respect I have to agree with Nick. You can get a big old American car in the low 13's - high 12's for alot less than an import and you don't have to gut it either. Every time I go to the track the only fast imports (12's) are really race cars. No creature comforts at all, not really street cars. All the hot cars run in the 13's now off the showroom floor but at what cost (20-30+K)? You can get a stock T-Type running mid 12's for less than 2k plus the car and have power everything and still get 19 city and 30 highway. This is my third T-Type and I built it 8 years ago for 12k including the car. It runs very low 11's and I have never cut anything off. Cruise and air still work, you can drive it California tomorrow on pump gas and still go 12teens on sticky dots and get 25 MPG. Granted I used two of the best engine and trans builders there are so it is still together after all these years and passes at the strip. Would an import stay together and be reliable after all those years? I have a friend who has his beautiful 71 350 Skylark running 13.85-90 all day and he built it all himself save some machine work and he doesn't have 4k in it. Can the imports duplicate those times and creature comforts in a streetable car for the same investment? I don't think so Tim! Give me American Iron! O-yea the question, mid 13's and under is worth watching. Mikey
well i use to not like the imports being that i was always an american car kinda guy , then my little ford pick up broke down. since my wife loves to drive the 94 chevy 4.3 vortec pick up i was out a daily driver and since i like to travel back and forth to the beach,when the surf is up , theres no way i would drive the riv to a construction site either, i was forced to think gas milage.so i picked up an 88'civic hatchback from the original owner. nothing fancy just a good runing $900. dolar car . well after putting some tunes,rims and tires a few engine mods. probalbly spent $1500 . i've grown to enjoy the imports ,but like my signature says it's how i feel
Well Boo Hoo Stewie!!! I'm soooo sorry. :ball: If you'd fess-up and let us know who you are, maybe I'd take a second look at your resume'!!! :Smarty: But then again, maybe you DON'T want me to take a second look for some reason. uzzled: I make mistakes, so I may have inadvertently not looked at your resume' in depth like I should have. Or maybe there was some reason I passed it up. :shock: You sound burned none-the-less. So sorry Charlie, Stewie or whoever you are. ou: Remember, BE NICE!!!! Back to our original thread..... :beer
I'd say the same times that are respectable for our iron. Well into the 13's is a good time to take notice, import or otherwise. Imports don't excite me either but respect is due. Sure they tend to cost more to make fast but you choose what you choose right? Buicks cost WAY more to beef up than an SBC but we're all in line for speed parts aren't we? Besides, I have a friend who swears by rice. His daily driver runs a 5 hour drive to the track (sucks living in BFE), knocks down mid 12's, and drives home (not driving home on the same day! YUCK). He has about $2500 in the whole car. It's ugly and gutted, but it's quick and reliable.
Amen. Some of that "other stuff"...dummy teardrop spotlights, cut-down Mercury skirts, and (arggg) continental kits.:grin:
For me it's all about top speed on the motorway, I'm not really interested in racing for just a short distance of 402 metres. And a Buick is an import too.........:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Doug, I guess I am just an old man, one sided or maybee just patirotic but i am with you have no love for them at all. Maybee it is just what my father that fought in WWII said: They used to not even let a rice burner, German built, French or whatever on the parking lot of the Union hall or Union job site. When I was a kid and raced slot cars I had written on the front spoiler. Datsun, Honda,Toyota and Pearl Harbor. I know we have to buy a lot of foreign goods now days but we don't have to like it. Mike
I guess that's the difference, I respect the effort involved and the results, but I wouldn't want to own one myself. I'm stuck in the pre '75 or so range and can't afford to branch out! :dollar:
There was a time when I wanted to build a big old V8 and make it loud and fast. The list of cars that I owned up to then included (in order): 63 Chevy II 78 MGB 70 Plymouth Satellite 89 Honda Civic Si 78 Pontiac Firebird 85 Dodge Omni GLH (As you can tell, I'm on the fence when it comes to cars.) I got a 77 Camaro with a bad motor and thought I would attempt an engine build. At the time, I didn't really have a lot of experience with engine specs or what the real-world meaning of, for instance, what 350 HP in a Camaro would do in the quarter mile. All I wanted was a loud and "fast" Camaro and when the machine shop and I agreed on a 350 HP build I thought it was going to be something. Anywho... fast-forward to Atco and I'm going down the track when I look to the left and a bone stock Sentra SE-R is keeping up with me. Sure I had a posi rear and a ton of cool tire smoke from my burnout still swirling around my head and some loud exhaust pipes and a trans that chirped second and sometimes third... but here was this little s*%tbox that I would have admired if I was autocrossing... but I wasn't... making me wonder why I went to all the trouble. I had some carb issues with the Camaro and I was only getting into the low 15s. I only ended up getting into the mid 14's later on. Can you guess what my next car was? A used 92 Sentra SE-R with 92,000 miles. What a hoot - that thing! When I got rid of it three years ago she had 198,000 miles and from what I hear she's still going strong. I don't really have a moral to this story... other than I'm convinced that I can love just about any car... of course, this is coming from someone who was given a choice between an Omni GLH and a Porsche 944... and chose the Omni. Maybe I shouldn't have put any of this in writing on a Buick site!
I don't give anyone who's into cars a hard time unless they are a clown. I was just talking to a kid who put the gullwing door conversion in his Honda about the conversion. Pretty cool stuff, his buddies and he did the job, it was a kit and it looks pretty factory What I do bear in mind is that companies like Mitsubishi used US servicemen as slave labor during WWII, and I can't respect that ever. Other people may buy those cars and like them, but I don't. if I see a cool Mitsu, I may talk to the guy, but I won;t be buying one. My next car is a Pontiac :TU:
This import runs 10.8's. I'm sure Dan has seen it at the local Flashlight Drags. <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b240/gsjoe/fd1005_oct9_0520446.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>
why does it need to be naturally aspirated? a stock gn is just under 14 seconds on a good day, and it needs a turbo. hell, my z28 only runs 13.8's..
I've spent plenty of time wrenching on both models, and I'll tell you the Omni is an infinately easier car to work on. So what did you end up doing with that car anyway?
lets not forget the dodge with its awesome tranny (made in japan now might i add)and ball joint eating suspension that rides like a covered wagon and the dmax is built and was designed in the us but since gms owned japanese company flew over to the usa to help design it i guess it isnt all american. ofcourse we could put the dmax to the dodge anisin trans and drop it in a toyota we would be set. take it from someone who has both i like both trucks but each has its downfall oh and ifs isnt one since my brother in laws mine service company has several dmax ifs 1 tons with 400k-500k on them
It's the future of hotrodding. Kids buy and hop up what they can get cheap. In the 40s and 50s it was the early Fords. In the 60s and 70s it was the tri five Chevy. In the 70s and 80s it was 60s muscle cars. Today, it's Honda Civics.
Even though most of them are 4 or 6 cylinder engines the fact that the engines are so much more advanced and efficient and the fact that if you throw NOS or a turbo on anything it will go fast knocks them back for me. Once they get real fast like low 10's or preferably lower is when I'll respect them because then that means that they have overcome the efficiency factor of the engine that was giving them an advantage thus requiring them to put a power adder on it like NOS or a turbo which then a lot of the times means that they have to go and get special pats made so that the engine will hold up to the power. Only at that point after they have put a lot in the engine and have obviously seen what it really takes to make something fast, to go out on all limbs to make that super advanced 4 banger fly, will I respect them.
At what ET do you respect an "Import" ???? That all depends if you think our auto industry effects your life... I believe it effects the whole country, as do your decisions on your purchases. 'Respect'? ... Never. Appreciate what some one does to their car.. sometimes. I 'respect' patriotism, now more than ever. My 2 cents. :blast: Go Buick! :3gears:
