I passed a bright yellow Crown Vic with black racing stripes today-distinctive!
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The most extreme example of wheel weight in production cars I know of was the Chrysler Crossfire vs the Mercedes SL that it was based on. The Mercedes had much smaller and lighter wheels and tires and wa faster and got better fuel economy and handled better than the big tired Crossfire. But hey, the Crossfire looked cool.
I never drove either one, no room for my legs.
On this car stick with visual enhancements, there is an unbelievable amount of cool looking stuff for this car. If you want performance sell it and buy one one with a supercharged 6.2. You can increase the performance of this engine (the 2.0) but you are limited due to engine size. If you increase the horse power to much it will become unreliable. Make it look cool and enjoy the sh** out of it.
Joe
I agree. And I am struggling to see how 300 HP is possibly inadequate. I remember driving cars with less than half of that (although admittedly, older engines were designed for more low-end torque) and those cars were plenty fast for my needs. Even my 2004 Corolla, with all of 130 HP feels plenty fast, and it’s an automatic.
Also, it should be noted that GM already installed a “tune” on the ECM which provides a reasonable mix of fuel economy, performance, and reliability. If their engineers thought that it would be possible to increase the turbo boost without sacrificing reliability, don’t you think they would have done so from the factory?
I second (or third) the suggestion of sticking to pinstripes, custom wheels, and other similar appearance-oriented mods.
Probably correct, but not everyone is happy with that tune. Some drivers will want to increase the boost even if there is a decrease in reliability and fuel economy. I think it is more a matter of gas mileage than reliability. Honda wrung a lot of power out of their stock S2000 at the cost of gas mileage. IIRC, there was a gas guzzler tax on mew ones, even as a small 2-seater.
Was everything else the same besides the wheels and tires?
Th body style was different but the the mechanicals and floor pan were the same and the weight difference was due to the much larger wheels and tires on the Crossfire. Because of the floor pan, the legroom was insufficient for 6 footers or above.I used to be 6’ 3" but my height was in my legs. Fron the intep of the sples pf my shoes to the center of my kneecap is exactly 2 feet. This make me very clumsy on a ladder because USHA says the rungs havto be 2 feet apart so I cannot gwt my knees into the laddeer.
Don’t know if it’s true for you, but at the A.F. base I was stationed at there was a kind of self-help garage where you took your car and worked on it and there was another service member there who was an automotive expert. You did the work but you could ask him for advice and how-to instructions. I took my Toyota Carina there to replace the clutch (result of VERY bad decision). Took 8 hours to get what was left of the clutch out of the car, 4 hours to put it back together only to find out I hand installed the pressure plate backwards, then 4 hours to pull it all apart, redo the pressure plate and put it all back together.