I think you need to read the whole forum before you start criticizing chief...
ratnin
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.
1. An exhaust upgrade can easily add 10 or more HP to the car, and if weight doesn't increase, would inevitably make the car faster in the 1/4 (obvioulsly not a full second, but LethalChem was stating that recorded #'s were slower than reality to begin with, so maybe he only gained a few tenths). I was merely pointing out that he was comparing a modified car to a stock car... if he wanted to compare them equally they both should have been stock.
2. He also never stated the exact degree of the mod, how much HP he gained and what he ran when the car was stock, so we don't know how much of an improvement he made. So arguing that point is retarded... but then again you're a mustang fanboy so your iq probably isn't very lofty.
ratnin
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.
I didn't make the comparison in the beginning... your mustang buddy LethalChem did... i was merely stating some facts around RX7s and they aren't as crap as he was making them out to be... of course there's a bhp/L advantage, that's the beauty of the rotary and something to be marvelled in mechanics that the rotary engine can create that level of power compared to a conventional piston engine with a lower displacement. He was going on and on about the crappy gas mileage and how much better the performance of the stang was compared, so i was merely pointing out that the model year's he was looking at didn't support his argument (other than the price was much better in a stang, which i agreed with).
ratnin
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... and you ramble on and on
You clearly got all wound up by some foreign car having better numbers than your beloved mustang as your argument gets all twisted and muddled. I was mentioning documented issues (news reports, car mag articles, etc) in reliability over the 80's and 90's and you immediately cite the 70's and early 80's... the 70's and early 80's were a horrendous time for Japanese manufacturers and they were no where near their american counterparts in terms of reliability and quality... can't deny that, that is fact. But over the course of the 80's and 90's, the majority of Japanese manufacturers made trememdous strides in their vehicles and reliability, whereas American manufacturers seemed to have a falloff in quality in production, which they have since rebounded from (a lot to do with the globalization of the industry and sharing of technology and common parts manufacturing centres for the different end brands).
As for why you see a lot of older american cars... #1 they are extremely inexpensive to fix... why... the volume of original vehicles and replacement parts made and fact that you were dealing with an entirely domestically made vehicle and parts meant lower cost to the consumer to repair (why do you think Saabs are sooo expensive to fix in North America) so naturally you would see more older American built cars on our roads... if you went to Japan you'd see more Japanese made cars, Europe, european models... etc.
Obviously you care for your car and you see the results of it being in shape, and that's the way it should be with any car from any manufacturer, you take care of your car it will take care of you.
I had an 87 RX7 which i drove 100,000km with no major repairs (with the exception of the clutch being replaced) but i took care of it religiously doing oil changes (as you need to do with rotaries) and proper maintenance. My dad had an 85 Accord which he put 300,000k's on and the only thing he had to fix were the breaks and the muffler. My grandparents' Chevy Malibu was in the shop what seemed like every other month... my mom's old Cavalier... don't even get me started. Her car now, a 93 Accord... got the muffler, the brakes, and the a/c fixed and that's it 150,000km's down the road... likewise my uncle's Vette... no problem's 10 years down the road.
I definitely agree that many manufacturers (Japanese and American for that matter) do have things like "silent recalls" and spend lots of money marketing their reliability and honing their public image, but to cast the thought that this is the only reason that American manufacturers got a bad rap in the late 80's and 90's is a bit presumptuous.
The point is that you need to realize that there are all sorts of one off cases that refute the documented history and public opinion but you should relax from making attacks until you step back and look at all the facts.
As far as Mustangs in GT... my previous post document my support for the inclusion of more significant stangs in GT. They are a key figure in automotive history and deserve their due in GT. What i'm not into is people preaching that they're the best thing to ever happen in the history of cars, they're not... deal with it.
Isn't it funny how I'm good at not being any good at making any sense.
