www.iFourWinns.com

Well I had my old American cars back in the day....70 Ford with a 5.0 (302 cu in)....72 Chevy and 75 Olds with a 5.7 (350 cu in).. at the same time period..also had 2 air cooled VWs...a 65 Beetle and a Dune Buggy only had one good 40 hp VW engine between them...I used to swap the engine with the seasons...took about an hour...
Back in 71 my cousin got a Mercury Capri with a 2.0L Ford OHC engine...it was quite a nice car and much nicer than any US built small car at the time...the ones we got here I think were built in Germany but the 1.6L engine was from England (Daganham? if I recall)

When gas got expensive.....then I got off the path of rightousness and went...small....80 Honda 1.3L....82 Mazda 2.0...88 Mazda 1.6L...89 Toyota 1.6 twin cam (fun but no low end)...got tired of my Japanese cars...went back to the domestic stuff...98 Jeep 4.0 six....simple torquey but not fast...finally back to the V-8...Hemi 5.7...FAST...FUN...and if you drive like a normal person...not much worse consumption than the old tech 4.0 (designed by AMC in the 60s...built for 40 years in the same plant in Kenosha Wisconsin)...The Hemi is like having a little monster under your right foot...that you have to keep contained most of the time.....

When you grow up in the muscle car era...twin cams and high tech V-6s while they are just as fast...just don't have the sound or feel of a V-8....maybe if I ever repower my old FW...I'd drop a 383 small block in there....

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Me 3... started working on my own cars in ~1976. Dad never paid to have a car fixed unless it was something like tire mounting. I spent every minute looking over his shoulder (thanks Dad!) and soaking up all the knowledge I could. I did pretty much everything on my '75 Camaro, '84 Trans Am, '88 Grand Caravan, my wife's '70 Grand Prix (what a rocket), '87 Buick Regal, and then we started having kids and I tried to build a career. At some point I decided my time was more valuable than what it would cost to have someone else do it. It hasn't been until the last year or so that I've begun to miss turning a wrench now & then.

As to synthetic oil, I agree about it being overkill in a boat, but I've come to the conclusion that it's such a better lubricant (generally) that I've switched everything to it. Even my lawn mower. So I put the VP oil in the boat 1) to eliminate one more reason for a warranty denial and 2) because "that's what I do."

I also agree on closed cooling, I think every boat should have it.



Young guys just don't understand when you try to tell them about how the old cars had souls. And they all had stories to tell.

Remember when all the cars used 10W-40, and pouring it in the winter was almost as bad as STP? Remember when an automatic tranny would last forever with no maintenance, but the rest of the car was shot at 80K miles?

_________________


Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

Yeah....and NOW, I wouldn't put it in ANYTHING!!!

_________________
1987 Four Winns Liberator 211, formerly OMC 460 King Kobra powered, replaced in 2006 by a 1997 Mercruiser 454/Bravo III

Mike I am actually self taught because my parents were city people originally and we didn't have a car till we moved out of NYC (Brooklyn NY) and up to the suburbs (Westchester County) in the late 60s...I learned some from a good friend whose Dad was the shop foreman in a local Ford dealer...they had all kinds of cool cars in their family...he drove around in a 1956 Ford Crown Vic station wagon with a flathead V-8...and when we were in high school he built a 23 T-Bucket hot rod from a kit...302 Ford..C-4 auto trans and Ford 9" rear...very cool car...he had the T-bucket and I had the Dune Buggy...it was built from a 1956 VW Beetle and I had to rewire the whole thing (easy only about 10 circuits!) to make the lights work....got a harness from JC Whitney (remember them!)...I still do all my own oil changes...tune ups...brakes...etc...in fact that is why I may stick with a sterndrive because modern outboards are mega $$ and beyond the backyard mechanic.....

Another good friend bought a 1970 Chevelle SS 396 when we were seniors in HS (72/73) ...they were cheap then...just a used car so you could pick up good ones for 2 grand or so...he put in a Hurst shifter and we used to cut out of HS and he would teach me powershifting on side streets...we had a village police dept and if both police cars were in one place....you could burn a little rubber without getting nailed...as long as the state police were not passing thru....that car scared the !@#$ out of me more than once....
just like the lyrics of 'Shut Down' by the Beach Boys...
gotta be cool... powershift here we go...........

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

JC Whitney... I used to buy new running boards for my '67 Beetle every 2 years from them - because that's as long as they lasted in the Kansas winters . We bought all kinds of stuff from them.

I still do all the oil changes & so forth on my truck, but on the Odyssey I let Honda do it all. That thing's like working on the space shuttle. It's also under warranty for 150K miles and it's worth it to me not to jeopardize that. Of course, I supply the oil - it gets Mobil1 like everything else around here except the boat .

When the tranny died on the '03 Odyssey, 10K miles beyond warranty, I learned the value of letting them do all the work. I pulled into their shop and told them the code it was throwing. Without the slightest question, they put us in an upgraded rental for a few days while they replaced the transmission at zero total cost to us. For that kind of service, they can change my oil.

_________________


Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

yep I heard Honda was good about covering those even after the warrantee ran out...that's something the domestic makers need to understand...We have a friend with an Acura that had a trans failure at 94000 miles and they covered it!

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

To be fair, in the case of the Odyssey transmissions I think it was a case of "recall avoidance." Still if it had been Ford they would have refused to cover it; if it had been GM they would've refused it and laughed at me; and if it was Chrysler they would've refused it and blamed me for it.

_________________


Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

Don't start me on the Ford vs Japanese cars as far as warranty is concerned; my wife's Mazda 3 wheels started to corrode slightly at 34 months into the 36 month warranty; changed without question. My Ford alloy wheels started to corrode at 13 months into the 36 month warranty; not covered after 12 months, " as they are a trim item" ( I thought they were a pretty essential mechanical part of any car, but Ford know best!). Ironic, as I believe Ford still own Mazda!

Graham