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Dodge Spirit R/T vs. Lumina Z34 vs Taurus SHO

go4damo said:
I've read this same thing. Does that make the 3.4 engine a responsive engine to soup up?
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Not much of an aftermarket for it. IIRC there are some rather irritating head(gasket?) issues with it as it's practically a 3.4l 60* v6 pushrod engine with DOHC heads shoved on it.

I wouldn't be surprised to find a set of cams to get the top end opened up (and matching valve train improvements) would do wonders for the engine.
 
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A friend in High Schools Dad owned an SHO, it was a great car and great fun to drive.
 
Thanks for the heads up. It's hard to find aftermarket information for these old 3.4s. They were run in 3 or 4 of GMs models, mentioned in the above article. I've never heard from an owner of the Pontiacs or Oldsmobiles w/ this same plant. The Euro 3.4s ran them, too, but you're guaranteed an auto. trans.
 
I love the SHO. It's just such a neat looking car.
 
go4damo said:
I've read this same thing. Does that make the 3.4 engine a responsive engine to soup up?
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If you are interested in tuning your car, you should join the W-Body.com forum - they are the experts on these.

But from what I've read, if you have an automatic car (which you will because it's a 93) you are risking blowing the tranny. The limit of this transmission is, as far as I can remember, around 250hp and that's risking it too.
If you are willing to do a manual swap, then you might be able to get more power by fitting a non-restrictive intake manifold.
 
I have joined the forum, but haven't updated my profile or investigated the site in detail. Thanks for the advice. Not that I know from concrete experience, but from everything I've read, the 1993 models offered the manual trans., but not 1994. I would really want to do the manual swap, if I had the time. More information will help me make that decision, as I don't drive my 1993 Z34 in the winter salt of Ohio. Are there any beefier, compatible automatics or is there a way to improve the Hydromatic 4T60-E?
 
In addition to transmission concerns, I'm not exactly sure how business-wise it would be to have a 275hp Lumina outrun that year's Camaro and Corvette. I believe the Beretta was detuned for this reason as well.
 
ja404 said:
In addition to transmission concerns, I'm not exactly sure how business-wise it would be to have a 275hp Lumina outrun that year's Camaro and Corvette. I believe the Beretta was detuned for this reason as well.
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I doubt it would have REALLY mattered much. If anything they could have used the press to push out more Lumina's. If it canibalized sales from their Camaro then that just means they'd have had to try a little harder with those motors.

That is one of the many reasons GM has failed. Rather than produce a better product, they'd rather hamper a good one because it makes an inferior one look exactly like it is.
 
I know im extremely bias because i own a Spirit R/T but in all honesty and all bias aside, the guy who wrote this article CLEARLY has absolutly positively NO idea what hes talking about. The Spirit R/T blows the doors of both of the other cars in the 0-60 and the quarter mile. The fact that he rated the engine an 8 and the other two 9's proves to me he knows NOTHING about cars at all. The 16v DOHC turbo charged engine in the spirit has an extremely well built bottom end with forged pistons and forged crank from the factory, a head designed by LOTUS that uses cross flow technology and a garrett tb03 turbo that produces 11 psi stock. The A-568 transmission is extremely well built and shifts seamlessly. The fact that the body of the car it self looks terrible is a good thing because it makes the spirit r/t one of the BIGGEST sleeper cars ever created. There are tons of spirit r/t out there that make 400+ hp to the wheels and i can imagine there are very few if any z-34's or sho's that do. SPIRIT R/T FTW!!!
 
I believe you. I've always been a fan of the Chrysler 2.2 engines. The author of the article was probably biased as well - hi-tech biased to be precise. The Z34 and SHO engines were incredibly sophisticated and modern at the time (they later turned out to be not such great ideas). The Chrysler engine was disregarded because it was almost 10-years-old at the time, and had nothing fancy about it except a turbocharger.

Nevertheless, it was still the better engine. I really wanted to buy a Dodge Daytona R/T and I thought that a 2.2 engine making 220hp in the early 90's was incredible. But then I found what Volvo were doing and gave up on the Dodge :)
 
Holy shit! That Chrysler is quick and it looks like something your grandma would drive.

Oh I love a Q-car (sleeper for the Americans), I'm a sucker for Q-cars.
 
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