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BonneMe wrote:Wait... Aren't those FWD?! Why do they do the longitudinal engine?

I thought they had decent styling, but the interiors weren't my cup o' tea.

When they were originally designed in the early 90s, Chrysler had never made a full size FWD car before, so they designed it to be easily converted to RWD just in case the whole FWD thing didnt pan out. The 42LE tranny is a standard bellhousing tranny with a modified tailshaft that drives a set of 2 output gears (3.89s for 2.7s and 300m Specials and 3.66 for the other 3.xs) Changing trannies out is a sinch. The last job only took me 9 hours start to finish. They even have the tranny and driveshaft tunnel in the body. The Prowler uses the same powerplant as an LH and the tranny was slightly modified in the 42RLE form for Mopar light trucks and the 2.7 LX cars. Oh and plugs are nice to change on the motor too, no reaching, haha.

00Beast wrote:The 04-ish Passats have a Longitudinal engine too Jason, along with the original Olds Toronado. Then the trans has a chain that turns the motion from longitudinal to transverse.

And those gears are the killer for the LH powertrain. Thats why a 3.8 Impala can smoke a 3.2 Intrepid with 25 less horsepower, and taller gearing. Powertrain losses for the 42LE are dismal in the 28-32% range. So a healthy 3.5 HO on an optimal day would only turn out 190 hp at the wheels.

Here's what the tranny looks like (Actually its the one in my car now, 13k miles, 225 bucks)



and here's a cross-section of one

If I'm not mistaken, the LH car was inspired by the old B-Body Premiers and Monacos, which had longitudinally mounted engines, which was somewhat of a trademark from Renault, which is where the B-Body was developed from. We had a Premier, too, an 88 LX. Pretty nice cars until they started overheating and the electronics puked.

ga93sle wrote:If I'm not mistaken, the LH car was inspired by the old B-Body Premiers and Monacos, which had longitudinally mounted engines, which was somewhat of a trademark from Renault, which is where the B-Body was developed from. We had a Premier, too, an 88 LX. Pretty nice cars until they started overheating and the electronics puked.

Haha, creative idea. I like it, but the LH has its roots stepped in a more glamorous and unfortunately, much less American idea. When Chrysler acquired Lamborghini for a BRIEF BRIEF time in the 80's, they made a concept car called the Portofino. It was a 4 door sedan that first introduced "cab forward" styling (I think it was '88). A joke with us LH guys is that Iaccoca decided to name the new platform LH for Last Hope, lol. The LH cars did for 90's Chrysler what the Caravan did for them in the 80s. It had a major part in saving the company. What killed the LH in the end was Daimler Benz. They brought forth their LX platform, which is an old E Class platform. IMO Benz did a good job of killing Chrysler, with the cost cutting and bland cars with *shoot* quality, who would want one? My dad has a 300C and between that car and mine, my interior has much better quality. Less rattles, less hard plastics, better design. But eh, who am I to judge

But the family ties between the LH and the Premier? There werent any besides both being made in Brampton. LH really doesnt share anything with any other car besides the motor for the some cloud cars (not the Eclipse clones) and the Prowler. I remember 2 years ago I got into this huge fight with some random behind the counter expert about the 2.7 being a Mitsu motor. Nope. 2.7 was the first motor designed completely by computers and was produced 100% by Mopar at Kenosha. Same goes with the 3.x motors. 100% Mopar.

You said your family has 2 M's?

Saturn Simon wrote:I love the retro typeface on the gauges - it looks like they were inspired by an old British sports car, and are so charmingly at-odds with the rest of the car!

Nice looking cars all round, although I prefer the 1st gen.

Actually the cluster is what first caught my eye back when I got it. It had just a normal Trep cluster whan I got it...actually EVERYTHING on the car was normal...bench seat, hubcaps, cassette player, but I digress. But the normal cluster is still white faced and includes a tach. Before I got the car I was using my grandmother's old 03 Impy base model, so the sporty gauges blew me away, along with the rest of the interior. I do love the type face on the M cluster though. Its supposed to harken back to the 20s style of elegance.

I love 1G taillights. I hate how mine curve up and out. Plus the 1Gs had that nice tint and the tint made the brakelights have that purple-ish tinge to them.

From what I've read, the Bbody and LH don't so much share anything, as much as the Bbody kinda inspired the LH. After looking into that Portofino, though, I can definitely see a lot of 1st gen LH... Yeah, they have 2 Ms now. My aunts is still pretty nice but my mom has trashed hers... A guy a know from work has a 1st gen Intrepid, too, with almost 300K on it.

The B5.5 passats have it because they are heavily audi based (unlike later models) to accomodate AWD. That's got to be hell on the CoG....

The LX have sold very well and are the only reason Chrysler survived as well as it did. Driving dynamics were good for that size of vehicle, but brakes were poor, and interiors on the first gen (like all Chrysler really) were very substandard for the time.

Yes I'm a dash stroker.

That is a very well taken care of and thought out Intrepid... Don't see many of them anymore... Most people has no clue how to take care of them... We more or less rebuilt one of those 2.7's once... Put it back together running as good as new.. We told the guy he needed to keep an eye on the oil.... 10,000 miles later it locked up solid, he never checked the oil..

How hard would it be to slip a 3.5 into that intrepid...? Or the 3.2?

Jrs3800 wrote:That is a very well taken care of and thought out Intrepid... Don't see many of them anymore... Most people has no clue how to take care of them... We more or less rebuilt one of those 2.7's once... Put it back together running as good as new.. We told the guy he needed to keep an eye on the oil.... 10,000 miles later it locked up solid, he never checked the oil..

How hard would it be to slip a 3.5 into that intrepid...? Or the 3.2?

2Gs are split in 2 segments due to wiring. 98-01 and 02-04. Any 02-04 3.5 is plug and play. All you have to do is modify the drivers side mount and cut 4 inches from the pass side exhaust downpipe. Since they stopped produced the 3.2 in 01, I would have to get creative. I would have to find a 02-04 3.5 HO Plenum (EGR delete), swap out the #2 cam gear with one from a 02+ (Cam pos. sensor is differrent), 02+ Flexplate (different crank sens) and a few other little odds and ends. But it's been done, but most of the time it's converting a 98-01 car to run a 02-04 motor. It'll be getting a tweaked 3.5 in the spring. Im planning on sending the block out to get dipped and re-honed, the heads to be cleaned and P&P'd, then getting new Stage 2 cams from Inertia (dont require PCM retuning...the cams are made for the LX 3.5, which you CAN tune their PCM, but not the LH. But the motors between the LX and LH operate within the same factors so I dont see a problem), a 70mm bored TB, "JoeKD intake", 3/8" intake spacer and all that will be hooked up to my already existing 300m Special PCM. Should be fun, lol.

What kinds of suspension upgrades are there for these cars?

ga93sle wrote:What kinds of suspension upgrades are there for these cars?

Unfortunately there's a minuscule aftermarket scene for these cars. Eibach makes a lowering Spring, K&N makes an intake and you have 3 different kinds of headlights....but thats it. Because you can't tune the motor due to the PCM lockout, there's really no need to do anything else to the car. But In terms of suspension, there is one avenue you can take. Special struts and swaybars. The 300M Special's struts are firmer and the springs lower the car 1" for a lower center of gravity and Special sway bars are far meatier than normal ones. I've done the rear sway bar so far, but thats about it. Doing a complete Special suspension upgrade would be a little over 1000 bucks. The car already handles great, very nimble and direct steering, so I probably wont do that until later.

Ahh I see.

Yep. Most of our mods are homegrown. Thats why I take so much pride in my car. I've got quite a few things on her you cant buy, lol.

I decided to do an in-depth exhaust video since things may be drastically changing next spring. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t84mToQj ... re=g-all-c

No You Tube tags on here?

Might as well update this one too, haha. So she did her job while the Buick was out of commission, but now that the Buick is back in action, she has been cleaned, covered and tucked away in a storage unit for her 5 month hibernation. So this thread is going to be pretty much dead until then

Here's a few pics of her I took last year tucked away.....







Still had my 90 Si during the time too. 4 wheel steering, 5 speed, pop up headlights, it was a fun car.