Things the car factories did that made no sense to you

[OneWheelPeel]

Who stole that idea from who. Was it ford that came first with the pony cars. I know some trucks used it pretty early too. It worked, but always ended up leaking at some point.

I don't know for sure, but the C2 vette seems to have had it in 1963.

 

[AR67GTX]

I’m sure it’s already been mentioned before but Mopar’s placement of oil filter from way back before I could drive, all the way up to and including my 2023 RAM 5.7 just plain sucks. It’s impossible to remove the filter without making some level of mess and the RAM 1500 is the worse of the bunch. It also precludes pre-filling the filter with more than a small amount of oil. The exterior oil pump and front distributor are pluses but I curse that oil filter location every oil change.

 

[Detective D]

I sold new Fords during the 90's.

Every few years we got a visit from some corporate mucky-muck who was on a PR campaighn to assure the dealer the company " cared" and they were there to listen to the dealers problems.

Around '94 the VP of sales paid us a visit. I grabbed his ear and asked him why do I see movies based in Africa and South America that show dozens of Ranger, Nissan and Toyota crew cab pickups yet here in the US all you can buy are F350 CC ?

He told me American's will not buy crew cab pickups except for budiness use.

Seems his crystal ball was a little fuzzy thst day...

Yeah turns out all they had to do was stop offering big 4 door cars and crank the price of the big SUV's into the stratosphere to get people to look at 4 door trucks

 

[Cranky]

View attachment 1928281

You ever drive one on the highway? My first wife came with one....and bought it because she liked the radio in it and the floor shifter. Good reasons, eh lol. Anyways, I did some studying on them and there were some neat features in them. One is there virtually no blind spots and the body design produces really low wind noise. The passenger door is 4" (iirc) longer than the driver's side making ease of entry into the back seat more easy. But on the other hand, the design isn't to my liking.

I'll never understand why exhaust manifold threads reach into the coolant jackets

Casting and machining costs are lower than having blind tapped holes.

 

[Detective D]

Ford and their different engine families. 289, Boss 302, 351C, 351 w, 352, a few between here and the 427, 428, 429, BOSS 429 bet I missed a few. Look at the inventory to service these engines!

I know this is a mopar board but I am a gearhead and worked with Fords in my youth more, so i will regurgitate some info on this....

352, 427, and 428 were based on early 60's FE series. Before these were the short lived Y block engines, and before that flat heads. Ford was not alone in making new engine designs, Mopar had early hemi vs wedge, etc. The FE series from ford also included the 390 and a few very short lived one off's for Mercury.
The 352 was early 60's and went into a lot of vehicles. The 390 was early 60's and went into like everything basically lol. The 352 eventually got dropped and changed to a 360, which was a 390 block with different guts in it to make smaller displacement. Those engines were real work horses and ran well under load. The 427 was also an earlier FE, and got pushed into high end performance through the racing programs, making it rare in civilian cars but available as a high dollar option. The 428 was developed from the 390 during the push for bigger displacement near the end of the decade. The 428SCJ ended up in racing, but was the poster child for the HP wars for Ford until near the end of the 60's.

Like most things, the EPA killed the FE series. Ford made a few decent engines after that, but the FE's are what created their loyal fan base for the next 30 years. Because the EPA was involved, Ford did retain the 360 and 390 to use in heavy trucks, and because pick up trucks ha their own rules you could get them in F150's etc all the way to 1976. Most U-hauls back then had 360 FE in them. Bad MPG, not great power, but you could torment that engine and it kept ticking, kind of like a 318.

Windsor engines: The "W" engines. This was the updated small block, sort of like mopar went to wedge engines, this was the new series to replace the FE for smaller displacement. At the end of the 60's as the bigger FE were leaving, and people wanted more displacment, the 289 grew to a 302 and the 351 block etc was made to replace the 360FE. The 302W and 351W share a lot of stuff outside of the short block. People know the 289 from Mustang and racing fame, but really it was short lived, but it also shares a lot with the 302 and 351W. The 302 and 351W would live on into the 1990's due to sharing heads and more.

The 429 was developed for the same reasons as the 302 and 351W, to replace the FE series. The 429 to directly replace the 428FE, and there is also the 460 which is basicalyl a 429 with a longer stroke. They share almost everything. The 460 was used for big cars. The 429 would be pushed for performance, and eventually drop out of circulation in the 70's. The 460 would live on to 1997.
The Boss 429 was made for NASCAR. That is it. The Boss 429 is the equivolent of the wing cars from mopar, they only exist because they had to in the public to race. Marketing crammed one into a Mustang, but only as many as they had to.
The 429SCJ was a 429 with different heads and intake designed specifically for the HP wars. EPA/insurance killed it like most things.

That leaves the "C" engines. 351C to be exact. This is a strange story really. basically, while the 351W was being developed, there was doubt that the stuff from the 302W was going to perform on a larger displacement. So they also made the 351C. The C (or cleveland as it gets called now) was very performance oriented. Head design was much, much more powerful than the W heads. This engine found its way into performance cars. It was discontinued for EPA/insurance reasons. But the heads lived on.....

The Boss 302 is a unique 302W that was designed or racing. It is a 302W(max displacement allowed for it's class) with 351C heads installed. This required a bunch of modifications as water passages, bolt pattern, and a few other things dont swap. It is a frankenstein. It got offered to the public in Boss 302 Mustangs. It's origin was Can-Am, and the only reason it existed, like the Boss 429.

But wait, there is more! What about the 351M and 400M? These engines came about in the 70's. Recall how the 360 and 390 were allowed to continue in trucks? Well not forever. So Ford applied the same idea to this engine series and made a block they could swap the crank and guts out of to make a 351 and a 400 that shared parts. Why not keep the 429 and use the 351W instead? Who knows! However, the 351M and 400M used the "C" heads. This made them very unique compared to the W engines. Too bad EPA had things pushing sub-9 compression ratios in the 70's when these came about. Compared to the 10.1 compression of the original 351C, combined with basically "work/truck" 2bbl manifolds, these engines never got to live to their potential, though some people modded 400M's in the late 70's trucks to good effect. Some how the word "modified" got tagged to these engines because Ford guys need to name everything, but there is nothing modified about them. The 400M stopped in the late 70's but the 351M went on to the next gen F150 trucks into the early 80's.
Fun thing about these, you can snag the 4bbl heads from an early 351C with closed chambers and stick it onto a ho-hum 400M and it really wakes up as compression gets pushed to mid 9's.

As for actual driving and performance:
The FE series was hands down the most inherent performance of them all, some more than others based on application. The 390HP and 352HP of the early 60's were real rippers for the era, the 427 made a name for itself also.
The W series was intended to be a universal fit type and only a couple years early on had really notable performance. Solid engine design for the most part, became the staple for 30 years. Fox body 5.0 would see the end of the glory for these engines.
The C series was only a few years before discontinued, but as I mentioned the heads lived on. These engines like to scream, a favorite at the track.
The M series were not powerful(70's smog era) but were super responsive on the gas pedal and lively due to the heads. I grew up with a 1979 farm truck and it could bark the 16x7 wheels with the old zig-zag mud grip tires on them. It was an entertaining ride for being a heavy truck.
The 429 and 460 started life as high compression, high HP "Thunderjet" engines, and then got smog'd into retirement(429) or the giant underwhemlming Ford full size cars we all remember. The 460 did have a lot of ft. lbs, and saw use to 1997 in trucks, but was never a performance engine, not even once, ever.


I missed a few displacements but that is the gist of it. It wasn;t as disorganized and off the wall as it looks like when you look at a list of displacements.

 

[eldubb440]

You ever drive one on the highway? My first wife came with one....and bought it because she liked the radio in it and the floor shifter. Good reasons, eh lol. Anyways, I did some studying on them and there were some neat features in them. One is there virtually no blind spots and the body design produces really low wind noise. The passenger door is 4" (iirc) longer than the driver's side making ease of entry into the back seat more easy. But on the other hand, the design isn't to my liking.

Casting and machining costs are lower than having blind tapped holes.

I was focusing on the "X" decal on a Pacer; like it's some sort of factory built hot rod.......the car is obviously not fast, sporty, or muscular; it's pathetic, actually

 

[1 Wild R/T]

They have them on Volvos also, my 92 wagon has them. Maybe it's a European Swedish deal.

I haven't read the whole thread, someone may have already mentioned this..... 71 Charger, headlight wipers were optional....

 

[Cranky]

I was focusing on the "X" decal on a Pacer; like it's some sort of factory built hot rod.......the car is obviously not fast, sporty, or muscular; it's pathetic, actually

Yeah, I read that in your earlier post....and I agree. They did ride good especially at 80 mph. I didn't expect that at all. Kept it about a year when I found a 79 Mudstain that was a year old with 18k miles for cheap. It turned out to be a good car.....but the Pisser was actually faster lol

 

[eldubb440]

Yeah, I read that in your earlier post....and I agree. They did ride good especially at 80 mph. I didn't expect that at all. Kept it about a year when I found a 79 Mudstain that was a year old with 18k miles for cheap. It turned out to be a good car.....but the Pisser was actually faster lol

what did they have under the hood? the straight 6 they put in everything else?

 

[HawkRod]

I haven't read the whole thread, someone may have already mentioned this..... 71 Charger, headlight wipers were optional....

I have Swedish roots, and have lived there. Many cars, like Volvos, destined for northern climates have these headlight wipers as options. Their real use is when you are driving and it is snowing heavily. Many cars without them would have slush build up on the headlights and that would dramatically decrease their output. Most of the time in the winter you have to drive in the dark, so good headlights are critical. Headlight wipers keep the slush off the headlights and keep them bright.

 

[Cranky]

what did they have under the hood? the straight 6 they put in everything else?

258 (iirc) in the Pisser and a 200 in the Mudstain. It was one of those cars that was supposed to get the then new V6 so every time I bought any thing from the parts house for it I had to have the VIN on hand.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

For some reason I always thought a Foxbody Stang with the coupe body and the inline 6 would be kind of cool with some simple mods, or a less simple turbo.
I have no actual data to back this up other than the two non Ford inline sixes I had a little experience with had characteristics I liked, even if they ran out of breath at higher RPMs.

 

[Cranky]

For some reason I always thought a Foxbody Stang with the coupe body and the inline 6 would be kind of cool with some simple mods, or a less simple turbo.
I have no actual data to back this up other than the two non Ford inline sixes I had a little experience with had characteristics I liked, even if they ran out of breath at higher RPMs.

Yeah, the 79 was a coupe. I made a pair of clear Lexan headlight covers for it and added a set of Mexican Mustang snowflake wheels which I never saw another Mustang wearing them. I kinda liked the car actually but it was slower than a Pacer?? Geez lol.

 

[Photon440]

what did they have under the hood? the straight 6 they put in everything else?

They started with the inline six, but offered a 304 V8 after a few years. The Pacer was also one of the first American cars to use rack and pinion steering. People liked it enough to sell over 145,000 in the first year. I thought the later station wagon version looked less bizarre.

The 'X' decal meant that it came with extra chrome trim, fancier steering wheel, styled road wheels, floor shift and a front sway bar.

 

[Cranky]

They started with the inline six, but offered a 304 V8 after a few years. The Pacer was also one of the first American cars to use rack and pinion steering. People liked it enough to sell over 145,000 in the first year. I thought the later station wagon version looked less bizarre.

The 'X' decal meant that it came with extra chrome trim, fancier steering wheel, styled road wheels, floor shift and a front sway bar.

The Air Force had a few AMC cars with the 304 engines. I don't remember the model but they were nice driving cars and had some pep too.

 

[toolmanmike]

The Air Force had a few AMC cars with the 304 engines. I don't remember the model but they were nice driving cars and had some pep too.

Probably Hornets.

 

[Cranky]

Probably Hornets.

Nope....bigger 4 dr sedans. Probably Ambassadors. They were actually 'garage kept' and used mainly for higher ups stuff.

 

[Cranky]

Probably Hornets.

A friend of mine had a Grimmie with the 304 in it.....put a personalized plate on it that said PFFLYR. It was plenty peppy enough.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

A friend of mine had a Grimmie with the 304 in it.....put a personalized plate on it that said PFFLYR. It was plenty peppy enough.

PFFLYR.... On the Dry Dock I was stationed on the stoners would always go to the Port Forward corner of the dry dock to smoke a joint.... They were the "Port Forward Flyers"....

 

[MCODECUDA]

427FE , 428scj, 429 and I really don’t think anything interchanges.. pretty smart..

I once heard that in the 427 was actually 426ci but they called it a 427 because Mopar already had the 426. The 428 was actually a 427 but since they already had a 427 they called it a 428 and 429 is actually a 429. Maybe someone can run the math and verify the actual cubic inches for these.