In the summer of 1996 I took a notion to get a Dodge Spirit R/T. I can guess pretty well at the chain of thoughts: I’d become acquainted with the Chrysler AA-body cars via grandpa’s Acclaim and mother’s LeBaron, and begun gobbling up information about them. Of course I wanted one of the best ones, and that was a Spirit R/T. I might’ve also wanted a change from driving the slow beige car just visible at the left of ☝︎that pic up there☝︎. So…a fast red one, then! My folks agreed to help me with a purchase, perhaps to try and even things out a little after having effectively given sister a brand-new Jetta, though my mother made little remarks that it would help me get a girlfriend. [um, no —DS]
I found a Spirit R/T in the Denver Post classifieds. I think it had about 55,000 miles on it, and was in good condition overall. Not very highly optioned—no antilock brakes, no premium sound, no power locks or windows or seat, no overhead console, no cellular telephone built into the driver’s sunvisor (believe!). I’d’ve liked power locks and windows, but I was okeh without all the rest. The power seat was heavy and disreputable for rocking and rolling on its mounts, and the ABS wasn’t very good. Premium sound? Eh. I didn’t bother upgrading the speakers, but a Chrysler Infinity FM-AM-CD-Cassette deck out of a ’95ish LHS dropped and plugged right in.
Sunvisor-integrated in-car cellular telephone!
And even though it didn’t have many checkbox options, it was still specced way up compared to most of the rest of Chrysler’s models. Here’s a period road test:
It had the big brakes, a firm-feel steering rack, and beefed-up suspension including a sturdy solid rear sway bar instead of the usual weak and breaky tubular one. It had equal-length driveshafts so there was very little torque steer despite the monster engine. It had 205/60R15 tires on nice aluminum snowflake-design wheels. One Michigan winter’s morning on icy hardpack snow I braked too late and hard to turn into a parkade, and carried on straight ahead hard into a concrete curb with the left front wheel, lunching it and the bearing. I had no trouble getting a refurbished replacement wheel I couldn’t discern from new, though the red paint on those wheels, all of them, always looked a little purpler to me than the red paint on the rest of the car. Maybe it was the brake heat, or the brake dust, or my imagination.
The biggest upgrade, of course, was the engine, the development pinnacle of Chrysler’s 2.2-litre 4-cylinder K-car motor.
Chrysler 2.2 Turbo III engine, dressed
It was called the Turbo III, and its specs and pedigree were pretty astounding: forged crankshaft and conrods and a crossflow, DOHC, pentroof-chamber, centre-spark 16-valve cylinder head and intake manifold by Lotus, big Garrett turbocharger, distributorless ignition and returnless fuel injection—very whizzbang in 1991—and all the rest of it to get 224 horsepower and 217 lb·ft. That’s 1.66 hp per cubic inch displacement: proportionally comparable to a 3.9-litre, 495-horsepower Six or a 5.7-litre, 581-horse V8. Or best of all, a 373-horsepower 225 Slant-6! When the engine was running well, it ran beautifully and the car was blisteringly quick—0 to 60 in 6.8 seconds—and effortlessly fast.
MOAR COFFEE!
I was a caffeine fiend at the time—I had to get high on coffee every morning or very bad things happened. Or rather, a different mix of very bad things happened, because caffeine really did a job on my guts and caused general health and wellness problems for me, but addiction is not responsive to logic or reason. And I don’t mean like a li’l ol’ cup of coffee, I mean at least 16 ounces of at least four shots of espresso and chocolate and sugar, and a chocolate-covered coffee bean or two (or three, or four) on top. There was a coffee shop I liked to visit because of its location. I figured out how to time it all so just when the caffeine was kicking hard, I was headed up an onramp that dumped into the left lane of the interstate. Caffeine and acceleration, effyeah! Guess it’s a good job I never tried coke.
That 2.2 Turbo III engine straddled the line between experimental prototype and mass production; by some kind of miracle or magic trick it managed to get past the corporate beancounters. Chrysler put roughly 2,000 of these engines in ’91-’92 Spirit R/T and ’92-’93 IROC R/T cars for the US and Canadian market, some number of hundred more in Mexican-market Spirit R/Ts and Phantom R/Ts, and perhaps a couple of dozen in cars built for Europe. The low production quantity meant certain marginalities were imposed by aspects of the 2.2 motor that were fine for lower-output configurations producing between 35 and 65 per cent of this version’s horsepower. Foremost: this engine had an insatiable appetite for timing belts. The crank sprocket was this tiny thing, maybe 2 inches in diameter, and all sixteen valves were stiffly sprung to cater for the 6,500-RPM redline, so the timing belt teeth were subjected to inordinate loads. There was nothing to stop a belt installer putting the eccentric tensioner pulley in the wrong rotative position so it bore against the belt above the pulley’s boltline instead of below—or vice versa, I forget. This created no apparent symptom, but greatly hastened belt death. And that tensioner could be installed with any bolt of the right length and thread, but only the special factory bolt would dependably prevent the tensioner slacking off (=rapid belt failure).
Chrysler 2.2 Turbo III engine, undressed
But wait, there’s more. One of the Lotus engineers involved with the project wrote:
the timing belt tension had to be set high to overcome “tow roping” of the timing belt, i.e. the timing belt going into negative tension, which is a belt killer. This problem was caused by the extremely low valvetrain friction from using roller rockers, combined with the DOHC setup. When an exhaust valve rocker goes over the nose of the camshaft, there is no friction to slow it down and it tries to close the valve even faster, causing the exhaust cam sprocket to rotate clockwise faster and decrease the tension in the belt span between the sprockets.
He knew what he was talking about, too. When the belt would begin to go slack on account of something in this complicated system going out of spec, the T-belt would begin to flap—that tow roping effect—and the engine’s characteristic smooth buzzing drone would take on a wahh-wahh-wahh-wahh note at certain RPMs. That was the sound of standing-wave oscillations in the belt; needless to say, this kind of whipsawing led to (say it again!) quick belt death. I still remember—even before I found this next image—the timing belt gospel: it’s a № 206 belt, and it has to be the one made in Italy; the others have the wrong tooth profile.
Timing belt scriptural exegesis, Chrysler 2.2 Turbo III engine
A few years ago Gates introduced a range of racing timing belts: expensive, but said to be capable of handling thrice the torque of the standard belts. Just for grins I looked: yep, the № 206 is included in the range. Had this T206RB been available when I had this car, I might not have some of the following stories to tell, though this car ate so many timing belts that telling all the stories would make this morning’s symposium go late into the night.
Someone who looked like me, 1998
In 1998 when I was at the University of Michigan, someone who looked like me and drove a car similar to mine could be said to have engaged in what might diplomatically be called social engineering: drafted up and faxed to a Dodge dealer an informational bulletin on what gave every appearance of being letterhead from Chrysler Corporation’s service operations division. The bulletin described a new service quality initiative, similar to a mystery-shopper arrangement, under which apparently ordinary customers would bring their cars in, likely with challenging problems, and the dealer’s performance would be measured in terms of how satisfactorily the repairs were performed.
By some strange coincidence, that was the very dealer I had the car flatbedded to when its timing belt failed. When I went to fetch the car a couple of days later, it was fully detailed as though prepped for sale, purring like the proverbial kitten. The service manager came out from his office to greet me and after some tentative questions, asked me outright if I worked for Chrysler. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question for you. But it looks like your team has done great work here. Top marks!”. The manager said “I understand!” and smiled. He was sure he’d cracked what was what and who was who. Which he sort of had, but the what and the who weren’t quite as he’d reckoned out.
In the summer of 1999 I drove down to Sedona, Arizona for a campout event with a buncha bears. I was leading in the Dodge, with my deaf friend from Dallas behind me in his ’96 Jeep Grand Chicory. A little more than 50 miles south of Denver, suddenly “wahh-wahh-wahh-wahh-wahh” and rapid loss of power: another timing belt failure. I called AAA and while we waited, my friend taught me the sign language for stupid fuсking timing belt broke—the same friend gave me my namesign, which is half the sign for headlamp (done with one hand instead of two), in front of my forehead.
AAA sent us a nice little lesbian in a nice big tow truck, and the three of us had a few wry laffs about being in the shadow of Focus On the Family, a notoriously anti-gay Christian organisation there in Colorado Springs. The car got towed to the Dodge dealer in town and the next day we set off (again) for Arizona with no further incident.
In March of 2000, I headed down to Arizona again to try to get unscrambled after my father’s untimely death. I knew it wasn’t going to work, but figured at least I could escape my mother’s much-worse-than-usual behaviour and try and relax a bit after a hellish nine months. I left Denver at 12 noonish on a Saturday, and drove through maybe eight or ten individual little fun-size snowstorms. I stopped for supper somewhere, then kept driving. At 1:45 in the morning I was 75 miles outside of Phoenix and began to get tired, so I figured to pull off the road and doze for 15 minutes to charge up for the home stretch. I braked from 90 to 0, kicked the clutch, watched the tachometer bounce a few times off the 0 stop before dropping there—and I hadn’t touched the ignition.
Turning the key brought the whirr of an engine being cranked with no compression at all: shit, another timing belt’s gone. I called AAA, who said they’d send someone. Waited an hour without seeing a truck so I called again; AAA said they couldn’t find me. I put up the hood of the car, donned a jacket and hat, grabbed my MagLite and slung it over my shoulder for conspicuity, and started walking to look for a milepost. It was 3:00 AM, give or take. After about ¾ of a mile I heard the jake brake on a semi truck behind me. A tanker truck pulled off into the breakdown lane ahead of me; as I approached, the driver ducked out his door and asked if I needed a ride into town or something. I could see the milepost about another ⅛ mile in the distance (which means the milepost was ⅞ mile away from the car, which means I could’ve walked the other direction and found a milepost a whole lot sooner), so I thanked him anyhow and he drove off. I continued down the road, chuckling at what had been the makings of a highly stereotypical dirty story. By and by I drew close enough to identify mile post 275, called it in, and the AAA flatbed picked me up at about 4:15.
It cost $208 ($318 in today’s money) to tow it the 75 miles into Phoenix—oops, I should’ve got the “plus” AAA membership. They dropped me and the car outside my Phoenix friend’s house, and I collapsed onto his couch until he got up for work, two whole hours later.
The next afternoon, another AAA truck picked up the car and we headed 15 minutes up the freeway for a hastily-called conference of three front-drive Mopar super-experts; one of them ran the foremost hop-up shop for them, and the other two were aircraft mechanics by profession. The workshop where we converged had a lift, air tools, and everything, plus the right ambience: four (other) Spirit R/Ts and a giant assortment of other interesting FWD 2.2/2.5 turbo Mopar cars. No new timing belt to hand, so a good used one was installed in less than an hour. I don’t recall doing much but watching this elite crew do their thing while they kept up a running commentary on the errors they were fixing: tensioner clocked wrong and affixed with wrong bolt, etc. My total cost: $15 for new serpentine belt ’cause the old ones was deteriorating, and the car ran better than it had in many months, because they timed the cams and set up the belt exactly, precisely right.
Timing belts weren’t the only thing. Oh, no, they were not. Shortly after I bought the car, I actually bought something from a car dealer salesman, which I’d never before done: a de luxe Chrysler Added Care Plus service contract. It cost something like $500, I think, and covered parts and labour through to 120,000 miles or ten years of age on the vehicle. I’m here to tell you, Chrysler took a very deep, very cold, very shirtless bath on that particular contract. They bought me several head gaskets, one or two radiators, numerous timing belts, an A/C compressor and both lines, expansion valve, brake master cylinder and booster, oil pan, turbo oil lines, and a passel of parts and whackload of work I no longer recall. Many of these parts were specific to the Turbo III engine—the radiator was special to provide space for the intercooler, the head gasket was unique, the A/C compressor was a special ultra-compact Sanden scroll design and the lines were particular to this car, I think the oil pan had special baffles, and so on and on. All of them would’ve been bitingly costly to buy on my own; that service contract paid for itself many, many times over.
But it wasn’t a bumper-to-bumper unlimited warranty; some stuff I still had to fix on my own. One day I drove the car home from the grocery a mile and a half away, went to use it ten minutes later, and…nothing. Not even a Check Engine light when switching on the ignition. The headlamps were nice and bright, and the horn worked, so the battery was obviously fine, but other than that, nada. There was an ominous, inscrutable error code on the trip computer display, something like r 01 I couldn’t find any reference for. (I liked that trip computer; its average fuel economy readout closely matched my arithmetic).
Elapsed time, trip odometer, distance to empty, instant & average fuel economy. What more needed I?
I spent ninety minutes on diagnosis. Some phone calls with knowledgeable friends guided my underhood investigation, and eventually the problem came clear: the main fusible link in the engine wiring harness had blown. The oxygen sensor’s four wires, in one of those corrugated plastic looms, ran across the engine to the ECU. The plastic clip holding that loom up had fallen out the air cleaner base plate, and the wiring had dropped down onto the hot exhaust manifold and turbocharger housing. The instant I’d turned on the ignition, the O2 sensor heater power wire had gone live while shorted to ground and took out the fuselink to protect the ECU.
A fusible link, or fuselink
I made up a new O2 sensor harness out of high-temperature GE Flamenol wire I’d salvaged from the kitchen oven we’d replaced a few years previously. I triple wrapped it in plastic and aluminum tape and routed it above the air cleaner baseplate, so it couldn’t fall and burn again. I had no replacement fuselink, so I put in a blade fuse holder with a 20-amp fuse.
Flamenol! Now, with more Science! (not to be confused with flamin’ ‘ell.)
The car started right up, and dad was impressed with my diagnostic and repair abilities. Mother glowered, fulminated under her breath, and banged around. A fuse is a fast-blow item versus a fuselink’s slow action (which accommodates harmless transient overloads), so from time to time the fuse would blow and I’d have to replace it to be on my way again, but other than that, the repair held up fine.
Chrysler-Getrag A568 transaxle
The transaxle in this car was an A568, Chrysler’s highest-spec 5-speed with Getrag gears and guts. Car & Driver were full of (used) beans when they gushed about it in their R/T-SHO-Z34 comparison: “the R/T’s shifter took top honors, slotting into gear easily and accurately and generally making everyone feel all warm and fuzzy. Our logbook filled with raves: ‘It’s delicate and nicely weighted,’ and ‘by far the best gearbox of the group.’” Er…maybe so, but I daresay I drove an R/T a great deal more than the glib dillweeds at Buff & Book, and the two or three others I tried were substantially the same as mine. I never drove an SHO, but I easily believe the R/T’s shifter was better than the Lumina’s; a disposable drinking straw inserted in a pile of fresh Play-Doh would have a more direct, precise feel than any of the Lumina’s pathetic fittings.
Leather knob, rubber boot.
And for all that, the R/T did deserve credit for being somewhat less eager to play try-and-shift-me than some of the lesser Chrysler 5-speeds. With practise and luck, it was usually possible to get into the desired gear on the first try. Reverse was tricky, but the trick eventually became second nature: shift it as far into reverse as it wanted to go, then, while continuing to move the lever towards reverse, begin to let up on the clutch and the lever would slot into reverse with no grinding.
I taught my father stick-shifting in this unforgiving-on-that-count car. My folks were planning a trip to France, and any rentcar they’d get would likely not be automatic. Dad picked it up well enough to do it if he had to, but he was never really comfortable with it. They did get a handshift rentcar, as it turned out, a Peugeot or a Renault, and managed to get around with it okeh, except that time they couldn’t get it into Reverse. They didn’t realise you had to lift the collar under the shifter knob, so after giving up on reaching R they pushed the car backward instead.
Mother, who had last driven a handshift car in the 1960s, drove the Dodge (under strenuous protest) during my first year at the University of Michigan while her LeBaron was in Illinois with my sister. As a result, the clutch in the Spirit began slipping, so I had a new clutch, release bearing, and clutch cable put in. I think the service contract covered the clutch, but I paid for the release bearing and cable since they weren’t actually broken. The Denver Dodge dealer service department who did the work told me their key to perfect clutch jobs: always resurface the flywheel with a stone, not a cutter. They said they’d discovered this early on the diesel Dodge Ram trucks. I guess they were right, because the new clutch was quite a bit smoother and better than the previous one had ever been.
The car was built with a rear powertrain mount that was sort of a miniature shock absorber lookin’ thing with a compression spring for good measure. This was meant to cushion the engine’s back-and-forth motion, and it made problems: in normal driving, just cruising along at a steady speed, all it took was a very slight variance in foot pressure on the accelerator, a bit up and then a bit down or the other way around, to set up a bouncy, jerky, bucking effect that could only be stopped by letting go the accelerator or really stepping on it. Boing-boing-boing!
Ed Peters, a former Chrysler production engineer who was in charge of the Mexican plant when my car was built there and was quite an expert in making FWD Mopars go fast, offered a solid torque strut: rubber bushing at the bottom, adjustable thread at the top, connected by a solid steel rod. This was a giant improvement. It did a much better job; it completely eliminated the kangaroo effect and didn’t create any new problems. Peters died last year, but this kind of retrofit strut can still be had from other sources.
The engine generally ran very smoothly; it was equipped with Bill Weertman’s well-engineered counterrotating balance shafts that did just a fantastic job of cancelling the vibrations endemic to certain kinds of 4-cylinder engines. One day, though, I noticed at a stop light that the usually glass-smooth idle had taken on a rough edge. When the light turned green, acceleration was a little jerky. As I made my way along, the problem worsened to the point where letting out the clutch and applying gas to accelerate caused bucking, popping, and jerky, slow acceleration. Yikes! It was raining; had my spark plug wires gone bad? Visual inspection and the old-fashioned gamble of running my hands along the length of each wire with the engine running showed they were probably fine. Maybe some water had got where it shouldn’t, then? I parked in a garage to leave it overnight; as I opened the door, a distinct hot-metal smell told me the catalytic converter was unhappy with the results of the misfire.
Next morning, the car started right up and ran almost normally for a half mile, then the same problem began. It was a dry day, so I guessed it was a heat-related problem rather than a wet-related one. Did I have a coil pack or other electronic component breaking down when hot? H’mm. I attempted a bit more diagnosis, unplugging the fuel injectors one by one until I found one that didn’t change the exhaust chuff and eliminated the raw-fuel smell out the back: cylinder № 2. I tried swapping a known-good spark plug wire on that cylinder, with no change. I put a screwdriver in the spark plug end of the wire, secured it to create a reasonable gap to ground, and started the engine; there didn’t seem to be any missing sparks. Just to make sure there was no difficulty with the fuel injector pulse signal, I started the engine and probed the connector with a test light. I saw the same pulse pattern as when I probed one of the other connectors, so that wasn’t it.
It’s weird that packaging design like this now looks old.
One of the Champion H.O.T. (“High Output Technology”) plugs I’d installed—raise your hand who was never tempted by the promotional propaganda for one or another magic spark plug—simply quit working within 6,000 miles of having been installed. There was nothing visually wrong with it; it hadn’t been brutalised or mutilated or anything, it just flat stopped working.
Okeh, so that should be an easy fix, right? Wrong, because this object lesson was a twofer; I got to learn the hard way that Champion spark plugs tend to suck not only at sparking, but also at plugging. Or unplugging, as it were; their cut threads are cheap to make, but have very sharp edges. These dragged significant amounts of aluminum with them on their way out the (stone cold) cylinder head. Eeep! Heli-Coils exist, of course, but carry their own risks. That head was around a $5,000 item at that time ($8,400 in today’s money), if you could eventually get one. It was rumoured to be a part that was not stocked, but made only once enough had been ordered, and then only if the various parties involved felt like doing it. The tiny number of equipped vehicles meant this wait time could easily run into numerous months.
The workmanship difference was enormous and readily visible between the Chumpion spark plugs and the NGKs I decided to try instead. The NGKs have roll-formed threads: more costly to make, but they lack the razor edges of cut threads. And the surface treatment on the NGKs was obviously better; their metal parts felt slick rather than grabby. I was very fortunate: all four NGKs went in, the whole way in, and didn’t keep turning after seating. Whew!
The car was back to running smoothly on all cylinders, but I hadn’t been quick enough to stop downstream damage. There were new rattles under the car and intermittent severe power loss; the raw fuel dumped into the exhaust tract by the lame cylinder’s dead spark plug and live fuel injector had cooked my cat (meow?). The partially-melted broken chunks of its core were shifting around and sometimes blocking exhaust flow.
My cat blew chunks!
The right fix would have been a carefully-chosen new cat. But I was living in Michigan, where things like emission tests were viewed as wanton attacks in a war on cars, so I mustered all the selfish smartassedness that comes with being a 22-year-old and decided to gut the cat instead of replacing it. What the hey, eh? The rest of the exhaust system abaft of the cat was about due, anyhow. I was associated with a shop space and car crew at the time—details now would spoil a future COAL instalment—so a few of us took apart the exhaust system, put the cat in a vise, and took the straight end of a crowbar to its matrix. That ceramic was very tough, so it took a lot of hammering. Generated a lot of dust, too; I was blowing dark-grey boogers for a couple of days. Very valuable ones containing platinum, palladium, and rhodium.
Ackthpthpth. Thpth. Oop ack.
We put in the new factory muffler I’d bought, and a new tailspout. Without the cat, the exhaust smelt like 1970 and the turbo made entertaining “Wheeoooooooooooo!” noises, amplified by echoing around the empty cat can. Plenty fun. In 1999-2000 when I was back in Denver while dad was in hospital dying of cancer, I used the catless car to take out my pain on the nicotine addicts who instead of going to the smoking enclosure would cluster near the doorway that went from the parkade to the hospital so everyone had to walk through their cloud. I’d back the car into the parking space directly in front of them, then rev the engine. Whassamatta, y’don’t like being made to breathe dirty air? Don’t like me stinkin’ up the place? Imagine that! Me, I don’t like having to see y’all giving yourselves cancer while my dad’s upstairs dying of it. Eventually the registration came due, and I’d have to pass emissions, so I put in a new catalytic converter.
But speaking of stupid revving tricks, I discovered during my time in Michigan that the alarm on the Saab I parked next to in my apartment house’s lot could be set off by hitting a certain RPM. I’d slouch down in my seat, rev through the critical RPM, the Saab would start honking and flashing, and I’d shut off the engine and slouch even lower. The owner would come out, look around, shut off the alarm, and go back inside. A minute or two later, lather-rinse-repeat. All I can say about this is that I’m very pleased to have outgrown my 20s; some people never do, as it seems.
Next week in Part II of this car’s history: international intrigue!«
Can’t lie here. I’ve actually been making it a point to check this site in the early hours of Saturday mornings to catch your latest installment. This one provided more adventure and gut-busting laughs than I thought possible with a Mopar AA and that much AAA! Also a reminder why I just don’t miss timing belts. at. all. At least yours was an application where the engine didn’t eat its valves every time there was a failure.
What did you have for head and fog lamps in that car?
I wondered if anyone was going to notice the lamps, don’tchayknow, and here you are in comment № 1! I’ll talk about ’em in the next chapter.
I am very much not a fan of engines that self-destruct if the timing belt fails. When Bill Weertman was in charge of Chrysler engine engineering, the rule was if interference, then chain; no belt-drive interference engines were allowed out the door, and I heartily agree with that policy. It was inconvenient enough dealing with serially shucked timing belts.
(zonk…thank you; I’ve adjusted the title of this post.)
So those yellow headlights aren’t photoshopped or some artifact caused by a low sun angle? I am intrigued as to what you’re going to say about these!
No photoshoop, no sun artifacts, no other foolies; they were as they appear in the photo. I’m being tightlipped about it for now because otherwise I’d spoil three upcoming posts. I promise, all will be revealed!
I’m betting it’s probably not because you registered the car in France.
I’ve said too much already! 😉
I know of only two stock headlights used in the AA, one for North America and one for Europe, and supposedly they both suck. So I’m looking forward to what can be done with these.
Five kinds of stock headlamp for the AA-body. None very good, some a bit less bad than others.
I recall a Stern post involving one of these with Euro spec mirrors. I wonder if there is some relation to these French looking lights.
Two such posts—this one and this one—but that wasn’t this car.
Yeah I just thought you might have seized a shipment of euro contraband.
Chrysler lights and mirrors, slim XJ6 bumpers, Irn Bru and Kinder Eggs.
I’m sitting here eagerly awaiting three posts involving yellow lights.
I can’t put into words how good your writing must be just to make the above sentence exist.
I’m glad I learned my MoPar “le$$on” with the new ’85 Dodge Turbo Lancer I bought! It ran decently, until it didn’t at LE$$ than 50K miles. Goodbye Lancer, hello……….? I don’t even remember; too many cars and bikes over the decades! DFO
What a disaster many of those high-power and high-complexity turbo fours were in the 80s and early 90s. Forgive me if I suffer from a lack of confidence that the modern crop of them will turn out to provide the same anvil-like reliability of more cubic inches. But time will tell.
I am aware that Chrysler (or whatever it calls itself these days) offers a lifetime warranty of some sort, but deep in the small print is their right to make you sell them the car back if things get out of hand. Maybe cars like your Spirit are the genesis of that little clause.
I remember the early catalytic converter years. And how parts stores stocked lots of “test pipes” – necessary, of course, to determine whether your cat is plugged. I performed that test on my 77 New Yorker. It was a really long test because I wanted to be thorough. And might as well run cheaper leaded gas during the test, right? The test ran right up to the time I traded the car on a new 85 VW GTI. That was when the salesman called me to say that his dealership could not sell the car while such a test was still being performed and wanted me to pay for a new cat. Had the law required me to do so I am sure they would not have stopped pestering me after I asked for a citation to the statute that required me to conclude my test before selling the car.
I wouldn’t call the car a disaster, but it was a few car-lengths too close to those test mules the engineers drive around with all the instruments and dataloggers hooked up.
I remember that story of yours, with the dealer trying to claim you were legally obliged to restore the cat. Talk about {{citation required}}, eh!
As to “test pipes” and other such shenanigans: at least one of the major analyses of the American gasoline transition noted that taxation ought to have been adjusted to make unleaded cost a bit less than leaded, instead of the other way round. Well, yeah, duh.
I don’t see how the turbo aspect has anything to do with the timing belt problem, that’s just a poorly engineered situation compounded by worse training for mechanics. The turbo part of the car seemed to perform well if I read the post correctly (it was at 4am, a little bleary…)
Mopar’s warranty buyback “limited lifetime” clause has more to do with the car eventually aging to a level of depreciation where it doesn’t make financial sense to fix it anymore, lots of Jeepers initially think they can get a forever machine when perusing that warranty. No, once that Jeep depreciates to a couple of thousand dollars, which it will, and the engine or whatever goes, Stellantis will just pay out for the carcass instead of replacing the engine. But few people hold on to a car that long anyway so it’s usually a moot point.
That car/engine though is the same era as my Audi S4 with its inline 5 of also 2.2l – in 1991 in the Audi 200 it too had 4 valves per cylinder with an output of 217hp and 228lb-ft of torque. By ’92 in the S4 the power was upped to 227 and 258lb-ft. In any case there were zero problems with the timing belt beyond it needing a replacement at 60k, and then no issues after that. Not exactly a high-volume production engine either though and legendary for lasting hundreds of thousands of miles and being able to handle significant power increases.
Not taking anything away from Daniel’s car but his car (or the Spirit RT in general) is not necessarily representative of what was offered at the time in the turbo arena by companies that did the necessary engineering and had the experience (or desire and/or budget) to make a good product. No matter if there was a warranty involved or not, most people are not as mechanically inclined and especially if the repair was not “free”, they would likely have decided that the car is junk, period, after the first couple of instances. Timing belts falling off a car is not a common phenomenon whether in a turbo or an NA car, dealer mechanics fixing it with incorrect parts doesn’t help. That’s a (product) management problem from high on up as far as I am concerned. ON the other hand there are turbo cars and there are “turbo” cars – some use it for power and fuel efficiency gains and some use it to push the envelope as far as power goes. The Spirit RT (and the Audi for that matter) were far more on the performance side of that spectrum. A garden variety Buick Encore 1.3T, Chevy Malibu 1.5T or the Ford F150 2.7T puts out good power but is tuned far more to the fuel efficiency side of the spectrum. There isn’t much to a turbo itself, just look at the device, it couldn’t really be simpler and adds FAR less moving parts than does the other bank of a V-engine. An engine that is designed to handle it (a simple engineering decision/calculation, far from rocket science) makes it no more likely to be inherently problematic. It’s like when people still believe that cars are fully worn out by 100k miles.
Aside from the increased loads, stresses, and running speeds applied to the beleaguered timing belt (amongst all the rest of the working parts), turbochargers tend to make the engine bay quite a bit hotter, which is not friendly to belts and other soft parts.
True, and I’m not sure parts count is the best measure here. Another bank of cylinders doesn’t add a shaft and bearing spinning at tens of thousands of RPMs at exhaust-port temperatures and heavily dependent on an uninterrupted supply of clean, very high quality oil, nor a seal tasked with keeping exhaust pressure and intake vacuum on their respective sides of the fence, nor a turbine wheel that reacts badly to fouling by soot present in exhaust.
I don’t really want to get into a debate and perhaps/probably shouldn’t have commented to begin with but load on a timing belt is load, it shouldn’t matter if the torque applied is due to a turbo or a more powerful naturally aspirated engine. Yes the turbo model should likely not use the same part number belt as the base model NA engine with half the power but they don’t generally use the same exact head, block, or pistons either, in other words the appropriate parts are hopefully spec’d and the people spec’ing them hopefully know what they are doing. If it’s engineered and installed correctly it will last without falling off. A timing belt tensioner on a NA engine that’s secured with a drywall screw instead of the proper fastener is likely going to fail too. Same with engine speed, the belt isn’t running faster just because it’s a turbo and any quicker increase in speed is more dependent on the flywheel than the turbo, or at least that shouldn’t be a factor, a turbo doesn’t need to run at faster engine speeds. In any case there are plenty of (most or all current?) turbocharged engines that run belts that don’t have belt issues such as what you described. Your particular case is/was a significant outlier, I have not heard or seen that happen before. I know it’s anecdata but I’ve also owned multiple brands of turbo cars, some with high mileages, replaced timing belts, and not experienced weird issues such as yours. Never had an older Mopar turbo though that I can recall.
The heat can certainly be an issue but it too can be managed, i.e. engineered to be dealt with properly. Usually a heat issue manifests itself as a temporary reduction in power due to an automatic retardation of the timing rather than any failure of the componentry. You are correct to infer (or I took it as such) that an owner should actually maintain and periodically inspect the components in their engine bay and not assume that a radiator hose or a serpentine belt will last 200,000 miles. I know that’s a very big ask in this market. In regular use though it’s not like a turbo is glowing red hot either, pictures of the cherry-red glowing turbo on a 935 at LeMans ’77 are not representative of what’s going on underhood in a 2019 Buick Regal Tour-X.
It’s one shaft and a bearing and a few seals. They’ve generally been oil and water cooled for close to four decades now and are very well understood. Yes you should be on top of the oil change intervals and should use what’s recommended (just like spark plugs etc), but the engine itself isn’t the issue, that’s purely down to the user/owner following instructions. Change intervals aren’t low anymore either. But leaving all of that aside and let’s assume that the the turbo actually needs replacing. It’s an externally mounted device between the exhaust manifold and the downpipe with a few electrical plugs, an oil line, a water line, and an intake hose attached to it. No voodoo or complex to replace, certainly less so than anything internal to an engine itself or the average head gasket. Less moving parts is almost always better than more moving parts.
I don’t think YOU are doing so and that isn’t my argument, but basing a conception of what turbos do and how they behave or issues caused by them based on a 35year old Dodge design that was partially outsourced to begin with is not a good factual base to start with and we see it all the time here, the general preconception seems to be that turbos are a 50k or so wear item if one is lucky and will grenade the motor if looked at sideways and have seen zero progress since the early T-Bird turbo. It’s like looking at modern variable cylinder management and assuming they all have serious issues due to the Cadillac V8-6-4. Or a negative outlook on diesel solely due to someone’s aunt’s Oldsmobile. Or that a modern Kia or Hyundai sucks based on hearing about an early Sephia or Excel. I could go on but there’s no need.
Basically, and to boil it down to the essentials, I believe that modern turbos easily last the life of the vehicle in the vast majority of cases nowadays. That’s more than I’d say about transmissions for instance. Or perhaps those transmission failures cause the end of life of the vehicle whereas a turbo failure rarely would (or should).
You’ll certainly get no quarrel from me that today’s turbochargers tend to hold up fine; the state of turbo engineering—not to mention oil engineering—has advanced. The turbo itself on my Dodge never gave any trouble, for that matter.
My comment wasn’t aimed so much at the timing belt – yes, not a stellar design job – but at this paragraph:
“several head gaskets, one or two radiators, numerous timing belts, an A/C compressor and both lines, expansion valve, brake master cylinder and booster, oil pan, turbo oil lines, and a passel of parts and whackload of work I no longer recall. Many of these parts were specific to the Turbo III engine—the radiator was special to provide space for the intercooler, the head gasket was unique, the A/C compressor was a special ultra-compact Sanden scroll design and the lines were particular to this car, I think the oil pan had special baffles, and so on. All of them would’ve been bitingly costly to buy on my own . . . .”
Yes it was possible to get Mustang GT levels of power out of a 2.2 four with a turbo. But there was a lot of collateral damage to the owner who didn’t pop for the service contract. The basic principle is that turbos add complexity and complexity tends to cost an owner extra in service and repairs as a car gets older.
I may very well be channeling the conservative old Uncle Clem I have written about, but I have yet to have a second bank of cylinders cause me a problem. And I freely admit that these new engines may be everything they claim to be and that modern turbos and lubricants will make today’s turbo engines as durable as the Buick 3.8 of yore. But I also recall the conversation with my sister about the $2-3k the Jeep dealer charged to replace the failing turbo on her diesel 05 Jeep Liberty at 6 or 7 years old. I have forgotten the exact figure, but it was eye-popping at the time.
You’ve never had an AC compressor fail, a radiator need replacing or a head gasket or brake parts needing to be repaired on a V8 equipped car? You’re a lucky man beyond the fact that none of those instances have or had anything to do with what type of engine there are installed around.
Let’s take a look at those parts that apparently failed:
Head gaskets – yes, failure can be perhaps attributed to the turbo. It’s generally an easy engineering challenge to spec a part that can handle the pressure unless you are needing to save five cents per piece. Head gaskets are not an intrinsic wear item due to having a turbo engine. Or conversely people have had and continue to have head gasket failures on all manner of non-turbo engines. The only two I’ve ever had fail myself were both on a 1979 Mazda 626 2.0liter four producing 80hp, the very definition of an understressed engine. Conversely close to 400hp through a 2.2liter Audi I5 was not an issue.
Timing belts – already discussed, has nothing to do with the turbo itself.
Radiators – Again, nothing to do with the turbo. Mopar decided to put in a radiator that could not handle the job due to wanting space for an intercooler. Just like taking a car that has a V6, deciding to put a V8 in the car and underspeccing the radiator to make room for the V8. That doesn’t mean V8s should be avoided, does it? If the car was properly designed it would have worked.
AC compressor and parts – did not fail due to the turbo, completely non-related beyond some engineer or bean counter failing at their job in general. There is no reason that Chrysler could not have found or built a part that worked.
Brake master cylinder and parts – see AC.
Oil pan – come on. Oil pans don’t go bad due to whatever is attached above them. Oil pans can be designed to not handle the oil correctly or I suppose could have some soft of internal failure, but nothing to do with the car being turbocharged..
Turbo oil lines – yes, if they leaked there was an issue and this would be an item that would not be needed otherwise. Likely a hard or braided metal line with a connector at either end. Similar to the lines used for a transmission cooler. Sounds like it was not engineered for the job.
Again, just because parts were unique to this car does not mean that turbo engines are inherently bad.
Yes, turbos do add some complexity over a naturally aspirated engine. So does any engine (adds complexity or stresses or something somehow) that has more power vs one that has less. A Hellcat engine uses different internal items than the stock 6.2l V8 in a pickup. Dodge simply did a shitty job here when building a limited production model using whatever off the shelf parts for whatever reasons they could justify internally.
I guess a different analogy might be that Chrysler minivan automatic transmissions add complexity over a manual gearbox. DougD’s failed recently, they’ve been failing for decades. Does that mean that all automatic transmissions should be avoided? Of course not. But if you buy a Chrysler minivan with an automatic you might want to consider the history and decide if the positives of the vehicle outweigh this potential negative.
I can’t speak to your sister’s experience with her dealer beyond believing that dealer repairs on an out of warranty vehicles are often orders of magnitude beyond the repair costs at qualified other shops. The same goes for transmissions or anything else. The price is always eyepopping.
It’s fine to have biases or whatever based on experience and preferences that arise from that but I don’t find it fine to just paint everything with the same brush. I don’t know why I’m passionate about this, (it doesn’t make one whit of difference to me personally). I would certainly avoid purchasing a Dodge Spirit RT as the detailed failure points do seem to be inherent to it, but they are inherent to the Dodge Spirit RT, not to the general technology that was misapplied in this case
It seems that if Chrysler had decided to replace the stock 4cylinder engine in the regular Spirit with a V8 they may well have seen the same issues, the radiator, AC, master cylinder, head gaskets, oil pan, timing apparatus all would have been different than the base engine and could all have had issues. But those issues would not have been blamed on the V8 engine architecture itself, would they?
I know I can’t change your mind on this and that’s fine. What I want to avoid is the next time we do a story on anything turbocharged people point to Daniel’s experience with his Dodge and use it as an example of turbo=bad when really it should be early 1990s Dodge engineering = bad (in this case).
The key issue with this engine was not the turbo, but the fact that it was designed to be a limited-production high performance engine largely engineered by a contractor in the UK. The budget was undoubtedly tight, and there’s zero doubt in my mind that it was not subjected to anywhere near the durability testing that a normal hi-volume production engine would receive. This is essentially a “tuner” engine, comparable to what one would have expected to get from Callaway, AMG, or such.
And as such, the outcome in terms of durability and issues is highly unsurprising.And if this engine had been naturally aspirated, the outcome would almost certainly have been likely similar.
Chrysler’s regular 2.2 turbo was built in very large quantities, and did not experience these issues.
Comparing this to any high-volume regular production engine is not a fair comparison.
In this case the head gasket failures were all due to coolant leaks caused by using the wrong coolant; its incompatible chemistry attacked the gasket. This was in the earlier stages of no longer being able to tell coolants apart by colour because there were new kinds proliferating, but that’s a thin excuse; once I switched back to the regular green stuff coolant leaks stopped happening.
I don’t remember the particulars on the oil pan, but it wasn’t a catastrophic failure, but a drip-drip-drip leak. Maybe the drain plug stripped or something like that.
Fact is the standard 2.2 Turbo was a reasonably robust and durable engine for the era.
Some of those things can be indirectly blamed on the engine in this case.
For example it sounds like for packaging reasons they couldn’t fit the old standby compressor and they may not have done life cycle testing on the smaller compressor they chose instead. However it was purchased from a known manufacturer with lots of experience building AC compressors so there should have been some level of trust. Or it could have just been a random failure of that particular part, not something common to this application.
The radiator could be a similar problem where the need to get it to market was deemed more important that fully vetting the application. Or it could be general failures.
Ditto for the master cylinder, improper heat management could reduce its life span, but then again it is just as likely that it was just your basic failure.
So Yeah it is a Factory Hot Rod but it is still a Hot Rod where increased performance is at the top of the design brief.
Paul says:
… and there’s zero doubt in my mind that it was not subjected to anywhere near the durability testing that a normal hi-volume production engine would receive.
And he’s probably right. if I’d bought one of these cars new, I would have been aware that parts specific to the car might become unobtanium 10 or 20 years out. But I probably would have assumed/expected that it had gotten good durability testing, and I would have been very disappointed and upset if I’d had Daniel’s experiences. Maybe I would have been naive to think that, but I would have thought it. 30 years of search-engine-aided hindsight is another matter, of course.
I know this conversation is over, but just to add to your points here. Diesel engines have come with turbos as standard for many years, otherwise they just don’t have enough power. One of the traits that people expect from a diesel is reliability, and this is despite them having high compression rations, turbos, turbo oil-feed lines etc etc. When the manufacturers put the time and effort into engineering these parts correctly, they are completely reliable. I would have no problem with owning a modern turbo car from a manufacturer with a proven reliability track record.
There are Malibu 1.5Ts sitting in holding lots waiting for back-ordered vacuum pumps so their owners can learn that their engines were destroyed when they ingested their original vacuum pumps. If you’re a keeper, turbos are still to be avoided.
If you take this to the extreme, “keepers” should only be driving ancient side-valve engines that have the absolute minimum of complexity, but are slow and thirsty.
If you’re a keeper, you’re better off looking at the manufacturers reliabilty record and philosophy. In general if I was looking for longevity, I would rather buy a Toyota with a turbo (like my old diesel Toyota TownAce) than a N/A Renault (like my Renault Scenic).
Michigan had emissions tests for a few years in the 90s due to some violation of EPA rules. If you didn’t pass them, you could always substitute someone else’s car of the same make and model and then pass the test. I loaned my 76 Cutlass to a friend so he could pass his 83 Cutlass. The shops never checked the VIN against a title/registration. Another way to pass was to leave it with the shop. The mechanic would then make it pass and you’d return a few hours later to donate $50 and pick up your test results. Emissions tests were often used by shops as loss leaders to get you in for other, more profitable services. As a result, they wanted to make the customer happy by passing the car. By the mid-90s, whatever out of compliance area of the state (ie. SE Michigan) was back in compliance and the tests were eliminated.
Back in the late ’70s, Louisiana required safety inspections. Being new to the state, I brought my rather tired ’58 Plymouth in to get the required safety sticker so I could change over my expiring Oklahoma tag to a Louisiana tag. I was asked if I wanted the standard inspection or the more expensive $25 “special” inspection.
Not sure of what a special inspection included, I naively asked the difference. I was told the special inspection could be done totally in the office. No need to actually examine the car. The standard inspection would closely check for problems. If any were noted, they had to be corrected before the car could be tagged.
Even a die hard Chrysler fan boy would be unlikely to consider a 1958 Plymouth a long lasting high quality automobile. I’m here to tell you that 20 years wear and tear didn’t improve the rare survivors.
While the factory AC still worked, it was one of the few items that did. The heater core leaded and blew mist inside the windshield on defrost. The passenger side wiper hadn’t moved in so long the rubber had almost welded itself to the glass. The parking brake was such that it was wise to block the wheels or let them rest against the curb. The outside mirror glass was cracked. The inside mirror reflector coating had discolored almost to the point of being unusable.
Discretion seemed wiser than saving money, so I opted for the more expensive “special” inspection. Since Louisiana tags were good for 2 years, the next tag the Plymouth got was in another state and not my worry as I was being stationed overseas.
That “special inspection” sounds much like the one described in Stephen King’s “Uncle Otto’s Truck”!
That was a good read, Daniel; really enjoying your COAL series. It is impressive what Chrysler was able to wring out of that 2.2. I’d love to take a working Spirit or Daytona R/T for a spin…but have no desire to own one just for the reliability issues. There can’t be many running turbo K’s left these days.
Those that still exist are surely pretty much all in the hands of die-hard enthusiasts.
This is a remarkable tale. It’s like the car is a Ferrari and a Hyundai at the same time.
I’d love to see retail price invoices for all the work done under warranty.
I’d say it was more like a Ferrari* and a Chrysler at the same time. The AA-cars were well designed throughout, and build quality at the Mexican plant was quite high. The exotic componentry was beautifully engineered, and manufactured to a very high standard of craftsmanship. All in all the car gave the best and worst of exactly what it was.
*Not Maserati, as that was a different 16-valve DOHC version of the Chrysler 2.2-litre engine
Not to make an unfair comparison, but the only timing belt failure I’ve ever had was on my Vega. The two home was quick and free on my parents’ AAA. As I recall, the replacement belt and a new water pump cost under $30 and were easy to replace.
Daniel, wow, you’ve delivered another classic. As T.A. Cowan has said above, your C.O.A.L.s are mandatory Saturday morning reading.
Thoughts on your post, in no particular order:
1. As T.A. mentioned, I thought it was fortunate indeed that your first TB failure did not result pistons kissing valves, etc. After you’d gone through several of these, though, I figured that your engine was likely non-interference.
2. After the specialists installed the umpteenth timing belt, did it (the used timing belt) last longer than the others? I’ve had several timing-belt-equipped Mazdas, and they all served well. No failures, and the belts all looked serviceable when I changed them out on the basis of mileage. Bonus, the Mazdas were non-interference anyway.
3. I was surprised that you weren’t doing the TB changes yourself, having done repairs so much more challenging on your Slant Six cars, but then realized you had some sort of extended warranty.
4. Focus On The Family and its founder, Dr James Dobson, parted ways perhaps a dozen or so years ago. They said mutually nice and amicable things at the time, but it was suspected that there was a philosophical disagreement as to the future direction of the organization. It seemed that Dr Dobson was getting mired in the culture wars, whereas the directors of FOTF wanted, instead, to “focus on the family”.
5. In the mid-’60s, Pontiac took a staid pushrod inline 6, and did a cheapy conversion to an OHC configuration. I think that engine was featured here on CC in the last few months, and I was stunned to learn that the camshaft was integrated into the valve cover. Really??? Weird, but very cool!
In any case, that plus this post makes me wonder if any of the MOPAR engineers ever considered doing likewise with a Slant Six …
The Slant Six was very well-regarded (duh); some years ago, for example, there was talk of Chrysler cutting the block in half and making a “Slant Three” for small cars. It would have fit fine transversely for FWD applications.
You may have heard of Phil Edmonston – he was a long-serving consumer advocate here, sort of a Canadian Ralph Nader, though perhaps gifted with a more jovial nature. He published the annual Lemon-Aid car guides for decades. I wish I’d kept my old ones – they showed rusting patterns, and included the secret warranties and TSBs, realistic resale values, things to watch out for, etc.
For Kiwi and Aussie readers, Lemon-Aid is like a mellow version of The Dog And Lemon Guide.
Anyway, in one of the ’70s editions, Phil described the Slant Six as the “closest thing yet to perpetual motion”. High praise indeed.
6. Loss and tragedy and grief tend to bring out the core person. They can reveal a person at their best. I am so sorry that your mother’s behaviour only got worse during your father’s illness. I hope there are some redeeming tales about her to come.
I hope your sister survived childhood weirdness OK – it sounds like your mother favoured her, and hope you and your sister have a good relationship in spite of it all.
7. Your “Timing Belt Scriptural Exegesis” is flipping brilliant; I am in awe.
Keep ’em coming!
Many comments end up in the Trash folder as pat of our anti-spam software. Leaving duplicate versions doesn’t help. Just wait until someone fishes it out. Thanks.
Thanks Paul, didn’t realize that – my previous comments had been posted quickly. I’ll be more patient in future. Cheers!
Thanks for reading, 35, and for the compliments.
That used timing belt probably did last longer than the previous ones, what with the ancillary issues discovered and corrected—wrong bolt, etc—but only the car’s subsequent owner knows for sure. I never had any interest in doing my own timing belt replacement. Maybe it might’ve been easier than I imagined, but I never cared or dared to try it.
OHC Slant-6s were experimented with, yes. On my long-term project list is a comprehensive article on the Slant-6 engine, and that topic will be covered. Four-cylinder versions were looked at, as well, though no three-cylinder ones—those might’ve been the idea of a writer at a magazine, perhaps, or something of that like; do you remember where you saw it?
My sister is apparently a very fine parent. My mother: “weirdness” is several large notches too diplomatic. I strive to mind that getting angry at a faulty toaster doesn’t unburn the toast or undo the electric shock, it just raises my blood pressure. There are further tales in the offing.
As to Mr. Dobson: maybe I might recognise the legitimacy of his title and start calling him “doctor” when he recognises the legitimacy of my family and stops propheteering by claiming we’re a threat, bless his heart. In the meantime, I cordially invite him and the horse he rode in on to focus on his own damn family.
Daniel, I don’t recall where I read about the “Slant Three” – I’m guessing it was in the ’80s, as the writing was on the wall for The Leaning Tower of Power, and the pundits at Chrysler brainstormed how they might leverage the engine’s stellar reputation. But it could have been in the ’70s, when there was rampant speculation about the engine of the revolutionary-small-car-that-would-save-Chrysler.
I read quite a bit, and a disproportionate of my reading has been auto-related, for several decades now. So I have a lot of automotive sludge in the memory banks, and the 3-banger is part of it. I have a stash of old car magazines, and if it turns up, I’ll scan and post it.
Your analogy of the defective toaster is helpful. We could have a discussion about childhood shame and weirdness, and I’d at least give you a run for your money.
I’m glad to hear things turned out well for your sister! Given that she’s a mother, I’m sure you’re a very beloved uncle.
More thoughts on your post:
– That visor-mounted cellular phone is bizarre.
– Chrysler Corporation radios were huge. Even the AM-only radio in our ’80 Volare was huge.
– Champion was very clever with that HOT acronym. High Output Technology indeed!
The visorphone is certainly an unusual artefact of its time!
The stereo deck I’ve pictured here would’ve dropped directly into your Volaré; the mount pattern and connectors were the same. I think the F-body might’ve been the first car with that size and mount pattern to the radio, and Chrysler stuck with it for many years, through the late ’90s or perhaps into the early ’00s.
Champion spark plugs have got only worse, not better, since my swear-off experience told here. Same with Autolites. I still like NGKs.
We eagerly tried being beloved uncles, but sister and mister-sister don’t really want us for anything but a lib-cred checkbox. Sad, but nothing we can do about it.
Sorry to read your childhood was marred, too. That shit leaves scars.
Dan, I am so very sorry to hear about the stuff with your sister and her family. GRRR! You deserve better; it’s their loss more than yours.
I’ve come through the childhood stuff OK overall (but yes, the scars remain), and have realized that although my parents certainly didn’t do everything right, they were products of their own dysfunctional childhoods, and did the best with what they had. And as the elder child, I bore the brunt of the “stuff”, paving, I hope, a smoother road for my sister. (It sounds like the reverse happened in your case.)
I think my parents were both bewildered, and likely worried, about my interest in things mechanical, and Dad tried quite hard to discourage me from working on my car (or any other), but eventually he relented. At one point he was quite grateful that I’d done a successful repair to his beloved ’67 Newport. I think there was a prevailing attitude of “If this (mechanical repair), then not that (higher education)”, rather than a realization that if you learn one skill, you inevitably get better at almost anything else, related or not, you take on later.
I moved away from Champion plugs many years ago, and have been an NGK guy for decades now. Just a couple of weeks ago, my friend had bought AC plugs for his Sonic, and I was sort of cringey about them, but installed them and the car’s fine … and about 10 years ago my friend bought over his Mazda van (a twin to mine), which was running very poorly. He’d just put in a fresh set of Champions, and I immediately said that they were the problem. But as it turned out, they weren’t. We swapped in my distributor, and his van suddenly ran great, so we diagnosed the problem as the ignitor (in Mazda-speak), and a rebuilt distributor fixed him up. His van ran just fine with the Champions.
But I’m sold on NGKs, and won’t be going back. (And your explanation of the machining differences between Champion and NGK plugs made me feel better about my bias.)
Bonus Material: I found the attached image when reading through the Model Garage archives online about 15 years ago, and besides Gus and Stan, immediately identified Dr Dobson looking skeptically at the array of fuel pumps. I know, but the Venn Diagram of this unlikely confluence may never come up again in any context, so it I must include it.
Because we live in the future, I was easily able to find the source of this image: the April 1951 Gus Wilson story.
I agree with you about many parental shortcomings and failings being hereditary. I don’t think my mother actively set out to abuse me, but she did a lot of lasting damage passively: she was aware of her behavioural problems, and had the resources and time to do the hard work of self-scrutiny and betterment, but she also had the luxury of enough money and privilege to be able to repeatedly chose not to, without suffering consequence—so cleaning up after her corrosive, toxic mess fell to me. My father had his own flaws and blind spots, some of them quite severe, but it is much more evident to me that he did his best than that she did.
My sister’s life choices don’t appear to have made her happy. It’s difficult to watch her following, in her own way, in our mother’s footsteps. But they’re her choices to make.
Daniel –
My wife (who has always been a wonderful, caring, and loving mother to our boys, and has been bolstering my self-esteem and loving me for well over 30 years now) and I cycled downtown this evening, picked up some takeout, and enjoyed a delightful supper outdoors at The Forks (sort of Winnipeg’s equivalent of Vancouver’s Granville Island). Fairly guilt-free on the calorie front because of the 17 km on the bikes.
In any case, while parking my bike outside the restaurant, I saw this marvelous survivor, which I thought you’d enjoy. (Yeah, I know, it’s probably got one of those funny bent engines with too many cylinders, but still …)
I wish I’d gotten more and better shots, but the darn light changed!
Urf. I have a hard time seeing much to marvel at, or calling this car a survivor; to me it’s more like a zombie. If the front end is to be believed, this is a ’63. Those weren’t designed to accept a V8 engine—many changes were made for the ’64s to accommodate the 273—so this one’s been hacked even more than is obvious. To each their own, obviously, and I hope its owner enjoys it, but it’s not my cuppa.
Sounds like you had a grand evening! I keep resolving to get back on my bike…
Urf??? OK, fine, be like that! ;>)
Yeah, I get it – 2-door and modded, not my thing either. I think you’ll prefer this shot from 2010:
Make sure the photo is not more than 1,200 pixels in its longest dimension. There might also be a file size limit.
Arg! Photo didn’t attach! 2nd attempt:
One more time …
Thanks Daniel! I’ve reduced the file sizes, and will try again. Here’s the engine bay –
H’mm. ’62-’65 B-body with a ’70-’80 engine (or at least a ’70-’80 valve cover) swapped in. This is closer to what I like to fawn over. I’m not a purist; I don’t shun anything less than a 100 per cent factory stock car (as my COAL stories are probably making clear) but whoever painted the engine bay black on this car needs a spanking.
And here’s the marvelous dashboard, from the same car. Unfortunately I only took the two photos of the car, so can only identify it as an early-’60s Plymouth or Dodge.
Neat, that’s a ’63 Plymouth. Maybe a Savoy, from the central horn button with no horn ring. That dashboard is the result of some dillweed deciding it had to change for ’63 and so defacing it with a goofy box-serif cowboy typeface and that half-and-half gauge next to the speedometer. The ’62 version shown here was a high-water mark in instrument panel design.
Agreed, that font is atrocious. It reminds me of cocktail-mix ads in old LIFE magazines. But otherwise – the parallelogram, the asymmetry of the the gauge arrangement, the mutant arbitrary double gauge, the two columns of push buttons – I love it! (I was also smitten with the Astrodome I saw in a 1960 Chrysler 300 in 1980 – I had to admire the Chrysler stylists for their sheer willingness to try something like that.)
What’s the gauge masked by the steering wheel? Given the presence of the oil light, I thought it might be a clock, but then I see your ’62 dash has both an oil-pressure gauge and an idiot light. Kudos to Chrysler if so!
I’m reminded of my ’69 Imperial which had full gauges (coolant temperature, gas, oil pressure, and ammeter) all backed up by a bid rectangular orange light that come on saying “CHECK GAUGES” if one of them strayed into critical territory. Pretty good system.
The oil pressure gauge on the linked ’62 is an aftermarket modification done to a very high standard. Originally the gauges on the ’62 were clock, fuel, ammeter, and engine temperature—only an idjit light for oil pressure, which was Chrysler’s standard practice on most vehicles for many years. Same four gauges on the ’63, as can be seen here.
In spite of being in the USA, I somehow got hold of one of Phil Edmonston’s books, maybe at a used-book store, in the early 1970s. IIRC it was titled Justice for the Exploited Motorist. Being a Canadian book, it was bilingual. The French title was Motorists, Defend Yourselves.
Staxman, it sounds like that book is an early effort by Phil Edmonston, predating his Lemon-Aid series.
Heard him interviewed on the radio a few years ago – I expected him to be angry and self-righteous, but he was very jovial and had quite the sense of humour. He admitted he’d been wrong in recommending Ladas when they were first imported here c. 1980, and of course in recommending the Volare/Aspen twins a few years earlier.
I had to have a new catalytic converter installed in my 1990 3.1 GM V6 about ten years ago. It cost $150. It of course also once needed a new steering rack. The aftermarket part installed by a dealer in Colorado (small town where dealers aren’t criminals) was $350.
Take that, German engineering.
Great story about the Spirit. I once owned a Chrysler product with the 2.2. Fortunately, the basic version. It did need a head gasket at something over 100K miles. That was pretty much it.
I’ve never owned a car that was also offered in a limited-production, high-performance version, but I’ve had it in the back of my mind that LPHP versions might not be user-friendly. Your car sounds like an extreme example–needing exactly the right bolt for the belt tensioner, 5 large for a cylinder head when they can be bothered to make one, jeez Louise! I’m surprised that an engine like that wasn’t an interference engine, but it’s probably for the best that it wasn’t.
Another GREATLY enjoyable read on the continuing automotive escapades of one Daniel Stern! You really made a wise choice on purchasing the service contract; nowadays, it seems that the so called contracts have so many loopholes/caveats that in a lot of cases it doesn’t pay to have them. I also suspect that it would be a lot harder for a semblance of someone to create a semblance of a corporate bulletin! The Gary Larson cartoon was the icing on the cake, LOL! I eagerly await next week’s adventure! 🙂
It seems odd that Chrysler offered a contract under which they could spend (and spend, and spend) as much as they did on my car, doesn’t it!
Would a comparable service contract for a plain vanilla Spirit have been cheaper? Was the price of a service contract more or less proportional to the list price of the car?
Someone mentioned the Spirit R/T in a comment on my “same block, different heads” QOTD. That was one I hadn’t been aware of when I wrote the question, or I would have mentioned it.
I’m sure I don’t remember the pricing schedule for the service contracts, but it’s difficult for me to imagine one this generous costing less than I paid—no matter for what model.
Thank you Daniel, for regaling us with your odyssey with this intriguing and overlook car! I would love to have the chance to take a Spirit R/T for a spin, but in terms of ownership…. well, let’s just say I have a short fuse for automotive histrionics.
Now I’m a grownup with obligations and responsibilities and without lots of idle money, I consider Hypercars—I think the Spirit R/T qualifies as such, in context—fun and nifty in somebody else’s garage.
Love the social engineering jape! If I were on the receiving end of the fax, I might be tempted to see if the originating area code and phone exchange tracked with Chrysler corporate, but then I’m something of a phone-number geek. In 1996 they wouldn’t have had the option of Googling the number. If this was what you had to do to get good service, well ….
Some years ago I read an article by a female business executive about an example of out-of-the-box thinking she’d seen. The premise of the article was that women are often conditioned to think that if they do good work and play by the rules, they’ll get ahead, and the author wanted to challenge this thinking.
The example she then recounted: A woman who worked for a university had been tasked with renting an office in a nearby building, which she did. Then the university decided that they didn’t need the office after all and tasked her with breaking the lease. She asked the landlord if they could just break it, and the answer was no. She offered a lump-sum payment to get out of the lease; still no. And then she got creative.
She had an “Adolescent Psychiatric Treatment Facility” plaque made for the door of the office, and she sent a letter to the other tenants in the building:
“We will be opening a clinic treating emotionally disturbed teenagers. If any of our clients are dealing drugs, urinating in the bushes, or harassing you or your clients in any way, please let us know.”
The landlord couldn’t let them out of the lease fast enough!
Chrysler had offices all over Michigan, and fax machine headers could be, ah, adjusted.
That “Adolescent Psychiatric Treatment Facility” tactic is brilliant! Reminds me of something out of an old George Hayduke book.
Excellent article, as usual. I admire both your inventiveness in and dedication to problem-solving, whether automotive or otherwise.
Thanks, Paul!
Garrett Turbochargers – great mention. That division of Honeywell was spun off to become Garrett Motion a couple of years ago. They just went through Chapter 11 and have now emerged successfully I am told.
When I worked for Garrett it was in the Aerospace division. I still have a Garrett hat I bought many moons ago.
Oh, I didn’t know they were a Honeywell company. The only other name I associated with them was AiResearch.
Correct. Garrett / AiResearch was an independent company at first, but when the founder retired, they became part of the Signal Oil and Gas company.
Then in the ’80s merged with Allied Chemical, to become Allied Signal. Then they spent a bunch of money for consultants to tell them their name should really be AlliedSignal. OK then, no space it is.
In the late ’90s AlliedSignal bought Honeywell. However they chose to keep the name Honeywell as the new corporate name.
The turbocharger division became part of a Transportation division which included all sorts of automotive parts and chemicals. Honeywell eventually spun off Garrett Motion, which just included turbochargers, and they became independent.
A guy I knew in turbo sales gave me a pair of cufflinks of a turbine wheel within the turbocharger. Just miniature mind you, not full size LOL.
Daniel,
What a wonderful and entertaining read.
Loved your tales of being inventive and dealing with sudden malfunctions and failures of the car. Builds character and the ability to improvise and think on your feet.
That big Mopar sound system came out of their Huntsville Electronics division, they were quite innovative with the developments, such as with quartz lock tuner (the division I think was originally there to support the government/defense/military projects).
Sorry to hear about your father, and your mother’s condition.
Thanks kindly!
A great deal of excellent engineering surely did come out of Chrysler’s Huntsville Electronics division over the years. They put out the first automotive vacuum fluorescent display, and those turquoise displays (later other colours too) were widely deployed over many years—just for one example.
(I’ve been at this series for nearly six months now, so there are something like 23 chapters, and counting. If you’d like to read more, click my name at the top of the post.)
When I first started reading here, I just assumed Daniel Stern was a grumpy 70-year-old sitting on a throne of new-old-stock Hella lamps. During his COAL I realized we’re actually the same age. I’m not sure if I feel younger or older as a result.
That being said, Daniel I love your articles, and keep ’em coming.
No, I’m not he, but I know exactly whom you mean, nearly to the letter; he’ll show up soon in my COALs.
Thanks for the compliments! This is an interesting and challenging process for me; first-ever retrospective photo-illustrated narration of my life. I’m having fun and learning stuff and finally getting round to scanning those photos I’ve been schlepping around all these years.
Age: Eh. Years ago I used to come across as quite a lot more crotchety—I like to think I do better now. Now get the hell offa my lawn, ya whippersnapper! 🤣
It sounds like you’re enjoying writing them as much as we’re enjoying reading them!
Also, that’s why I bought a condo without a lawn- can’t tell people to get off of it as I get older 😛
I finally made it! It just turned Sunday in the last section of continental USA as I finished reading. I know you are waiting for some fatherly comment from me, well I’ll say it quietly. “You should never have bought that darn 1991 Dodge Spirit R/T”.
I could have told you that you would have trouble! I feel like I have had reasons to say that to you in the past, several times. Oh well! Even though the old 2.2L early block 8 valve engine in my somewhat sophisticated ‘Q’ bodied, ‘K’ car platformed, TC by Maserati isn’t quite as quick as those R/Ts, longevity is a lot better, as you know. And, there are plenty of those engines still running in the TCA Owners Club.
Keep writing Dan, I’ll keep reading. Maybe I’ll be that crotchety old man?
Hiya, Hemi.
I actually don’t regret the Spirit R/T. It would have eaten me out of house and home without that service contract, and every timing belt failure was a nuisance (at least), but I did have a lot of fun with it.
That said, “This car, but better at staying in one piece even if it’s not quite as fast” was the idea behind the ill-fated other Spirit that will eventually get its writeup.
Crotchety old man: Sold! Job’s yours. 🙂
You are not exactly creating the most appealing picture of the You of then, Mr S, and that honesty is bloody courageous. More power to you. Your tales of life and COAL here are the better for that strength. More, please.
As for this dodgy Dodge, my lord, surely it’s the job of a huge industrial conglomerate to work out things such as roller rockers plus hard valve springs causing whip in the belt BEFORE the average Stern drives it? It’s a truly fascinating detail that someone later has worked out, but that – plus weeny drive sprockets et al – should surely not ever have been that later amateur’s job.
I speculate that since, say, ’91, the exponential rise of computer power in many areas of manufacturing (and thus, modelling) means that we hear a great deal less of these sort of fuck-ups, because it’s all been run for 200,000 before so much as a bit of metal ever turns in an experimental lathe.
I’ll keep ’em coming, JB; thanks for reading. I’m privileged to be able to laugh now at my past folly, and the cubic years and dollars it took for important basic lessons to sink in. Had I been otherwise situated—unable to just call up AAA, for example, or one late clock-in away from losing my job and being unable to buy food—these stories could have had much harsher outcomes.
I would be fascinated to see a finite-elephant analysis of the timing belt on this engine. Perhaps the computer would just refuse: “You can’t be serious”.
You have such a gift for storytelling and (did someone else use this word?) wry effectiveness. I felt guilty at laughing at a few things, but realize that was your probably your intention.
Always liked and respected the Spirit R/T. Great post.
By the way, I know from my own experience that caffeine addiction is very much a thing. Thank you for sharing what you did about that. I’m going on my third week of reduced (caffeinated) coffee consumption and am now down to only up to two cups a day. There are worse things, and it took a while for my body to adjust, but I feel like I’m almost there.
Thanks kindly for the compliments! Please don’t feel guilty to laugh; I’m telling those parts deliberately. If people can get some amusement out of them, that helps balance the accounts for whaver nuisance, expense, or setback I might’ve experienced at the time.
Caffeine addiction is definitely a thing. Keep climbing; there’s light at the top. I’ve found life’s consistently better without a caffeine dependency.
I wasn’t an all-day coffee drinker, but if I wouldn’t have my extreme coffee in the morning, I would be short-tempered, unable to think clearly or concentrate, achy and grouchy and with no executive function; I couldn’t get anything done. It was much like the experience described by smokers.
I did eventually kick it—it took me well over a decade’s worth of grinding through the pain of quitting, then relapsing, quitting again and forgetting why I’d quit and then oh yeah, remembering why I’d quit and then having to quit again…relapsing again even though I knew I’d regret it, pretending to cut down, giving up on that charade and consuming as much as before, having to start all over again and again and again. Switching to tea made it easier to taper down, and weakened some of the ritual/flavour associations.
Every time I would quit, the benefits would be large and obvious: no more churning guts, no more hitting a brick wall of a no-energy stupour in the middle of the afternoon, and it grew vastly easier to wake up in the morning—like the difference between cold-starting a fuel-injected car versus a carbureted one with a faulty choke. That “I need coffee to wake up” feeling was confusing cause and effect; my coffee habit was what was making it so damn difficult to wake up. And even so, it took me years to make it stick.
Caffeine addiction is currently regarded about the same as tobacco addiction was in the 1960s: a harmless normal state, a quirk of existence dismissed from discussion with a chuckle and a clink of coffee cups. As has happened with tobacco, I suspect we’ll eventually be laughing less about it.
Thank you for this. I would say my first week (I’m at three right now) of reduced coffee consumption was the hardest. An Advil for a couple of days for caffeine withdrawal headaches, and general fatigue in the afternoon, but I think I’m settled into what will probably be where I’ll stay, which is a cup in the morning and then nursing another one throughout the day. I’m fairly certain I won’t give coffee up completely.
Giving up cigarettes was hard – that took me three attempts to quit after smoking regularly for seven years. Giving up alcohol has probably not been as hard, but I’m in a different, more grounded place in my life now than I was when I gave up cigarettes. Coffee? I’m not an excuse-maker, but I need to have this. Just my two cups a day, and I’m perfectly at easy with myself with no guilt.
I do applaud others who have given up caffeine. Who knows? I may change my tune later, but right now, I have no issues with having what I consider to be a reasonable amount of coffee.
Hello Dani, indeed, as you mentioned, Spirit entered Argentina in the 90’s for patrollers of the Federal Police. They entered as Chrysler not as Dodge and were imported from Mexico.
Somebody needs to inform me as to why the center front armrest in the Spirit R/T is so much shorter than the armrest in other bucket-seat AA bodies like the Spirit E/S. It’s not because of the stick shift, since other AAs with manual transmissions got the long armrest.
No such difference. Having owned two ESs and the R/T, I can confidently say the armrests were the same length. I think your eyes are being tricked by the angle at which I took that photo.
Truly entertaining to read and a great way to start the weekend (actually, I was out of town, hiking in the German Alps)! James showed me your sign name, and I thought it is really fitting for you!
Your ingenuity and perseverance in solving the technical issues is remarkable, and both of my father and my brother share this same trait. However, my father had less perseverance than he admitted in carrying out the repairs. We’d end up finding a few loose parts after putting things back together or with a “temporary fix” that became permanent. My brother has highest degree of perseverance and patience. He could remember each and every step during the disassembly and reassembly as well as where the parts go.
So, I got that from my brother. Sorry, Papa. Eventually, I discovered the neatest things called YouTube and owner forums. They have saved a lot of money and hassle for me when fixing my father’s car and other things around the house.
I went through my father’s illness and death five years ago, and I know what it’s like. I miss him a lot.
Another great post, Daniel! I had an R/T in my 20s also (in the early 2000s), a white 91, and agree that it had many pain points but was a lot of fun even so. Mine was a dog off the line but pulled like a freight train above 4000 rpm. Felt very crude and yet very fun at the same time.
I never had any timing belt issues, but I’m pretty sure mine had a failing head gasket as it would at times run rich, and burn oil and coolant, sometimes all three at once. It also had the fuel pump go out, but I seem to recall it was mounted on the side of the tank somehow and could be replaced without dropping the tank.
After a year or two the paint started to fail and peel off in sheets. I decided it’d cost more than it was worth to properly fix it, so I sent it on its way, fortunately losing very little money in the process. I’d love to get another AA at some point, as I thought it was very well styled inside and out and remarkably roomy, if a bit narrow, for the size of the car. Also one of precious few domestic sedans available with a manual transmission.
Thankya! There’ll be more stories about this car before long.
I missed this one by a few days, and almost skipped it because it was a “modern” car but again, a fantastic read. I was surprised at the fancy Turbo III motor I’d never heard of, but I shouldn’t have been since I’d never heard of an aluminum block slant 6 either.
The fax machine story was priceless, I called Mrs DougD over to read it and she pronounced you a genius.
Thanks kindly, DD (and Mrs. DD)! I’m not done telling stories about this car; there’ll be more.
Never had a Spirit (my Dad did own an ’86 Dodge 600 he bought new, our lone K car, though my Mother worked in the finance dept at a Dodge dealership in South Burlington.
I ran into a similar (but worse) problem on my ’86 VW GTi. You mention your sister had An A2 Jetta (or your parents bought one for unspecified use), though a bit newer than mine. Being a GTi, it suffered with “bit more fancy” syndrome but maybe to a bit lesser degree than your Spirit RT. I took it to a shop to have the oxygen sensor replaced, rather than doing it myself, it had one on the catalytic converter rather than on the exhast manifold like the “regular” Golf of similar year. The oxygen sensor on the GTi was heated, so it had an extra wire going to it for the heater, but very unfortunately, the wire wasn’t fused…probably less than a quarter mile from the shop the car died and I saw the LCD clock display go blank and smoke coming from the dash vents. Opened the hood, and there was evidence of fire, but it was out by then, but the harness that went with the oxygen sensor wire was burned up. Apparently they’d used a universal sensor that didn’t exactly match the old one and not insulated the power line which pretty much went to the battery without a fuse. The shop made good on it, let me pick my repair place and they had to piece together wires from a salvage yard (though this was more than 20 years ago, even then the A2 had been out of production for a few years and parts weren’t available to them). Fortunately it was fine after that for a few years until it finally got totalled in a fender bender in parking lot at work; I bought it back and did some crude body work on it but kept the replacement panels the original color of the donor car, so harlequin car…but when I went to sell it after buying my current A4 Golf, people were scrambling to buy it, guess the ’86 had a one year only fuel injection setup that people went for…sold it to the wife of an employee of one of our local VW independent shops here.