Monday, January 17, 2011

Stop this Genocide!!

I've said it before, but I have to reiterate. I am sick to death of every enthusiast magazine on the market featuring classic GM Musclecars with modern Chevy LS motors, Vintage Mopars with 5.7 or 6.1L Hemis, and vintage Mustangs, Cougars and Torinos with fuel-injected 5.0 or 4.6/5.4 Modular motors. If you want an LS3 engined Camaro, SRT8 Hemi Challenger or mod-motored Mustang GT, then head to your local Chevy, Dodge or Ford dealer and buy one!! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't care if someone put an LS3 Vette motor in a non-SS 2 dr Chevelle or Malibu, or even a Pontiac Tempest or Olds Cutlass. But there's apparently a lot of people out there with more money than brains!! One magazine featured a guy putting an LS7 ZO6 Vette motor and a Tremec 6-speed in a Pristine, Numbers-matching 1970 GTO Judge!!!  He couldn't find a beater LeMans to hack up? Another featured the same swap going into-in the magazine writer's own words- a "For-real Numbers-matching, four-speed 69 SS396 Chevelle. " Another featured a guy who bought a 1972 Trans-Am that "Was a show car in the '80's". He not only Chucked the rare and valuable 455HO engine and replaced it with an LS3 and modern six-speed automatic, he replaced the front subframe with an aftermarket unit and the 10-bolt bosi with a 9 inch Ford rearend!!  He couldn't bastardize one of the millions of beater 70-81 Camaros and Firebirds out there, no, it had to be one of the precious few remaining one of 1,286 72 T/A's ever built!!  Mopar idiots abound too. I have seen countless 68-70 Chargers and Super Bees with 6.1L Hemis in them, as well as several 1970 and 71 Challengers and Cudas with this conversion. Ditto for Fords. If I see one more 1965 Mustang with a 5.0/ T5 or 4.6/ Tremec 3650 drivetrain out of a '90's or 2000's Mustang, I'll committ Hari-Kari.  Admittedly, the "5.0s" are probably cheap enough now for the "Average Joe" to play with, but the other engines are so new, these guys aren't buying them for 500 bucks out of a junkyard, their paying 5,10 or 15 thousand dollars for these motors, PLUS all the electronics it takes to make them work!  Yes the new fuelie motors are awesome. But you buy something old because it's different from what's new. If you were a gun collector and bought a WWII vintage Colt .45, would you put Laser Sights on it?  If you were a motorcycle enthusiast would you buy a 1965 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide and put the Fuel-Injected Twin-Cam engine and six-speed tranny out of a 2010 Softail in it? If you were a guitar player, would you buy a 1962 Fender Stratocaster and put new pickups and a "Whammy bar" on it?  I figure 99% of the people reading this would say not only no, but "Hell no!!"  Then why in the world do people think it's ok to ruin classic cars? I'm not a "Just as it Left the Factory" Nazi. I know people modified their musclecars. That's fine as long as the mods are "Period Correct." A 67 GTO with headers, Cragar S/S mags, and an Edelbrock P4B intake is just as cool now as it was in 1968. I'm even cool with putting a stroker crank in that GTO and making the 400 a 455, for stealth horsepower and torque gains. But a 69 Camaro Z/28 with a TPI 350 or LS motor, 4L80E trans, DSE subframe and rack and pinion steering, a 9 inch Ford rearend and 4-wheel Brembo disc brakes is not cool, it's sick and wrong. Just had to vent. Mastermind            

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