For the last time....Do what you want with junk, and leave the classics alone!!

Some people said I shouldn't have been so down on the guy that didn't like non-Ford powered Cobra Replicas since I go off on a Dennis Miller "Rant" every time I see an LS motor in vintage GM Iron or a modern Hemi in a Vintage Mopar. First off-the key words are "Cobra Replica". The cars a fake to begin with; so who cares what's under the hood?  No one griped that the Ferrari Daytona Spyder Replica driven by Don Johnson on "Miami Vice" didn't have a real Ferrari powertrain. ( It was based on a 1981 Corvette and had duh-a 350 Chevy.)  I conceded that he'd have a right to his level of outrage if anyone had put a Chevy engine in a "Real" Cobra, but that wasn't the case. We were talking about kit cars. As for my deep-seated obsessional hatred of LS motors-It's two fold. The magazines all say how great they are power wise and reliability wise. I am a Service Advisor in a Chevrolet dealership and everyday I get trucks, Camaros and Corvettes coming in on tow trucks with the check engine light on, not running properly, overheating, sometimes not even starting. I've had brand-new ones with less than 500 miles have such electrical problems, that GM tech support offered to either give the guy a new engine or a new truck. I've had to warranty 5.3's and 6.2s with flat cams, collapsed lifters, and one with a hole in a piston!  And these are cars with less than 50,000 miles on them that are bone-stock and were always serviced at a GM dealership by a Certified GM tech. Go ahead and keep a straight face while you tell me that one some guy stuffed into a '68 Chevelle in his garage and wired the electronics himself has had thousands of miles of trouble-free operation. If they won't run stock, in the vehicle they were designed for there going to be better in a swap into a 40 year old vehicle?  You want to talk bulletproof the 350 in my old '72 Chevy pickup with point-type ignition would start so quick you couldn't get your hand off the key fast enough, It ran over 200,000 miles and when I wrecked the truck, I put the engine in another truck body I had and drove it another 60,000 before I sold it. The 403 Olds in my '77 Trans-Am ran 180,000 miles being drag-raced every weekend, and was still running strong when I sold the car. Show me an LS motor that's run 200k WITHOUT at least one, if not several major expensive ( over $500 ) repairs whether they were covered by a warranty or not.  So the "bulletproof drivability" argument just doesn't fly with me.  My other problem with these modern fuelie swaps-and I've said it until I'm blue in the face-is that the car is always a "For-real, numbers-matching, four-speed SS396"  ( Hot Rod Oct. 2008 ) that they do it to.  Chevrolet built 58,000 SS396's in 1968. They also built over 400,000 2 dr Malibus that year. Why can't these people swap the modern fuelie into one of those 400,000 beaters and leave the pristine SS396's for those that want them original?  Popular Hot Rodding featured a 1972 Trans-Am that had not only an LS motor ini, but the body and interior had been extensively modified as well. And the article said-again that the guy bought it as a "Show car".  As we all know there was a strike at the Norwood Ohio plant that built Camaros and Firebirds in 1972, and it was so costly that there almost weren't 1973 models. Thus only 1,286 T/A's were sold that year. Why couldn't this guy butcher one of the millions of other beater 1970-81 Camaros and Firebirds out there? Why buy a "Show Car" quality numbers-matching 455HO that's one of 1,286 and cut it all to hell?  If he absolutely had to have a Trans-Am to start with ( god knows one couldn't butcher a base-model ) why not get one of the 100,000 plus built in 1979 with 403 Olds engines or the 60,000 plus 1980-81 models with 301 Pontiac or 305 Chevy motivation? Even hardcore Pontiac lovers don't care about them. Another was a for-real 1963 split-window Corvette. Again-the guy couldn't get one of the millions of 1968-82  C3 models and cut that up, no it had to be a one-year-only classic. This is my complaint with these people that have more money than brians. Buy a 1970 Buick Skylark, swap in your LS motor and six speed automatic or manual and paint it like a GSX if you want. But for god's sake-don't pay top dollar for one of the 678 real GSX's ever built and THEN put the LS in it!! I've seen this done in PHR to one of the 3,797 numbers-matching 1970 GTO Judges ever built. You couldn't buy a beater Tempest or LeMans, it had to be a numbers-matching Judge!!!  Buy any beater two-door Cutlass you want and "LS" it. But don't do it to one of the 906 1969 Hurst /Olds ever built, or a W30, 4-speed 442!!  Does everybody understand now?  LS motor in a beater '70 Firebird Esprit? God Bless & Have fun. Do it to one of the 3,196 Trans-Ams built that year and I'll want to storm your house with torches and a hanging posse. There's enough junk out there to do anything you want with, so please stop butchering irreplaceable classics!!! Mastermind