t2BDetermined

OK, lets see your vote for the best "Bang for your buck," stock, performance-car from the 90's?

Make sure you back up your choices folks........

OooThatsSharp

Hmmm. great question. So many great cars came out of the 90's. (and trucks as well - who could forget the Cyclone and Typhoon, but the question here is CARS, not trucks or suvs, so forget those). Then there are some cars that never made it to the states. The Mitsubishi Evo's, Subaru WRX's, Porsche 959, and the dominating 22b STi (for all you performance nuts, we're talking a car that put out 290hp from 2.2 liters - thats 131hp per liter. Eat your heart out S2000).

Personally, I feel the best bang - for - the - buck car from the 90's - the 1999 Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-spec. Right aroud 327 actual horsepower. 4 wheel drive. Sub 5 second 0-60 times. Mid 13's in the 1/4 mile. Can handle turns in the wet and dry like its on rails. Not to mention the fact that if you bought one of these bad boys, you could probably sell it now for more than you paid for it, so it holds as a good investment.

Now please, I don't want to hear a bunch of "If you slapped a supercharger on the Cobra, it would eat the Skyline alive." or "My buddy has a '95 Civic with nitrous and a turbo that does 0-60 in like 3 seconds, and pulls low 11's in the 1/4" I don't care. Think stock cars here, people. No mods. No bolt ons. Bone stock.

kwicslvr

Funny you mention that because that is a very impressive amount for that size. It made me realize that the solstice GXP will be making 130hp/L also when it comes out in spring.

suhhh

But then again, you can't compare the Evo and sti's forced induction engines to the s2000's naturally aspirated engine. Naturally aspirated, there aren't many cars that can beat the s2000 hp/l, unless it's rotary.

kwicslvr

But there are a butt ton of cars that will beat the s2000 in ft-lbs/l

Scibox

GTI 1.8t and VR6...

Scibox

Integra Type-R and BMW M3

corey415

Actually the s2000 has a pretty high ft-lb/liter ratio, if you do the math. It's just that it comes up high in the rev range.

tCb00b

iTrader: (1)

E36 BMW M3.
I forget where I read it but a magazine rated it "best handling car, ever!"
But it also has other attributes that make it a best bang for your buck from the 90's.

Shoe_Here

1996 Mitsu Eclipse GST. amazing car. The GSX also owned with the AWD yet it weighed quite a bit more than the GST. Mitsubishi needs to bring back that body style. They are hurting without having a great Eclipse on the market.

Fushyuguru

I saw this thread and said "If they didnt put the Mazda FD3S 13B-REW on there, I will quit the forums."

255 rotary hp, one of the most balanced chassis ever created (to this day), and 186+mph stock.

If you've ever raced a tuned 13B, or heard a build 20B 3-rotor, you know it's a different breed. Your piston concept of hp goes out the window with a rotary because believe ot or not, 400 whp rx7's tend to kill piston cars with almost double the hp due to the radically differnt engine mechanics and power delivery.

Flat torque curve? Brrrrap Brrrrap Brrrrap!

tCb00b

iTrader: (1)

Let me know what it sounds like when the apex seals fail. Just kidding A friend at work has a silver FD3 and it is hot. I love the looks of those cars. I just its just something about making left turns and blowing stuff up that turns me away from them. But whatever motor is in the 787B racecar, is one hot rotary. It sounds like nothing else.

Scibox

^^^ same with the eclipse gs-t and gs-x...turning left+ no clutch pedal pressure= CRANKWALK. That's why I got rid of my gs-t.

Basstrack17

from personal experience, i'd have to lean towards the 3000 vr-4. When I sold cars in the early 90's, I was lucky enough to work at an import dealership ( Mistu, Mazda, BMW, + the 3 german siblings ). The 1st gen Eclipse gsx's were a blast to drive, mine showing several of the area kids in their stang gt's what the **** end looked like. That was the best performance/value I could find at the time. Until the vr4 rolled off the truck for the first time. Great off the line runs, nice cornering ( for a big boy ), and all the "weekend racer" toys you'd want ( active spoilers, exhaust cut-out, 4-wheel steering, etc ). Half the price of the Carrera on the lot, and similar performance. Yes the Porsche was in a different class, but class isn't always worth an extra 30 grand. For someone looking for a hot runner for a fair price--that first vr4 was hard to beat.

hotbox05

I don't see how no one's voted for the 300zx.

Skunk

As a previous 300zx owner, I'll admit I voted for the FD. Simply because it's more of a performance car than the 300zx is. Of the 4 Japanese supercars, the Z really isn't the best at anything, it's just really great at everything. The FD was the real all out track performer. But you know, ten years or so later, in a world where FD's blow apex seals, used Supras cost more than new cars, and VR-4s blow pieces of their transmission into geosyncronous orbit, the 300zx is the best deal on wheels. Finance-wise, I'd actually rather get another 300zx TT, but my dream car remains the FD.

t2BDetermined

I guess it's time for me to put my .02 in. I'll admit right off the bat, I'm not too familiar with the Japanese cars listed here. I do know the RX-7s can be twitchy on reliability if driven hard and not properly cared for. I also think Supra TTs were, and still are, way overpriced for what you got stock. Hmmm, I thought the above comment on the M3 was interesting. I have driven both a 95 two-door and 98 four door and both cars were absolutely amazing from a drivers standpoint. However, I don't think they have the punch, stock anyways, to keep up with most cars on this list. However, they would be great at the track........hmmmmmm, but most of us would spend more time in these on the road rather than at the track..... ZR-1 was too pricey to, although extremely quick.....Damn, this is hard.

I'd have to go with the Camaro I think (I know I'm going to get crap for this one). You could get into an z-28 for around 26K. Get great straight line performance. Although auto-x performance is definitely lacking compared to the Japanese cars here, I think the price/reliability of the Camaro would kind of make up for it. Plus, I'm a V8 kinda guy...... I will tell you, I've ridden in an RX-7 TT, and it's one of the only cars that SCARED me.....in a good way!

Just don't know if I'd want to spend my money on that car without knowing how to properly care for a rotary......

Fushyuguru

They don't make the usual piston "hammer against the wall" ping noise. Generally it's just a loss of compression, step on the gas and the engine bogs. Then you shut the engine off and it wont start again.

The R26B is an awesome engine, too bad almost the entire engine was banned from Le Mans competition (Peripheral Ports and variable ITB's). I think they could have come up with a better way to cap rotaries than banning the tech behind the powerplant. It's not Mazda's fault that a 2.6 liter rotary makes 900hp when everone else is making 600hp. I'm designing the intake on my 20B project off the R26B.

...and sorry about your buddy who starved his engine he must have had one of the early tanks.

Big thing with rotaries is the owners don't know what they have, how it works, how it's different than a piston engine, and what caveats there are.

It's not a like a piston engine where you have the luxury of the ping'ing fudge factor while tuning. You have to actually know how to tune a rotary otherwise you'll be the laughing stock, rebuilding that thing a couple times before you get it right. However today with such advanced knock-sensor timing retards built into most aftermarket ecu's you stay outta the grey pretty easy.

Just take the difference between a gas engine and a diesel. It's not a gas engine, and if you treat as such when tuning you're going to break something. Know your engine. But were getting away from ourselves, I can talk mod/tuning all day about rotors.

The FD just like any other piston car on the road is just as reliable as any other car on the road when it came out. The majority of reliability issues with the FD stemmed from 4 factors in the tuning world (because almost every stock FD you come across for sale today, has never been rebuilt):

1. Pre-Cat - One of the very first things to replace with a downpipe on any FD. This part was out of spec with the stock engine, would burn out prematurely with the high heat of rotory exhaust throwing slag into the subsequent parts, and when it was working, promoted heat soak in engine components.

2. Intercooler Sizing - Quite small for it's application. Fine for daily/highway driving. Under hardest driving, not good enough, causing yet again, heat issues in many components. So the drag/street/road racers frequently burnt out parts (normally the pre-cat first).

3. Tuners - Everyone thought they could tune an FD. Little did the young tuners of the world understand that the stock FD ECU did not swing the fuel map to compensate for mild mods. Throw a downpipe, free-flowing exhaust and an intake on an FD and you have yourself a dangerously lean condition.

4. Ping - Piston people who bought rotaries, weren't afraid of Ping, and Ping blows seals. You may get away with 1-2 if youre lucky, but most arent lucky. So the solution, just don't Ping! Stay safe, it's just that easy.

Individually these aren't big issues. However admittedly most tuners of the world are young kids who don't do their research and with such a different machine as a rotary engine, each one of these could lead to someone jumping on the badwagon and saying "hey, rotaries arent reliable." when the fix or prevention is easy.

Fushyuguru

BTW, if you didn't know I've been working on a 20B project for a while now. If you haven't heard what a big displacement N/A rotary sounds like, here is a clip from another RX&-club members n/a 3-rotor:

http://media.putfile.com/LogansFDsmaller

Mine is being built with an intake featuring variable length individual velocity stacks sucking from a tuned plenum. This should bring a very flat torque curve, maximum VE at every rpm, with about a 3.5-4000rpm wide power band. A massive bridgeport, lightened S5 high compression rotors, improved oil delivery, blah blah blah. Altogether with some other tweaked internals and a tuned exhaust would put the plant in the 400+ whp range. If you know rotaries, you know that should hang with 600-800whp cars, while running on 89 octane.

Ok, no more thread jacking.

Skunk

He nailed most of it right on the head, although FD's have some other mild long term reliability issues. Vacuum lines, high underhood temperatures (rotaries are quite toasty), relatively poor oil/coolant cooling.