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Are 5.0 engine failures a common issue.

Elp_jc

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And tallking about stupid bicycles, why so expensive nowadays? Even a POS with mechanical disk brakes, no suspension, and crap components is $500 nowadays. The ones a little nicer are $900... and NOBODY HAS ANY. Ridiculous.
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CrashOverride

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Yeah I forgot about the BMW Vanos failures. I think the M3 V8's (S- something, can't remember the engine code) liked to shear off the bolts for the cam phasers I think.

I actually can't think of any Mercedes Benz problems, but they gave up on the manual trans a long time ago, so I gave up on them. I know the AMG 6.3 sounds great though.
 

IrishStallion

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And tallking about stupid bicycles, why so expensive nowadays? Even a POS with mechanical disk brakes, no suspension, and crap components is $500 nowadays. The ones a little nicer are $900... and NOBODY HAS ANY. Ridiculous.

I hear you Brother! That is my old upgraded 1999 K2. New stuff that matches that spec wise is 2500-3000 today. No thanks... lol.
 

CrashOverride

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Never had one, but have read about it as well as the 5.4's. Terrible design, both the lack of thread length and the silly two-piece spark plugs. It surprised me just how long the problem persisted. Another kind of dumb idea. In the 2nd gen LT1 engine (The early 90's pre-LS) they had an optical distributor. Used light to shine through tiny holes to keep track of the engine position. Not a terrible idea, but mounting it so low on the engine that puddles of water would get in it and clog up the holes, rendering the engine without ignition...Not smart.

And the GM 2.5L engine, which was made from the lousy 305, particularly in the Fiero was a disaster. Why the Fiero? Because (As I've read, but cannot personally attest to) GM had batches of poor quality rods - but they didn't want to put them in Chevy and other "Reliable" brands and instead saved them for the pontiac "junk". But conspiracy theory or not, for the Fiero, they had to deal with the packaging nightmare that was created by taking a FWD transaxle and putting it in the back of a car...They decided to make the oil pan only hold 3 quarts of oil because they needed the space....Absolutely stupid. I had the Fiero GT with the 2.8L and that was a nicely matched engine that didn't have any of the problems the Fiero was known for.
 

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ice445

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Yeah I forgot about the BMW Vanos failures. I think the M3 V8's (S- something, can't remember the engine code) liked to shear off the bolts for the cam phasers I think.

I actually can't think of any Mercedes Benz problems, but they gave up on the manual trans a long time ago, so I gave up on them. I know the AMG 6.3 sounds great though.
M156 MB V8 had bad head bolts from the factory that would let the head lift and leak coolant into the cylinders. Only for a few years until they fixed it.

Everyone goofs at times.
 

CrashOverride

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I heard the Fiero is also a great candidate for an LS swap.
Yeah v8 archie makes (Made?) kits for all kinds of engines. Many moons ago, the northstar was popular because it was east-west in design. The supercharged 3800 II was also pretty popular. Despite what a lot of people thought, they were amazing little cars. When I grow up (LOL) I might buy one again. I really dug the flying buttress design on the GT's, it really did make the rear end look like a Ferrari 308.

There were all kinds of goofy things about the car, from the in-dash subwoofer to the e-brake that was on the floor (Even though it was a handle) and articulated down when still engaged so you could get out...
 

CrashOverride

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M156 MB V8 had bad head bolts from the factory that would let the head lift and leak coolant into the cylinders. Only for a few years until they fixed it.

Everyone goofs at times.
Yeah that would be bad. I prefer my bolts to not be elastic LOL.

I have to say, one of the most bulletproof engines I know of is the 2.4L turbo engine in the SRT-4 I used to have. Cast iron block, they would take insane amounts of power and just laughed. It had a oil pump from a V8, so it didn't have any oil pressure problems, had a really good cooling system because the turbo was cooled by water. I don't think the rods were forged, but they were cracked which was somewhat "fancy" back in 2003. The only thing I can think of that was a known failure point was the balance shafts that would fail around the 400 HP mark. But even then, it was not terribly difficult to pull the oil pan and cut the chain. Me personally, I removed the entire assembly and capped off the oil hole. Saved about 20 pounds off the engine and gave me a 7 quart sump. I don't know if it was true, but I had read somewhere (Possibly Allpar.com, what has to be the best site out there for engine and trans info) that DCX rushed the production of the engine and had really only had time to "beta test" it in Mexico where I think it was made. My point being, that it never had time to be durability tested, so they purposely overbuilt it, and it also never made it to the cost-cutting-engineers.

I bought my SRT4 with about 65k on it. Shortly thereafter I tuned it and took the stock boost from about 12psi to 20psi. At around 100k miles, I put on a bigger turbo (Mistubishi TD05) and upped it to 26psi. Stock intercooler, stock internals. I ran it hard for another 77k miles. Sold it and I only sold it because I bought my S550. It still ran amazing and was extremely quick because it was a light car. Original internals, original accessories (Alternator, AC compressor, PS pump, starter, etc.). Only replaced the water pump at 100k miles because it did have a timing belt, which drove the water pump like a Honda. But I replaced it with a Kevlar belt, so I would never have to replace it again.

I never dynoed it, but I think typical S3 turbo setups like mine were putting out about 325-350 whp and 350-400 wtq. In a 2900# car. Even with a quaife LSD and equal length driveshafts, can you say torque steer? :)
 

CrashOverride

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I've seen body kits that straight turn it into a Ferrari. The car was very cool, it just got the short end of the stick like the rest of Pontiac. By the way, that style of lever is very common in supercars, especially in Europe. Low mid-engine cars tend to be harder to get in an out of in general. Imagine if that lever was sticking up in the door sill (right hand drive).
Never realized that re: the ebrake. Yeah some of the kit cars are done really well. GM made most of the corrections for the 1988 model (It had chevette and celebrity suspension components 84-87) which really made it handle the way it should have, but true with GM, once they got it right, they killed it. They had a 2.9L supercharged test engine that apparently was so fast they mulled the idea of including a high performance driving school deal as part of buying it. But the crank snapped when an engineer drove it home and I guess that was that. At the time, GM was stingier than even now, so the entire story of the car is extremely interesting. I lived in MI at the time, and got to drive by the old plant every now and then. I loved the fact that the car wouldn't rust. I take that for granted now because there is no water out here, but having a 10 year old car in MI with no rust is like finding a unicorn.
 

IrishStallion

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Yeah that would be bad. I prefer my bolts to not be elastic LOL.

I have to say, one of the most bulletproof engines I know of is the 2.4L turbo engine in the SRT-4 I used to have. Cast iron block, they would take insane amounts of power and just laughed. It had a oil pump from a V8, so it didn't have any oil pressure problems, had a really good cooling system because the turbo was cooled by water. I don't think the rods were forged, but they were cracked which was somewhat "fancy" back in 2003. The only thing I can think of that was a known failure point was the balance shafts that would fail around the 400 HP mark. But even then, it was not terribly difficult to pull the oil pan and cut the chain. Me personally, I removed the entire assembly and capped off the oil hole. Saved about 20 pounds off the engine and gave me a 7 quart sump. I don't know if it was true, but I had read somewhere (Possibly Allpar.com, what has to be the best site out there for engine and trans info) that DCX rushed the production of the engine and had really only had time to "beta test" it in Mexico where I think it was made. My point being, that it never had time to be durability tested, so they purposely overbuilt it, and it also never made it to the cost-cutting-engineers.

I bought my SRT4 with about 65k on it. Shortly thereafter I tuned it and took the stock boost from about 12psi to 20psi. At around 100k miles, I put on a bigger turbo (Mistubishi TD05) and upped it to 26psi. Stock intercooler, stock internals. I ran it hard for another 77k miles. Sold it and I only sold it because I bought my S550. It still ran amazing and was extremely quick because it was a light car. Original internals, original accessories (Alternator, AC compressor, PS pump, starter, etc.). Only replaced the water pump at 100k miles because it did have a timing belt, which drove the water pump like a Honda. But I replaced it with a Kevlar belt, so I would never have to replace it again.

I never dynoed it, but I think typical S3 turbo setups like mine were putting out about 325-350 whp and 350-400 wtq. In a 2900# car. Even with a quaife LSD and equal length driveshafts, can you say torque steer? :)
I bought the 2008 Caliber srt4 with the newer world engine. With just a Real Tuned map clamp, second cat delete (stock o2 housing), injectors, intake pipe, APR wastegate, plus 3.5 gallons E was 360/371 wheel. With back seat and trunk stuff pulled it was under 3100. Fun car, and ass kicked a lot of v8’s from 50mph up.
 

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CrashOverride

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Very much true, my first one was a boring silver, but my second one, the one I talked about, was solar yellow. Ever since then, I've only went for wild colors (Comp Orange in this case). Funny thing, we have reserved but unassigned parking at my work. After I brought in the S550 one day, two of the ladies came and asked me "Is that your car?" and I said Yes. The one looked at the other and said "See I told you, it was his". The other asked why, and she said "You know him, he likes cars that look like candy colors". very true, very true. A guy has a plum-crazy Shaker Challenger Scat Pack. Sometimes parks near me, I think I could definitely handle a purple car. Also dig the lime greens. I'd honestly really like to get a magenta colored car, I'm secure enough about my manhood that I wouldn't care that some people would call it pink. You just don't see magenta cars nowadays. (Reminiscing of the t**** pink Dodges way back when).

I never have a hard time finding my car in a parking lot!
 

CrashOverride

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Saw this yesterday
20200814_124331.jpg
Wow that looks slick. Some car body styles don't take to flashy colors well, but the flared wheel wells and door sculpting really make the colors pop on the S550.
 

rangerryda

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Rattles and fitment aside, Ford did an excellent design job on the S550 body. So much character and unmistakably mustang.
 

Shifting_Gears

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And tallking about stupid bicycles, why so expensive nowadays? Even a POS with mechanical disk brakes, no suspension, and crap components is $500 nowadays. The ones a little nicer are $900... and NOBODY HAS ANY. Ridiculous.
I will withhold posting what I paid for my bike. However, I lucked out and got a BIG discount but MSRP was like $2,300. Biking is a hobby and I like jumps and thrashing around so I decided to buy something built to handle it out of the box.

Anybody else remember when the 4.6 they put in the Explorer was spitting sparkplugs?
The 5.4 2V was the champ of that. Was it the
3V 4.6? Also - “timesert” became a huge buzzword on forums thanks to those incidents lol.

I never dynoed it, but I think typical S3 turbo setups like mine were putting out about 325-350 whp and 350-400 wtq. In a 2900# car. Even with a quaife LSD and equal length driveshafts, can you say torque steer? :)
Snipped it to save some reading space.. but yeah, as much shit as the SRT4 caught in its day, it was probably the best bang for the buck during its day and even after. They would definitely whoop a 2V/3V Mustang’s ass with minimal mods. That’s talking straight line.. never mind the fact they were grippy as well and could pull some serious cornering with minimal work.
 

Black19GT

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Even with a quaife LSD and equal length driveshafts, can you say torque steer? :)
I feel you on the torque steer. My automobile passion was sparked in my teens by the ole L67 series II Grand Prix GTP’s. Owned three different coupes with the most powerful one putting down...or at least trying to 560 whp with a Cartuning turbo setup. Could literally rip the wheel out of your hands at times. :eek:

problem with those cars were the transmissions, couldn’t keep one alive for the life of me ;)
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