Your First Car!

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Originally Posted by moderngentleman

Explain the mustang from 1979-1988 please. I'm a huge old car fan. If I had the space and money I'd be restoring one right now. Muscle Car magazine was my Playboy in high school, without all the tissues. But for now necessity trumps desire, and I fortunately chose right for my current car. It's the first one I've bought with my OWN money, 1986 Toyota MR2 that gets about 35mpg highway and gets a lot of compliments and "wtf is that?" looks. So far I've successfully convinced 4 people it's a Ferrari I'm restoring. It's red with a black hardtop/bumper/sideskirts, ebay wheels, BC Racing coilover suspension, race header and exhaust, and black interior with blue seats lol. It's an auto-x BEAST.

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IMO, there is no GOOD explanation for the fox-body Mustang styling. Now, about '85 or so, they were cheap and fast but the front ends were junk and the intakes needed work. Still, you could get a 5.0 GT for about 15 large and it would run with the Corvette that sold for over twice that price, if not beat it, so doing that work was affordable. I saw guys put 4.11's in the rear ends and crinkle the body panels on them with only minor engine mods. Those 5.0 GT's had scary torque for such a weak unibody and suspension. Personally, I like the '65-'73's and the 2005-present Mustangs - and even then, V8's only! (Probably better look at getting a good used '05 or '06 for a decent price before they screw it up again in 2015...) I don't care how fast a V-6 is; they just don't sound right.

Personally, I really like seeing a strong focus on small V-8 technology, which is what the 289 was, and still is, all about. I enjoy tweaking the small blocks to get what I can out of them for daily driving. Probably my favorite engine block, however, is the Chrysler 318/5.2L, which isn't made anymore. Growing up, I was taken to school in '69 Coronet with a 318; then my second car was a '79 Cordoba with a 318. My grandmother got a new Plymouth Gran Fury (318) in '84, and then my folks got a new Fifth Avenue (318) in '85. Finally, I got my current '99 Ram 5.2L Magnum (still a 318, just better heads than the LA's), and I'll keep this one as long as I can.

My buddy had at least six 318 engines that he removed from cars cus it was a dog motor and stuffed 440's in them .....they went a lot better LOL

Ah, my vehicle before my current one was split between my dad and I. It was a 1985 Dodge D150 with a 318, lowered and primer black with orange Roadrunner wheels. I named it Betty and drove around town blaring Black Betty by Ram Jam to be ironic haha. It wasn't very fast, but would lay some rubber down in 1st gear and sound like a beast.

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Originally Posted by Martin103

I always heard Fifth on race day!

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I never heard that one!
I was just stirring the pot.
Gimme a Hemi any day!!!

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Originally Posted by Deerhunter1995

now maple ill forgive the fact your canadaian and you wouldent know a good truck if you felll on it but damnit now you leave my fords alone or we are gonna have issues. pa is ford man territorry we all have a trusty rusty round here and 95% OF them circled what they did right. (for you who have never seen a ford its enblem is a oval so we joke they circled what they did right) besides you missed 2, lol

found on russsian dump.
found on roadside dead.

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I've had 2 F-150s: an '85 and a '94. 'Nuff said.

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Originally Posted by nessmuck

My buddy had at least six 318 engines that he removed from cars cus it was a dog motor and stuffed 440's in them .....they went a lot better LOL

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Small block vs. Big block = no comparison on the street, really. The 318 is a workhorse engine from the factory, not a performance engine. Still, it can benefit greatly just from bolt-ons and tuning for good, solid street performance. The 5.2L Magnums were a step up from the LA's, because of the heads. With bolt-ons and tuning, it'll outrun the stock 302's out there, and hang pretty tough with a lot of 350's and 360's. Head porting and a cam will really wake it up to run with just about any small block there is.

As for just Mopars, I've seen a lot more 360's, 426's and 440's blow up than 318's, that's for sure - and part of it, no doubt, is application. I also love the 440 - there's only .01 second difference between the 440 and the 426 Hemi in the quarter-mile, but that's a full racing application. I'd say the 440 is my favorite big block (and there's nothing that says you can't put Hemi heads and a matching cam grind in it, either, if you want to go for all that). I mean, if money is no object, you can go crazy and drop a crate racing engine over 500 ci in any Mopar body and get an 8 or 9-second car, but when you've got to get a buddy to help you lift off the pinned hood and close the compression releases of your 900HP built 440 every time you go through the 20-minute ritual of starting it, then it's not really a daily driver anymore...

I'm talking more within the limitations of what some kid working at Burger King once had a chance in hell to find and then afford in the first place, and what's reasonable to expect from a daily driver. I've only seen one 318 ever fail, and that was because some jackass plopped an 850 double-pumper with a tunnel-ram intake into a Ramcharger, and then wondered why he burned a hole in a piston??? (A 318 pulling 4000+lbs of curb weight should have had something more like a 670 with vacuum secondaries.)

I had many 283 Chevy small blocks that would run circles around a bigger 318. When we were young gear heads,NOBODY,wasted their money or time trying to get a 318 to break 15.00 et at the 1/4 mile strip. But it was a good dependable,long running,engine.

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Originally Posted by nessmuck

Nice...my friend had the same car but with dual quads !!!

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if you're talking about the wildcat, then yeah, I massage my little also, manifold, dual quads, headers, and a few other goodies. It was a real sleeper, and it even got between 8 to 13 miles per gallon. And as I said it was only 200 bucks!
I can't believe all you guys forgot the most famous Ford acronym.
F####d ona rotten deal, geez, that's older than I am, and a lot of us here.

my truck was assembled in canada according to the original paperwork in the glove box so its kinda canadan-american adn maple if you had an 85 you know ford made solid trucks at one point lol please know im just messing with you buddie. you can like ur dog and ill take the fords, now the 1969 dodge charger was one baddass car i would kill to own a general lee.

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Originally Posted by Grizzley1

if you're talking about the wildcat, then yeah, I massage my little also, manifold, dual quads, headers, and a few other goodies. It was a real sleeper, and it even got between 8 to 13 miles per gallon. And as I said it was only 200 bucks!
I can't believe all you guys forgot the most famous Ford acronym.
F####d ona rotten deal, geez, that's older than I am, and a lot of us here.

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Yep... Factory dual quads on the 65 Wildcat !!!!!