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-   -   Late model muscle car's (https://classracer.com/classforum/showthread.php?t=18671)

Evan Smith 06-29-2009 06:07 AM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
Wow, are you guys missing it. Alan, you can't buy anything at 1970s prices anymore! A big-block muscle car of the '60s was $3,500-5,000 depending on what you got. It would run 14s, 13s or 12s with some work. The new Camaro V-6 will run low 14s. With old cars you got poor mpg, constantly tuning (plugs, wires, carb adjustment, points, etc.) and not much comfort compared to today's cars. And a house back then was $25,000-40,000. Today's cars cost $25,000-50,000 and a house is four-10 times that. Plus, today's cars last twice as long as cars of the '60s and '70s did. You can get 150,000-200,000 miles with a little care. You were lucky if you got 110,000-mile from older cars. So, one could argue that you get twice the product for same (albeit time-inflated) price. Could you imagine at $3 per gallon if your hot rod got 6-9 mpg? No one would own one. Chalk one up for EFI. Now you can have a fun car and get 20-plus mpg. Boy, technology really sucks.

Modern EFI is a breeze, it's all nuts and bolts. So what if you control fuel and spark with a computer or re-flash tool? I can't speak for the GM cars, but the Fords are relatively easy. The last carb car I had was a '84 Monte SS and there were more vacuum lines than actual engine parts. It sucked to work on!

How could anyone possibly complain about the performance of modern-era muscle cars? My Wife's 2007 Mustang GT (automatic) went 13.28 at 105 in good air with only a re-flash of the computer. It cost under $30,000. Alan, what house are you buying for $60,000? That would mop up just about any muscle car of the '60s. Now, I love '60s and '70s muscle cars and agree that you can't compare the style and character to new cars, but as far as performance and comfort goes there is no contest. You will not get the same civilian reaction cruising a '70 Road Runner or '69 Camaro or Mustang as you will a new car, you can thank the 5-mph bumpers for that. The styling on the older cars was just plain awesome.

I recently put a blower kit on the GT and with street slicks went mid-11s at 116 mph. That's with stock gears, exhaust, converter and it still gets 24 mpg on the highway.

Jeff, BTW, the new Shelby will run mid-11s/120-plus in good air with sticky tires. I drag tested one and it will be out in the next issue of MM&FF.

Evan

X-TECH MAN 06-29-2009 09:58 AM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by X-TECH MAN (Post 127629)
amen !!!!!!!!!

I would STILL rather BUY a 1966-67 Corvette coupe to drive daily with a 327/350 HP engine than have a new car given to me ! Id take the new car and sell it as fast as I could and use it for a real car.. My 73 Corvette with L-82 350 and 400 turbo w/ 3.55 gears, and P275-60 X 15 28 inch tall rear tires used to get 22-23 MPG without a computer, EFI, OR an overdrive transmission and it was air conditioned with PS, PB, PW. All 3550 lbs (with out driver) of it. I could at least change the spark plugs on it with no problem and there was not a metric bolt or nut on it. I have to admit that John Lingenfelter did my Q-Jet back in the day and I installed a Pro-tronics magnetic pick up to eliminate the points and condencer so that probably helped. The carb came off of my SS/IA Camaro and never changed the jets or metering rods.

X-TECH MAN 06-29-2009 02:03 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
P.S. If I had the advantage of a 200-R4 or a 700-R4 installed in my 73 Corvette I probably could have picked up 3 to 4 more MPG. Thats as good as my 91 gets with all of the bells and whistles and metric crap on it.. All it takes is a little work to have a nice fuel efficent ride instead of monthly payments. No its probably not going to happen with a 454 Chev, 455 Pont. , 426 Hemi, 460/428 Ford.

Jeff Lee 06-29-2009 05:56 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
I worked at "Tune-Up Master's" in 1979. V-8 Monza? Simple. Get a really long bar, wedge it between the exhaust manifold and gearbox and stretch the motor mount and place a block in place to hold it while you change the driver side plugs. Piece of cake.

The last guy I knew that had a '68 327/350 'Vette sold it. Why? It was so dang hot in the interior you couldn't stand driving it if you went over 45 minutes.

Evan - thanks for the tip. That's bone stock with ET Streets? 3.55 gears? What kind of launch / shift RPM? I'm assuming this was all pretty "non-abusive" testing?
I'd bet the 605 HP option is over kill in your opinion?

X-TECH MAN 06-29-2009 06:38 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
68 vette's were some of the worst ever produced.....thats no secret. 69's were much improved. The one that cooked me the most was a big block 427/435 HP roadster. 4 1/2 MPG with 4:88 rear but ran 10.90's in street trim except for 8 inch slicks. Never had the heads off the engine.

Philip Saran 06-29-2009 08:29 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich (Post 127610)
The performance of the new cars can be impressive.

However, show me a 60's muscle car that cost 1/2 as much as a house, took 5-6 years to pay for, with payments as high as a mortgage payment, and required service at a dealer that charged $75 per hour and had $100K worth of tools and equipment.

Alan, I don't know what houses cost in your part of the country, but in my neighborhood
they run $700-850K. I guess I could buy a nice Vet, Challenger & Mustang and stay
under that amount of money. Oh and out here in LA LA land the dealers at up to around
$90-110 per labor hour.

Yes when my wife retires in another couple of years we are selling out and moving out
of state!

Alan Roehrich 06-29-2009 08:45 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Philip Saran (Post 127779)
Alan, I don't know what houses cost in your part of the country, but in my neighborhood
they run $700-850K. I guess I could buy a nice Vet, Challenger & Mustang and stay
under that amount of money. Oh and out here in LA LA land the dealers at up to around
$90-110 per labor hour.

Yes when my wife retires in another couple of years we are selling out and moving out
of state!

A decent house is about $100K on 1/2 acre. Around here $700K will get you 7000+ sq feet on 30 acres. In fact, around $200K will get you around 3000 sq feet or more on a couple of acres. I paid $70K for mine 15 years ago. The market is depressed, it'll bring maybe $115K now.

Philip Saran 06-29-2009 09:12 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
Alan, thank you for the information. I don't know what I would ever do with a
7000 sq ft house or 30 acres. Jeff Lee is the only person I know with enough
kids to make use of a 7000 sq ft house.

I'll be darn happy with a 1800-2000 sq ft house on maybe one acre, just enough
room to add a nice shop to the back of the property.

We will probably look outside the Denver area since we have children & grandchildren there.

Chris "drooze" Wertman 11-16-2009 11:29 PM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
An Auto, Chally 08, Stock tune CAI, 13.24 is best @ 13? cant remeber.

EVERY Person I have seen race a 6 gear chally has at least once in the night bopped 3rd ? I have no idea why. Bad drivers most likely. But every track Im playing with the SRT8 at someone has an 09 6sp and wants to grudge, none has won, 13.4 is the fastest Ive seen out of one.

Thats with the stock gears and a 20's

The 09's have an ACTUAL LSD unit, mine has "modulated" traction control. And spin is a big issue on stock rubber.

Just my 2 cents. (Ive got an armrest full of timeslips so if you want actual times I can look)

A BIG Item on these is that they suck oil into the intake, then burning that (or not burning it) throws the sensors all wonky, the computer responds, oddly, I actually had one of the "BIG" names in SRT8 performance tell me "My Computer was bad" and they couldnt tune the car, after trying for some 4 hours , I was near them at the time so I thought I would see what they thought they could do, a call to Mopar and they told me about this issue, my sons long arm, a shop vac, some carb cleaner and a $99 catch can, problem solved. Just a thought, it caused problems ( a lot less severe ) for me.

Cheers

Chris

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Lee (Post 127489)
OK, I'm finally getting out of the stone age. I drove a 2008 Mustang GT/CS with an auto trans last week. All stock except Roush air intake. It had 3.55 rear. I couldn't believe how fast it was and was most impressed with the way the 5-speed auto trans performed. I mean, it didn't even slow down 5 RPM when it shifted from 1st to 2nd, it just kept accelerating. The last Mustang I drove was 3-4 years ago and it was a '98 (?) 4v Cobra. It was a lot of fun and would rev real high but had no bottom end. This 300 HP 3V '08 would probably blow it away. I have my eye on getting a 2010 Shelby if my new business works out. 540 HP w/ a 6-speed in a Shelby for $46K seems like a bargain to me. Thanks Evan.

Went to the track last night for the first time in over a year and drove a friends '06 Mustang GT with 3.55's and a 5-speed manual. It has a chip, intake and cat-back. It also has hard, worn out standard issue tires that need replacing. Obviously it took some finesse to launch it. I went 14.38 @ 101 MPH (it was 111 degrees out earlier in the day). Previously the owner has seen 104 and some change in cooler weather. He's got a total of $8500 in the car as it was an impounded vehicle. That's a mid-low 13 second street car with a/c with some ET drag slicks. Those MPH he runs are as good or better than my last "hot" street car, a '72 'Cuda with a pretty decent 340 and it sure wasn't as nice of a driver as this Mustang.

And the big disappointment was our friends '09 Challenger SRT8 with a 6-speed (all stock) and 3.08's in the rear. It was the first time down the track. Traction was an issue but even so, the MPH was only 98. That's only showing around 300 HP at the flywheel instead of 425 HP. I suggested he take it to the dealer because somethings not right. Anybody see any SRT8 Challengers on the track yet (stock)? A friend of mine in California has a SRT8 300 and can run 13-teens almost anytime. I'm not sure of his MPH.


Tom keedle 11-17-2009 05:08 AM

Re: Late model muscle car's
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Williams (Post 127533)
There we go bangin on Detroit like it is the fault of the automakers that a-holes like the commander in chief want 300 mpg next year or else. Why do you think our current domestic automobiles are a complete mess to work on. Because theres so much stuff jammed into them for the emissions and fuel economy not to mention the can't do without items as power mirrors, GPS and other options that generally suck. Ever wonder how a vehicle with plastic fenders, hoods and door skins could weigh 3700-3900 lbs? The whole thought process is *** backwards. Mr. Wright-you bring up a valid point about the inconsistencies of same vehicle output-always baffled me how that happens.

Steve

Just remember that alot of our politicians drive foreign cars. Is that sending us message or what!


don't forget the EPA....

btw, i DO work on late model stuff all day....


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