SAmadei

Our automobile emissions are no longer that big of a deal, though it would be nice to eliminate idling while sitting in traffic. Just as you say, emissions are not local, so something needs to be done about the other 90-odd 3rd world countries... not the US. Of course, the US needs to stop allowing companies to buy pollution credits to offset smokestack emissions. Sure, some smokestacks have gotten cleaner... but not enough. We want clean air... fix the 3rd world countries and smoke stacks. You know, we could have cleaned up a lot of air by trading the C4C cars for the wrecks bumping around polluting the 3rd world.

I haven't seen much of this trend. Sure, years ago I thought steel wheels with a poverty cap where kinda cool. But the old school concave steel wheels looked a lot cooler, IMHO than todays flat or slightly convex steel wheels with a bunch of holes punched into the wheel to lighten it.

Shouldn't be too hard. If its like my dumpbody, the sides can be removed, and it could be a stake body dump. Mine is more modern... and the stuff is just bolted to the frame... but it is likely very heavy. I have investigated removing the dumpbody and installing a roll back... but I fear my chassis is too short. You might have to hop to get it... $300 is dangerously close to scrap value. It would be a shame if it was scrapped.

Where I grew up, we used to make a left turn into our driveway... on a fairly major highway... where a lot of people tend to be on autopilot... or they would assume we were turning left on the side street 300 ft further up... so we used to watch the rear view like a hawk for people not seeing us as we waited for oncoming traffic to clear. This is where I learned for the first time that having a faster car could be a safety consideration. There were several times where the left turn into our driveway had to be aborted and we accelerated away to avoid being rear ended. To this day, I still watch the rear view constantly... I don't like being the last car stopped in a line of traffic... and I don't like when I don't have a shoulder or other space to move into. Moving onto the center median has saved me at least two hard rear enders... one where they blew through a red light and one where they plowed into the car in front of me. As far as that video goes... well, I understand the rules of physics, so nothing really new here. I do take some exception to one snippet of video used... the car flying into the toll plaza. That happened quite close to where I live... and the driver likely was dead before they hit the toll plaza. IIRC, the driver had a heart condition and the car was seen wandering lane to lane and never slowed coming to the toll plaza... it is believed the driver had a heart attack while the car had the cruise control on. They really need to add the flying Firebird into the bridge video... that actually belongs in there...

Honestly, we're not trying to rub it in.

No... the solution is to fix the problem. Its not that hard. You had a year of Auto Tech? That more than I ever had. I have 20 years of having to fix it by the size of the road in the pouring rain... with only two tools... and no money. You ONLY build self confidence and learn how to fix cars be getting your hands dirty. Driving it until it goes critical mass don't make sense. You're going to find another $4K for another car 3 months from now? So you'll be out a drivable car for either a couple days now... or a few months later. A stitch in time saves nine. But if you fix it now, its worth more if you come across a good trade or buyer. DF and all are trying to help because we all have learned from our mistakes... and we feel you are making a mistake rejecting the best solution. 1000s of 12 year old Camaros will be sold this year to happy buyers. Mostly irrelevant. She drove stick... so she's already ahead of the bulk of the driving public. Irrelevant. Like everyone else. Irrelevant. Could be relevant... used car lots are good at hiding mechanical issues. "Look! It has fresh oil!" So it still have half its usable life. Mostly irrelevant. Relevant... you like somewhat rare cars typically beat to death by their owners. That's the price of uniqueness. What if you only liked driving the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile... but it turns out all the Weinermobiles on the market have literally a million miles on them and are severely clapped out. Well, you better have lots of money or good mechanical skills to drive a Weinermobile.

KBB is only an estimate... real world numbers are totally different. I've never paid KBB. Looking at ONLY '98 Camaros on my CL, there are 3 over your price... all are SS/Z28 or seriously modded. 3 are below your price... $3800 for a V6 5spd with half your mileage... $2100 V6 5 spd... and $1500 for a convertible V6 with a tap. Also a '99 V6 with 66K for $3900! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in its current condition, its worth about $1400, because the money you dumped into it has little bearing on its current value if the engine needs major repair. Sure, you might unload it on a sucker for much more, but you have to find the sucker. ANY milkiness in the oil is a bad sign. And yes, you do have a nightmare on your hands because the buyer can see the other car was totaled. For the current sale, you are aware of a problem and are hoping someone buys the car at nearly KBB. If the engine fails and they learn you knew this beforehand, its fraud. A mechanic will give you $500 bucks for it, tops. They can get stuff like this all day. He'll spend a day fixing it with $50 in parts and will turn around and sell it for $3000. Not a bad days work. Its the law of supply and demand. In this society were 99% of the people can't CHECK their oil, let alone change it, NOBODY wants a broken car.

Bait.... and Switch... there is no Monte.

Its time for someone to buy the infamous white Honda Accord and start trolling WK's Craigslist ads. Then when he shows up for that mint $1000 Monte Carlo with 33K miles, do a bait and switch. Bring us the video... let him keep the car.

Soylent Green. Buy stock in Soylent Corp now, 2022 is right around the corner.

I have a bunch of these... but I'll just include one for now... The idea that everything new automatically trumps whats old. Newer! Better! Faster! Too bad most new crap today is cheaply made and engineered to not last, work poorly, buggy, or perform less that what is expected. Sure, some new things are great... but most is not. This goes from cells phone that reboot constantly to wireless routers that constantly freeze to cars that struggle to get fuel economy similar to cars 20 years older...

At some point in vehicle shrinkage, the American public will turn on the EPA and CAFE. You can't just shove everyone into Sparks. We'll turn into a Cuba... driving 50 year old patched together cars, so that people can fit and fit their stuff. Personally, I feel the crackdown on cars and driving will limit out mobility and eventually finish off any hope of growing the economy.

I love Dwight's over the top tech descriptions. I would imagine with modern OEM computers, an OEM Nitrious Oxide could be controlled to the point where the system is not running too rich or lean... and the catalytic would take care of the pollutants that didn't burn. As far as it being illegal as an emissions issue, with the EPA/DEP making areas outlaw idling for more than three minutes, the automakers will be flaunting the law in the same way unless the car shuts itself off after 3 minutes of idle. Not really true... a lot of NOS kits really should keep the bottle physically closed with a shutoff in the trunk. They have remote shutoffs, but they can fail. In any case, you have four stages to "prove" a violation: full bottle in trunk... bottle in trunk with a non-remote valve open... Armed... actually used. Following SEMA and enthusiast publications, it seems the only level where NOS is outlawed is local stuff. I've never heard any state outlaw NOS. Most of what I've seen is on par with Hyper's last post.

I'm sure that market is drying up REAL quick. They only made 30K a year of those, and that included all the 3.8 ones. The few with low mileage like that are going to demand good money. Better start looking at the F5 Camaro. People talk a good game about maintenance, but I don't know hardly anyone nowadays that follows it that closely. Many people who regularly buy new don't give a crap... they know its the next person's problem. And replacing the DexCool with more DexCool doesn't really fix this problem, anyway. Changing you oil regularly doesn't solve the intake problem. Personally, I feel some of the maintenance items are put in the book to help the OEM fight warranty issues. Changing your oil every 3000 miles only helps the oil companies make more money. The problems you've mentioned are typical problems... for a 3.8 Camaro or a 3.8 Monte Carlo. I've heard 10x the number of stories from the 3.4, where the intake gaskets fail disastrously, at low mileage... 35K and lower. You've already made your decision on this car. Turn the page and get something else so we can 'told ya so' and post Honda Accord pictures on that thread. ;-) Not in my experience. Sounds like your coolant might be a bit low. It should have stayed around 180... 160 sounds like it has a colder thermostat. Thats not a good sign. Especially coupled with coolant loss. The clock is ticking on this, even if the car is not driven. You either fix the intake gaskets immediately and flush the oil or the engine will be a write off in short order. Its rare for a 3.8 to have head gaskets issues, but you might want to get the head gaskets checked for leakage, as well. It would doubly suck to change the intake gaskets to find the head gaskets were the problem. Pulling an engine out of a Camaro will make changing the intake gaskets look like changing a light bulb.

Sorry to go OT, but outside of a few jurisdictions, why is NOS illegal for road use? Its just another form of forced induction. A few people out there are burning biodiesel, Propane, water/methanol injection... even woodgas. Why not laughing gas? Granted, what it does may result in legal violations (Speeding, Exhibit of Speed, Burnouts), but not the Nitrous Oxide. Granted, its not really CARB certified... but a lot of stuff don't fall under that. I agree that the automakers would never install it... its too risky from a PR standpoint and from a warranty standpoint. I also agree that he was talking about the Equinox. ;-)

Well, again, I acknowledge there are differences between the RWD and FWD 3800s... but its mostly about how the accessories are put and the RWD intake puts the TB at the front of the engine where it belongs... and that the rear of the engine is hard to work on... but there is nothing in those links that radically different then when I did the job. I still maintain that it can be done by a shade tree mechanic in a day to a day and a half. Yeah, and that's why Dex-Cool gets removed and the Prestone any-color gets put in to my cars. I thought you knew about the coolant leakage issues. Again, I recommend blocking the coolant to the upper intake and TB... it helps warmup emissions a tiny bit... but screws performance. Plus blocking the coolant at the lower intake eliminates the coolant problems at the EGR stovepipe. The intake gasket is one big gasket that spreads across to both heads. There really is no 'all' to worry about. Also, you WILL break the coolant elbows, so buy two new ones. Its fairly unlikely to hydrolock the engine. In general, the coolant leaks into the oil and destroys the bearings. Then you would be on the hook for a LS1 engine swap... $$$ So you're not buying any more F-bodies. Cue Honda Accord photo. Seriously, the 3.8 is _VERY_ reliable. If it wasn't seeping, I'd say change out the Dex-Cool and forget it. On my 3800, I found a small amount of coolant in the intake at 130K... at 196K I decided to fix it... turns out my intake gaskets were not bad... and the EGR stovepipe area was weak, but holding. The slight leak turned out to be the gasket between the TB and upper. I still had to do all the work, as the intake and TB was caked in oil from the PVC valve. 229K and counting now.

Five days for an intake gasket on a 3.8? Thats crazy... unless your turning the bolts with your bare hands. If a shade-tree puts his mind to it, its a 1 day job at the worse 1.5 if you need to parts chase. I realize the F-body 3.8 is slightly different to cope with than a FWD application, being tucked up underneath of the windshield... but thats a wash concerning the issues of having the coolant elbows jammed between the belts and too close to the wheelwell. Drain the coolant. Unpressurize the fuel system. Unplug and label your electrical/vacuum. Pull the TB off... Pull the fuel rail. Pull the upper intake. Pull the lower intake. Clean up surfaces and reverse to put it back together. Now some mods may slow you down... While your at it you should block the coolant to the TB. Eliminates heating the TB too much and some leak possibilities. Also get the good aluminum gaskets. Finally, the EGR cooks the plastic intake gasket... The F-body set up might be different, bu tin any case, there are repairs you can do to fix that problem, by using a newer replacement intake or by getting a different EGR stovepipe. My top half repairs took about 10 days to do... but I was replacing a lot more... water pump, wires, spark plugs, oil, tranny fluid and filter, etc. I started one day... got 7 days of rain before I finished, so I consider that a 2.5 day job overall of actual work.

Your area of Jersey must have a better track record than ours out towards the shore. We have had a series of bridge upgrades in the last 10 years... but before that, it was pretty dire. Even today, the bridges that make up Ocean Drive in Cape May are pretty awful. Beesley's Point bridge has been closed down for about 4 years now... I worry more about the small bridges... ones that you barely notice you are driving over. I've seen quite a few of these from underneath and its scary. Just because they slather the top with some asphalt, they aren't necessarily safe. For example... there are the bridges on Rt 559 near Weymouth furnance. They covered them with asphalt... but to view the one bridge over the sluice way from the side... you can see where they propped up the banks of the bridge abutments with sandbags... then just paved over it! And the other bridge over the main river has collapsed into the river at least twice in the last 15 years. They recently fixed it... but its a rare type of bridge, protected on the national register, IIRC... and driving over it is an adventure. The lanes are crooked, too narrow with little guardrail. And whatever is below the fresh asphalt must be a disaster, as the new asphalt always rips up in a short time. They are constantly lowering weight limits or lanes to keep the bridges from being overstressed. Or temporarily closing the whole bridge... happened to the 9th Street bridge into Ocean City a couple times recently. I generally agree... but in some areas of the northeast, its called for... the bridges are disasters. Drive over the Brooklyn Bridge late at night and observe the roadway sag... its kinda scary.

After thinking more about this idea... I think a smaller version of this bus would be a great solution as a car. Then you could pass cars by driving over top of them... and you could park on top of cars. Win-win. ;-)

That would be great. You could build it somewhere out in the middle of nowhere in virgin earth when nobody has buried 130 years worth of convoluted electrical, communication, plumbing and HVAC lines. In 1904 they built a major portion of the original Manhattan NYC subway system in a bit over 3 years with pick axes. In 2010 they have been working on ONE line for 40 years and it won't be completed for about 2 decades more, even with the benefit of 4 giant boring machines. That's progress. Then you can walk 4 stories into the ground to get to it... due to the need to get below the infrastructure. There are buses galore in Manhattan (and other cities) BECAUSE they can't built subways in a timely manner.

Well, I've recently been in NYC gridlock after a Tractor Trailer hit a bus and then got wedged so it couldn't get out. Nothing new here, really. Current buses aren't all that strong... you see tour buses on the Parkway peeled open all the time. In this case, I personally think the tracks and wheels should be recessed into the ground. That way, if a few supports are compromised, the entire platform doesn't fall, as the remaining legs can't pull out of the ground. Also, by putting the tracks and wheels out of harms way, people are less likely to get actually crushed in the tracks or electrocuted... assuming the power source is electric... the "third rail" could be well below the ground surface. Supports should be redundant and of a design that either breaks away or provides energy absorption, but not at the cost of compromising structural integrity. The platform should be higher than any usual traffic... tractor trailers included. Just my thoughts.

If its build large enough, it will seem like a large moving platform... at least twice bus width. Claustrophia is the Japanese subway system...

I disagree. Current buses are a mobile traffic constrictor. You can only run so many of them because they block up standard two lane/two way roads... and in NYC, they get bunched up so thick, there are no place for them to sit while waiting for sync up with the scheduled stops. I see buses 2-3 thick just sitting there waiting sometimes. I think this is genius. To me, if this is built on permanent tracks, its like one of those light duty rail/trolley systems some towns have now driving alongside traffic... but this takes up negligible space. Granted, there are safety issues, but people crash into buses all the time, as well... here the people are safety up high outta harms way. I imagine there is also the issue of how easily it would be to lay out the tracks... in an organic city, like lower Manhattan, the roads curve too much... too little space... unless the buses and its supports are extremely articulated, it wouldn't work. And the more articulated, generally the less strength the supports can have. OTOH, a very rigid buses on arrow straight tracks through the grid portions of NYC would work great. You could run more buses and maybe get more ridership. Of course, I'm sure once these would get critical mass, however, people would start complaining that they block out the sky or something.

My sister's '69 Firebird with lots of miles aced the emissions requirements for 1992 cars. Pollution controls have reined in exhaust emissions, but nowhere near what people like to think. Meanwhile the big corporations avoid cleaning their stacks even one bit if possible. Of course, keeping that particular car in that state of tune was another story... alot of screws and components were loose and it would, uh, self-adjust.

As I said, its part of a three-way squeeze... but I think it can't be trivialized. The person wanting the '89 DeVille had to stretch and buy a '95. The guy who would have bought a '95 Caddy had to buy a '03 Buick Lucerne. The person who would have bought that took an '08 Malibu out of the market. Its a domino effect. Its just more obvious with trucks.