There's one area the rice burners are engineered differently than American muscle cars particularly, and that's tolerances. Those jap cars can burn 85 octane gas and used to require 20W-50 motor oil, so they're obviously designed to run on junk anyway. They thought they'd be really smart and not have a transmission filter, instead using "fill-for-life" tech and blind faith. Sure you can beat the living crap out of an import, but if you wanna fix it after you're done, you will be looking for a low-rate loan. Here is the key to all of this. Most people LEASE cars only for about 3 years, in which time they will put on about (let's be realistic) 40-50k miles, then they trade them in for another. They're not reliable, they just have NO power -- which in turn creates a lot less stress for the powertrain to handle -- and have a lot more room for error. Ever sit in a Civic and watch the revs that thing does before a shift??? It's insane! Oh well, guess if you spin anything fast enough it'll make *some* power.
I'll put my hand on the table here, too. My '87 5.0L notchback has 116K on it with the only mods being a higher stall converter, 3.73 gears, a shift kit, and a MAF conversion. I'll be completely honest about the transmission: I have rebuilt it, and I found out it was rebuilt two or three times before that. Those 2 or 3 times were all in the same year, so obviously somebody didn't know what they were doing. When I rebuilt it, the TCI converter is actually what blew up, though the TV grommet was trash when I bought the car. Stupid things done to AODs is what kills them is my point. She's holding up fine now, even after repeated street races.
The engine hasn't been touched except for taking off the upper intake to clean it out...hey, I'm a clean freak when it comes to my engine!
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Capri306, Moderator, The Mustang Works Online
1979 Mercury Capri, 5.0L -- C4 -- 2.73
1987 Mustang LX Notch