It's been a long time since I've been there. The Sunshine Coast is beautiful. Well, all of coastal BC is. I still don't have a car of my own, but my ideal affordable car would be something like a 4Runner or L400 Delica. Unfortunately, offroad capable, reliable, under $5000, and relatively safe isn't really a thing. Eventually I hope to own a 4x4 since I love exploring these roads, going hiking, and the like. As for the Alaska thing, I didn't expect that logging roads would be blocked by the government. Here we have lots of forest service roads that are maintained regularly, active and deactivated logging roads (that are often open to public), and lots of random side trails, etc some of which are built and/or maintained by regular people if the government won't do it. BC is an amazing place for outdoor enthusiasts, thanks to all of the access to recreational areas, rivers, lakes, beaches, mountains, hotsprings, etc, etc. I just want a vehicle that'll go to those places. Although there are a lot of easy "2wd" forest service roads that you can easily take a Civic on. If there are potholes, you'll be stuck going pretty slow though. Here's an example of the roads around Harrison Lake. It would probably take me around an hour to reach the main service road on the west side of the lake. I have a bunch of old Backroad Mapbooks, and one new one for the Okanagan/Nicola/Thompson region. They're really detailed, and very useful for any sort of exploring.
I keep finding myself thinking hard about picking up an 81-92 F-body Firebird, and building a high revving small block and T56 for it. I know they are white-trash mullet cars, But I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the later F-body cars. Besides, I've got an opportunity to pick up an 85 with a dead V6 for $400. I seriously think they can look quite good, picture this one without the awful ground effects and dumb factory wheels.
Actually, only the Camaro is the white-trash, KKK or hillbilly mobile, they do look pretty nice without the ground effects, especially the 82-83 F-bodies.
IMO they are good looking cars. With some nice paint they would probably look pretty incredible. On a separate note there were some really nice looking concepts at Geneva this year I am looking forward to seeing how manufacturers take design inspiration from these vehicles into their road cars, or just flat out launching them for the not so out there ones. I would love to see Citroen make a genuine 4x4 off-roading version of the above car too, since with 4wd and proper tyres it looks like it could be made into something capable, chances are they will just make it a fwd softroader but I can still dream of it being a proper off road car. --- Post updated --- Good lord, the ending to the WRC this weekend was incredible, the rally leader Kris Meeke certainly made the ending a whole lot more exciting He had built up a 30 second lead and was attacking the last stage pretty hard (in wrc the winner of the last stage of each event gets bonus points) and then this... You can see after he got back on the road how much he had lost concentration since he was all over the road. Best finish to rally I can remeber. For context Kris had been doing well on both the first and second event of the season, but crashed off on the last day of both events causing him to retire on the first and finish under super rally rules on the second in a poor position. For him to crash off on the last stage of the third event was heart stopping to watch. Go to 18 mins into this to see the TV coverage, the reactions of the Citroen team back at HQ was incredible: https://www.redbull.tv/live/AP-1Q84GR1991W11/segment/AP-1QJDHRBES1W11/recap-mexico-day-3
The hellcat is such a joke. I don't even consider the c6 corvettes to be muscle cars. Thru my eyes that's an honest to goodness all around sports car That's more at home taking hi speed turns with the Porsches and Ferraris than it is on the strip.
Corvettes have always been a sports car, As much as i love Mopar I still don't understand why Chrysler is sticking with the heavy bodies.. ______________________________________ Speaking of fast cars.
I really don't think that video makes it a joke. That's a full-size sedan with most of the fittings still on it that keeps up fairly well with a motor with 200 less horsepower sure, but that's hooked to a purpose built sports coupe. Sure the hellcat isn't a z06 or even a gt350 but it's not built to be. The challenger hellcat makes a little less sense, and I would love to see a proper built sportscar by dodge, but that large of a car being that fast is fine. The world needs more proper sports sedans. Right now the only one that isn't m5 expensive is the hellcat charger.
I kept forgetting to post this, and some of you may have already seen this but If you live in the US I suggest you take a look at the RPM Act. It supposedly protects the rights for people to modify cars and for manufacturers to make aftermarket parts, stuff I think is pretty important.
I see your point, I just don't see why it needs to weigh 1000 pounds more than my mom's Volvo station wagon. I'd save up a few more bucks and get a ctsv. 400 pounds lighter with a 6 speed manual. You won't have to put a gun to my head to get me to admit one of my top 5 dream cars is a 1999 viper. The fastest car I've ever been in was a supercharged srt10.
A good start, but we really need something that will protect modification of street-used vehicles, within reason anyway. I've said it at least a hundred times, and I'll say it again: Step one (other than straight-up gutting the EPA, which now that we have Trump in the White House, well, who knows) is to stop treating the catalytic converter like it's freaking sacred. If I identify my catalyst as a bottleneck (old tech, or just will hold back the larger-diameter exhaust system I'm trying to install), and I replace it with one that flows better but does just as good a job filtering pollutants, that shouldn't be a felony. Even chucking it completely and running unfiltered shouldn't be a felony; anymore not enough people are going to bother for it to matter.
That law does seem impractical. They should make it legal to sell as a spare part or recycle while maintaining the legal requirement to have one fitted. It does make me wonder why that law exists, is it an unintended outcome of another set of laws or were they having issues with lots of people replacing them without need?
It's fascinating to me that the US is so strict on cat converters. Canada, which is by all definitions more socialist and much more concerned about the environment, has much looser rules from what I can tell. It's not even illegal to remove them in some provinces as long as you can still pass an emissions inspection. I know in at least Alberta and British Columbia it's illegal to remove them, but you're not required to replace it if it "falls off". I've heard of lots of people telling cops obvious BS stories like "it fell off when I ran over a hacksaw" (yep, that's real) and getting away with it. My dad's was stolen (they contain platinum) and it was perfectly legal for him to throw in a straight pipe, which he did.
The way the US does things is often a mess. Just look at the whole vw emissions thing. Sure VW should have received punishment, but the environmental impact of destroying so many perfectly functional new vehicles will far outweigh the impact of them being on the road. Then Harley Davidson gets let off Scott free despite doing a similar thing. Presumably because they are an American brand.
I couldn't be happier ditching the obd2 plug in emissions testing. I will remain catless now that I am emissions exempt. Aren't you exempt as well due to age @Shotgun Chuck?
I myself am not quite sure. As near as I can tell, that rule was made long after catalytic converters became a thing (1988 is the year that comes to mind). They may have wanted something they could throw at people who were using hollowed-out "test pipes", or high-flow cats that didn't filter very well, to skirt the rules. Maybe the fines and felonies were a jab against shops that were hacking cats for people on a regular basis. Maybe it's just good old liberal-environmentalist kneejerkery and micromanagement (some people really are just control freaks and become enraged if someone doesn't do/say/think exactly what they want). Or, you could go full tinfoil hat and say they wanted another "get you for something" law that they can use to gulag people they don't like but can't actually catch doing anything bad. I'm not sure we'll ever know. You lucky son of a gun. I like that system much better. Not to mention, the whole thing with VW being unable to meet standards was probably a result of the "standards must constantly get tougher" mentality in the first place (I seem to recall reading somewhere that the engines in question would have passed the previous tests easily without a defeat device). Now everyone where I live is because Alaska never had a state inspection program and Anchorage killed theirs some years ago. The problem is, the cat rule is a Federal thing and has nothing to do with inspections. No inspections just decreases the likelihood of getting caught by someone who actually cares.
Get a purpose made cat looking test pipe. When you hollow one out, depending on the shape, you might just be be making a ton of turbulence that partially negates the gain. The ones with the pipe running thru the cat body is where its at. Not saying my car is equipped with anything of that nature.
What, you don't need to pay around 100 every year for someone to poke your car 15mins each year? Some might get bit envious of that.
Here in the great state of Ohio, we don't have emissions testing anymore. I could cut the cats off my Mustang and no one would notice.
We've got nothing resembling an inspection here, and about half of the people I know don't have cats on anything. My silver truck still has it's, but that's about to change, as I'm almost certain it's getting clogged up. Problem is then, I'll need to find a muffler for it, since it doesn't have one. Or I could just not give a damn and wake up the whole town.
Nothing but a free-flowing muffler on a 4-inch exhaust on my truck and nobody around here gives a crap.
