Re: In defense of the Chevrolet Vega

My step-father had a 61 Dodge Pioneer, he loved that car, never a problem. My grandfather had a 64 Dodge Dart GT, that car outlasted him, unfortunately. I had a 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger, the only problem was with the 1BBL carb. My last '70s car was a 73 Plymouth Suburban wagon, great body and engine, traded it in for an 81 Olds Cutlass Supreme wagon, now that was a piece of garbage. The factory "forgot" to put the seal around the firewall and windshield, and water leaked into the interior. The dealer wouldn't do a damn thing.

yes, and also the subsequent 390/401 engines

if you scroll down that wikipedia page it says that the 390/401s used forged rods because AMC didn't have time to do testing, which sounds like a win for a budget minded hot rodder.

actually a Packard 352 or 374 wouldn't be a bad choice either, but those had oiling system issues and were really, really, really big (had one in a Stude Golden Hawk; it was pretty much a press fit even under that huge hood) so never really caught on with the hot rod crowd.

nate

Mine was an '84; I shouldn't have sold it. Almost immediately I wanted another but figured I'd try to find a late 1st gen with a 5- speed; too late - by the time I came to that realization they were already collectible. (this would have been around 2003-2004ish)

it was the best car I ever had, looked like hell and had almost a quarter million miles on the clock but ran like new and never let me down. Anything that failed did so gradually, save for three instances

- an alternator that quit on me while in the process of moving from MI to MD, another time where it started running like crap when some Bosch brand spark plug wires that I'd installed as part of a tuneup failed at an appallingly low mileage, and finally when I'd let a clutch cable go too long without replacement, the pedal cluster cracked leaving me with no clutch at a stop light :/ Drove that car daily for years and kept it around for a few more after buying a new GTI in 2002, finally sold it just because I had "too many cars" and like I said immediately regretted it. I think the main factor in that decision was that my annual insurance premiums (in PG county, MD) were more than the car was worth, but in hindsight I should have sucked it up and kept paying, because I ended up selling the GTI shortly thereafter after taking a huge pay cut at work.

nate

Somewhere around here, I have a little fuel filter that can easily be taken apart (with one or two wrenches) and be cleaned out and reused over and over again.It has a clear glass cylinder around it.They might still be available at some stores. cuhulin

I think I know the one you mean, yes it is still available, I think maybe "Spectre" brand?

I personally just get the cheap Fram or whatever plastic inline filters, less chance of them breaking and spewing fuel on a hot engine IMHO. On an old engine with a mechanical fuel pump I put them on the inner fender on the inlet side of the fuel pump to keep the mung from getting into the check valves.

nate

I know what you mean. My car looked like the basement level of hell. The only thing my son remembers about it was that the door was full of holes. The engine started up without hesitation and was quite responsive to the accelerator. The Subaru that replaced that car was quite a disappointment. Starting that engine was like trying to wake up a teenager and I always had the feeling that it didn't enjoy being an engine. I haven't driven a newish VW but my guess is that they don't feel like a lightweight spunky car - I doubt very many cars do these days.

They don't. I loved the '02 GTI - my mom owns it now, if you can believe that, because at the time I came to the realization that I couldn't afford it, my parents were coming to the realization that their old '86 Golf was finally becoming too long in the tooth for them to use as a daily driver - but I loved it for different reasons than I did the roccet. The roccet was light, nimble, and torquey if not powerful; the GTI had an engine (based on the same block, but with a

5V head and turbocharger) that was just astonishing with gobs and gobs of torque from barely off idle to way past the redline, but the chassis itself felt way softer and heavier. Felt more like a GT than the sports coupe that I considered the roccet to be. Great for picking them up and putting them down for hours on end, but for just playing around in some twisties, give me the roccet any day.

Now, if you could find me a rust free 1st-gen roccet body and a wrecked '02 or later VW with a 1.8T and 5-speed under the hood... I'd build me one mother of a Frankencar. I still have a set of 14" mesh BBS wheels in my storage locker because I can't bear to throw them out just in case I fall into another early WCVW...

nate

Had one on my 1958 Rambler. Snap clip under a glass bowl. Easy to check, easy to clean, no tools needed.

I don't think that that's what he was referring to, but I know the ones you mean, they're essentially a sediment bowl type filter. I have a couple of the old Carter inline ones with NPT threads that can be spliced into a hard line and/or mounted up at the inlet of the carb with a pipe nipple (correct for a Packard V-8 with WCFB.) As shipped, they had a "stone" filter in them held in place by a small spring. The stones are becoming hard to find now. Studebaker also used the exact same (as in, they're interchangeable) bowl, bail, stone, and spring on the bottom of their fuel pumps up to about 1962ish which I thought was neat (Carter-made fuel pumps) not sure if other mfgrs. did this or not.

nate

As I understand it there was nothing wrong with the iron duke engine design wise, but suffered manufacturing quality wise. This got much worse in the Fiero because to fit in there it ran hotter with less oil.

I have two or three old glass bowl fuel filters hanging on a wire on a nail in my store room.Those cork gaskets get old and leak.I much prefer to buy new disposable fuel filters. cuhulin

It is quite interesting that the Volt is called an electric car. It can of course be used as an electric for some miles and if you use the plug in you can charge it at home and never use any gasoline. It might be a better idea to have the extra motor in a trailer and only bring it along on longer trips. That way the Volt could be a true electric and the extended range can be attached when needed. Problem with having an onboard hybrid is that he fumes need to be isolated from the driver and it can not be as efficient in keeping in heat.

The Volt is a hybrid car that GM has peddled as being electric. However, even when it uses the battery powered electric motor it likely is not enviromentally clean. Unless you happen to have either a wind turbine or solar panels to generate electricity the Volt still uses energy transformed by burning carbon-based products.

And what makes you think that PV or wind are environmentally clean. They both take energy and materials to produce.

So it is a question of if you want to have a wind or not.

Windmills are supposed to take energy from the wind and therefore removing it by breaking wind.

\ That was one of the earliest recalls. The original engine had a 3.5 quart sump, IIRC... They replaced it with a 5 quart one.

When I rebuilt this engine, I made a number of engineering modifications to the heads, etc, all of which remedied some of the defects in this engine.

Windmills are supposed to take energy from the wind and therefore removing it by breaking wind.

******* I havent yet heard of an environmentally friendly method of producing energy by breaking wind, but that might be the wave of the future.

As I understand it, solar cells energy pay back is very close to their rated life. Wind should have a positive pay back if they are maintained.

It's likely that using an electric motor to move a car is a more efficient use of a barrel of oil. More efficient use of a barrel of oil is what it's all about. Of course, you don't have to use oil to generate electricity. Not using any oil is even better than using oil efficiently.