Build Thread 1978 Fairmont. I bet somebody back home’s thinkin’…I wonder why he don’t write..?

Raining all day. When it isn’t raining, the roads are still wet. This’ll have to be a test for another day. Sunday looks to be the next best bet.
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Everything went together just like it came off the car, despite the fact that I completely cut the axles tube ends off. I did discover that there was a 3/8” difference in ride height at the rear, with the passenger side being that much higher. Potentially, there may have been some chassis preload there that “may” have been part of the reason the rear of the car wanted to race the front end under really hard first and second gear acceleration.
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Ill find out the next time i get out with it.

The sidewalls on these tires are just as stiff as any other street tire, MOF, they may be even more so. If these things are gonna enhance traction, it’s gonna come purely as a result of a softer tread compound…And I didn’t find them to be any softer using the fingernail test than the Sumi’s.
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I’ll bet they freakin smoke like your old 2 pack a day Aunt Ethel on your moms’ side of the family. But they do look all kinds of good back there.

The Little Japanese Kid wasnt singing like he normally does when he's out with me on a road trip. MOF, he wasn’t singing at all. I figured when I relocated the amp wires, I must’ve neglected to hook up the trigger wire……And after poking around, that turned out to be the case. Fixing that required I remove the head unit in order to get to that wire.
Now he’s back to his normal self again,..singin his little ass off…Too bad a video doesn’t adequately convey sound quality. I‘d post him up.
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Help! Ive fallen, and I can’t get back up!

*Seemed appropriate to me.
 
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For about 3 seconds I was thinking a few days ago, “ I wonder if I shoulda just got another 250, and did what needed to be done to the block so that I could transfer over all the internals from the old engine”…

Then I woke up.

As good as that thing looked when it was together, it was a ticking time bomb at the power level I was asking of it. The guy that bought that head probably came to terms with the fact that the bottom end prep to make it fit was so extensive, he had a reality check that bitch slapped him forward then backwards about a dozen times, and decided to bail.
 
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A 2021 330…

When you’re an employee…BMW offers these things at a “ I’d be stupid not to do this“ lease.

47k msrp….394.00 monthly…And these cars, are freakin awesome as daily drivers….

My best friend is a huge BMW guy. A lease is where you make a full car payment, but it ends up being rent right? I love new BMWs, because they come with a warranty, and since they are always broken down, you get to drive every car in the line up on a weekly basis. I've driven every single car BMW has ever made in the last 15 years!

Kurt
 
My best friend is a huge BMW guy. A lease is where you make a full car payment, but it ends up being rent right? I love new BMWs, because they come with a warranty, and since they are always broken down, you get to drive every car in the line up on a weekly basis. I've driven every single car BMW has ever made in the last 15 years!

Kurt
Now you know that’s bull sht right? If it’s such a bad car, why have you kept buying them? The warranty is only 4/50, not 15/150.
A lease is equivalent to paying the car down to where it’s actually worth what is owed…or what it’s actually worth at the end of three years. Unlike those that finance a car for 60-72 months thinking that they are “ buying” the car.

* Hint..At 60 months, you aren’t buying dick if you haven’t made payments to the bank that owns the car for at least 4 years. Only then will a trade appraisal come back with positive equity. Up until then, you are making payments,( to the bank that owns the car) trying to buy out your negative equity that happened the day you drove the new car off of the lot.

A lease is a different word for rent. just the same as leasing an apartment. And in the same vein that someone that leases an apartment doesn’t have to worry about upkeep, or repair, or what the place is worth when they decide to sell, an automotive lease shares all the same peace of mind, and lack of “I don’t give a fck, cause it’s not my car” at lease turn in time.
 
We lease my wife's car as she drives luxury cars (last was BMW, now Volvo) and I buy mine and pay off/keep for 6-8 years. My 2014 GT I paid off and drove for a few years with no payment, then traded on my GMC Sierra 1500 that I have now with tons of equity. My wife's last BMW on the other hand I'm very happy we leased as when we went to trade it in 2 months before the lease was set to expire we were told that it was worth $6-7k less than payoff so the lease protected us as we only had to make the final two payments and lease return fee instead of taking a big hit on the trade. Buying Vs Leasing isn't hard to figure out, and each have their place, but you have to know and understand your situation and play accordingly.

Car looks great Mike, can we get a tire smoke video?
 
For about 3 seconds I was thinking a few days ago, “ I wonder if I shoulda just got another 250, and did what needed to be done to the block so that I could transfer over all the internals from the old engine”…

Then I woke up.

As good as that thing looked when it was together, it was a ticking time bomb at the power level I was asking of it. The guy that bought that head probably came to terms with the fact that the bottom end prep to make it fit was so extensive, he had a reality check that bitch slapped him forward then backwards about a dozen times, and decided to bail.
Well you pay shipping and I'll have a nice 75k mile 250 dropped at your door step.... :stir:
 
The biggest advantage I see to leasing vs. buying is that you have two to three years to see if the car is a lemon before committing to buy it. It's like dating before getting married. I have leased really good cars, some which I've purchased at the end of the lease. I've also had some really bad cars which had continuous recalls and spent way too much time in the service department that I was more than happy to turn-in early.
 
Went home for lunch. It wasn’t raining so I took the car out.

Vibration seems like it’s still there.
( now it’s almost gotta be the driveshaft)
The noise is still there in high gear.
( Ask me if I’m going to take the rear back apart to deal with it…)
The tires are only marginally better than the ok’d Sumitomos that were on there.
( Fail, Fail, Fail)

Maybe the tires are a little better, maybe once they get hot they stick a little better, maybe the fact that there’s probably 36 pounds of air in them might change things…Hard to know for sure once the engines starts bouncing off the rev limiter set at 7250 rpm, and you’re yanking gears.
One thing that I didn’t notice I will admit, is the car was more manageable once the tires started boiling….maybe changing the preload on the passenger side spring helped.
I have a call into Nitto, but they aren’t too Johnny on the spot returning their calls. If/when dude calls
 
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I need to wait till a bus comes along, and just step out in front of it.
Maybe it’ll be a quick death.

The tire that’s supposed to be on back of my car isn’t an NT05 if I was hoping for a drag radial/street tire go between. There is an NT05r that is basically what I just sold, and then there is what I first started talking about when I started talking about it.
What I needed was a NT555genII.
( I swear, these freakin guys make so many different tires it’s easy to get confused)

NT05’s are a max performance street tire, intended for a late model car with more emphasis on handling, and less on starting line traction ( hence the recommended 51psi inflation pressure)
A NT555 gen II is a soft compound, less rigid sidewall competition tire intended for street driven vehicles requiring aggressive starting line traction.
in other words…..
This is the freakin tire I should’ve got.
I hate myself sometimes.:suicide:
 
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Don't sweat it.
It shouldn't take long to lay waste to those then you can try a different tire.
Remember, that right foot is 'manual traction control'.
Hell, a dodad on the drive shaft and a wire or two maybe a tach input or some techno driver and that computer you got hidden in there may be able to give you TC, seem like our resident tuner has mentioned this someplace around here.
 
Now you know that’s bull sht right? If it’s such a bad car, why have you kept buying them? The warranty is only 4/50, not 15/150.
A lease is equivalent to paying the car down to where it’s actually worth what is owed…or what it’s actually worth at the end of three years. Unlike those that finance a car for 60-72 months thinking that they are “ buying” the car.

I was giving you a hard time. I know some of those deals can be really good. I don't know what the lease deals are like today, but back in the day it was a total ram job. You signed a contract where they expected you to bring them back a brand new car. Tires aren't brand new, add this, there's a scratch in the paint, add this. You could expect to pay a multi thousand dollar penalty when you brought the car back in.

We are still toying with the E30 thing. Car is a piece of crap, parts last about 2 years, hoses leak all the time, everything is over engineered and hard to work on. He had this one 535i back in the day with an extended warranty that was unreal. It seriously was in for repair 6 months out of the year. Mostly because it has those dampening shocks that only lasted 2 months. I don't know how BMW makes money on cars like that. I understand that if you get a basic 3 series or something, they are very reliable though.

Whether it's depreciation or repair costs, a car gets you either way. Interest rates are so low right now, financing a car for 60 months is not a big deal. My Focus is financed at 2.49%, which means I pay around $1k in interest over 5 years. Which is kind of interesting math because the car is worth $1000 more today than I paid for it over 4 years ago. What a time to be alive!

Sorry about the tires man. They have too many options now. I have the Nitto DRs on the back of my Mustang right now. I like them. They don't handle poorly if you inflate them to a reasonable pressure, and they do hook reasonably well.

Kurt
 
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Typical Sunday morning for me…..Reality has set in, and now I start searching for the actual tire I shoulda bought in the first place. The NT555gen2

Nobody has them.

I can buy a set of TOYO ProxesTQ for the same money, and they are available, but they are a drag radial. The tread grooves on that tire are barely better than what I sold off when I sold the M/H race masters.

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There is a big, BOLD disclaimer warning against the possibility of hydroplaning in wet road conditions when purchasing this tire.


NT555g2 has a significantly better tread design….getting caught in the rain doesn’t look like i’d be in bad shape.

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Problem is….They ain’t out there, and won’t be for 2-4weeks. And even if they were…How will these things stack up against the tire above? I already got two sets of 315 street tires now, and I do not want another pair. I want to put these on, drive them anywhere, and stop the wheel spin when I put my foot on the floor…

Seems like a reasonable request to me….
 
Typical Sunday morning for me…..Reality has set in, and now I start searching for the actual tire I shoulda bought in the first place. The NT555gen2

Nobody has them.

I can buy a set of TOYO ProxesTQ for the same money, and they are available, but they are a drag radial. The tread grooves on that tire are barely better than what I sold off when I sold the M/H race masters.

to_proxes_tq_full.jpg

There is a big, BOLD disclaimer warning against the possibility of hydroplaning in wet road conditions when purchasing this tire.


NT555g2 has a significantly better tread design….getting caught in the rain doesn’t look like i’d be in bad shape.

1632058881763.jpeg

Problem is….They ain’t out there, and won’t be for 2-4weeks. And even if they were…How will these things stack up against the tire above? I already got two sets of 315 street tires now, and I do not want another pair. I want to put these on, drive them anywhere, and stop the wheel spin when I put my foot on the floor…

Seems like a reasonable request to me….
Mike, I have the tires you bought on the back of my 92 coupe, and while I maybe have 300 RWHP on it they are only "ok" for traction in a straight line. The NT555G2 that you posted here I had on my 2014 GT and I wouldn't call them great for traction there either off the line unless you have the computer helping you. This is a point where you need to decide do you want traction where you cannot drive in the wet, or do you want safety where you won't get the traction you're looking for? There is no magic solution here, you have to choose.
 
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