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HOT or NOT ?


Mr Riviera

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I've owned my share of these cars. The only thing I can say about them is that they're terribly underpowered. Hopefully if something like that were to come out again, it would be a hair smaller and have at least the same horsepower that my Ford Edge V6 has (265 hp vs. 145 hp for the 5.0 liter V8 Oldsmobile - with 20 miles of vacuum hoses and no fuel injection in the Riviera) and a six speed automatic transmission. It could be outstanding if it were rear wheel drive. Plus the Edge gets better gas mileage.

Ed

PS - I was only slightly embarrassed driving home through the mountains of West Virginia on my way home from Harrisburg in 2010. I think there was at least one 18 wheeler that didn't pass me going up hill.

Ed I do not have this problem with my cars. Set my cruise or hold steady speed and it downshifts and moves right along. IF your Mixture control Solenoid on your carb was not properly adjusted you will experience this issue. I suspect many have this problem because most mechanics don't know about this important setting. Also if you have not had your EGR passageways cleaned out on a 25+ yoa car you will have a sluggish 307 also. Olds 307 likes it's EGR.

Edited by sosuzguy
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I'm pretty sure the problem is the crappy engine instead of the carb, and i'm fairly certain Ed knows how to tune a carb. A craptastic engine is just that. Those years were bad for U.S. car engines and resulted in quarter mile times near 20 seconds for Rivieras. Now i know it isn't a drag car and was never intended to be, but that is just a dog no matter how you slice it.

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Oh contraire, I don't have the expertise to tune a carb on an emissions controlled engine. However, I did have the passages cleaned and put an new catalytic converter on the car, but it was still sluggish in the mountains. Out here on the plains of Kansas, it ran good, but it did not like going uphill. From Kansas to Harrisburg, I took the north route going through Indianapolis. On the way home I took the southern route going through West Virginia. The difference in the way the car ran was night and day. When I finally got back to the "flat land" all was good again. The cruise held fine as long as the horizon was a long ways off, but if I had to look up, I may as well have been riding a bicycle.

I'm not trying to bash these cars; those that I've had I really enjoyed, but compared to the '90 and '93 that I now have, there is no comparison in performance. And they don't compare to the supercharged '95 I had either. It's all relative. I'm sure that nothing Buick has produced can compare to the new Dodge Challenger Hellcat either - supercharged hemi putting out 707 horsepower and it's streetable. GAD ZOOKS !!!!

Ed

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I'm still leery of the QC of Chrysler products. Not that I would ever own any new car, unless one was given to me, I don't think I would ever have another Chrysler product. My last one was a 96 Dodge 2500 4X4 with the Cummins engine. The engine was the most robust part of the truck. The rest of it was crap. Things were falling apart on frequent basis, leaking or not holding up to routine use. I thought things would have improved from the mid 70's when we had the Volare.

They have neat looking cars these days but I'd rather just look at them and not own one.

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