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So you want the full BMW M6 driving experience, but want to pay the cost of a Ford Focus?

No, but I don't want anyone to prohibit me from modding it. Besides, Apple took away our BMWs and is giving us the Ford. UGH! If they gave us a Dodge, we could at least head over to the Mopar shop.

If you go buy yourself a new Dodge SRT-4, Dodge already has Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 upgrades for your vehicle. The upgrades are more than just ECU tinkering and will include new engine hardware. Info here http://www.mopar.com/perf_srt.htm

Just adding to what you have to say here...

A lot of that is due to shock-loading. :) Chrysler's mighty 727 TorqueFlite automatic was designed to live behind a 426 Hemi; even slamming it into gear with the throttle pegged won't hurt it thanks to the torque converter's isolation.

And this is why most drag racers use modified automatics - essentially, an "brainless" automatic which needs you to tell it when to shift. It's called a manual valve body. Even a very primitive automatic like the (two speed and bulletproof) GM PowerGlide of the 1950s and 1960s can shift faster than most human beings. And being able to use the clutch consistently is very difficult when you're dealing in terms of tenths of a second; automatics are free of that.

Remember shift overlap. Passenger car automatics engage a gear then release the previous one - you're in first, you're in first and second, then you're in second. The reason this is done is to reduce jerk. In fact, in Calculus, the term "jerk" (derivative of acceleration) was coined by GM engineers.

A big improvement in fuel efficiency could be had by simply removing that overlap (as anyone building an automatic for performance or racing will do, check out the RWD Valve Body Assembly on the 18th page of this Mopar Performance Catalog PDF) but Joe Consumer will complain if the car accelerates like a heavy-clutched stickshift. (Note the "Race Only" warning on the valve body assembly's caption.)

um... mopar sells ECU's for the SRT-4 and GT Cruiser. Mopar is part of Chrysler.

I know there's a Ford 302 (5.0L) motor mount kit for the Miata, I've helped to install them! :) The Ford motor has a 60 degree bank angle, makes for a very narrow motor which fits into a Miata very well. But aluminum is a crappy metal, especially for building car engines.

Besides, for the effort, you might as well go all-out and get the baddest car engine ever made. Click here, go to page 4. Or just go to your local Chrysler dealership and order P5007630 from the parts counter. (Note that this is *NOT* what is going into Durangos.)

Sure, it'll screw up the front/rear balance a bit (more front-heavy), but that's why it's block and heads are all aluminum.

You'd be surprised. If you can set the motor back well enough, you should still be able to get nearly 50/50 weight distribution. The motor in a Miata is already pretty far forward, those cute little rice-burners don't actually weigh anything (nor do they put out any actual power, but that's another story).

Keep in mind, however, that in a short wheelbased car like that, you'll want more weight up front. A 5.0L Miata, if the motor is well built and has good DOT-legal slicks on the back, will paw the front wheels into the air. Doing wheelies during stoplight confrontations is bad; cops won't look the other way, and the steering control is really poor for a few seconds after the front wheels have hit the ground again. Wheelies are acceptable (and fun!) at the drag strip, not on the street. Almost learned that one the hard way with the Chevette.

It's not cheap, and it's not terribly fun to drive in the twisties (not as much fun as, say, a turbo-/supercharged stock motor) due to the F/R balance,

What you have to consider is what you want the car for. If you want the car to have more power for some serious acceleration, you are essentially drag racing. At least you're starting out with a RWD car; most people are idiots who decide that they want to blow the doors off Mustangs with a Honda Civic. Well, the only way to do that is to convert the Civic to RWD and put a big engine under the hood. Weight transfer on acceleration is always to the rear, so a front wheel drive car simply doesn't stand a chance. (Of course, FWD cars don't handle anywhere near as predictably as RWD cars, which is why police and serious performance cars are all RWD. And forget "AWD" cars, if the front wheels are getting more than about 25% of the power, it'll handle more like FWD than RWD.)

but it's certainly fun to surprise the guy in the 'Vette next to you at each and every stoplight!

Yes, it is. The trick is to turn it into a sleeper, but with just enough crap that people who've spent $50,000 on "tuning" their $1500 rusted-out Acura Integras think you're some sort of unemployed hick poseur.

My Chevette had a big hood scoop because it was needed to clear the air filter on the Buick V6. The paint was flat black Tremclad with touch-up primer spots - deliberately. Chevette hubcaps - "dog dishes" without trim rings - were covering the steel rims, hiding the fact that there were 5 lugnuts on each rear wheel's widened steel rim. I spent *hours* with an X-acto knife slicing the "Mickey Thompson" logos off the 12" WIDE rear wheels.

From the side, the car looked like it belonged to a kid who had "souped it up" with a silly hood scoop. (At least it's not flat-out stupid like clear tail lights without cat-eye reflectors, and non-standard lighting colors, either one of which is a good way to get your car rear-ended.)

From the back, the astute might notice the wide rear tires and the fact that the differential's pumpkin looked a little bigger than most Chevettes.

I took it to a Canadian Tire once to get an oil change - didn't have time to do it m

Someone at DaimlerChrysler obviously is thinking about the same sort of future:

http://www.mopar.com/chrysler/Uprod.html.

It's unlikely, but not impossible.

Acceleration is all about power to weight ratio, and then how well you get that power to the ground.

First off, economics. I can go to a wrecking yard, spend $50 for a used Chevy 350 from a junked taxicab, spend $1000 having it machined and then another $2000 on assorted parts, assemble it myself, and get (conservatively) 400HP from it.

To get anywhere near that kind of power from a smaller engine (1.6L = ~95 CID), the engine must be revved up all to hell, and the machining tolerances must therefore be extremely tight - spending lots of labor having pistons balanced to within 1/100th of a gram, versus 1/10th of a gram like you could do with the 350. Yes, the newer engine's head will flow better than a 350, yes, there's less reciprocating mass because it's just a sewing machine. But to get the volumetric efficiency and torque curves high enough to do that without grenading, you're adding a turbo, porting the heads, etc. Aftermarket parts are far more expensive for those motors, and the knowledge base of guys who've built up Civics for serious power is a lot less than the skill and number of guys who've built up 350s. Expect to spend $10-15k by the time all is said and done.

Now, gearing. A Viper's first and second gear are agressive, but the car is designed for top-end speed, which is reflected in the design of the brakes and suspension. The Viper will be quick off the line (1st and 2nd) but the motor will have more room to wind in 3-6, to allow the RPMs to be reasonable at 100+MPH.

If the Civic is anywhere near as quick as the Viper off the line, he's obviously not only built up the engine but also the drivetrain (which would break if too much power was applied to it). While building a tough engine, therefore, the guy in the Civic would have had to build a transmission to survive the forces the engine is passing through it. At the same time, he would have changed the gear ratios for acceleration.

A big strong guy on a bicycle stuck in tenth gear won't out-accelerate a puny guy shifting his derailleur from 1 through 5.

Having said that, even geared for speed rather than acceleration, a Viper still turns low 13s. That's about 13.2 seconds from stopped to the end of a quarter mile. It's quicker than most production cars, but certainly not fast when you're talking about building for performance. My (stock) 1976 Ram with the 400 (6.6L) engine does it in about 14.8.

By comparison, I built a Chevette with a Buick 3.8L V6 under the hood. It turned 12.8 seconds on the 1/4 mile - slightly faster than a Viper. But, there's no way it could attain let alone maintain 150MPH the way a Viper could. Buy a Mustang 5.0, slap headers, cam, 4-bbl intake and carb at it, and you're faster off the line than a Viper.

We still haven't even gotten into a question of driving skill. Lots of people who own Vipers know nothing about cars. They're dot-com CEOs and accountants who don't know anything about cars. Is he sidestepping the clutch to hold the engine at its peak torque curve? If he's not, he's not making full use of the power.

I'm not sure if it's possible for an inanimate object to possess another inanimate object.

Last Viper I drove had a V10, actually, rather similar to this one which you can order at the parts counter at any Chrylser dealership. And, while I imagine you understand the concept of cylinders, I will assume that you don't understand the concept of displacement. Here's the relationship in a nutshell: All other things being equal, a Ford 300 inline 6-cylinder would probably outperform a Ford 302 V8. Why? The 6-cylinder motor has two less pistons dragging up and down, two less pairs of valves, two less connecting rod bearings - but still pumps through almost (2 cubic inches difference) as much air as the V8.

Cylinders are not everything. You don't get your power from having more cylinders, you get it from having more displacement. Cylinders merely divide the displacement into manageable chunks.

By the way, you'll note that the Viper's motor is 488 cubic inches. About 8.0L.

Yup. Though it does take nearly a quarter of a mile for a Viper to get up to 100MPH from a stop. Most street races are significantly less than that.

Even so, either the guy in the Honda spent more doing that than it would have cost him to buy a Viper, or the guy in the Viper was the typical Viper-driver.

Ask yourself this. The Viper has a large displacement engine (488CID) and is rear-wheel-drive. The Honda has a small displacement engine (~95CID, too lazy to calculate it right now) and is front-wheel-drive.

Virtually all performance cars have a large displacement and are rear-wheel-drive - From Aston-Martin to Vector to Viper, with Porsche, Ferrari, Llamborghini, 1960s-1970s American musclecars, NASCAR, NHRA, serious ralleye, etc. in there.

Virtually all economy cars have a small displacement and are front-wheel-drive. The Honda is in the same high class as Tercels, Ford Escorts, Renault 5, VW Rabbit, Dodge Aries/Plymouth Reliant, Nissan Micra, etc.

Ask yourself why.

Now, go play with your automotive Celeron.