Re: [AMC-List] Play on Words

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 24 Sep 2006, Russell Neyhart wrote:

> ...not to keep you talking about this long enough to go out and get 
> another Spirit, but... maybe a four worked a bit with a manual would 
> have given you a better front/rear weight bias and made for better auto-x?

As Joe points out -- power. But a modern 2.5 would probably
kick butt -- the V8 was a tight fit in that little car.  It was
clearly meant for the big six.

I lowered the car in back with blocks under the U bolts,
dearched springs, and blocks under the rear perches to lessen
rear understeer; and didn't put traction bars or parallel bars
to eliminate "wrap up" so hard braking increased wheel hop. Dumb.

It would have been a much better autocross car -- with someone
else driving :-) I'm a good driver, but I don't have that
particular skill (which was hard to assimilate at the time).

my guess is, you could really get the Spirit chassis to handle
superbly with little work.

There was/is someone on this list who autocrossed a lot more
seriously than I, and I think it was in a Spirit. Maybe he'll
pipe up here.  An archive search 'autocross' and variant words
would probably find the posts. This calendar year I think.




> 
> Russell
> 
> Tom Jennings wrote:
> > On Sat, 23 Sep 2006, Brien Tourville wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> something off an investment firm commercial >
> >> Ameriquest maybe - didn't catch that part.
> >>     
> >
> > arf arf arf arf ....!
> >
> >
> >   
> >> For their limited amount of time in production,
> >> I don't believe they faired well in surviving   -  
> >> Opinions ?
> >>     
> >
> > They do get a bad rap. I owned one, it was basically an
> > upgraded gremlin, but minus most of the weirdness that made
> > gremlins... gremlins.
> >
> > Great fun chassis for modding. All the AMC-latest good stuff,
> > anything bolts into it, light, common parts, and the "AMX"
> > trim package's rear "fin" is oddly attractive.
> >
> > I had a black 79 AMX with the screamin chicken on the hood,
> > the complicated orange decaling and the fender flares. I ended
> > up stripping all that gunk off -- except the tail which was
> > inexplicably attractive -- and painting it white. Had 304 and
> > 998. I used to autocross it (I wasn't a goodf autocrosser and
> > I made a lot of chassis mistakes in the car, none the fault of
> > the car).
> >
> > Made my own grille (eh, but I hated that late-70's baroque
> > pointless complexity) and converted it to single headlamps
> > (which I think was a big win). kept the fin, bumpers black.
> >
> > You can judge it here:
> >
> > http://wps.com/AMC/1979-AMC-AMX/index.html
> >
> > I kinda wish I had an 83 GT...
> >
> > In fact I have to stop now, I'm talking myself into thinking
> > about another one...
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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> >
> >   
> 
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