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Car memories

Plenty of younger guys still working on cars, I do LS ecu flashing/reprogramming as a side hustle so i am still somewhat in touch with the car scene......

oh yea putting an outdated 350 into anything now days is seriously confusing, you can get a 285hp fuel injected 5.3 with harness, accessories, computer, literally everything you need for 500-750$, throw a cam at it, 350+hp, throw on a disco potato or two, 500+ on a stock bottom end low boost, and pump gas

I have done over 90 computers for swaps, majority of the guys are under 35, im actually more surprised when i get someone over say 45, I do get the odd retired guy, but most are younger than 35

and really that's only one niche to the car scene, lots of 4x4 guys, 4 banger guys, etc etc
 
Chicken lights said:
It’s not “all lost” but the interest and knowledge isn’t what it was years ago
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I'll take some blame for this bad trend.

It used to be that even the wife had to know how to deflood an engine, or rap a starter to release the bendix, or squirt some ether to get it to fire, or dry off a distributor cap.....

But my kind and I have made cars so reliable and so complicated that nobody has to do that stuff anymore let alone set the timing, adjust the points, set the voltage, adjust idle, lube a speedo cable, and the list goes on and on and on.

At the same time, the public wants cleaner air, better fuel consumption, more safety, etc etc etc.

All these things have meant less need, less experience, less ability, and less know-how.

This same trend plus a general shift to a throw away society means fewer and fewer young people have any of the abilities the rest of us take for granted.

On the plus side, all my kids are handy, and I keep working on my grandkids too. Ain't nobody ever gunna send any of them to the hardware store for a left handed screwdriver....
 
I don't know exactly what he swapped in there. I'm not a car guy. Dad was, I held the flashlight for a couple engine swaps when I was a kid and helped a bit here and there, but I turned into a bike guy.....Bikes were cheap speed compared to 4 wheels.

I do know enough that the 5.3 is the new "350" swap of yesteryear for anybody not afraid of wires. Maybe that's what he's got in there, but I doubt it. I'll ask tomorrow, but I think it was more along the lines of a junkyard wars build of avaiability. Point was more about the kid being a unicorn that prefers working with his hands instead of screens. They're not extinct, but they are not plentiful.
 
Susquatch said:
I'll take some blame for this bad trend.

It used to be that even the wife had to know how to deflood an engine, or rap a starter to release the bendix, or squirt some ether to get it to fire, or dry off a distributor cap.....

But my kind and I have made cars so reliable and so complicated that nobody has to do that stuff anymore let alone set the timing, adjust the points, set the voltage, adjust idle, lube a speedo cable, and the list goes on and on and on.

At the same time, the public wants cleaner air, better fuel consumption, more safety, etc etc etc.

All these things have meant less need, less experience, less ability, and less know-how.

This same trend plus a general shift to a throw away society means fewer and fewer young people have any of the abilities the rest of us take for granted.

On the plus side, all my kids are handy, and I keep working on my grandkids too. Ain't nobody ever gunna send any of them to the hardware store for a left handed screwdriver....
Click to expand...

Im gonna agree with everything here, cars are no longer steaming piles of shit, that's a big reason people don't need to know how to work on them as much any more....they just work, turn the key, they start, -30, +30, no drama, no points going out of spec, no distributor moving, no carbs getting dirty, no floats sticking, just vrooom and go

everything is higher quality than it was up to the 2000's, since then everything has been pretty rock solid, refined, and reliable

the only thing the average person who drives should need to know how to do now days is check the oil, coolant, and maybe change a tire (if so equipped)

Soon the new thing is going to be swapping electric drivetrains into hot rods, hell ford even sells a crate electric motor, thats where things are going imo....until then ill still be flashing ecu's :p
 
Susquatch said:
I'll take some blame for this bad trend.

It used to be that even the wife had to know how to deflood an engine, or rap a starter to release the bendix, or squirt some ether to get it to fire, or dry off a distributor cap.....

But my kind and I have made cars so reliable and so complicated that nobody has to do that stuff anymore let alone set the timing, adjust the points, set the voltage, adjust idle, lube a speedo cable, and the list goes on and on and on.

At the same time, the public wants cleaner air, better fuel consumption, more safety, etc etc etc.

All these things have meant less need, less experience, less ability, and less know-how.

This same trend plus a general shift to a throw away society means fewer and fewer young people have any of the abilities the rest of us take for granted.

On the plus side, all my kids are handy, and I keep working on my grandkids too. Ain't nobody ever gunna send any of them to the hardware store for a left handed screwdriver....
Click to expand...
I for one thank you. I think most "car guys" became car guys out of necessity, and poverty rather than pure enjoyment. I always HATED working on cars, but did/do so for those reasons. Thankfully with today's cars, I don't have to much anymore. I put over 350,000 trouble free km on my 2008 Pontiac g6 before the body rotted off of it. Sure it wasn't a "fun car" but it got me back and forth to work for years, and hauled my racebike to the track on an open trailer. I don't think I ever did anything other than tires, brakes and fluid changes on it. My 2010 sierra has mostly been trouble free too pushing up on the same km, but starting to groan a bit. Wife's 2012 equinox was pretty reliable for the first 300k/9 years, then it became a bit troublesome, but still 300k of trouble free miles is pretty damn good. I love new cars. New/newish Toyota and Honda in the driveway now (last year was an expensive year....lol) so we'll see if they match Gm's record. I plan on keeping them until I can't anymore and selling them by weight. Same as every other vehicle I've had.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
but I think it was more along the lines of a junkyard wars build of avaiability
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part of the problem with the old small blocks is finding them at the average wreckers now days, where as the ls series of engine....well any decent wrecker is going to have at least 10 trucks/suv's/cars with a complete ls drivetrain ready for the taking....and the ls series engines just seem to last, so long as you can turn it over it will probably run
 
I really don't enjoy doing anything wrench related on a daily driver kind of car. I have never purchased a new car in my life so even doing a simple job like the brakes on a crusty rusty 20 year old car is just not pleasant and no fun at all at this stage. That's why we have four Toyotas In the family, pure engineering marvels of reliability from my perspective.

Working on my "Hot Rod" is a completely different experience no rusty crusty anything, barely get you hands dirty when you do work on it and then you get to experience the adrenaline rush reward for your effort.

My first car was a Maverick Grabber, yellow with black stripes, Hurst shifter and Playboy 60 tires ( major selling point) It had been raced by a local transmission shop so it had one of those old style pro stock hood scoops, unfortunately the engine had been replaced with a near stock 70, 302 with just headers etc. Picked it up for $500 with my paper route and part time job savings.

oh the back seat... the near magical properties of having a hot rod in high school in the 70's. One of the best decisions I have made and I'm going to leave it that.
 
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DPittman said:
What the heck is a disco potato?
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It's a nickname for a Nissan Miata Turbo. The way I heard it, the car looked like a potatoe, and the fluorescent orange of the one that spawned the nickname looked disco.

I've also heard the guy who built the first one had a potatoe face and liked to watch the ladies at the disco. Disco Potatoe - basically a Lounge Lizzard.

I do think that the turbo is a bit reminiscent of a potatoe. Like many old monikers, the real story prolly isn't really right. Likely neither is mine.

At the root of it, guys love Nick Names. That's how I got mine. I was over 6ft and had a full beard in grade 7. What else were they gunna call a big ugly hairy kid who loved the forest?
 
I still have my first muscle car that I bought in 1978. It's a 1968 Shelby GT350. It will be coming off my rotisserie next week. As for a money pit, they can be. I wasted money on motors as a kid. No regrets. There will always be someone faster and I still enjoy banging gears. The car went into long term storage until I retired and I'm loving restoring it! I live in a neighbourhood of mostly retired couples and there are quite a few of us with hobby cars. We help each other and enjoy a beer or two and have awesome cruise nights where there can be up to four hundred cars.
 
Close but not quite, a disco potatoe is generally speaking a turbo, more specifically a gt28

Edit: the car your thinking of was a Nissan Sentra, but the nickname was given to the turbo
 
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Chip Maker said:
1968 Shelby GT350
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Oh my....... Well..... That would be on my list of things I wish I owned. I'm truly jealous of that one! Hopefully the original blue.

I knew Carroll Shelby and his wife personally. Really nice people. Once I had the honour of leading a parade with him in Texas sitting on the padding of a convertible top together. I'll have to see if I still have a photo.
 
phaxtris said:
Close but not quite, a disco potatoe is generally speaking a turbo, more specifically a gt28

Edit: the car your thinking of was a Nissan Sentra, but the nickname was given to the turbo
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I think nicknames are often regional. I recall it being the car, but since the turbo looked a bit like a potatoe, I have no trouble accepting your version too.

If you are right, I'd be curious to know how it got the disco part.....

Ps - I still like the Lounge Lizzard version best. :D
 
My idea of macho HP is something that will jerk 100,000lbs of freight or 200,000 lbs of dirt but my kid brother is the speed demon of the family.
His current car is a Super Modified that does a 1/4 in 5 sec or less, that car started out as a fuel funny car. He drove it that way for 6 or 7 yrs but pit crew availability limitations drove him to down grade it to what it is now. The funny thing about it is that he still spends mucho dollars on the thing & wrench's continually but he "outgrew" his flame suit so somebody else gets to drive.

A funny story on one of his earlier custom drag builds. The car was a fiber glass Opel that weighted 50 lbs more than the engine. This car was built for the track & wasn't completely street legal but his new wife didnt know or particularly care about this fact one morning when she needed to get to work & her street car wouldn't start. So she backed that OPel out of the garage (Daves at work 1500 miles away), complete with its 3 ft wide slicks & bicycle tire steering wheels and headered straight pipes. At the first red light, shes sitting in this thing as it throbs through a gallon of gas when a cop pulls up beside her....light turns green and she , being used to her usual 4-banger she adds about 3/4 throttle to that beast and shoots across the intersection....cop stops her & by the time the tow truck arrives 4 other cop cruisers also on scene just to rubberneck at this car....She wasnt charged with anything but they sure had her undivided attention over not using that car ever again on a street.
 
historicalarms said:
AAWWW dont ruin i'm...
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I get it. I'm just trying to be profitable and roll with the times....

I actually want him to serve his apprenticeship out on the floor running manual machines, then move in here if he wants. The other guy I have in here now followed that path, and its worked out well so far. Higher earning potential too. My end goal is to have a few more guys like me that can work in all depts, and fill in where needed on job builds. I think it'll make us stronger and a bit more adaptable. The industry is changing......I'm going to train myself out of a job lol.
 
Susquatch said:
Oh my....... Well..... That would be on my list of things I wish I owned. I'm truly jealous of that one! Hopefully the original blue.

I knew Carroll Shelby and his wife personally. Really nice people. Once I had the honour of leading a parade with him in Texas sitting on the padding of a convertible top together. I'll have to see if I still have a photo.
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It was blue when I bought it and I truly love that blue. My friend has a '68 427 'vette that he's had as long as I've had mine. He matched the blue from mine. We would park the cars side by side at the drive in as kids. But alas the car is going back to the original candy apple red that it was born with.
 
phaxtris said:
part of the problem with the old small blocks is finding them at the average wreckers now days, where as the ls series of engine....well any decent wrecker is going to have at least 10 trucks/suv's/cars with a complete ls drivetrain
Click to expand...
Can you strap a huffer to an ls? I’m guessing there must be a way
 
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