<VV> Uh, You want Rice with that?

[Tony]

At 1645 05/14/2004 -0400, Sethracer@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 5/14/04 10:51:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time, ronh@owt.com 
>writes:
>If you want to go FAST, get a Japanese car, Mazda RX, Toyota Supra or
>something like that.  Your "fast" Corvair will be left in the exhaust of
>these cars.  IMHO
>RonH
>
>Well - The last time I competed in a Corvair against a Toyota Supra was in 
>SCCA E/SP autocross. I waxed this guy all year long. At the end of the year,
the 
>guy asked me to drive his car to find out why - We used a G-Analyst and 
>traced both of our drives. He car pulled better acceleration than the Corvair
but 
>the Corvair could brake later, corner at a higher G and get on the gas
sooner 
>than the Supra. (Same driver) So, if you want to run stoplight to
stoplight - 
>Fast and Furious style, get an older Rear wheel drive Ricer rocket.  Or a 
>Camaro! (Hee Hee!) - Seth Emerson



Or, if you wanna play hardball, get yourself a tweaked 440-6pk Mopar E-body
(Challenge/Cuda) with some serious tires in back.   Go looking for ricer
meat. 
Eat hearty.  Collect streetcorner bucks, go hope grinning.    


I have a video clip of a street-race grudge match between a Porsche 911 TT and
a Dodge Challenger, the result of an argument between a Porsche owner who
thought his tweaked twin turbo 911 would outrun any American iron that was
brought out to face it.   

A guy with a modified bigblock Challenger took him up on it and cleaned his
clock in a big big way.   The Challenger sounded like roaring death from On
High coming off the line, left the Porsche in the dust.    It goes to show
that
checkbook performance via worship of the movie version of what's envisioned to
be a shake & bake fast car is not the end-all answer to backyard ingenuity and
simple cubic inch muscle.     


A lot of people seem to forget that in spite of the rice tech and the money
spent and the egos fed by oohs and ahhhs and the movies featuring Japanese
weedeater sounding FWD racer-wannabe dayglow plasticized ground-f/x'ed
buzzboxes, there remains the fact that the late 1960s-early '70s produced some
cars that were capable of performance that todays imports can only fantasize
about.   And, they did it with relatively low tech and low cost... their only
problem was getting the power transmitted to the ground.   Be it rice or
German
technorockets, if you put some tires on those old US made musclecars of the
'60s and tweak them a bit, there's not a lot of cars anywhere today that will
outrun them.   

Today, a bone stock hp 440 powered Challenger in good tune, with modern tire
technology to help it, can turn a 1/4 mile in the mid 12's.  This has been
verified at several different events where factory stock show vehicles were
given a chance to show their stuff.   With some basic bolt-on performance mods
to the engine and some traction aids etc that Challenger starts knocking
loudly
on 11's door.   This car would also likely idle at 1000 rpm and be docile
enough to go grocery shopping and not frighten the middle-aged female
patrons.   It would get questionable mileage and insurance would not be cheap
unless it was insured as an antique etc but it would sure as Hell be a fun
ride.   

Now:   Which would be best to do...?   

Spend 10k on a decent quality daily driver class tweaked 440 Magnum Dodge
Challenger or spend 30k on a mortified high tech Japanese ricerocket... in
order to turn a quarter mile in less than 13 seconds?   Or go all out and
spend
60k on the Porsche (and get beat by the Dodge anyway)...?   

Or, spend 5k on a nice tweaked out Vair and have as much fun and get more
appreciation than either the ricer or the Porsche would get...?    

(of course the Challenger in the garage for alternating weekends would be nice
too)  

I'm still a bit put asunder at how because of a couple of movies with a
pack of
ricers going quick hit theaters, the neo-streetracers seem to think the only
way to go quick is with imported buzztech.     


tony..    

----- "There's always a bigger fish."   - Qui-Gon Jinn,   Jedi Master