I recently took a trip to St. Anthony, Iowa (town motto “Iowa’s Butthole”) to buy my dream car. For those of you unfamiliar with St. Anthony (that would be everyone but the 102 people that resided there at the time of the 2010 census), it was originally named after Anthony, the Patron Saint of Upside-Down Cars in Your Front Yard. It is Iowa’s #1 destination for buying cars off of Craigslist and also potentially getting murdered by people rejected from the casting call for a bad horror film for looking “too stereotypically redneck”. This is that story. Not the horror movie story, the car-buying story. Read More
Category: Engine swaps
Fünf Null Part II: Picking the Donor –or- “People on the internet are universally the worst”
I established in my previous post the guiding parameters in choosing my next project: Lightweight. V8. Manual transmission. Rear-wheel-drive. Practical. Simple. Comfortable. Nimble. Cheap. Some of these features could be added in through modifications, but the core values needed to be in place on whatever donor I chose to either “modify” or “molest”, depending on how highly you regard the engineering prowess of auto manufacturers 20 years ago, all of whom were coming down from their decade-long coke binge in the ’80s and who also didn’t give a rip about their current jobs because their retirements were invested in Enron so what did they have to worry about?
Project Fünf Null Part I: Introduction
It’s much easier to start with something lightweight and nimble than try and strip a heavier car and sacrifice comfort and practicality. A conversion to rear-wheel-drive is way beyond the scope of what I want to take on in my own garage (at least for now…). But an engine and/or transmission swap is common enough and certainly doable in my garage. And I knew I’d have to take the mindset of a broke man looking for a hooker; to find one at my price, it would have to have some miles, some issues, or both.
With those guiding principles in place, it was time to begin the hunt at the number one location for honest, reliable, trustworthy sellers of goods that are totally not stolen, and also I don’t know why there’s still a piece of Buick interior trim dangling from this car stereo, but do you have cash or not: Angie’s List. Wait, no. Craig. That guy’s list.
So what to search for? Surprisingly enough, my first choice was the RX-8. It ticked all of my boxes:
- Under 2900lbs stock
- RWD
- Universally praised chassis
- Odd rear suicide doors making the rear seats mildly accessible and actually capable of holding a miniature human being.
This was convenient because I’ve recently, through no little fault of my own, been placed in charge of one such miniature human being, forcing me to make many lifestyle changes, including making a nursery out of the room that used to house my collection of antique cans full of leaded paint. Fortunately, the only cans that spilled were gender-neutral colors so I didn’t even have to repaint the room.
But enough about that pesky child endangerment charge I beat, back to the RX-8 and its glorious rear suicide doors.
You must be under 36″ to ride this ride. Photo: rx8club.com, super duper love you guys!
“They’re still pretty expensive,” you say because you are a highly astute reader that spends far too much time browsing Autotrader, Craigslist, and eBay Motors; so much so that you’re actually familiar with the current retail price of used sporty cars. Here’s the hilarious thing about the RX-8: The engine is terrible. I mean, 240hp driving 2900lbs. sounds decent, right? Nope. That horsepower peak comes at 8200rpm which means all of the power is totally unusable in day to day driving unless you wring it out like an auto-erotic asphyxiationist on a lonely Friday night. And by design, the engine burns more oil than a mid-90s Chrysler product does by accident (we think). So if the engine is not meticulously maintained (or even if it is meticulously maintained since the rotary engine is a flawed design anyway), compression drops, the engine loses power and has trouble starting, and eventually it needs replaced. Because of this, at any given time you can buy any number of RX-8s that have trouble starting or don’t run at all for less than the cost of a kumquat. And since I don’t need the engine, that’s a perfect situation for me.
So it’s lightweight, cheap, practical – just about perfect, right? Well, almost. The biggest downside to the RX-8 is the members of its online community, who after reading my previous paragraph are all staring at their computer screens with beet-red faces and steam coming out of their ears like some kind of possibly racially-insensitive Warner Bros. cartoon character.
Yes, Yosemite Sam, please tell me about the Wankel’s superior power production per unit displacement while ignoring the words “Apex” and “Seals”.
Seriously – if you’ve ever wanted to roll your eyes so hard they risk falling out of the back of your head, read some threads about how we should actually expect the Renesis to be unreliable because it’s a highly tuned engine that’s perfect from the factory and common engine failures before 100,000 miles are a given from something this highly tuned, that revs to 9000rpm, and makes this much power *cough S2000 cough*. And then they’ll go on about its perfect weight balance and how they empty their pockets before driving because the weight of a cell phone and $0.48 in change would ruin that sublime balance and wreck the divine handling characteristics of the RX-8. Wait you want to put a DIFFERENT ENGINE IN THERE? You want to add A HUNDRED POUNDS TO THE FRONT OF THE CAR? BARBARIAN! HEATHEN! INFIDEL!
Sorry, give me a minute to find my eyes somewhere on the floor behind me, it may take a while because of my missing eyes. Also it’s weird how no one on the RX-8 boards complains about the 100+ pounds added when installing a turbo kit and intercooler and how that devastates the car. Just some food for thought.
ANYWHOODLES, the RX-8 was on my shortlist. Also on my shortlist – a Mercedes C-Class wagon, preferably the W203 generation which existed from 2000-2007. Not exactly a featherweight at ~3400lbs., it’s still on par with an SN-95 Mustang. I think it’s on the verge of a so-uncool-it’s-cool renaissance much like the 900-series Volvo wagons saw a few years ago, when hipsters realized they could house an entire free-range organic non-GMO CSA plot in back while simultaneously being somehow ironic about it and started buying up all of the old Volvos they could find.
This wagon is just about perfect: available in RWD form, fully capable of handling baby, home improvement, and daily driver duties, and the thought of this wagon emitting a loud-but-not-quite-obnoxious V8 roar tickles me in a way that usually only happens on Wednesday nights when I’m down to just my socks.
That’s why they’re called business socks.
The other bonus is that this model suffers from a severe (and aptly-named) case of It’s-Not-The-Newest-Model-Mercedes-Depreciation. Original MSRP was around $38,000 ($50,000 in 2015 dollars), but examples in perfect shape with just enough miles to scare away the weak at heart (or weak at wallet) can easily be found for under $5000 all day. Its biggest downside is complication – every system on the car is integrated, keyed to the car’s VIN, and designed to trigger eight million warning lights if any signal seems erratic, any system fails, or if a flea sneezes in Argentina. The car must then be taken to the dealer to have its warning lights reset at a cost of the GDP of Argentina only to repeat the process when the secondary air inlet backup vent indicator cooler motor drive sensor flap button fails the next week. Sure, at its core a car is a hulk of metal on wheels and can be forced to move irrespective of whether or not the body computers are happy, but if I’m going to live with it day to day, I want to stare at warning lights and deal with non-functional climate control about as much as I want to diagnose a failing secondary air inlet backup vent indicator cooler motor drive sensor flap button. Still, SHORTLIST.
And one more platform seemed to fit the bill: BMW 3-series, either the E36 (1992-1999) or E46 (2000-2005). Prices on the more-desirable E46 are still a bit high, but the E36 is getting reasonable. For practicality it could be had in a sedan or wagon, both of which were available with a manual transmission, easing the adaption of the donor running gear. The biggest downside of the more affordable E36 is, naturally, its affordability. Most of what fit into my budget has been neglected, abused, mistreated, and drift-missiled into a state such that it would look right at home sitting on its roof in front of the type of house whose most significant construction phase is when it’s backed into place and its wheels are removed.
Typical Craigslist E36: “Needs fuel pump, and also alignment.”
But that’s how life goes when you hang out with my good friend Craig and his venerable list. In the 1960s, Honda’s slogan in the US was “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.” I think Craigslist should use that as their motto, except replace “nicest” with “most terrifying”, “people” with “backwoods creatures” and “meet” with “will probably get murdered by”.
Typical Craigslist seller: “Keywords: Acura, Ferrari, Honda, VTEC, LED, HID, Pitbull, Taxidermy, 240sx, Raptor, Hemi, Turbo, Anal Fissures, Sport, Reliable, Luxury”
As we’ll find out in the next installment.
Project Fünf Null Part I: Introduction
Allow me to describe for you the perfect car: Lightweight. V8. Manual transmission. Rear-wheel-drive. Practical. Simple. Comfortable. Nimble. Cheap. The problem? A single car containing all of those elements doesn’t exist. That’s why I’m going to build it.
My initial plan was to do something completely scratch-built, like a Lotus 7 replica. Unfortunately that most certainly does not check the “comfortable” or “practical” boxes – if I want to be invisible to traffic, unable to carry anything larger than a box of Q-tips, and totally out in the elements I can ride a motorcycle.
And when a tiny human being decided that nine months inside of my wife was enough and he was going to propel his way out no matter what the modulus of elasticity of human flesh, the “practical” and “comfortable” boxes became much more important factors in finding something I could drive every day. So it looked like to get what I wanted, I would have to find a decent platform to start with, then modify it to meet my needs.
But what to use for a donor car? Let’s break down the requirements.
Lightweight
Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere. –Colin Chapman
Modern cars are getting heavier and heavier, and most people place the weight gain blame on additional safety features, like airbags. Which I don’t understand because how can LITERALLY BAGS OF AIR be responsible for making a modern midsize car tip the scales at roughly the equivalent of Europa? If a single human being sitting in the car causes it to weigh more than 4000lbs, call up Jenny Craig ‘cause YOU TOO FAT.
V8
Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine. -Elvis Presley
Since the day that Adam built his first flathead V8 in the Garage of Eden and Eve was all like, “I can’t believe you have that thing torn apart again, we’re totally the white trash of this neighborhood, I’m so embarrassed”, man has had a special relationship with the V8 engine. The exhaust rumble, the accelerative thrust, the manner in which the number and arrangement of cylinders maximizes displacement while maintaining a favorable bore to stroke ratio and reasonable mean piston speed for a decent redline allowing optimization of mean effective pressure while remaining compact and easy to package. It’s all very mystical – scientists have thus far failed to understand it.
Manual Transmission
“You have to have the flappy-paddle gearbox, which is annoying some of the time, like for instance when you park it. But the option is a six-speed manual which comes with a clutch pedal, and that means there’s nowhere to put your left foot. And that’s annoying all the time.” – Jeremy Clarkson
Growing up, discovering the Choose Your Own Adventure series was an epiphany. No longer was I subject to an author’s rigid adherence to a singular, coherent plotline. It didn’t matter that most of the time I made terrible decisions and everything went wrong and I ended up getting maimed or dying or accidentally shifting into fifth, I was CHOOSING MY OWN ADVENTURE. Hence, manual transmission.
Rear-wheel-drive
With rear-wheel drive the rear wheels drive the vehicle. – kbb.com
Just as God, Michael Schumacker, and Ricky Bobby intended. No making excuses for high drivetrain loss or difficulty launching AWD. No qualifiers about how it handles really well for a front-wheel-drive car. Just raw, unadulterated oversteer.
Practical
Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need. -Patrick Rothfuss
It’s gotta be a four door. Guys that try and carry their little kids around in a coupe are sad and obviously trying to cling to their last vestige of coolness before succumbing to full dad-ness. Not me. I’m embracing my dad-ness. I’m going to shave a bald spot onto my head, start wearing jorts, buy a bunch of sweatshirts for whatever professional sports team is closest to me, and start making hilarious puns like when someone says, “I’m gonna run to the store” I’ll be all like “You should probably drive you’ll get less tired HAHAHAHA.” Also I will ask my wife’s permission before buying anything more expensive than a Q-tip.
Simple
Egg whites are good for a lot of things – lemon meringue pie, angel food cake, and clogging up radiators. – Macgyver
No but seriously if it breaks down on the road and I can’t fix it with a hammer, a ball of twine, and a raw egg then it’s too complicated. If disconnecting the battery trips a warning light that requires a dealership visit to turn off, or if there is an entire computer dedicated just to the blinker function, or if every interior function is activated through a touchscreen interface that would make the guys who wrote the movie Primer go “Yo, this shit’s too complicated, dawg”, then I want no part of it.
Comfortable
The best fashion advice I’d say would be just to do what makes you comfortable and what makes you feel cute. -Ariana Grande
I’ve ridden my motorcycles in every sort of weather – searing heat and humidity, below zero temperatures, rain, wind, snow, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, minor asteroid impacts, etc. I have nothing left to prove to anyone, and at this point in my life I’d rather be clean, dry, comfortable, and not smelly. Also, due to the Destroyer of Ladybits and his inability to hang on at high speeds (my wife says that he’s only two and I shouldn’t expect that of him, I think she’s just covering for the fact that he got her weak arms), I’ll need to strap him down. And based on a few enlightening experiences which resulted in some minor jail time (Haha! Kidding! I just got probation.), I have come to realize that the most socially acceptable form of doing this is via a car seat. In a car.
Nimble
For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot. – Cate Blanchett
You know how when Windows first starts up and you try and open Chrome and then you’re not sure if Chrome actually opened because it doesn’t look like it’s doing anything but then after like 8 minutes you end up having 162 difference instances of Chrome suddenly pop up at once because at no point in time did Windows give you any indication of what was going on so you kept clicking on Chrome? I want the opposite of that. When people talk about having wonderful weight transfer and excellent mid-corner feedback and fantastic braking stability, I want to be all like, “Mmm. Yes. Quite. I know precisely what that’s like. Indeed.” Then I’ll adjust my monocle and take another sip of my port.
Cheap
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. -Thomas Paine
Since I typically go through my monthly Q-tip budget pretty quickly (I’m saving up my earwax to make candles), and since the day care mafia colluded to determine that the cost of having someone make sure my kid doesn’t die and also occasionally cleaning his butt should be LITERALLY MORE THAN COLLEGE TUITION, there’s not much left over for things like buying an entire car. So it will have to be done on the cheap.
Okay, so I admit that’s a pretty extensive list and maybe a little bit unreasonable. The closest any manufacturer comes to my “perfect car” are the G8, the CTS-V, and the E90 M3. While they each check most of my boxes, they all fail the 4000lb-with-just-a-driver test, and also the fix-with-a-ball-of-twine test. To meet those two requirements, I’ll have to start with something a little older, which will help me check the “cheap” box as well, something that none of the three aforementioned cars can do.
So follow along with me as I fulfill my automotive fantasies in a build series I call PROJECT FÜNF NULL – the name alone should give a good hint as to what I’m building if the title picture didn’t already give it away. Guesses are welcome in the comments.
I’ll be detailing everything from the purchase of the car and drivetrain, to custom ECU installation, Android tablet integration, suspension refreshing, and more. Unless my earwax candle business takes off.
If you like spoilers, follow me on Twitter @mikaelvroom and Instagram @mikaelvroom.
Next Installment:
Fünf Null Part II: Picking the Donor –or- “People on the internet are universally the worst”