[Raion]

This is the car equivalent of case modding SGI computers to me. 

I especially hate when it's done on vehicles where it basically defeats the entire purpose of having the vehicle in the first place. RX7. Miata. Supra. WRX. 

It's the equivalent of somebody submitting a Ninja Garden NES run using a game genie. It's the equivalent of flexing on retro computing enthusiasts because your AMD Epyc does the equivalent of a trillion Apollo guidance computers. It's the equivalent of a bodybuilder flexing in the middle of a formal event where everybody else is wearing a tuxedo. 

It's tacky and while I can't tell people what to do with their time or money and I have learned the former quite tangibly even especially being an administrator for a significantly large group of people, I think that we need to see the same type of ethics that are applied in computing circles apply to vehicle groups because destroying a priceless vehicle and turning it into an expensive Corvette or Camaro with a different wrapper because you want to be different or because you think that an ancient piece of junk pushrod with two valves per cylinder is somehow better than a much more advanced double overhead cam or rotary engine really just upsets me. It's the equivalent of people who don't want to take the time to learn the tools IRIX comes with and install gnu coreutils because muh colors. 

Am I the only one who thinks this ruins the authenticity of such vehicles?

[Irinikus]

Any modification that’s not standard devalues a vehicle in my opinion!

If you want a fast car, then buy a fast car!

[Shiunbird]

100%.
Mankind's pursuit of efficiency at all costs is ruining a lot of what is to be human (especially when society doesn't see the benefit of such gains of efficiency).

It's not always about getting to the destination, but also about the journey.
Modern 9-speed automatics and dual clutches are super efficient and can shift faster than anyone could, but when you drive stick, you get to be part of the process, the machine is under your control. You feel the road, you need to manage the pedals, your timing. For me, it's a very meditative experience.
For me, the appeal of driving one of the classics is way beyond style and looks, but mostly the experience of driving such machine. Like the folks who will be surely buried in their air-cooled Porsches.

My father got a Ninja ZX-9 new back in 1997 and he still rides it. He likes that it has a carburettor, he likes that it is heavy, he likes the feeling of it, he likes that it has not got a single LCD screen and the fact that if you are not careful when breaking, you are catapulted into orbit. The bike is not there to help you. It requires a rider in full command of the machine.

The same thing with legacy computers, for me. Yes, I can run a modern machine and it's all easy. But I appreciate that having to learn to load my mouse driver in the high memory and set IRQs right to have my sound working gave me the skills to have my job and be the master of the machine. Or running a legacy UNIX workstation and knowing exactly how the disks are set, where everything is mounted and each component that makes the machine do the job - even if it takes 500x longer to render a scene.
(plus your data is private and no stupid telemetry - always a plus)

I only give a pass for people who enjoys the process of modifying a car.
An acquaintance of mine owns an ordinary truck: a mid-90s V10 RAM. He is never done tweaking it. He has gone through several fuel pumps, different wheels and tyres, chosen different suspension settings. The car is his canvas. But he has never ruined the spirit of it, and he wouldn't touch a perfectly functional classic, only try to restore a destroyed one.

[Raion]

For what it's worth a manual is still one of the most efficient modes of transmission out there. Hydraulic losses in Automatics mean there's never a true direct connection during spool up, only when it gets going does the lockup occur.

DC gearboxes have serious reliability issues in consumer vehicles especially, and they are never a dry clutch which means you have some level of loss on that front as well.

I would like to see an 8 or 9 speed manual. But it won't happen. You can do an overlapped gearbox like used on big trucks but it's a bit expensive to do.

My biggest frustration has to do with the fact that pushrod engines are often times the polar opposite. A rotary has no torque at low speed and you have to rev it high to get any power out of it which is the point. Same with many Japanese DOHCs. Pushrods have all their power in the low end and I don't like the fact that with a push rod you don't have an even cam climb, or as in modern Asian VVTs, a m accelerating cam climb. Rather it goes in the opposite direction, to maintain the same level of RPM rise, you have to use progressively more throttle. In non VVT OHC engines like my brother's 1990 525, it literally will climb on the cam at the same rate regardless of what gear or power band you're in. It was basically the same way with my Miata and in my current ride my Forester has VVT I believe so it does climb on the cam a little bit but it's a single overhead cam engine so it's not exactly a clear indicator.

Push rods have more moving parts and I personally believe that they are hard to work on. I need so many specialized tools to take apart a push rod engine compared to an overhead cam engine where it's literally just sockets and sometimes Allen wrenches. I've assisted with rebuilds of both and it's definitely more painful on a push rod to take everything apart in my experience.

I'm not anti-pushrod I just think they belong solely in American muscle cars. I have nothing against muscle cars, but they don't excite me the same way that they excite a lot of people. My father drove a 1967 GTO 400-400 big block with the His and Hers 3 speed auto. It's a pretty cool ride and I'm sad I never got to see it because he was court ordered to sell it, but I personally have more of an appeal out of my buddies MK III '89 Supra with custom digital dash,5 speed and entirely resto modded interior

[GeekLucanis]

I've never seen an issue with LS swaps in machines that do well with it, not "just to be cool". I would prefer other swaps to be honest. For example, I would put a TDI 1.9 in my S10, or maybe a Subaru engine in a VW Bug.

[Raion]

As I've said an American push rod engine belongs primarily in American cars and that's my personal view that's not going to be negotiable. By LS swapping miatas and RX7s they're ruining cars and artificially driving up the price. If you want to ls swap a fiero or Thunderbird I'm not going to complain. Don't do it to European or Japanese cars

[GeekLucanis]

I'd much rather take the European engine and shove it in the American car. Make all the hot rod fans lose their minds.

[Raion]

I remember when my friend put a VW TDi engine into a fiero.

Everyone was going WTF.....

[jan-jaap]

DC gearboxes have serious reliability issues in consumer vehicles especially, and they are never a dry clutch which means you have some level of loss on that front as well.

At least for European cars this hasn't been true for at least 5 years. For example the VW 7 speed DSG (MY 2016+) is dual dry clutch. The original DSG had wet clutches, and they made them with one dry/one wet as well. The clutch(es) are supposed to last longer as well, since you use one of the pair at any time and the computer control keeps the clutch safe from drivers with poor skills.

I have so far always had cars with manual gear boxes. I dislike the way automatic gear boxes change gears at silly moments (like in a turn). But my car (current VW Passat) has automatic cruise control and a manual gear box and that's a silly combination. The ACC can in theory go all the way back to a full stop, except I have to change gears manually when a DSG would do it automatically for me. When this car is up for replacement I'll take something with a DSG for a test drive and see how things are these days.

PS: LS swaps and similar are basically not possible in the EU. If you change or replace the engine in a car you need to submit it for inspection or face severe penalties. If you replace the engine with a bigger model that was at least available in the same model range that may be approved, but you may need to upgrade other parts as well. And you will need to pass the emission test of course. So if you drop an M5 engine in an entry level BMW 5 series you may need to upgrade brakes & other suspension bits as well. But if you drop a 500HP crate engine in a VW bug they will probably tell you to submit it for a crash test to make sure it's safe...

[Irinikus]

My Z3 is Manual (BMW's automatic boxes from that era were awful!!!), and My TT is a DSG. (S Tronic)

I love both for different reasons, but the DSG is a true revolution! It's like a manual only better! (The TT takes off effortlessly, but you have to work to get the Z3 moving, having to manually shift through the gears, and the first three are rather short!)

With the DSG, if I want to drop a gear to accelerate through traffic, all I do is hit the paddles (Entering it into a "manual" mode)!