign of life was about another half mile further away. What he did with his property was nobody's concern. Put up a buidling as my brother's rehearsal studio, put up a pool, had several project cars around, etc.

About 10 years ago, the "city folk" finally pushed their way as far south as his town. Built a house directly across the street and, sure enough, the town starts bugging him about his "improvements" and nonregistered cars. His solution? Put up stockade fencing to block the view from the road.

Oh.... and threaten the new neighbor.

fintail

The problem is those cars are not easy to restore - a very difficult and expensive undertaking with little reward at the end. You'd be safe to wager everything you own that the other car will never be finished. A fintail is like a 57 Chevy or a Mustang compared to that other car both in enthusiast following and ease of resurrection. Sadly, scrap metal probably awaits the one on your property.

Any period radios in the pile of parts? Those are sought after, and are pretty cool. The small trim pieces and gauges are where the money is on that car, not body parts.

andre1969

His solution? Put up stockade fencing to block the view from the road.


Unfortunately, that won't always work anymore, because the busybodies have discovered websites such as Googlemaps or Bing.com, where you can do close-up aerial views, street views, birds-eye views, etc. Here's a whole website devoted to housin violations and code enforcement near Gainesville, Florida. I started reading through the list, and some of the stuff is funny, but some of it makes it sound like a shantytown...people living in cargo containers, camping trailers, etc. And in many cases, people mention that such-and-such is viewable from Bing.com or whatever. One of them mentioned an old green Explorer that's been sitting in a drainage ditch behind a house for several years. And sure enough, go to the street view of google maps, and you could "cruise" right past it!

We're kind of the same way though...my grandmother's uncle built the house I'm in back in 1916, and it's a safe bet this land has been in the family a good while before that. And once upon a time, it was all rural countryside. So, I tend to take that "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us!" attitude. If I was in some tight-knit community with small lots, or an HOA, I'd have a different attitude, but c'mon, 4+ acres almost looks incomplete if it DOESN'T have an untagged car sitting on it! :P

berri

Give those govt weenies what they want, put a living room and kitchen on your porch like a big old loud colored or patterned couch and some old appliances...might get them to forget about the car!

lemmer

this M3 vert. It bothers me that he doesn't mention the tear in the back window. But at the current bid price is pretty low for a low mileage M3.

lemmer

I can tell that it has two of the problems my last E36 convertible had - a saggy glovebox and a top that sheds wierd brown flakes when you open and close it.

Mr_Shiftright

Not really low priced---the car has an accident record, was either leased or a rental, has scraped-up wheels, a cracked back window----this does not strike me as a loved vehicle. Risky purchase IMO. Bid is about wholesale---more than fair IMO.

texases

Any mention of a maintenance record on that M3? I'd hate to get one without it.

lemmer

The dealer has it on his website for $15,995. Apparently he thinks it is the nicest M3 in the world.

And no, I don't think he has any service records.

Mr_Shiftright

Dealer is, pardon me, freakin' nuts.

Full retail ++ for a car that has big red marks on the CARFAX? yeah, right.

lemmer

I have a sneaking suspicion that this car has been in a wreck. I can't put my finger on it, but something about it just isn't quite perfect.

tjc78

Maybe that two-tone is from the factory! Wow, that is really bad. I find it amusing that there wasn't even a mention of it in the ad.

Mr_Shiftright

Looked it up----SALVAGE title.

qbrozen

At least its priced appropriately.

And, heck, with those miles, it would make a good donor car if it is the HPT version.

lemmer

You must be a glass half full kind of guy. Parts car or beater I guess are the choices.

lemko

Who knows? You might've been one of the lucky ones who got a Fury Police Pursuit package by mistake. Remember that brown 1971 Fury III at Carlisle?

srs_49

He could have done what one farmer I read about did when the newcomers complained too loud. He started raising pigs along the edge of his agriculturally zoned farm that was right next to the new houses.

boomchek

Wow, what a piece of junk. I wouldn't be surprised if the top is inoperational too.

Someone once told me that silver colored cars are hardest to repaint because matching up and blending the paint is difficult. This one is an extreme example.

au1994

Yep, I agree. I was told once when I had a silver car to get a full repaint should it ever need it, even if I had to split the difference with insurance. Luckily never had to make that decision, it was CCB'ed away after 2 years.

lemmer

I figured they just slapped on some junkyard parts.