hustler

iTrader: (6)

absolutely not, the miata is by far superior. However, I had a lot of fun rolling over Vipers and the Jotech supra on highway pulls. Merging with traffic was awesome. I mean ****, it would smoke the tires on a concrete highway in 3rd gear (just mash the loud pedal). I could put it in 3rd at 60mph (3100rpm) and it would roll the tires until the grabbed at like 90, then roll out to 114mph. I had 22" slicks on bogarts that would fight for traction in 3rd at the drag strip when launching in 2nd.

Its kinda cheezy, but back in the late 90's and early 2k's when street racing was cool, my buddies would roll out like a gang. There were 5 400+whp turbo vr6's in one house, and we had a group of about 12 400+whp cars in our circle of friends. This is back when the law would come out to the street races and tell us to "go somewhere else" instead of arrest everyone for manslaughter.

of course we did one track day and just about every car in our circle of friends broke on the first session...lol.

BradC

iTrader: (6)

Sounds pretty sick man, I'd miss it too.

I also miss the street racing days, back when people weren't retards about it. Well, I guess its retarded to do anyways, but you know what I mean...

And yeah, the first time I went for a ride and my friend rolled into third and blew the tires off...I about shat myself, lol.

Zabac

iTrader: (39)

I can only imagine what 400+feels like, the fastest car I've been in is a 376whp MKIV GTI...it's fast, but the dude thinks it's slow, I guess thats that boost bug biting him again.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

oh god!

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

Hustler, I remember hearing bits and pieces about your experience with your corrado, what exactly happened? Did you get any dough from your insurance company?

Back in highschool my friend sold his old Z to get a GTI. He had some stuff done to it, but it could move pretty good. To bad his friend with a gutted fiesta could ******* romp on him like it was sitting still. I rode in the fiesta one time and never again, it screamed death trap.

Vash-

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I had to replace pretty much every electrical part on the car
the eip manifolds broke (the replacements were $600)
the ATP manifold cracked ($400 for each manifold for the manifold and $250 for the DP)
*yes, I went through 3-turbo manifolds
studs constantly backed out of the ATP manifold
intercooler pipes blew off all the time because they didn't put lips in the pipes
Haltech took like 2-months to install, and made no sense after following the instructions
one turbo nut came off the impeller and chewed up the compressor
then after the rebuild (no warranty) I blew the seals from too much oil pressure (another $400 down the *******)
the turbo was so close to the fire wall that it melted some wires behind the dash and I had to rewire most of the car
it constantly overheated
blew up 4 transmissions
blew up one quaife diff

and this doesn't take **** into account like fan switches, ac compressors, abs sensors, oil pressure sensors, water pumps, and all the other bullshit that comes with owning a european car. As for the theft, I got blue book value for the car, nothing more. I'm going to get an additional rider on my miata for theft at $12,000.

This is why I'm so worried about going the turbo route on my car. The last time it was a ******* disaster.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

Holy ****, thats alot of problems. Thats crazy that it melted wires BEHIND the firewall! What kind of whp were you making? Do you have any pics?

I think you'll have a better experience with the miata for sure. First car I ever really took apart and worked on and after years of being turbo'd I have yet to have any serious issues (knock on wood). And as for theft factor, I think miatas aren't just yet in that margin of cars to steal. To many mainstream cars around to steal than to **** with a little old miata right....I hope!

So one day your car was just up and gone? Thats crazy man. I feel like I would have gone on a rage and destroyed something or someone if that happened to me. Props to you for not being scarred away and to keep modding cars.

P.S. Where abouts is your miata located again?

Vash-

miatamania

iTrader: (9)

Hustler, this has to be the best post I have ever seen you make and I agree with you 100%


The Vr6 cars run hot, so replacing the shitty plastic cooling parts is a good idea so one does not end up stranded, the G60 isn't ****, but the chargers blow...bad.

A friend of mine has a 91 G60 as his daily and a pretty clean 93? SLC (VR6) that he pretty much dicks around with when he is home.

I don't know if I would trust one as a daily until I went over it completely, but these things are badass little cars, they handle extremely well and the rare factor is badass.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

the motor made 488whp/481wtq. It was fun. Any car with a big intercooler hanging out the front is a target. I lived in a high-end apartment and awoke one day and the car was gone from the garage. I assume someone followed me around, probably from embarrassing some honda on the highway. It finally got to the point that we just wanted to set up 600cc sport bikes, and didn't care about running cars anymore. I was really sad when the car left, but I also didn't have my life in order and pretty much loved that car more than myself. I saw the wheels on the internet on a guy's car like 2 years ago (DL# engraved). I just reverted back to my old 1997 jetta and drove it when I wasn't working on it, then drove the tt-225 in 2003 and luckily kept the jetta because the TT went to court for lemon law greatness. So I was back to the jetta until 2005 when I bought the miata.

I have 2 pics at home but they're photgraphs because the car was stolen in 2000, way before the cost-effective digital camera revolution...I was still on dial-up until 2003.

Now maybe everyone understands why I'm so worried about reliability. My last 3 cars were shamefully unreliable, and the turbo **** just made them worse. However, for some reason I'm doing it again...hopefully for the last time. Right now, I do not think its going to make it through a session at the track at all, and I'm going to end up with a horror story of reliability, sell the car, turn the daily into a caged track car, and buy a civic to daily.

I really, really, really hope my turbo miata works out, of I'm going to have nothing to show for it but wasted cash.

mad0953

iTrader: (1)

VW=poop

hustler

iTrader: (6)

the vr6 was originally designed as a 24-valve motor, but they couldn't cool it. MTM actually got a hold of the old 24v prototype head casts and made a few heads...which ran hot and warped. Just a little trivia for you.

BTW, there's a silver corrado running around Fort Worth with an r32 motor bored over to 3.7l, ITB's, 034efi, and its possibly the dirtiest, nastiest car I've ever seen or heard in my life.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

**** man 488whp/481wtq sounds awesome! I hear you about the big FMIC and making it a target and all. That is down right **** to one day wake up and have your pride and joy gone, I really couldn't imagine it. I keep my miata tucked away on the side of my house, hidden from street view. If it was to start up I would hear it in a heartbeat and have enough time to get to them before they got to the street. I swear to christ I would probably kill someone if I caught them trying to steal my car.

I remember from your other post about the install time period your going to have before the track sessions. Hopefully you rethink it a little and give yourself more time to do the actual install and have it tuned/running and then maybe even fine tuned before you track it. Your absolutely right it would be a waste to do all the work your doing to have it fail. I really think your gonna love the turbo miata more than you can even imagine. Just don't ******* rush it! lol

When you say TT, are you referring to the Audi? I always wanted to get behind the wheel of one, but I have heard they are terribly slow. But when done up right.....god they look amazing.

Vash-

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Yeah, a TT. They're pretty slow, essentially fwd, and painfully unreliable. The install is a different story: built it, fly away for work, then fly home, tune it, then take it to the track.

BradC

iTrader: (6)

Wow Hustler, you had some major headaches with the VW. Props for sticking with it and making something of it, I would have pushed it off a damn cliff.

And of course, sorry to hear about her theft. The perps will get their's someday...thieving bastards.

miatamania

iTrader: (9)

I didn't know that...lol, neat. At least they got it right the second time around when they did release the 24v.

I think I've seen pictures/video of that car if it is the one I'm thinking of..

It sounds like a race car and would make just about any car guy cream his pants at the sound? I saw a 24v VR6 mk2 the other day...I want to do that so bad...

I found a 8v shell I want right now if I can get rid of my 16v....ABA+16v head+eaton m90 = ftw

speedf50

iTrader: (2)

Now I understand all of your anger hustler!

But from what people are saying these cars rock and are just as cool as they look and sound, so long as you avoid turbocharging (I wouldn't want to muffle that amazing engine anyways).

I'm heading out to pick it up right now!

pschmidt

iTrader: (19)

I was in the same boat as you.

My first project was an '86 Golf with a 2.0L 16V. Second was a '92 Gli 2.0L 16V. Third was an '84 Rabbit with, you guessed it, a 2.1L 16V on throttle bodies, then a 20V with a T3/T4. Next up was a 86 Jetta coupe with a VR swap, then a '90 G60 Rado, now a '01 S4 and the wifes ride is a '07 GTi.

**** that would have placed any one of those cars above in the cripple pile doesn't even phase the miata. The hose clamp on one of the heater core lines didn't get tightened down all the way, and I lost almost a gallon of coolant. After a refill, it was fine. Try that with a VR Crack pipe and radiator at a bare minumum; likely the head gasket. Mazda is leaps and bounds above VW for durability.

Moral of the story: you aren't going to run into anything like the horror you went through with VW.


ATP How a company can produce a cast manifold that warps and rejects studs is beyond me. EIP is thankfully gone.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

my favorite with all of them was when I called them 2 months after purchase to tell them their $400 manifold crack and they say, "oh we'll replace it, just send us $450."

When it comes to the vw's, I could fart in them and something would go wrong or throw a CEL.

I drove a few APR s3 s4's and borrowed one for like 1-month. That was epic. 4-wheel tire-smokers are durty.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

actually they didn't. They still overheat in track action. I think its beyond possibility to cram that many valves in such a tight space, and have enough heat-sink to keep it cool.

The r32 cools fine because there is much more space to work with from what people tell me.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

OMFG, when I get home and show you guys this euro-trash vw vid, you're going to ****.