Apparently there is love for these things? I always thought they were just cheap and ugly, if relatively reliable. Is there sporty stuff? Can they handle? Do they mix well with boost?
I like ugly, and am quite fond of slow cars with *or can be made to have* attitude, but is there some hidden gold or do folks just like them because cheap/underdog?
Maybe getting bored of my mudstain, have access to an automatic J for family prices...
Cavaliers and Sunfires are popular in short track racing so I would imagine there are a lot of upgrade / tricks around.
I wouldn't consider it a slow car with attitude, i'd consider it a slow car with the ability to suck your soul away. They're disposable turd appliances.
speaking from experience with the 2002 cavalier Carli had when we met, it wasn't fun to drive hard because it didn't do what i wanted it to. It wasn't tossable, it didn't do well with steering inputs, and, well, keep your mustang
In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :
I didn't mean to imply that an automatic cavalier had attitude, more hoping that some cheap/simple mods might make it better?...? My 05 focus was a whole different animal after intake/exhaust.
I like the mustang, a lot. I like the Lima. I like 4 speeds. I like the ugly front end. I like manual steering and I LOVE manual brakes. But I'm over a year in it now, with no air, questionable heat. And it's not exactly a pinnacle of sporty, the handling is best described as "slow", entertaining (laughably bad) at the limit. And well, a year is a long time for me to drive a car. I really like it, but I'm starting to feel like it may be time to move on. Hard to explain.
About the only good thing I can think of about the J-body............... umm..... well, it's got 4 wheels?
They make awesome NHRA super stockers...
Cadavalere!!!
Jewels had a '00 2 door, when we met, pretty plain, manual windows & locks, it did have cruise & A/C. It had the 2.whatever liter pushrod 4 cylinder and a 3 speed auto.
We met in grad school, she found out I was handy with cars, and she talked me into installing an aftermarket CD player in it for her. It was all down hill from there.
That car was anything but sporty, and considering what it was, really didn't get that good of fuel economy. It was a little, red, 2 door, though, and Jewels made it look good. So unless Julie was the previous owner, I can't think of any redeeming value of the car.
I'm sure that if her parents had seen the crash test ratings, they wouldn't have bought their daughter a used Cavalier as a high school graduation gift.
Side impact is abysmal, 1 star, and that's by early '00's standards. You'd be safer to suit up in football pads and take the impact than being in the car.
In reply to bigdaddylee82 :
Less safe than a 1980 mustang?
In reply to barefootskater :
Had you said 77 I'd say no. buy 80? I think it's pretty even odds.
I gotta say, for a bunch of documented enablers, y'all are doing a pretty good job of talking me down.
I was kinda hoping to bring out the crazies. The die-hards.
Wally had one. Back when we were allowed to downvote readers rides, it was far into the negatives. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/265/
999 Cavalier Coupe, just like the one your wife's hair dresser drove.
4 cylinders of cast iron goodness with 8-count em 8 Pushrods. That's more than you can get in any Honda, Porsche, or even Ferrari today.
All that fury is coupled to a three speed automated gearbox that gives you the power of a four, but the mileage of a V8. and I don't have to worry about any pesky shifting so I never have to put down my burger OR beverage. try that in you EVo or STI.
Chicks dig it because if you're willing to be seen in it, well... of course my wife still can't believe I don't have a Corvette o Lambo or something. In her words, "If anyone should be compensating for something".
They have a weird steering rack with the inner tie-rods in the center. That can be a great thing for special applications (hot rods, specials, etc...).
That's all I got
mtn (Forum Supporter) said:Wally had one. Back when we were allowed to downvote readers rides, it was far into the negatives. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/265/
999 Cavalier Coupe, just like the one your wife's hair dresser drove.
4 cylinders of cast iron goodness with 8-count em 8 Pushrods. That's more than you can get in any Honda, Porsche, or even Ferrari today.
All that fury is coupled to a three speed automated gearbox that gives you the power of a four, but the mileage of a V8. and I don't have to worry about any pesky shifting so I never have to put down my burger OR beverage. try that in you EVo or STI.
Chicks dig it because if you're willing to be seen in it, well... of course my wife still can't believe I don't have a Corvette o Lambo or something. In her words, "If anyone should be compensating for something".
That's good. I'd be tempted to buy it if we could petition to reinstate the down-voting.
In all reality, lowering is easy, the air works. It has radio. And 4 doors. All pretty tempting options at the moment. And my rebellious nature is only pushing me into the hatermobile.
The key to J body ownership is to rip out the whole interior, along with all windows and trim, so that you won't be tempted to fix it as it falls apart.
I might pay as much as $500 for the nicest one in the world, but not without test driving some similarly priced bicycles first.
fanfoy said:They have a weird steering rack with the inner tie-rods in the center. That can be a great thing for special applications (hot rods, specials, etc...).
That's all I got
Hmm. Are they available without the ps pump?
TopNoodles said:The key to J body ownership is to rip out the whole interior, along with all windows and trim, so that you won't be tempted to fix it as it falls apart.
I might pay as much as $500 for the nicest one in the world, but not without test driving some similarly priced bicycles first.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that, the underside of the dash was about 90% plastic epoxy when we finally sold the thing. I did a decent job of getting all the cracks to fit back together tight, but man there were a lot of them. I'd fix one, and within a month there'd be two more.
In reply to barefootskater :
Yes if I remember right, but they might be hard to find nowadays. You could always depower one easily enough
barefootskater said:I gotta say, for a bunch of documented enablers, y'all are doing a pretty good job of talking me down.
I was kinda hoping to bring out the crazies. The die-hards.
even we have limits
As the guy that shows up to a lot of car accidents, and not in the medical field side of first responder but the Good Samaritan side, the Cavalier is one of the cars that truly scares me to walk up on. Minor incidents seem to have great bodily harm on the passengers. You've got a wife and small children. Skip it. Unless you're going to cage that mother berkeleyer and turbo the 2.2 , don't.
I bought a new '98 Z-24 with the manual as a college freshman. Didn't know any better, and I had GM family so it was "cheap" Top of the line....spared no expense. I grenaded the diff....twice. Hit a bump when launching? boom spider gear snaps a tooth, then a few weeks later, another and another. GM added the 150hp engine, and sticky enough rubber, but the Izuzu trans was rubbish. Structure of the car, wet noodle. Interior was crap-tastic, but mostly stayed together in my ownership. Ohhh the brakes. simply running hard stop light to stop light will induce fade in the undersized front disc and rear drums........abs unit died, with no trouble light. took me till winter to realize my rear brakes were rendered completely ineffective. I took that apart and found a broken drive gear which controlled the valving of the rears. Even when working correctly, the ABS would take forever to stop the car. Like its sample rate and time to ramp pressure back up to the brakes was measured in minuets. Usually yanked the parking brake to aid in unexpected ABS stops in snow, cause dragging a sliding wheel was easily twice as effective as the ABS system. Horrible.
All in all, considering how abusive I was to it, it held up alright i suppose. In typical GM fashion, I bought it based on the fact it was a LOT cheaper than the competition. It was sold at a massive loss in my early 20's. I later rectified the regrets of my purchase with a 97 Honda Prelude.
As a racecar......maybe if it was fully caged and I was planning to use it once to bash my way to 1st cutting corners Gran Turismo style.
Cobalt SS's seemed like a derivative of the J body, and they were surprisingly capable, so I assume with enough knowledge and effort one could make the Jbody handle decent....but why start so far back, why not grab something better....anything, and go from there?
I do remember driving a rental Cavalier with the 2.2 and 3 speed auto. In my hometown there is a highway entrance with a 200 degree loop before dumping on the steep uphill 70mph highway with a particularly short merge section. Nearly got killed when a trucker expected me to accelerate. I had it floored as soon as I could,(not that anyone could tell) but horrible gearing coupled with the fury of GM's E36 M3 2.2, was a loosing combination. Honestly that experience really stands out in my memory (like the birth of my kids, or my wedding day.).......that was....18 years or so ago now.
In reply to barefootskater :
I used one to convert my Benz from recirc ball steering. Depowering one by looping the lines would be the easy option, though I know manual ones do exist. Finding one may be a challenge though.
My first car was an '82 Cavalier Wagon that had manual steering, and I concur with the other posters... I can find no redeeming value in these cars unless you want to go Hornet Racing on the local roundy round track.
(Edit-fanfoy beat me to it)
They have several good reasons to make popular dirt track racers: Expendable, can keep running after a lot of punishment, and lots of junkyard parts interchangability.
They also got a couple of decent engine options - a few years had the 60 degree V6, and there were a couple of Quad Four derivatives with decent punch as well. It's possible to fit a 3.9 (later 60 degree V6) or even a 3800 supercharged motor in one as well. And that's not counting some of the more deranged swaps out there.
Downsides: These were designed in the '80s benchmarking the outgoing Honda Accord at the time - unfortunately neglecting that Honda had a better Accord on the drawing board. And then the chassis was kept in production for over two decades without major improvements. So you've got a typical econobox chassis with Mac struts at the front and a beam axle at the back - not much different than a lot of Nissan and VW designs. However, it is nose heavy and has typical early GM FWD levels of chassis flex. And the interiors seem to fall apart.
bobzilla said:barefootskater said:I gotta say, for a bunch of documented enablers, y'all are doing a pretty good job of talking me down.
I was kinda hoping to bring out the crazies. The die-hards.
even we have limits
I didn't believe it before.
barefootskater said:bobzilla said:barefootskater said:I gotta say, for a bunch of documented enablers, y'all are doing a pretty good job of talking me down.
I was kinda hoping to bring out the crazies. The die-hards.
even we have limits
I didn't believe it before.
This is like one of bob's 2 or 3 limits, everything else is on the table
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