[Shotimes] Re: Was ? Now Abuse?

[John Weidenbenner]

The SHOforum is a good representation of the demographics shift the SHO
community is experiencing. Second, third, fourth owners of SHOs with market
values $200 to $4000. A lot of those guys are short on money and experience,
compared to us old farts, but they are willing to try new ideas and
challenge old paradigms. Good for them. They'll be better car enthusiasts,
and it is refreshing the SHO community. These guys are keeping a lot of SHOs
out of the junk yards.

My 18 year old son is a good example of the new SHO enthusiast. For better
or worse, he doesn't place a high priority on preventative maintenance, but
his repair and modification experiences are invaluable lessons. He's done a
few clutch jobs on his and his friend's SHO, suspension/brake system
repairs, done a 3.2 conversion (on his own!!) and is working on a relatively
low bucks significant horsepower enhancement project that may be ready for
the convention.

John W. - 93 atx - black beauty
Jr.'s 89 - the red beast

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Porter" <ronporter@prodigy.net>
To: "'shotimes'" <shotimes@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2003 10:56 AM
Subject: RE: [Shotimes] Re: Was ? Now Abuse?


> Personally, I hardly view the Forum or the Delphi Forum as being
> representative of anything, except a lot of young folks buying old cars
> because they are cheap, then not having the experience/money/both to
> maintain them properly......or to know that they should not have bought
that
> particular car in the first place. Just observing their results does not
> explain the processes of how they got there. The term "delayed
maintenance"
> comes to mind.
>
> I still didn't have issues with my '89 with well over 150K miles. The car
> was maintained properly. Sure, at some point stuff is gonna wear
out/break,
> but drag racing, autocross, or track work do not kill the car.
>
> Ron Porter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:shotimes-admin@autox.team.net]
> On Behalf Of sho2go
> Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2003 1:32 AM
> To: 'shotimes'
> Subject: Re: [Shotimes] Re: Was ? Now Abuse?
>
>
> RP:Sorry, I totally disagree, and I respectfully submit that your comments
> are
> based on false assumptions and ill-informed rumors.
>
> MT: Disagree, your right.  False assumptions and rumors, dead wrong.  Look
> on the forum: post after post is about how to fix something broken.  My
cars
> (both) just keep trucking.
>
> RP:Yeah, if you drive like grandma, I guess you would view dragstrip use
as
> "abuse". I have never "dropped" the clutch in a SHO, and my dragstrip
starts
> are the only thing that might be slightly different than my street starts
> (in as I don't spin the wheels that much on a street start). Shifting is
NO
> different.
>
> MT:Drive like a grandma?  A little resume: former SCCA member, hot laps on
> the Nurburgring; Alaska-Canada road rallye (twice), 10 years ice racing in
a
> 240Z highly modified and a SAAB Sonnet turboed (scary fast),  4 years dirt
> track, some Riverside Raceway experience.  None of those cars included a
> Taurus, though.  As for your street and strip techniques being the same,
I'm
> speechless ..........
>
> RP:These cars are OLD!!!!!! Trannies/diffs dying, etc at over 150K miles
> and/or
> more than 7-8 years of age are to be expected!! Those of us who bought new
> Shos in the early days, and drove the snot out of them, did not have these
> issues when the cars were 5 years old or newer.
>
> MT: Exactly my point!!!  Going on 8-13 years .
>
> Ron Porter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:shotimes-admin@autox.team.net]
> On Behalf Of sho2go
> Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 4:03 PM
> To: shotimes
> Subject: [Shotimes] Re: Was ? Now Abuse?
>
>
> OK, foot out of mouth now ;-)  that wasn't meant at anybody in particular;
> everyone has his own button that gets pushed in a particular way.  If I'm
> looking for a street car, it won't see the strip ever.  To me that is
abuse;
> no use going to the strip unless you're going to drop the clutch and power
> shift.  I built Chevys in the 60s that did that and would keep going
> forever.  Shoforum and these boards are full of people asking about
> rebuilding trannys and so forth, these cars aren't happy doing this sort
of
> thing for very long.  I think its a stage of life thing; I have no problem
> doing a quick redline run with someone on the freeway, but no more running
> the ATX up to stall speed or slipping my foot off the clutch.
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Nunnally" <manunnal@netheaven.com>
> To: "shotimes" <shotimes@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 11:28 AM
> Subject: Re: [Shotimes] High Mileage Vs. "Remanufactured" Car
> Values.....was: 94 Moonlight Blue MTX FS
>
>
> > >Even if Mark's re-engined, custom painted etc. MTX had only 50K miles,
I
> > >wouldn't be interested in a car that got its miles 1/4 mile at a time.
> >
> > I didn't get a chance to run George's 3.2L at the track :)
> >
> > And I'm like Ron P.  I'd rather have a clean interior/exterior 100k car
> that
> > was maintained and *driven hard*, than a 20k clean interior/exterior
that
> > sits around in the garage all the time and gets 1/4 throttle driving.  I
> can
> > just about bet you which one will run harder.
> >
> > You can drive a car hard and not abuse it.  There's a difference.
> >
> > mark