> The thing I always have to remind myself is that the manufacturers build and
> engineer these vehciles for optimum performance.
Well... I'd have to opine that the manufacturers build and engineer these
vehicles for optimum _profit_.
As long as they can claim reasonable performance figures to get you to look
at the vehicle in the first place, along with enough reliability to keep most
vehicles out of warranty repair, they have done their job as far as they are
concerned. Preferably with as cheap a manufacture as possible (which is why
you see things like no zerk fittings on many cars; that extra $1 they saved is
money in their pocket).
There is definitely a point at which performance modifications start
causing deficits in other areas (reliability, driveability), but IMO there
is plenty of room for relatively easy and painless improvement on stock
vehicles. Most of the bolt-on mods we talk about on the list are not going
to cause significant deficits, but when you start getting into blowers,
nitrous, and head swaps you might have a case.
Ron
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:14 EDT