It’s already fixed. Just not fixed enough for my tastes. My options now are to get with my friend and trial-by-error design a custom one from aluminum or do as you said. I’ve been an Eclipse enthusiast since the mid-90’s so I tend to know what I’m doing and with the help of a few friends (who are all Nissan gurus and view me as a mad scientist) I can usually get stuff done pretty easily and cheaply. The problem is the expense of parts. And time, which I have a whole lot more of as of late.
& yepp. All Eclipses past 99 are junk. Sadly, it’s not really due to the drive train or internals, but really crappy bolt-ons that fail and inevitably break your… internals and drive-train. The bottom end is pretty much a higher compression version of the 4g63. In fact Lancer guys even buy our blocks from us to get the .4 more displacement. Head’s not that bad either for a SOHC. The problems are the above and some really stupid design decisions made putting the car together.
My next car will be a Toyota, Hyundai or Kia. Mitsubishi has long been dead in my eyes. :tup:
You need to get rid of this thing. It’s not worth your money or your time (don’t undervalue your time) to mess with it just because its what you have now. You need something to get by cheaply and without a lot of time wasted until you can afford something you really like and will be happier investing your time in.
One important aspect is that the computer is predictable and lightning fast, to eliminate any human error. Slush boxes in most cars can’t compare, but there is a reason why a lot of the higher end sports cars only come in automatic. Drag especially - there is no way humans can shift that fast without error. My friends with Supras set up for drag convert them all to automatics to get better times. I would definitely argue that automatics (not the garbage ones you find in Civics, but high end ones) are superior to manual transmissions nowadays. Of course, this is talking “manumatic” types derived from Formula One cars. The average slush box is garbage.
Besides cars that are built for the track, you won’t be racing around town typically anyway. It’s easier to push a slow car to the limit with a manual though, and infinitely more enjoyable, but rowing your own gears in a Civic isn’t comparable to paddle shifting in a Ferrari.
Wow, good reading comprehension, robot man. Guess you missed like 8 posts about how we’re talking about actually having fun IN REAL LIFE, nobody here is gonna be posting lap times on the Nurburgring.
Ain’t nothing fun about that shit. Driving stick is like working while you’re driving. For casual driving (you know, since “nobody here is gonna be posting lap times on the Nurburgring”), it seems like way more effort than it’s worth. And pray to god that if there’s ever an emergency situation where someone else ends up needing to drive your shit to the hospital or something that they know what they’re doing.
Anyway, I bought a '09 Jaguar XF over the weekend. Nice upgrade from the 300. I’ll post pics later.
I own a Infiniti M35. What car do you own? I don’t really care, you don’t have to answer that, because I don’t think what kind of car either of us drives matters much as far as discussing manual vs automatic.
…but I’ve had plenty of cars that were standard, and fun to drive standards, like the two Miatas I’ve owned before. For daily driving? Not the most comfortable and it got tedious rowing the gears. That’s actually why I personally didn’t like the S2000. It’s a high revving engine that you constantly need to row the gears for to stay in the right powerband, which is horribly annoying to me.
Even the argument that gas mileage is better has faded away, since CVT’s do it better now.
That’s actually what I’m getting at - it’s great fun on the track or on a back road, but in traffic or daily driving, not so much fun.
lol
It’s second nature, I don’t think, I’m on autopilot.
When you first learn, you got to think about it, feel around even occasionally look down. LOL hill starts were the scariest thing.
I had to learn stick in my dad’s Camaro, and that ish was scary. Basically because he had his car set up with a good 400+ hp and he basically told me if I crash he will beat my ass, lol. But after that day it got quite easy to drive a stick. I don’t even think about it for real, I have grown so used to driving it that it is just second nature. But I like the amaount of control I have over my car with manual, plus since there are a lot of folks out there who can’t drive stick, it will be harder for them to steal your car. http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-milwaukee/man-steals-two-cars-milwaukee-but-can-t-drive-stick-shift
Now you’re saying you prefer automatic for the daily convenience. That’s fine but that isn’t what you were saying before. Everyone was talking about the joy of driving a manual and you thought you’d crap all over it and say that manuals suck for performance because we can’t outperform a computer, and that we’re all diluting ourselves into thinking that rowing the gears in our pathetic Civics is comparable to paddle-shifting a Ferrari. “The average slush box is garbage.”
The problem with the S2000 isn’t the transmission, the problem is the engine has no torque. Also, I don’t know what year your M35 is, but I drove a G35 a while ago and the “manual setting” on the automatic was awful. It took a full second after you told it to shift for anything to happen. I don’t have a car right now, just a truck, but my first car was manual and my next one will be too. My bike is manual (obviously) and I love it.
Yup.
Yup.
For everyone saying that a manual is too much work, maybe you need more practice, OR you just prefer an automatic. If that’s your opinion that’s fine, just don’t think you need to trash ours.
It’s apparent that you don’t drive “driver’s cars” anyway, so you wouldn’t know.
What about rowing your own gears in a Ferrari VS paddle shifting one?
Would defintely take out a manual 355, 360, 430 over the F1 variant.
When manual is gone, I’ll ALWAYS drive the cheapest car available. If I don’t actually want to DRIVE the car, why should I even get a powerful, expensive one? I would get the “same” experience going somewhere in an automatic Tata Nana (it’s real, and the cheapest car on the planet ) as I would in a Bentley Mulsanne…other than bitches throwing panties at the Bentley.
I’ll stick with paddle shifting all day. My GT-R was automatic and had paddle shifters. They were quick and responsive as hell. Can’t imagine a person shifting faster than the computer in that car.
The automatic shifting in my M35 isn’t very good, I’ll admit that. The car itself is more than powerful enough to downshift and overtake when I need to, regardless of whether or not the transmission itself is clunky.
The transmission of the S2000 is part of the car… the shifting on a S2000 feels great, I love the quick shifts and clutch response. There isn’t much you can do about the constant rowing of the gears though. I’ve driven S2000’s with superchargers and turbos and the power is better mid/high end, but there is still a constant need to row through the gears to stay in the correct powerband for the car.
I’m not trashing your opinion, I think manuals are fun in certain situations, but the notion that all automatics are inferior is simply not true. The highest end automatics outperform humans. Which goes back to the whole Civic thing.
Listen, I’m not really getting worked up over this and attacking you, if you think that’s what’s going on. I could call you a dumbass doriftoooo who thinks a hachi can take down anything, but I’m not arguing like that since there is no need to. I could say you don’t have a car so your opinion is invalid, but I’m not. I’m not even saying manual transmissions are shit. Just stating that high end automatics are superior to manuals with the technology that they have now. Manuals are fun, very engaging, but after driving one for 10 years, I don’t think I’ll get one again, especially since I’ve gravitated towards luxury cars. Most of them are very rare in manual, if they offer a manual configuration at all.
Only one i’ve seen (and I haven’t really done a lot of looking since I got an SUV in stead) was the Caddy CTS-V; which combined both luxury and a manual tranny.
I just want to also add that in traffic, there are times, for instance, a bus that is about to make a stop in the lane you are in and you have a decision to make. You can either stop behind the bus and wait or make that lane change(when you see an opening) to bypass the bus and save time. I have noticed that if you drive an automatic, the chances are slimmer to make that pass compared to a manual. So you can say that it might be work to drive a manual in traffic, but at least for me, there would be times that a manual would save me time because I can shift down and quickly make that pass without possibly causing an accident.
You can say that a higher end sports car that is automatic will also have the umph to make the same pass, but realistically I’m talking about what the average person can afford to drive. Also, unless you specialize in automatics, good luck doing any maintenance on your own on these things, more luck if you don’t know shit about electronics.
You’re being reasonable now, I appreciate that. Just don’t act like there was no ill will in your first post:
I’m not getting “worked up” either, just enjoying the argument. There’s not enough posts in this thread, trying to keep the car talk moving.
The computer doesn’t have any fun shifting, we do. It’s all preference. I would like an older air-cooled 911 without a turbo because it would be great to work on. I don’t care that a newer water-cooled 911 with a turbo would be faster on the track.
