Ford Tempos: am i twisted?

beaterworld wrote: Can you fit a megasquirted small-block chevy 350 in the trunk?

What's a small block? Most blocks are pretty large, aren't they?

+1 on the completely incongruous torque steer.

I had a 92 Tempo V6 5 spd for seven years. It's my favorite car of all time. I raced it on the street many times and beat many challengers. I was beat one time by an Eclipse with a built 4 cyl with turbo. I found this site because I want another one.

The unibody on those cars was 'interesting'. Basically, a couple of 'pontoons' projected forward from the firewall on each side, carrying the front suspension and motor mounts, everything else you saw was tinfoil.

... I like to consider my Ranger a Tempo XL.

I like how this is a four year old thread that we just picked up like we left it yesterday.

Has a Tempo street racer found my old thread?

For the record, my hilarious plan was to make a turbo AWD rally hoon mobile out of one of these utter pieces of E36 M3.

I had a 3.0L Tempo with almost zero options. Weighed nothing, lit up the front tires with ease. More fun to drive than it should have been.

My first car as a teenager was a 88 5-speed 4cyl Tempo. I have good memories of that thing. It was the most indestructible slow POS ever. The handling was awful and floaty.

So, did anyone make a twin SHO swapped coupe with box-flares yet?

erohslc wrote: The unibody on those cars was 'interesting'. Basically, a couple of 'pontoons' projected forward from the firewall on each side, carrying the front suspension and motor mounts, everything else you saw was tinfoil.

The pontoons bent pretty easy if you dug the nose in coming down a hill while off roading, even at low speeds. Fortunately the shop only charged me $150 to straighten it, and by straighten it I mean make it so that the right front tire stopped rubbing at full lock and so that the alignment was good.

I got to drive my sister 4 cyl auto when she couldn't take it to college her freshman year. I was 16 and isn't know anything about cars and was happy to have something to drive but holy cow was that car a pos. it didn't even feel safe to drive. She picked it out bc it was teal, that was why she got that car lololol

Ronparker wrote: I had a 92 Tempo V6 5 spd for seven years. It's my favorite car of all time. I raced it on the street many times and beat many challengers. I was beat one time by an Eclipse with a built 4 cyl with turbo. I found this site because I want another one.

Hah, awesome. I can kind of relate to that since i did all my early street racing in a stock 3.3L dodge dynasty which beat TONS AND TONS of stuff in the early 00's.

I found a 3.0/5spd on my local CL a year or so ago and asked him about it. He commented on how punchy it was and i replied with some info about the 3.0/5spd dynasty i built and was street racing at that time (ran 15.2 w/slipping clutch). So it all makes sense to me on the v6/5spd thing.

Schmidlap wrote:

erohslc wrote: The unibody on those cars was 'interesting'. Basically, a couple of 'pontoons' projected forward from the firewall on each side, carrying the front suspension and motor mounts, everything else you saw was tinfoil.

The pontoons bent pretty easy if you dug the nose in coming down a hill while off roading, even at low speeds. Fortunately the shop only charged me $150 to straighten it, and by straighten it I mean make it so that the right front tire stopped rubbing at full lock and so that the alignment was good.

Yah, the Tempo front ends were pretty soft. My daughter had one, managed to clip a curb avoiding a Shiny Happy Person in traffic, called me because 'the car drives funny'.

Took about $250 to get the right front wheel back in position (I had a mental image of the shop guy levering the pontoon with a 4x4).

Sorry for Necroing this thread but i owned a V6 tempo and although everything was horrible about it objectively, subjectively it became one of the most endearing cars i ever owned.

Large part of this was the gigantic mechanic grip from the very very front heavy chassi, large suspension travel and clearance (for a compact), indestructable suspension (i treated it like a dune buggy at times), staright forward understeer, but most importantly...

The noise... If you cut off or relatively unmuffled/deleted cats (important bit) a Vulcan V6 Tempo its otherwise crappy engine with straight-cut ports 2-valve per cylinder, log style exhaust collectors, and unequal length secondary pipe (like on a WRX) made it one of the meanest and most interesting sounding cars i've ever driven, the way it gave drum solo's on lift-off and shot gigantic flames (out the sidepipe i installed once exhaust rusted off) didn't hurt either.

edit: most accurate description of its noise is that of a 1960s LeMans racer with some carb issues ("carb issues" in reference to the lumpy idle)

I was able to beat amateur E30 M3 drivers in it the few times i ran Auto-X in it, its a fun car to ironically race and if i could get my hands on another V6 tempo (particularly if it looked as depressing and grandpa-esque, besides the sidepipe) i would in a heartbeat

My 84 burned through struts, lower control arms, passenger axles and tires like they were gasoline. Such a pile of berkeley. Threw a rod bolt throught the bottom of the oil pan driving 30mph in 4th gear idling through town when I was 17.

As much as that car was a complete pile of berkeley and was always broken, I still had a lot of fond memories in it. Less because of the car and more because I was 16-18yo male. folks bought mine in 1988 off lease turn in with 40k miles. rod bolt let loose at 110k miles. used engine later I sold it to my aunt at 130k. I went throught 3 sets of lca's (ball joint was made into the arm), 3 axles and 2 sets of tires because of their positive front, negative rear camberwear andone used engine in 3 years (1991 to 1994).

Sixteen years. Is that some sort of record for longest thread ?

iceracer wrote: Sixteen years. Is that some sort of record for longest thread ?

2010-2016 is not 16 years.

Having this thread bumped helped me realize that Swank Force One was 93celicaGT2. The changing user names on here is a bit confusing.

NickD wrote:

iceracer wrote: Sixteen years. Is that some sort of record for longest thread ?

2010-2016 is not 16 years.

Public schools......

I just want somebody to get a Tempo and name it "Andante" - A walking pace. But if it gets turboed, it earns the Allegro moniker.

Side note, I still see AWD Tempos, 4WD Tercels, AWD Topaz's, Alltrac Camry's and other random unicorn awd stuff on the road here every day.

Bobzilla wrote:

NickD wrote:

iceracer wrote: Sixteen years. Is that some sort of record for longest thread ?

2010-2016 is not 16 years.

Public schools......

With Common Core, I'm sure 2010-2016 is 16 years.

In the ranger that engine is called the 3.slow......

I'm all for interesting sleepers but I'm not sure a tempo would be a fun project

I'll just leave this here.......

http://daytona.craigslist.org/cto/5663273600.html

Just in case anyone wants to do the world a favor and and boost this thing until it explodes. Aiming for the "Most Catastrophic Failure" at the $2016 Challenge is a worthy goal!

And like many--- I had friends and neighbors who owned Tempos---- they were pretty reliable, but total turds.

Joe Gearin wrote: I'll just leave this here....... http://daytona.craigslist.org/cto/5663273600.html Just in case anyone wants to do the world a favor and and boost this thing until it explodes. Aiming for the "Most Catastrophic Failure" at the $2016 Challenge is a worthy goal! And like many--- I had friends and neighbors who owned Tempos---- they were pretty reliable, but total turds.

But, but, but... Jackie Stewart said the Tempo was a "real driver's car."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/u4Ws_Bp7WYA

Wonder how much Ford paid him to say that as he went around corners on the door handles.

^^^ To give Sir Jackie a break----compared to the Ford Grenada, the Tempo probably did seem like a driver's car. After you have eaten poo for a long enough period of time, mud starts to taste really good!