help choose new car(towing, high mpg)

[mechman600]

The Toyota Matrix & Corolla are the only small cars rated to tow anything - 1500 lbs. That's the main reason I originally bought one.
Funny enough, towing is not recommended with VW Golf/Jetta TDIs even though they would be good at it.

[bp944]

The 944 is a long term project (ls1 swap and such) and will hopefully be an absolute beast on the track. It might even be decent on gas 30mpg if driven gently. Right now though, it needs brakes and a lot of TLC. As far as motorcycles, I just got my first bike 2 weeks ago and it currently scares the crap out of me. I won't be taking it to the track anytime soon.

I'm not planning on spending much on it but I need a daily driver and if I could autocross it, that would be wonderful. To be honesty, a lot of this is bench racing. Most likely I'll get a small truck and run it at an autocross or rally cross event 3-4 times for fun.


Issac, two major concerns with airbags.
1) They are really expensive ($1600 for the kit before labor) especially when you compare it to a 2-3" drop kit. If I really wanted to go ghetto, I could cut the springs and get a flip kit and drop it 2/3 inches but the ride would suck. I'm not out to spent $1000 to drop the car. I'd be tentative to spend over over $300 to drop it.

2) Being able to drop the car for long distance highway driving would be awesome. The only issue is camber. It seems like its a lose-lose situation. If I'm sitting at 4" inches riding around with a normal camber and then drop it for the highway, I'm suddenly putting a lot of wear on some tires that are at a pretty extreme camber.

It seems that dropping it with airbags is in no way financial savvy. It would be awesome but the cost of the system and quick wear on the tires would be a killer on the wallet.

[IsaacCarlson]

Airbags do not need to be expensive. NEVER buy a full kit. They have terrible markup.

I don't know if the rangers used a solid axle on the 4x4 models, but that would let you drop without messing with camber. Just throwing out ideas since this is just idea time. You might be better off picking a ride height and sticking with it.
bed cover, wheel covers, belly pan, grille block, raised hood, etc would get you more mpg than dropping it.

[oil pan 4]

There are plenty of air bagged cars in junk yards, mainly lincoln town cars from the 2000s.

[bp944]

Is there any big difference between getting a s10 or a ranger? I ran across an engineless s10 which would work well for a modern GM v8 or something. I would love to drop a l33 5.3L in it and I'm assuming that engine would get a lot better mpg than the original 2.2L or am I thinking about this wrong?

[UltArc]

Originally Posted by bp944

Is there any big difference between getting a s10 or a ranger? I ran across an engineless s10 which would work well for a modern GM v8 or something. I would love to drop a l33 5.3L in it and I'm assuming that engine would get a lot better mpg than the original 2.2L or am I thinking about this wrong?

Seems like the S10 has a bigger following. More pieces and parts available, after market stuff, too. I would suggest S10 over ranger. When I was in high school, a gentleman was trying to squeeze a 454 in his S10, that he put a 350 in. Never found out what happened, but I believe its possible.

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by bp944

I would love to drop a l33 5.3L in it and I'm assuming that engine would get a lot better mpg than the original 2.2L or am I thinking about this wrong?

A 2.2L with a manual transmission will get much higher mpg than a 5.3L ever will. But it won't be nearly as much fun.

[bp944]

I guess I was thinking that the 5.3L would be a more efficient/newer design especially since corvettes can attain 30mpg without a ton of effort. I guess the aero is a lot different between a corvette and truck. I do need the vehicle to get above 30mpg reliably.

[oil pan 4]

Put taller gears in the S10 V8 swap and milage would go up quite a bit.