Practically Used Homestead Wheels

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Many '80s engine-management systems were cobbled-up by tacking a snarl of rubber tubing and plastic valves on a preemissions engine design. For a delivery route I used to drive, I bought an `81 Renault LeCar, the dumbly named U.S.emissions version of the R-5, a little French racer. The poor thing was so strangled with a smog pump, acceleration-rate limiter, antibackfire spring, deceleration damper, and such that it couldn't get up hills in second gear. I ripped out all the tubing but a single vacuum hose between manifold and distributor and it took off like a scared hare. (I must caution that tampering with emissions equipment or letting it wear or break is against state and federal law and liable get your car kicked off the road, especially if you live in California or another state with smog problems in its big cities.)

...Nor Too Old

With a few exceptions, the upper age limit for an everyday driver is mid '60s. Prewar antiques and the '50s chrome-and-fin extravaganzas of GM design chief Harley Earle are collector cars or junk awaiting restoration. Plus, fuel economy was not an engineering priority when you could fill your tank for a dollar and change. A 40-year-old straight-6, L-head engine will do well to get 10 mpg on today's low octane gas ...and you'd have to install hardened exhaust valves and seats or they'll burn out without tetraethyl lead in the fuel. (Lead substitutes are expensive and not that effective.) Plus, well-kept sporty models of '50s/early '60s cars are becoming so valuable you wouldn't want to drive one in everyday traffic.

Look for a modern but preemissions, preelectronics-era vehicle. That would be a car from the '64 through '73 model years. Or seek out a truck built before smog controls affected them in '79, but after the major body-style changes made by the Big 3 in '67. The later body styles (GM '73 to '78) are a little more tinny than the previous series (GM '67 to '72) but are younger and cheaper to repair. Cars from '73 to '81 are better than any brand-new models, but they do have smog controls (Cadillac pioneered them). Don't go younger than '81 with car or truck; not even expert hot-rod carburetor-maker Holley can design a bolt-on performance carb that's 50-state street-legal beyond then. Old-style carbs hooked up to the gas tank and maybe the battery for an electric choke and to vacuum for secondary throttle. By '81, they also had to accommodate the exhaust-gas recirculation system, the positive crankcase ventilation system, vacuum canisters, distributor spark advance, and fuel bowl vents. After '81, carbs and all else automotive went Star Wars and nobody can figure them out.

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