Maybe compared to todays engines, but in their day the 5.7 TPI's were plenty powerful and fast. What other 80's engine could run with them? The GNX doesn't count (LOL). Nothing short of a GNX or exotic could challenge them. Stop light to stop light those cars could frikken pull.
Just as people 20 years from now will say "The LS was weak", we have to remember the times these engines/cars were made.

 

GNX... oh and the normal Grand National I suppose

 

You do bring up good points though. Sure thirdgens are slow by todays standards ( hell, even mid 90s standards ) but in the late 80s, there wasn't much of anything that could touch them.

Imports were nothing but 85-110hp econoboxes back then, so it was left to Corvettes and Italian/German cars to take out a Thirdgen.

It was the same way when the LS1 F-Bodies hit. They were damn near untouchable for your average performance car. Anything that stood a chance was far above the price bracket of an F-Body. As most of us know, our Mustang GT rivals were a hilariously bad joke from 93-2002. The 03-04 Cobras were a good improvement because Ford got sick of getting mopped and threw on a Supercharger.


Just for the simple fact of how common LS swaps are ( and since they're still GMs go-to performance V8 ) I don't think anybody will have the nerve to say LS was weak. It DOMINATED the Muscle car world from 1997 up until this year with the new Shelby GT500 and GM making an all new LT1 engine. That's a 16 year reign.

 

The stuff out right now will trump most of the engines made from 95-05 as well. This is a dyno from my built in the USA, Dechard, TN native 32 valve, DOHC, 340 CID V8 designed from the ground up as a truck engine. It has an intake, exhaust, 170*F thermostat, TB coolant bypassed, and a good tune created by me on it.

 

I don't doubt that they do, nobody is arguing that ( AFAIK )

To me, its pretty damn impressive that GM had the muscle car market by the ***** for 16 years with the LS engines. ( Arguably, there was no GM made US muscle cars from 2007-2009 )

For those two years, it was a Ford vs Dodge race. Then 2010 rolled around and the 5th gen Camaro was released and we returned to the battle of the big three.

 

You two sound like you are arguing in favor of each other.

It is all about the era. The last of the performance machines were in the very early 70's Once Cats and EGRs got put on the 73's and later - everything was smogged down to the lowest performance possible.

I remember the early 70's Camaro's coming with 396s and the 72 HO SD455 TA. Then the smog years but Pontiac pulled a fast one and sent out the 403 A3 & 400 M4 out with the TAs and dominated the performance market for a few short years.

By today's standards those 195hp 403's and 200hp 400's are dogs too but they also made 400lbs/ft tq.

The 89 TTA was WAAAAY underrated at 255HP but again, slow by todays standards.My wife's old 2002 Maxima had 260 HP.

So take it for what its worth.

Back on topic
The majority of the ricers throw a couple of bolts on on a 16+ second car and think they are hot ****. And while half or more 3rd gen owners prolly do the same, the car has a lot more potential for power over a 4 banger econo-box.

 

Do you think people 20 years ago said the same thing about the GEN1 SBC? Yet the post I responded to said
"...*NOTHING* GM put in a third gen in stock form was fast or impressive...."

I say again--> I'm pretty sure 20 years from now there will be people saying the same thing about the LS, that it in stock form was neither fast or impressive.

 

I personally love the sound of a strong V8, but my 19 year old built an MR2 he put a super charged AGE something 4 Cyl. in it. It has a zero to sixty time of 3.5 seconds it is very impressive and I didn't have to help him!!! he did it on his own. However I like my 85 Trans AM better!! even though I can't keep up with his MR2.

 

When I owned my f-bodies I always thought every tuner or import was slow.. Then I finally moved on from f-bodies and bought a DSM. 1997 eclipse GS-T turbo. It literally hauls ***.. I feel stupid now for ever ripping on the tuners. Sure, it isn't stock. But it has wayy more potential to go fast than any of my f-bodies did. A simple turbo swap and injectors and you can run closer to 300whp.. Exhaust, intercooler, engine management and some other supporting mods and you are 400whp... Tuners are the way to go for cheap fun fast cars. I've never had a problem waxing a thirdgen or even most fourthgens. But I still love the ol' F-bodies

 

I dunno about cheap... that stuff for 400 horsepower?

You barely need to do anything to a 350 to get 400 out of it. Now, I know those little cars are fun, but I don't know if it's cheaper or has "more potential".

Other than that, happy you're happy! I'd like a fuel economic sports car myself, maybe one of these days.

 

I will try and find pics of my dyno sheet and time slips. Fastest time was a 13.2 and it dynoed 310whp. Weighs in at 2835lbs. I bought the car for 4k. Rust free, and threw maybe 1k into mods. It has proven reliable to me. Never leaves me stranded. I could reach 400whp with meth injection and not even have to do too much to re-tune. Getting a 350tpi to 400whp will cost a lot more than 1k. I am not bashing f bodies. But I kind of laugh at the kids who come to the car meets, talk **** about my eclipse and I absoloutley wipe the floor with them when we race.

 

Was the car turbo'd when you got it, or did you just put a cheap turbo on it?

Because I know you can buy an F body for about 1500, which would leave 3500 in mods before it got to the amount of money you spent total.

 

The car was turbo from the factory.. Everything I bought was used or on a budget. And yea, I could buy a 1500$ car and put in $3500 in mods.. But will it even stay together or put the power to the ground? Suspensions upgrades, sturdy frame and supports.. Any $1500 thirdgen I've ever seen wasn't even going to handle 200hp..

 

I didn't spend $4k on a shitty car. I could have bought a shitty eclipse for $1500 and stuck that $3500 into it.. But I like having a car that will last.. Not something with 200k miles and rusted to ****.

 

ONLY 310 RWHP....I get that out of a NA 305 all day long...My 1980 Corvette with a 305, vortec heads, flat tappet cam, dual plane intake, Q-jet, shorty headers, and a stock stalled 2 speed powerglide with 3.07s (shifts into high at ~90 mph)out back went 12.90s @ 108-109 mph, weighs roughly what your car does with me in it. That being said I had a 3rd gen down to that weight and with 340 RWHP it went into the 11s on street tires with a 3.23 gear and a 4L60E. Why is your DSM so slow???? My 5,330 lbs 2012 Titan only dyno'd 296 RWHP and went 13.987 @ 96.20 at Dallas Dragway on a 2.007s 60' and a 14.01 @ 97.97 on a 2.02s 60' at Thunder Road in Louisiana. Truck was on heavy 20" wheels and tires and had an OPEN differential. I pulled those 60' times rolling into the throttle from idle as I could not stall the converter at all. You have literally HALF the weight and only outrun me by less than a second.

That being said I could get a JY 350 Vortec, swap the cam, swap on a HSR, install a good set of headers and a Y-pipe, rebuild a nice 700r4, swap in a 3.45 geared 9-bolt on a LCAR and subframe connectors and be well under your budget. Might not be 400whp, but I promise you it would be in the very low 12s @ 110 mph and a 100 shot would put it deep into the 11s.

If I start with a LT1 4th gen it is even easier to get to those numbers. I ran a LT1/A4 that went deep into the 13s with only a CAI and Catback. I saw a STOCK 1LE LB9 G92 car run 13.9s @ nearly 100 mph. It would not be hard to keep up with your current setup with a few bolt-ons.

 

I don't want to attack you, just saying, your five grand investment isn't too much better than my, let's see, about 2200 dollar investment?

 

Lol my dsm is FWD... And that weight is with me in the car. I weight 325lbs .... Running a 13.2 I can't hook for ****.. 2.4 '60. I am not saying my car smokes muscle. Or camaros. But come on, you can't say that a 13.2 isn't fast.. Just messing with ls1's and corvettes on the freeway, I make them look like slow cars. I am just saying, you can't call my car slow. And it's a tuner. Ever if it isn't a import!

 

Lulz

 

You must be racing crossfire vettes, because you wouldn't touch my 305 powered Corvette on the freeway. With the 305/powerglide from a 60 mph roll to 100 mph, it pulled 10+ car lengths on a truck that trapped nearly 100 mph and heres the kicker, it never downshifted back into low gear and started its pull at 2,700 rpm @ 60.

I am thinking an LS1 must have either had a crappy driver, lacked proper maintenance or just didn't try very hard. With a few mods they are mid to low 12 second cars. My 06 Hemi Ram went 13.50s on street tires on 1.9s 60' times and ran mid 8.60s in the 1/8th all night. I put drag radials on it and ran it so hard in the 1/8th the next weekend it went 8.527 @ 79.80, shifting into overdrive at 500', smoking 545rfe transmission #5 after about the 4th pass. It progressively got slower and slower until I realized it was hurt and I limped it home. Within a day i only had 1st and 2nd gears. All it would have taken to show you tailights is a great light. I think the truck had 8.30s in it that night when the DA went negative but I will never know.

 

I had a guy in an Eclipse pass me once, then he just flew away...

I wasn't chasing him. I'm assuming that he, too, thought he was a lot faster than me.

 

Agreed. Thirdgens are cheap in price but not that cheap. At $1500 you are getting into stereotypical thirdstuff stuff. Trailer parks, wife beaters, rusted out cars and need to pull the beer cans out of the seat first.


Or maybe the LS1 vette was... stock?
You even said yourself with mods they are low 12 second cars. That doesn't mean they have them now :-)


Also why the attitude against him? He drives an import, but wasn't saying they are gods gift to his pecker or anything. Hell he even took some humble pie and talked about how he can't launch, he has some weight issues, and it's FWD. You on the other hand are just kind of being a feminine cleanser with how you are treating the whole thing. Ok you car might be faster then his attitude is better then your and honestly he is the guy I would rather talk cars with.

 

In defense and ridicule of the DSM's, they do haul *** for sure. Ive owned 5 of them an NEVER had much problem going fast for cheap. I have to say though, they DO break, like all the time. Transfer cases, clutches, trannys and CV axles just have a miserable life and don't last long. The 7 bolts are known for thrust bearing failures, causing the crank journal to hit the CPS and kill the engine instantly. The better of the 4g63's to build is the 1st gen 6 bolt block. Upgrades are simple, like removing the governor is just a matter of cutting the R256 resistor out of the ecm. This is for FWD cars. AWD never got governors. Free mods are just that, FREE. Boost solenoid mod + K&N and dump tube trim mod and MAF honeycomb removal = mid 13's (or better for AWD). For FREE. Keep in mind thats a T25 (lol) turbo for the 2nd gens and a nicer 14B for the first gens. Not much of a power adder in the big scheme of things. The cars are made by 2 separate manufacturers that created a company that designed and built these things in the US. Half Japanese (mitsubishi the "diamond") and half American (Chrysler the "star") you get DSM, Diamond Star Motors. They also made other turds but they never got the popularity like the US only Eclipse, Talon and Laser.

Anyway, all the negative is pointless. Thirdgens have their problems too, I have all the bulletins ever created by GM on them at work. So there's really no room for bashing the DSM. They are getting hard to find in good shape (sound familiar TGO?) and are usually riced out or beaters (sound like trashy thirdgens that are beaten??)

89IROC89's point is that they are cheaper to own, mod and go faster with a limited budget. This is true generally. $4500 gets you a running one, free mods and a couple other things and it's time to go find LS1's. Just watch out for fuel cut.

My stand is I prefer the thirdgen. I love everything about them. A fast thirdgen thats tastefully done can't be duplicated. They were designed by Aliens ya know? The metal to build them was mined by virgins on a full moon and can never be reproduced. I even heard the pope mention there were lost stories in the bible telling about the future and that Jesus' 2nd coming would be in the almighty IROC, but they keep it a secret to keep the balance of the car world. Okay, im being lame and this post is way to long.

 

I gotta call BS. No way you are beating LS powered cars like you say you are. There are bolt on LS1 cars running mid 11's to high 10's all over. And 13.2 is not fast by any means. Maybe 15-20 years ago it may have been impressive.....but there are some wicked fast street cars out there now days.

 

+1

 

Simple question for you. Are there stock ls1 all over. Okay maybe one more, are all ls1 drivers great drivers?

 

I have also seen a lot of bad LS1 drivers run high 13s and low 14s.

Also if the eclipse is AWD they will generally wreck LS1 from stoplight to stoplight.

 

Just because the other cars aren't going fast, doesn't mean they can't, bud.

 

LS1 with bolt on's in the 11's ? 10's?

What are we bolting on, twin turbos?

-- Joe

 

Bolting on new heads!

 

Couple things I have learned from this board and even more so this thread.

I've seen a driver pull a stock LS1 Camaro to a 12.8. Bone stock to the tires. That must mean my grandma who never really raced her car can pull a 12.8 also. Or at least close to so 12.9 sounds fair.

If I've seen a one or two Camaro's with bolt on run 11's at the track that must mean that ALL Camaro's have the same bolt-ons.

My grandma who has never raced a car and I doubt has hit much above 65mpg can run said bolt on LS1 Camaro to an easy 11 also if you strap her in and of course give her a helmet for safety and all.

Any import can never face the true mighty power of any domestic. It just isn't allowed and is against the rules of physics. You know how it works. We couldn't use the metric measurement system like the rest of the world so we made our own. Same thing applies with physics. We just couldn't follow the rest of the world and so we have domestic physics on the board. It's real simple domestic vs anything else domestic wins.
It's just logic.

99olo and I'm sure that most everyone goes out says hey I bought a newer ls1 and they threw in a free set of heads to go with the 6 pack. They even installed them for me to.

Couple other things on the LS1 vs Eclipse. If he is running a 13.2 with a 2.4 60' that's a little impressive. Might not make him much of a stoplight to stoplight person but a race on the freeway would put him a little more of a match for most LS1 (excluding domestic physics of course) I would venture to say. Which he did say these races are occurring on the freeway.

 

Hey, I got mine for half off at the dollar store.

 

http://ls1tech.com/forums/drag-racin...1-74-bump.htmlGet a clue
Open link above......and those are only the cars that post their times. I know of atleast 15-20 LSX cars locally that run similar times
13.2 for a modded DSM IS NOT FAST
Depends on mods.....stock for stock.....LS1 car wins

 

For someone who is 37 years old I'd expect a bit more maturity out of your posts.

-- Joe

 

Truth is the truth. Alota fail in this thread

 

The street racing forum is full of fail.

Stock A4 LS1 cars are mid/low 13s, and a stock M6 LS1 car might dip into the 12s with a good driver.

"bolt ons" seems to be used quite often without proper definition.

A cam swap, gear swap, head swap, etc change isn't a 'Bolt on'. A bolt on is an air cleaner, cat back, etc.

Let me give you an example. First car in the list:

RUQWIKR -------- 10.685 @ 122.91 (1.37), 01 Formula T400, ATI4600, 4.56, 3060, 03/08

Turbo 400 transmission with 4600 stall converter, 4.56 rear end, and a 3060lbs car? What did he do to the engine? That's 432 rwhp. That's 160 rwhp over a stock LS1. What else did he "bolt on" ?!?!

Hey, my thirdgen is almost 700hp. I bolted everything on too..

-- Joe

 

If you cant wrap your head around the fact that the majority of bolt on LS 1 cars run faster than high 12's I dont know what to tell you. And its not heads or cams or turbos being bolted on either. My own car went 12.4 years ago with an airlid and a catback. You are missing my point. So i will explain it to you. Typical bolt ons....headers,y pipe, airlid,cat back.....etc.....not involving pulling engine apart......these cars will run mid 12'sTO 11'S all day long. Even a few freaks run better.

M6 and a4 cars are capable of running into the 12's dead stock. I have seen it happen over and over. Your right by saying not all will and can......alota variables......driver,cars condition,etc.

 

never said 13.2 by itself was fast. I said 13.2 with a 2.4 60' is impressive. most cars running very low 13's usually have quite a bit faster ET. Most times I see 60' times of 2.4 is when a car is running around 15 seconds or so ET.
So to pull a 60 of 2.4 and still manage to get a 13.2 I will say again is impressive and if he can fix some traction issues I'm sure he quite a bit lower ET he can pull out there.
Would you disagree with this?

 

What was the mph?

 

Guys....WHO CARES...

 

▲▲ I really dont.......your right

 

import with bolt-ons...

 

Any car can be fast. I'm trying to build a Starlet with a k20 swap right now and I can assure you it will spank my car in terms of 0-60, and even an LS3 car.

 

Fast is pretty relative term isn't it?

What defines fast? Horsepower? Torque? 0-60? 1/8 mile? 1/4 mile? Top speed? lap times? lap times at what track? This list of possibles is as long as this thread is, which admittedly, I did not read. I didn't need to considering the junk measuring contest in the last page of it, the fundamentals (and the fun) of auto modellista, has certainly escaped a great deal of you. To make a statement remotely like my car is better because it has a v8 or has more power makes you as much of an asshat douchebag as the "tuner" that punked you on the highway. Here's a fun fact, no one likes an asshat douchebag.
Here's another fun fact, there will ALWAYS be something faster than you, and a staggering number of them are not American nor V8 powered. Thanks to the forward progression of good old competition, better is just around the corner.

Cripes, focus on what YOU are trying to accomplish. What gives you the right to look down on someone if your goals are higher than theirs? Stop trying to compare your dingus and appreciate the fact that thanks to tuners of ALL origins, your wife's cookie cutter people carrier that you are forced to drive and ride in isn't as slow as it could be, and is probably quicker and more nimble than your third gen.

 

Heads, cams and valvetrain are common "bolt-ons" for the LSX crowd.

This thread is a real gem. From a guy who has gone from a Thirdgen, to the 5.0 Fox,to 1st Gen DSM's, and now back to a Thirdgen it's sad to see this much ignorance across platforms. You can make any car perform with enough $$$ and engineering. Some cars are easier and cheaper to squeeze performance out of than others. 1st Gen DSM's are probably the easiest IMHO. www.dsmtimes.org I see I'm still the #104 quickest FWD!!!!!

 

To say heads, cam and valvetrain are considered bolt ons is an ignorant and uninformed statement. I have been involved in th LSX game for over 12 years and never has it ever been considered bolt ons by changing heads or cam. In my experiance LSX has been cheapest way to squeeze hp and ET out. We are all entitled to our own opinions....but people seem to be getting butthurt by LSX 1/4 mile times.

 

My point exactly, those who would differ lack experience. All my DSM's were quicker than my third gens (all 305 cars save for 1 quadrajet 350 car) and I've had stangs too which I found responded well to mods. Easier to mod than a third gen considering the amount of parts available. It was hard to not see fox body parts all over the place. I still have a soft spot for all 3, so who cares? This thread is plainly pointless and all I see are a bunch of kids arguing at the lunch table during 5th grade lunch! Sad people, sad!

 

The term "bolt on" is relative and subjective as well. For gods sake everything is held on with bolts. Get over it, your arguing semantics. Is a third Gen a coupe or a hatch back? Is this paint flat or matte? Does anyone look at the whole picture anymore?

Seems the butthurt folks are the ones that have trouble admitting someone else's crap is just as quick as theirs.

 

The butthurt runs deep in here...........

 

Hahaha

 

Just so I'm clear here are we arguing about 305's and bolt on dsm's ?