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The fast and the ridiculous.
2002-07-25-1:19 p.m.
Edit:Not to Travis - 5-10k on a car and 20k on an engine would yield one hell of a V8 car, no doubt. And definetly faster in the 1/4. Like I said below, for straight 1/4 mile, V8 is on average, the cheapest/most surefire way to go. I wasn't disagreeing with that, just with some other opinions James had. And of course I'm not pissed or even annoyed, it's just a discussion, about cars, which I love anyway.
For anyone who doesn't care about cars, just go ahead and skip this entry. (As Chuck says: "Yada yada yada cars, yada yada yada cars.") This is a friendly debate that James and I are having regarding the merits of old school V8 cars, and newer FI (forced induction) cars. It started out in my guestbook, but I deleted those entries and figured I'd just post it here so I could break things up into paragraphs. First off, I love V8 cars, muscle cars, and just about any car in general. For me though, the people that think that 8 cylinder normally aspirated motors are the end all be all, are right even with those that think a civic with a 50 shot and a lowering job when it comes to realistic automotive knowledge. I don't mean anything like this as an insult, as people are totally inclined to drive what they like. For instance, a twin turbo vette or whatever V8 car would be kick ass, I'd love it. But a turbo vette would be hella expensive. Theres a guy building one and talking about it on "projectinsaneasylum.com" or something like that, I'll try to look it up and show it to you. He's spent close to 100grand so far, but then again he's building a 1000hp car on pump gas that will also handle well, and look cool as hell. As for just adding a turbo to a v8 though, it doesn't work like that. First off, even on a modern car, you'd have to redo the entire motor to handle the turbo. Static compression of a NA motor is too high to run worthwhile boost levels, and most V8's have cast, not forged pistons, which will typically crack under boost. The addition of a turbo also means you'll need ignition and fueling management to keep up with the changing needs under boost. It doesn't have to be sophisticated, oftentimes a bigger fuel pump and an MSD built for turbo/supercharger applications is sufficient, if you keep the amount of boost low or have access to high enough octane fuel. A guy who hangs with us has a brand new c5 vette with a 300 shot of nitrous, which is really the same thing in many ways to FI, and he ended up going with lower compression and forged pistons too. He runs a 10 on street tires easy though, 9's on cheater slicks. That's really fast for a street driven car. Of course it keeps breaking, but he's the first person to really do this to a new vette, so he has to learn a lot for himself. Also, I noticed that Travis was reading this, and that he mentioned that old school muscle cars where cheap. They were anything but, v8 cars in the seventies were fast and simple, but not cheap, adjusted for inflation, those cars cost in the neighborhood of 30k dollars back then.
That's why it's so hard to find a decent-rust free example today, bottom line, most people couldn't afford the top of the line models. (Plenty of straight 6 mustangs and mopars were sold though.) The first guy to make a "fake" fast car wasn't a guy in a honda with a boomtip and a wing, it was a guy in a 6 cylinder camaro with cherry bombs and a jacked up rear end. Also, those cars weren't that fast stock, and not a one of them ever did better than a high 13/low 14 stock. (including the AC Shelby Cobra, the hemi cuda, and the racing spec vettes) I mentioned the Motor Trend feature they had when they talked about the new supercharged Cobra, where they looked back at all their official tests and said that without a doubt, the cars of today are the fastest ever. With tires and some work though, 13's and even 12s were possible, sure, but that's it. And I'd be willing to put my money where my mouth is as to the truth behind both of those last paragraphs, because the idea that they were cheap or that they were the fastest cars ever is almost an old wives tale. And those cars wouldn't be that fast today, because they relied on 3 things to make them quick. 1)Huge displacement 2)High compression 3)Close ratio gearing. The cars were very simple, and very fast considering the poor cylinder head design of all but the hemi (great design), but you can no longer run 13.5 to one compression on a V8, because you can't buy leaded gas anymore. For an engine to operate normally, 10 to one is about as high as you'd want to go. Some of the new hondas and nissans are using high static compression, but that's only because of very good cylinder head design, variable camshafts, and sophisticated engine management. That said, if I wanted to build a cheap, easy, 10 second or faster street car, there is no cheaper or easier way than to go with a V8 car, and there probably won't be for another decade at least. Dollar for dollar, the Camaro of the last few years is the fastest car for the money ever built. My point is, the cars I like are not compromises of gas mileage for performance, of straight line acceleration sacrificed for handling or top speed, of comfort for power, of dependability for peformance. They have all in equal measure, and that takes more creativity, hard work, and brains than buying a car and designing it to run from a dead stop to 100 mph, but having to cross your fingers to make it to and from the track, or having to buy special race gas etc... How many people build a car JUST for racing? If they do, I applaud that, but that's been done, and you're not going to suprise anyone or do anything revolutionary when it comes to drag racing anymore. But if you know anyone who does have a street car that thinks they can hang with the tuned cars in our crew, there are people driving every weekend who would be more than happy to give em a shot. And no broken mustang with a missing tire, or even a fully restored mustang (save maybe a shelby or boss) is going to get as much attention as an 8 second anything especially a Bug.
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