many questions

[nohairracing]

I have been lurking on this forum for awhile. I am mainly a road racer but have been looking for another car to drive on the ovals (I have 3 oval cars too). I drove an 89 yesterday with only one gear working....2nd gear. The car had tons of torque! The engine leaked oil, the tranny seal was bad, wheel bearing shot...and so on. This perticular car is not the car for me
I read about lots of problems with the SHO. I know they are older cars that need attention (my road race car is 16 years old and low maintainace) and to be honest I am scared that the upkeep is tremendous compared to most cars in this age range. I read about rod bearing failures, CV joints, wheel hubs, etc. I guess I want some honest answers about running the SHO and how dependable it would be. I am only concerened with the 3.0 manual.
Thanks
Howard

 

[Phoenix]

Good maintenance is the key to these engines.

Rod bearings : change them at each 100-150k , When the red oil light flickers at low RPM , its time to turn the key off and change them NOW.

Seals and gaskets are not that high priced compared to any other imports when you shop at the right place. What we see often go bad : Rear cam seal , Valve cover gaskets (and plug wells) , Oil pan gasket. Bad head gaskets are ultra rare.

Sensors , most commonly you see cam and crank sensors go bad after 1??K miles. which is nomal. one is 35$ the other is 75$ and it come with a misfire or a no-start when bad.

Wheel bearing is not something you see THAT often. They go bad like the others , nothing uncommon compared to other cars.

CV joints is not something you see everyday either , lots of people are pointing CV joints when the poblem is located elsewhere. Some high power modded SHOs snapped a couple of them but hey , they were not meant for this anyway (300hp+)

In the other hand subframe bushing is something to look for when looking at a low maintained SHO , as well as busted engine mounts.

Treat the engine well and i'tll treat you well. This is an amasing V6.

 

[Shoaz]

Left stock or near stock the motor is nearly bulletproof if maintained even just close to reasonably well. Adding mods that increase torque/horsepower naturally increase maintenance and affect reliability.

There are quite a few people road racing these cars, and in my experience they're really no worse than most cars and better than many as far as maintenance and reliability is concerned.