By Tim Odell
Which would you prefer? Ease with mediocrity or Sisyphysian toil with incredible potential? We’ve got two cars from opposite ends of the spectrum that have miraculously settled at the same price. In one corner, a V6-auto Pinto hatch. It appears to be in good shape, aside from having a pointless giant raised-cowl hood scoop installed. In the other, a treacherous 5MT 928. The seller tells us it runs great, but non-specifically hints it’s a project in need of work. In California the seller’s responsible for selling a car with a current smog certificate, so “buyer to smog” translates directly to “failed smog and the cost to fix is too high to bother with”.
I’d be curious to see if I could de-Porsche-fy the elecronics of a 928 in favor of a Megasquirt system using more standardized off-the-shelf parts. This wouldn’t make it any more likely to pass a smog check, but at least I’d be able to diagnose what part of the system’s failing.
Meanwhile, the Pinto? Well, they can be made to handle, or they can be made to handle some ridiculous motor in the engine bay. Clearly the only thing worth doing would be to combine said handling and power plant for the express purpose of embarrassing competitors at an Ultimate Street Car Challenge event.
1976 Ford Pinto for sale – SFBay Craigslist
1979 Porsche 928 for sale – SFBay Craigslist
Jeff Glucker
“Ease with mediocrity or Sisyphysian toil with incredible potential?”
Pass. I’m more of a Sisyphysian-toil-with-mediocrity car shopper.
Yeah,but the incredible potential for kinetic mediocrity is what keeps
the two of us coming back…..
Sisyphean tasks are so much better than Herculean ones. They’re not completed so easily, and so are much more rewarding when the pleasure is the toil and not the completion.
How can you have a hood scoop like that and show no pictures of the motor?!
My guess? The hood wouldn’t open.
I’ll take door number three, Monty!
Get me both, and 2 wrecked Mustangs. I’ll have you 2 wild rides by the end of the year. 😉
Swap the 928 drivetrain into the Pinto, then swap a Ford V8 into the 928!
LOL There’s absolutely no challenge in that whatsoever!!!
if you value your sanity and money, i’d run at full speed away from the porsche.
I love that movie to death, but why hadn’t WOPR been simulating all those scenarios before that critical high-tension moment? Wasn’t that it’s purpose? But seriously, “Sudan Surprise” sounds more like a spicy dinner entree than a military tactic.
Nah, you’re thinking of the “Thai Subversion”. Now< thatsa spicey meataball!
Next you’re gonna say that the Indiana Jones movie would have ended much the same if Indy hadn’t done anything at all…
You might be totally embarrassed by the Pinto but it probably can do daily driver work without too much trouble. The 928 is doomed to be sexy yard art and the bane of your local homeowners association.
The 928…with the 318/4 speed out of the Aspen.
The 928 definitely has the superior number of things to wrench on and tinker with. The Pinto is the car of choice if eventually you want to move it under its own power. It all comes down to whether you’re a garage person or a driving person.
The time and $ it would take to get the 928 a reasonable, comfortable daily, the Pinto will be a 302/T5 monster.
How hard can it be to strip out 75% of the 928’s voodoo electricals, get it running on Holleys and take it somewhere it doesn’t have to take a smog test?
I expect “Very”, but fantasies die hard.
I, for one, appreciate your use of the plural for carburetion but would have been more intrigued by such names as Carter, SU, or Bing.
Correction: Carter, SU, and Bing.
Doesn’t leave much space for Zenith or Stromberg…
They can go on the other cylinder bank.
Or the ultimate: one brand per cylinder? Think of the plumbing!
Carter, SU, Bing, Zenith, Stromberg, Weber, Solex, Mikuni – and Holley’s for the extra juice on cold idle.
Bing only used one at a time.
http://www.columbusglobesusa.com/wp/columbusblog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/06/bing-crosby.jpg
Yeah, my brain immediately went to ThermoQuad.
My dear late Uncle Ed was a die-hard Mopar man, so I grew up with these.
Whichever one you pick, the answer is to strip the car down to as light as possible and then put an LS engine and a T56 in it.
They make a carb legal L’s swap kit, it’s very costly, but it’s available
None of the above? That Pinto might make a nice doorstop,,and the Porsche already is one.
A ’78 doesn’t need to pass Ontario emissions testing (that is to say, the real Ontario and not California’s knockoff), and it’s got the right number of pedals, so that’s my answer (it’d be an even easier answer if the seats were Pasha though). Although, a fun Pinto with a stick is tempting in its own way.
Both of them need to be smogged in LA Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Ca%C3%B1ada_Flintridge,_California
While the cars are dirty, the titles are clean, at least something. 928 for me, because phoneys, MT, and watercooler.
I have a spare 6 cylinder from a 63 Ford truck and the non synchro 4 speed. Put that in the 928 and just use all the extra wiring for string art
Far fewer electrics to worry about on this 928. Being a ’79 it’s got mechanical CIS injection. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you can read a wiring diagram the electrics on a 928 aren’t all that complicated. Every wire in the car terminates at a single central electrical panel so it seems like an insurmountable challenge, but if you take a day to pull it out and dress all the connectors with Stabilant, you can practically rule out electrical problems for future diagnostic troubleshooting.