Originally Posted by phantasm
I'm sure the cars are purely stock from the factory... mufflers can make enough of a difference to boost your time. Which is why you'd be faster than the R&T time.
Yes, he dropped a full second in the quarter with his super magic mystery mufflers....he must have gotten the Gran Turismo "Racing Exhaust".
I think I'm with Lethalchem on this one; your knowledge of car racing is limited to the virtual video game enviroment.
I like how you compared a 94 GT to a 95 RX7, two completely different vehicles, and quoted the bhp/L numbers to establish the RX7's superiority. You seem to have forgotten, however, that you can't really make bhp/L comparisons between a piston engine and a rotary engine. It's ridiculous to make a one-to-one comparison between a 5 liter V-8 and a 1.3L twin rotory based on displacement. Engine differences aside, comparing a 5.0L Mustang GT and a late model RX7 is like comparing apples and orangles. RX7s are light weight, gadgety two-seaters and are in the same price range as a Corvette.
Originally Posted by phantasm
As for the performance and reliability... Ford's don't have a solid track record in reliability in the 80's and 90's compared to Japanese vehicles, hence why they took such a pounding in sales... while that gap has closed now, i wouldn't run around boasting on the mustang's reliability over japanese vehicles...
Somewhere over the past two decades a number of people, namely women and the mechanically ignorant, began to subscribe to the myth of Japanese superiority in automotive reliability. The assumption is that while domestic cars fall to pieces their Japanese counterparts run forever. When you see a rattling '85 Chevy Cavalier on the road you think "typical American automotive crap" when you should really be asking yourself "Were are all the '85 Honda Civics?". Hmmm....you don't see many of those. You'll routinely see beat-up '79 Chevy pickups (which, at 25 years old, are technically considered classics) but you'll be hard pressed to find a '79 Toyota Corolla still in operation. All these supposedly substandard, unreliable American cars are stilll roaming the streets two decades after they left the factory but the peculiar absence of their similiarly aged Japanese counterparts goes unnoticed. Where did all the Honda's, Toyota's, Mitsubishi's and Nissan's that flooded our streets in the '70s and '80s go? Answer: the junkyard. When Japanese cars break they break for good. From my experience working on domestic and import cars I've gotten the overall impression that American automobiles are essentially industrial machines with added creature comforts while Japanese vehicles ride upon more "residential strength" mechanics that, although sufficient, lack the robustness and durability afforded by American designs. Case in point, timing belts. While my 5.0 Mustang uses a dual timing chain to actuate the valvetrain Japanese vehicles typically use a rubber timing belt that requires costly routine replacement. American car companies have since adopted timing belts for certain applications were the belts offer benefits over conventional timing chains but took steps to safeguard the engine in case of belt failure. Believing a belt was sufficiently reliable many Japanese engines employed no safeguards. As a result, belt breakage or even slippage due to stretching would let the valves hang open. You can image the damage caused by the impact of the pistons on the hung valves, but that's the price you pay for a 5% decrease in valvetrain noise
Take a look behind a Toyota or Honda dealership sometime, you'll be suprised how many of these supposedly reliable cars are waiting for major service. Japanese manufacters go to extraordinary lengths to perpetuate their image of reliabillity; concealing vehicles in need of service behind the dealership, maintaining insane service intervals and even requiring major engine work at the dealership as part of scheduled maintance at mileage as low 60K in some vehicles. In addition, Toyota commonly issues secret or "silent" recalls to avoid publlic awareness of major vehicle problems. In such cases owners of affected vehicles are never notified of the recall. Instead, the required service is quietly taken care of during the next scheduled dealer service. Several major problems on popular Toyota's have been quietly addresses in this fashion.
It's amazing to me how many people have a biased view of Japanese vs. American vehicle quality without really having a legimate reason to.
My daily driver is a '91 Mustang GT with 160k miles. After 6 years of SCCA Solo II autocross, weekends at the drag strip, needless backroads abuse, tapping the rev-limiter on a daily basis and a maintance schedule that I'm ashamed of it's still running strong. Two months ago I sent off an oil sample to a company that tests for any contaminants that indictate engine wear. Even with 12k on my oil it still scored the highest possible rating in each category. Based upon the oil testing the company offered an extended engine warrantee through them. The only thing I've ever broken is my drive shaft- to much torque, to much traction and a voilent neutral drop. My 5.0 is not unusual in it's durablity. My last 5.0 had 150k trouble free miles when it was totaled. People are astonished to pull the heads off a 140k mile 5.0 Mustang and see the crossshatch pattern still on the cylinder walls from where it was honed from the factory (I've seen this on several high mileage smallblock V-8s)
I'm really having a hard time understanding how you can compare a 5.0L Mustang to a late model RX7 and still question the Mustangs reliability. My best friend is an RX7 nut, he's got 4 earlier generations along with several ported EFI 13B engines. Even after rebuilds those things still burn oil (RX7 owners like to tell you that rotaries are suppose to smoke some). If you let them sit for awhile without running the apex seals will go bad and require a rebuild unless you routinely turn the engine over to lmove and oil the seals. Although he's a true rotary nut and will happily put up with the early RX7 rotary engines little headaches he isn't willing to deal with the trouble of a late mode twin tubo RX7. Too much trouble he reasons. When I got into SCCA racing a while back some of the racers belonged to an RX7 club out of Cincinatti and raced several RX7s. I have to admit that I was blown away by the late model RX7's. With only a set of stickies those things would outperform everything else in their class. Occasionally on extremely tight tracks one of them would defy explaination and port times quicker than the modifed Corvetter and Viper classes and rivaling the open-wheeled carts. Soon I was considering purchasing a late model RX7 myself. Those cars are actuallly pretty hard to find and hold their value/ Eventually I found one a few hours away at a used car dealership. I called them up just to get some info about it before making the drive and got the old RX7 line, "Ya, it smokes some but thats OK. Rotaries are suppose to burn oil." Whatever, I wanted the damn thing, I figued I'd rebuild it. That weekend happened to be an SCCA event so I went to go race for what I thought would probably be my last time in the Mustang. About to be an RX7 owner myself I hung out in the pits by the RX7 owners and checked out their rides. Just by chance I overhear one of the guys say "64 thousand? That's pretty good." I realized they were talking about miles before a rebuild. I had to ask,"You can only go 60000 miles before a rebuild?" His exact words in repsonse were, "If you get to 60 thousand miles than you had a good one." The twin turbo motors have a bad problem about blowing their apex seals. More problems with these model RX7s were pointed out; they use a slide-rail rear suspension that eats bushings and can be a problem. The RX7 owners flat out told me not to purchase the car as a daily driver, it was too much trouble. Two of the later model owners had earlier model naturally aspirtated RX7 as daily drivers but reserved the turbo for track use only.
Bottom line:
Mustang = Rock solid reliable daily driver that can run 13s all day
RX7 Turbo = overpriced whiny ***** that needs constant attention
P.S. I don't want to hear about some guy you know who has a Toyota truck with 300k miles. I know it happpens, I say the commercials.
Here's a list that I found in another forum that a guy said he was a friend of a guy that worked at PD and he told him the list. Here are the Mustangs that are on the list he said 95% of the cars are going to be on the game:
