To each their own

[Total Sign]

Originally posted by Nitrousbird:

But I bet that 10k 98 LS1 is going to be in a lot better shape than that 1k CRX. I know what a 1k Civic hatch or CRX looks like; rusty fenders, beat to hell paint, etc. Then you look at it financially; that 10k LS1 can be financed, so you are just making payments every month at a reasonable interest rate. That CRX is going to cost constant out-of-pocket, and take far longer to just build it to "stock LS1" performance. I mean, a 5 year loan on a 10k car is going to be approx $200/month car payment; not a real hefty payment. At that same rate, you'll have to wait 5 months to buy that beaten down CRX. A year to buy the suspension/brakes, 2 years to afford the motor.....are you getting the idea here??

Not to mention, you buy your LS1 for 10k. Something comes up and you need to sell 3 years from now. You should be able to get most of your money back. Now, take your CRX, with 10k invested, new motor, new suspension, good luck. Most people shy away from buying other peoples "problems."

 

Now, that is assuming you have the car for nice weather only, dont drive it 20k a year.

[Guest mudbutt]

Originally posted by HIgh Risk:

Not to mention, you buy your LS1 for 10k. Something comes up and you need to sell 3 years from now. You should be able to get most of your money back. Now, take your CRX, with 10k invested, new motor, new suspension, good luck. Most people shy away from buying other peoples "problems."

 

Now, that is assuming you have the car for nice weather only, dont drive it 20k a year.

AHAHAAAAHHHA! Depreciation is terrible on f bodies , that is why they are so affordable now, think about. Want an example? Mom has a ws-6. Purchased in late 2000 0 miles for around 30k. Thought about selling it around august of 02, like 15k on the odo. Blue book was like 16k. Im not saying the cars suck(they kick ass in fact)but they are in no way an investment.

[Nitrousbird]

Originally posted by Mud Butt:

AHAHAAAAHHHA! Depreciation is terrible on f bodies , that is why they are so affordable now, think about. Want an example? Mom has a ws-6. Purchased in late 2000 0 miles for around 30k. Thought about selling it around august of 02, like 15k on the odo. Blue book was like 16k. Im not saying the cars suck(they kick ass in fact)but they are in no way an investment.

And where were we talking about new LS1 cars?? Looks around. No where.

[SupraGlue]

What you drive depends on your own set of priorities, which is what all of you are really arguing about vicariously through cars.

 

If your priorities are, in order:

 

</font>

• Economy and drivability</font>
• Initial cost</font>
• Repair cost / reliability</font>
• Insurance cost</font>
• All weather drivability (can only own one car)</font>
• Cargo capacity</font>
• Driving enjoyment</font>
• Occasional auto-x / road course use</font>
• Occasional drag strip use</font>
• Moddability</font>

You might pick a used Integra GSR or Civic Si. If you want some warranty coverage left, you might pick up a VW. The Sentra SE-R/NX2000 is another nice choice. Change the priorities around, and you pick another car. It's that simple.

 

Here's the set of priorities I used. Keep in mind that I lived in Southern California at the time:

 

</font>

• High multi-dimensional performance as purchased</font>
• Economy / drivability</font>
• Reliability</font>
• Comfort on long drives</font>
• Removable roof / Convertible</font>
• Driving enjoyment</font>
• Moddability</font>
• Appealing styling</font>
• Occasional road course use</font>

The Supra meets those very well. I have used it on drag strips, road courses and autocross tracks. I have driven it across the entire US and to Texas and back twice, getting 25-26mpg. It idles at 750rpm, dead smooth. It is quiet, comfortable and has cruise and A/C. The targa top stays off nearly all summer. Very little has ever broken on it, considering the power level. I did not care about initial cost and still don't. I could afford it then and can afford it now. I am old and have no tickets, so insurance is cheap no matter what I drive. I have other cars to drive in bad weather, so I don't care about that either. The car is very easy to modify. I hear that I learned all about it on the Intarweb.

 

Other cars that would fit that very well are Corvette coupe or 300ZXTT.

 

Anyway. Long post. But if you lay out honestly what your priorities are, you will see exactly why you own the car you do.

 

For fun, here is one last set:

 

</font>

• Drag strip performance</font>
• Street racing performance</font>
• Drivability</font>
• Cruising comfort</font>
• Economy</font>
• Initial cost</font>
• Moddability</font>
• Passenger and cargo room</font>
• Repair cost / reliability</font>

If that's my list, I am buying a turbo Buick.

 

Different needs and priorities are what makes us INDIVIDUALS. That is why we choose to drive what we do. If you figure out what is important to you before you buy something, you'll get the "right" car.

 

On a side note, the horrible awfulness of FWD is way, way, way overstated on this board. There are classes in all forms of racing where FWD cars dominate and win, even against RWD. In Speed Touring Cars, there was a strong rivalry for many years between the Integra Type R and BMW 3 series. That is amazing, considering the handling prowess of the 3. The original Mini (the first mass production FWD) was a terrific Rally car.

 

For auto-x, having most of the weight forward makes it easy to transfer more weight forward at turn in. The auto-x driving style is a lot of stab-and-steer, and you often want to rotate the rear end on turn in as well. Braking the FWD car deep into the turn and chucking it in (three wheeling it when done agressively) can get you there. Where they tend to lack is small engines that don't create enough torque in the midrange to accelerate out as well as a bigger displacement car. It's definitely fun to watch a well-driven FWD car whipping around the cones, though.

 

For a daily econobox, I'll take the FWD car. They package better for aerodynamic purposes, have better grip and are much cheaper to build. The driveline is also generally lighter than a RWD car, so there is weight savings as well.

 

AWD is, of course, the ultimate for year-round, any weather performance driving. It's often more expensive both to initially buy (in most cases, but that is changing) and repair, and always carries extra weight and driveline loss, but we live in an AWD kind of climate. For pure street tire drag racing (ie. no drag radials) or street racing, it's a pretty solid setup also, presuming it can be launched without scattering parts.

 

It's not what I'd pick for a road course, unless that course was known for bumps, pavement changes and on track dirt and gravel. A good smooth, clean, dry track isn't going to offer the AWD car much. Lousy tracks will. The Audis dominated in Trans Am and IMSA GTO due to the prevalence of street circuits, which are notoriously slick, uneven (think about the crowns in the road) and bumpy. The AWD let them put the power down sooner in a corner, and they whooped ass. In the rain, everyone else might as well have saved themselves the trouble and just gone home. Yes, they also had better engines and chassis. For those of us who watched during that era, it was ugly. Banning AWD was a convenient way to kick Audi out, though.

 

The long and short of it is, buy what you like.

 

/truth

[Mowgli1647545497]

You can lay out your priorities and then use that to get the car for you. Or you can rationalize having the car you have.

 

90% of this thread is people doing the latter.

 

FWD is close to RWD? No. I'm looking thru my SCCA books (and I've got over 20 years of them) and in no year were FWD lap times close to RWD classes. What stats were you quoting, Speed Touring years when thru when, cuz I seriously want to look em up. Yuo talking the mixed lower brackets?

 

Cones in a parking lot all in 1st and 2nd gear and yanking on the E-brake to rotate does not equal hot lapping on a full track in a fast car with real power. I can't find any year where the best FWD class cars lap times fell even middle pack to either AWD or RWD classes of equivalent power. This is back to 83. Before that I can't say. So I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't buy a car to dodge shopping carts in the Kmart backlot. A well set up Go Kart will whup all comers there.

"The long and short of it is, buy what you like."

Again, so far, what I see is people just wanting to hear others say their car is a performer. And I refuse to feed ignorance.

 

Buy the car you want, sure. Drive the car you want, sure. But don't let rationalizing make you think you're driving more than you are. I talk to so many young people that completely don't have any grasp on the basics.

 

As an engineer, a useful excercise in design is to do "extremes" analysis. So for cars: Go to the pinnacle of pure road racing, say, oh, F1, and what do you see? There's your answer.

 

BUT - since for the past decade and a half what we the new car buying public had pushed down our consumer's throats was a glut of FWD cars, with a VERY few RWD and AWD cars for sale, the choices to the now-used car market are just as FWD biased as trying to buy a new performance car in 1994.

 

That doesn't mean FWD is just as good. It means you have to look harder to buy a good starting platform, or, you just gotta "work with what you can get".

[SupraGlue]

Speed Touring Cars, it's on TV all the time. Realtime Racing ITRs won four straight driver titles from 1999-2002.

 

http://www.world-challenge.com/2002/standings-tc.html

 

But you're right. Where you put the drive wheels on a car is pure magic. You can ignore any other engineering issues, such as power to weight, suspension and chassis design, or tire choice. Just drive them rear wheels.

 

The only point I made is that the anti-FWD jihad on CR is overzealous. I swear, some of you people spend more time hating cars than you do enjoying them.

 

Edit: Let me make another point that maybe some of you will get. Even Mowgli might understand this. Solid axles for road racing are generally obsolete technology unless required by the rules. F1 doesn't use them, top tier sports car racing does not use them, etc. No one would argue that solid axles, or even a trailing link IRS, is superior to a properly designed double wishbone. No way, no how. Does that mean that you guys with solid axles should NEVER road race? Should you not even bother putting suspension parts on your car because it is a waste of time and money? Are your cars automatically junk and tugboats that will never handle because of your less than optimal driveline layout? That would be silly.

 

Same goes for all of us with engines in front. The mid engine revolution took over F1 in the early sixties, and Indy racing and sports car racing later that decade. Front engine cars are dinosaurs, right? Why waste time on one? Heck, the top rung of drag racing is top fuel, and they've got the engine where it belongs too. We should all just toss these front engine beasts in the junkyard right? Stupid argument again.

 

You can have a fun performance car that you enjoy that has a solid axle. You can have a fun performance car that you enjoy that has an engine in front. You can also have a fun peformance car that drives the front wheels, the rear wheels or all the wheels.

 

[ 30. May 2004, 02:22 AM: Message edited by: WWJKD? ]

[Mowgli1647545497]

FYI - I don't hate any cars. I just hate ignorance. And you probably wouldn't beleive how many people I talk to that honestly don't understand the fundamentals. And throwing up how those tegras beat a bunch of civics and jettas, and one underpowered, overweight bimmer in a low-power, low-speed bracket proves nothing. Except that their top adjusted time was 5 seconds behind the slowest Super-cross contender that year...

 

Up the power, up the speed, RWD/AWD is better. Period. Its why Chrysler is returning to it. Its why Ford and GM are returning to it. Its why Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Jaguar, Lotus, Maserati, etc. etc. never left it. Its the layout of all the supercars from Japan. And on and on and on. All us engineers must be stupid, worshipping at our near sighted RWD magic shrine with blinders on.

 

See how irritating arguing like that sounds? So dont be faceious.

 

Not sure what you were arguing with anyway. You might be thinking you were arguing with me, but you weren't: because what I said was RWD or AWD was the better platform to build on all else being equal. And I'm betting you're not so stupid as to say thats wrong.

 

But that was a nice smoke screen you put up there, I'll give you that, muddied up the waters pretty good chief.

 

[ 30. May 2004, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: Mowgli ]

[Mowgli1647545497]

Know what? Nevermind. Some people can't hear engineering principles without getting their personal mores in a bind. I can see where this thread is going:

 

Me: 2+2 = 4

 

Dude #1: You know, I own a 5 and I see no reason why 2+2 can't equal 5 if you like what you drive and enjoy the styling. So in certain situations 2+2 does equal 5, and thats ok.

 

Me: 1+1 = 2

 

Dewd #2: Oh fuck you! Its 3 you bitch! What are you, against odd numbers or something? Fucking odd number racist mullet wearing jihad. Even numbered dinosaur assholes. Die in hell!

[Devils Advocate]

Mark, I love you. I really do. But see.... Mowgli wins.

[Guest Rane]

Who's Idea was it to heat this thread back up.

[Brandon]

You ever take that cobra on a track?

 

And yes at the top level of motorsports rwd dominates, but it dosent mean fwd can not be raced at all, in fact the guys that race those fwd touring cars are fucking crazy, i think they are on 3 wheels more times then 4.

[recklessOP]

Originally posted by Mowgli:

And throwing up how those tegras beat a bunch of civics and jettas, and one underpowered, overweight bimmer in a low-power, low-speed bracket proves nothing.

have you ever even seen a touring car race..?

 

more than 1/2 the field is RWD cars, not all of them BMWs...

 

low speed..?

[Guest mudbutt]

WOW. This thread has gone WAY off from its subject. PURPOSE BUILT cars != $4000 street car that gets driven every day in ohio. CR Mentality at it's finest. graemlins/thumb.gif

[Mowgli1647545497]

Yeah the Cobra's been on the track. In the exact same trim it goes to the grocery store every day. Nelson Ledges, Mid Ohio, Edgewater, Norwalk, Trails. 19,000 miles on the odo and on my 3rd set of tires. You got a point?

 

Where did I say FWD couldn't be raced? Try to read my words, not make up stuff in between the lines to feed your complex.

 

Bah, defensive insecure people. Read my previous post. I'm really out now.

[Mowgli1647545497]

Originally posted by recklessOP:

...have you ever even seen a touring car race..?

...

Rode as a passenger in one. That count?

low speed..?

Don't forget low power. graemlins/finger.gif

 

Ok, really really out of this thread now. If you got issues with me give me a PM. If you got issues with RWD and AWD being a better platform than FWD, take it to the www.Columbus-Kinda-Nice-Cars-But-Lets-Not-Discuss-Racing-Basics.com forum.

[Total Sign]

Originally posted by Mowgli:

Its why Chrysler is returning to it. Its why Ford and GM are returning to it. Its why Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Jaguar, Lotus, Maserati, etc. etc. never left it.

I suppose you will say racing with an automatic is "ignorant" also.

 

Oh, and just for fun... look up a 1996 456GTA.

[Total Sign]

Oh, and I am not a fan of FWD, the car feels "wrong" to me. But, they can be raced.

[SamZman]

Originally posted by HIgh Risk:

Oh, and I am not a fan of FWD, the car feels "wrong" to me. But, they can be raced.

Since he's "out" and you obviously didn't read..

 

Originally posted by Mowgli:

Where did I say FWD couldn't be raced? Try to read my words, not make up stuff in between the lines to feed your complex.

[SupraGlue]

Originally posted by Mowgli:

Bah, defensive insecure people.

lol Got irony?

 

How about a mirror?

[excell]

This thread has outlived it's usefulness. But due to the ban on political threads I'll let it stay open cause I gotta give you fuckers something.