Very cool youtube channel of the guy serving as technical advisor for the Fast and Furious franchise.
Is it just me or doesn't it seem like the C7 'Vette just came out? It came out in 2014. Maybe it's just that I never cared much for them with their Camaro looking ass ends, but I had no idea they had even a 5 year production run. I have a neighbor that just bought one. He's running straight pipes. I'd be embarrassed if my car sounded like that thing. Not only is it as loud as a WWII fighter at idle, he loves to rev it and either his plugs are fouled or his firing order is all fucked up. It's hard to believe a 5 year old car sounds that bad. Which leads me to thinking...with the C8 coming out and being such a leap from the previous generation, is the C7 going to be the lost generation of Corvettes....kind of like 4th generation F bodies?
Good question ToyToy. I think the manual transmission C7 vettes will retain value, especially the 2019 ones as they will most likely be the last manual Vettes produced. Other than that there will be a certain generation that will believe Corvettes should always be front engine rear drive vehicles. That group is dying.
Holy shit guys! Just came back from an honest to god ride in the Nova. Not an up and down the street untuned and untested, but a legit, around the neighborhood drive. Probably put 5 miles on it but since I have no hood on it, no back glass, no insurance and it hasn't been registered since 2010, I didn't want to press my luck. Same motor as my Z06 but with a cam, headers, no parasitic accessories (AC, power steering etc), a steeper rear gear and ~200 lbs lighter. Stood on it for a bit and I'm man enough to say it kind of scared me lol. Been smiling like a school girl ever since. Heading out for a drink to celebrate (not in the Nova of course)
I am looking for a bike, either an MV Agusta Rivale or something a bit more tame, like an MT-07 or a GSX-S 750. Since the Rivale is kind of hard to find, I spend an inordinate amount of time searching. I see Corvettes pop up for disturbingly low prices now, I presume in anticipation of the C8's. They do seem like a quantum leap forward, but Jesus, that depreciation would kill me.
Unless it’s the 60-70s stingray or a Z06, late C3s to today don’t hold their value at all. You can get early 2000s for 5-6 thousand all day. The car just has such a hardcore boomer stigma they don’t have any other market segment interested in it. I think the mid ship was meant to finally break that pattern but I still don’t see it breaking out of that mold. I think they missed the boat with the last body styling of this past generation and the new rear engine. I think if they went pure retro curves emphasized front wheel fenders like the c3 stingray it could have been a much bigger hit. Mustang and Challengers have successfully duplicated the 70s muscle look. Corvettes keep try to go super car style but I think it’s super uninspiring.
It's good to have a car that scares you just a little bit, it helps you keep respect for what it can do in the forefront of your mind....so you don't do something monumentally stupid. My Z is about 150 horse shy of actually putting a scare in me, but it does remind me every now and again that I do need to respect what it can do.....things like damp pavement, 50 mph in third gear, a little goose of the throttle and....whoops! Rear tires just broke loose. Get off the throttle toytoy. Or making a right hand turn from a stop and someone is coming a bit quicker then I thought....a little flick of the right ankle on the throttle in first gear to accelerate out of the way and....Oh crap! Ass end just broke loose and is trying to pass the front end. Luckily, it's a very forgiving car if you catch it in time. I remember my 400+ horse 60's muscle cars clearly....there was very little forgiveness if they got out of hand. It was basically hold on and pray. Quite the adrenaline rush to be sure, I'm not sure my old heart could take that now. I've grown a bit used to sports cars over the past 30 years or so, they are a wee bit more forgiving if you fuck up. Muscle cars only do one thing, and do it very well...scare the shit out of you going in a straight line, and scare you even more if they deviate from that straight line. Damn. Thinking about it makes me miss having a car that scares me. Well, just a little bit. Enjoy it my friend. And keep us updated with pictures.
It seems like just a few months ago that the only Mustang with more than 300 HP was the Cobra. That was over twenty years ago, and for some years now the freaking V6 Mustang has 300 HP. We're old. RWD takes a lot of getting used to. My SS has the only traction control system I've been happy with, and more than that I actually love it; it does a great job of keeping the rear end under control. In my E39 540 6-speed, '12 Accord coupe V6 6-speed, and '14 Civic LX 5-speed the traction control was nothing but an acceleration inhibitor; it was simple muscle memory for me to turn it off when I started the car. In the SS it doesn't inhibit my acceleration runs; rather, it actually helps me to not end up sideways. Going back to the BMW, when I bought it 11 1/2 years ago I started to feel a little buyer's remorse at first. I really had to get used to the handling dynamics, before I appreciated the car I'd lusted after for more than a decade.
Even the 4 banger 'stang now has 300 horse. What the 4's and 6's don't have is the torque of an 8. I've seen a lot of folks shit talk the LT1, but the low end grunt from that engine is impressive...in 5th gear (Which is the first overdrive) at 45 the car will sprint. Uphill. With the A/C running. (6th gear on the other hand....it's for nothing but cruising along at 75 and getting 27 mpg. If you want to accelerate, find another gear.) The funniest thing is the 300 horse 4's and 6's are actually rated equal to or a little worse for fuel mileage then my V8.
I keep forgetting about the turbo 4s. Beats the hell out of the naturally aspirated 4 banger Fox-bodies.
I've replaced a lot of brake pads over the years. I'm a little swamped for time lately, so I brought my car into a local mechanic. Dude informed me that there was a lot of rust on the calipers (true) and since the brake pedal was squishy, he was going to have to replace the calipers. The car is a 2002 that spent a lot of time in the northeast, so there's a lot of rust on everything. AFAIK these are original calipers. Now, I'm not having him do this - it was over $1500 for everything and I am perfectly capable of replacing my calipers with discount parts from RockAuto. My question is, how can I really tell if I actually need to replace the calipers? Pads were last replaced maybe 3-4 years ago by a shop I trust but no longer live near and they didn't say a word. That shop was in the northeast, so they're probably a little more used to the accumulated rust anyway. It's not the end of the world if I need to do it, but the car is just hanging on so it's always just a minor crisis away from getting sent to the junkyard, so if I can spend $150 instead of $400 on parts, that's a good thing.
Usually the calipers would need to be replaced only if they are so rusted that they are not releasing, which causes one side to drag on the disc. Are both pads worn evenly? If so, then the caliper is probably fine. If one pad is heavily worn while the other still has plenty of meat on it, then that's a problem. The squishy brake pedal usually means the brakes need to be bled, which should be part of the brake job anyway.
Thanks, I'll check. That's really what I was looking for - something I could look at to determine if this guy was right or not. I agree that spongy brakes didn't seem to be a smoking gun to me, since air in the lines can cause that. Since the car is now old enough to legally watch porn, should I consider just doing this proactively since I'm in there anyway? I've owned some old cars and never replaced calipers so I generally assumed they were "lasts forever" type of components that you only replace because there was an unexpected failure.
What everyone else has said, either bleeder is rusted shut which based on the year isn't out of the question. Or the sliders are stuck, which you will be able to tell with how the pads are worn, evenly means they are fine, one worn more then the other means it is stuck. If the pads are unevenly worn and the slides aren't too stuck, i would look at changing the hoses too, they could be collapsed.
The new window regulator (Thank you Dixie!) is in and smooth as butter. The old one clearly showed the car had spent most of it's life in a salt air environment.....it was seven kinds of fucked up with rust. I'm surprised it worked at all. I'd gone by a Safe Lite shop and they quoted me $200, which seemed to be about right, but they wouldn't do it on a Saturday. One of my roomies delivers glass to auto glass places and he talked to folks at a shop in Little Tijuana....they did it for $30. AND they changed out my rattling door handle that I've been meaning to take care of for almost a year now. I'm going to have to flip the roomie a kick back....that's a huge savings. On the way home I kicked the car up to 85 on the interstate....and no wind noise, so that's a good sign it's adjusted correctly. The real telling will be the next time I wash it....
I'm kind of glad I haven't put the Pro shifter on my car yet. I just snagged a used factory SS Hurst shifter, which is more in line with my plan of keeping things OEM as much as possible for the time being. Being a daily at the moment makes reliability kind of important. Speaking of reliability, I've put 11K on it in the last 9 months, all of it commuting back and forth to work in city traffic. The only real issue in that time was the water pump taking a shit. Not bad for a 24 year old, 100K mile, $3K car that had been sleeping for a year before being pressed back to work. (Granted, I do have a hell of a lot more then $3K into it....more in the $15-20K range...but some of that was also just upgrading things just because.) Although it appears the rear main my be going tits up. There was oil on the tranny last oil change, so it's either the rear main or the oil pressure sending unit. With 113K, I'm guessing rear main. Which is going to mean new clutch, pressure plate, and throw out bearing as long as we're in there....
Yeah yeah, clogging this thread up with all my shit... We painted the Cougar and decided on a different direction than the Eliminator Orange. We wanted something that had a really dark flop to accentuate the body lines. I think we nailed it. It's Lexus Atomic Silver.