New member here!

jory543 · Post by **jory543** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:01 am

Hey everybody, I just found this forum and it looked interesting so I signed up. It looks like there is very useful information here for me to perfect my driving techniques. I am pretty good at driving standard in "normal" light throttle driving but I need more practice launching hard because I tend to slip the clutch a little too much.
I drive a 92 Dodge Spirit that I converted to 5 speed manual. It has the 3.0 liter Chrysler/Mitsubishi engine in it and it has a performance clutch so there is very little travel for it to slip. The engine itself is stock for now, the only thing I have done is an exhaust. I do have some nice upgrades planned.

Hatchman · Post by **Hatchman** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:59 am

Welcome jory. That sounds like one interesting automobile

Post by **Johnf514** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:16 am

Welcome jory! Did you personally convert the car? Sounds like you have some mechanical expertise - you'll get along with JackBauer and a few of the other members on the site.

Post by **jomotopia** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:34 am

welcome to the site

if you happen to have any pics of the auto to manual conversion i would be very interested to see them.

violinandbass87 · Post by **violinandbass87** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:36 am

welcome

how's your spirit holding up? we have one...a 94 with 160K ish miles on it (i don't remember...its been too long since i've driven it.) its a rust bucket tho...and automatic. my younger sister drives it.

i used to drive it...o how i hate that car!

jory543 · Post by **jory543** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:05 pm

Yes I did do the conversion myself, and I wrote up a page with pictures detailing the conversion process.
here is the conversion page: http://3.0spirit.tripod.com/5speed.html
and this is my cardomain: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2142645
My spirit is holding up pretty well.. I bought it 2.5 years ago with about 110k on the clock. The 4 speed automatic died at about 115k when I was doing 110mph.. that was interesting to say the least! Now it has 123,000 and it's still going like a champ. The motor is still smooth and quiet, and doesn't use much oil at all between oil changes. There is some underbody rust that has to be taken car of but other than that the body is still pretty solid. I plan on keeping this car for a while.

violinandbass87 · Post by **violinandbass87** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:21 pm

the interior looks the EXACT same (other than the stick) on our dodge...excact same red too!

but w/ the wood...thats ugly...

but our car is white, not black.

hey, what brand stereo do u have in there? it looks like mine (DUAL brand)

but instead of the dead bee, we have a dead fly...no seriously...we do! but we have bees trying to make hives in the car all the time...kinda annoying!

jory543 · Post by **jory543** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:47 am

Yea my stereo is DUAL brand also. For $100 bucks you can't go wrong! I had wood trim for a while too but I took it out because it didn't match anything at all. Yours has the center console with the floor shifter? Those aren't too common, there were far more column shift automatic Spirits.

violinandbass87 · Post by **violinandbass87** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:12 am

no...it has the column shifter...drives me crazy when i have to drive it cause my tercel (auto) has the floor shifter...i keep groping the air looking for the lever (really not a shifter)

Nychold · Post by **Nychold** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:56 pm

jory543 wrote:Yea my stereo is DUAL brand also. For $100 bucks you can't go wrong! I had wood trim for a while too but I took it out because it didn't match anything at all. Yours has the center console with the floor shifter? Those aren't too common, there were far more column shift automatic Spirits.

Well, I sort of disagree. I bought a Dual head unit for my Beretta about three years ago, and from day one, it would skip on almost every CD I had, over even the smallest bump. After a year, I replaced it with another Dual (with XM radio), and still had the same problem. It's a good brand, but I'd much rather drop more on an Alpine. Even their bottom of the barrel is great.

violinandbass87 · Post by **violinandbass87** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:08 pm

Nychold wrote:
jory543 wrote:Yea my stereo is DUAL brand also. For $100 bucks you can't go wrong! I had wood trim for a while too but I took it out because it didn't match anything at all. Yours has the center console with the floor shifter? Those aren't too common, there were far more column shift automatic Spirits.
Well, I sort of disagree. I bought a Dual head unit for my Beretta about three years ago, and from day one, it would skip on almost every CD I had, over even the smallest bump. After a year, I replaced it with another Dual (with XM radio), and still had the same problem. It's a good brand, but I'd much rather drop more on an Alpine. Even their bottom of the barrel is great.

mine only skips on one cd...and thats cause there's scratcheson the cd...so its not the player s fault.

Nychold · Post by **Nychold** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:32 pm

scion_xA_gf wrote:
Nychold wrote:
jory543 wrote:Yea my stereo is DUAL brand also. For $100 bucks you can't go wrong! I had wood trim for a while too but I took it out because it didn't match anything at all. Yours has the center console with the floor shifter? Those aren't too common, there were far more column shift automatic Spirits.
Well, I sort of disagree. I bought a Dual head unit for my Beretta about three years ago, and from day one, it would skip on almost every CD I had, over even the smallest bump. After a year, I replaced it with another Dual (with XM radio), and still had the same problem. It's a good brand, but I'd much rather drop more on an Alpine. Even their bottom of the barrel is great.
mine only skips on one cd...and thats cause there's scratcheson the cd...so its not the player s fault.

Well, it was over bumps, and anyone who's driven a Beretta/Corsica/Lumina can tell you, it's a floaty car. My brother almost got sea-sick in it, once.

jory543 · Post by **jory543** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:04 am

Mine doesn't skip too much really. Normal bumps it doesn't skip but crossing train tracks or if I hit a pothole it will skip. Not any worse than my friend's Pioneer in her Neon. I usually just plug in an mp3 player anyway so it doesn't really bother me. It is much better than the crappy deck that came in my car when I bought it though. I just want to buy some decent speakers, I saw some 5.25" pioneers at wal mart for $40 a pair.

Post by **jomotopia** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:01 pm

jory543 wrote:I just want to buy some decent speakers, I saw some 5.25" pioneers at wal mart for $40 a pair.

with speakers you get what you pay for. i just put new speakers in my car. i got Polk db 6.5" in the front and 4" in the rear (should have got 5.25" in the rear but oh well). they are coaxial and they sound great. the speakers i pulled out were pioneer 6.5" 4 ways in the front and 5.25" pioneer coax in the back. they sounded terrible but i don't know how old they were or how much abuse they went through. but the 4 ways should sound better than coax, and should be more expensive, but the Pioneer 4 ways were the same price as my Polk coax, which makes me think Pioneer is on the lower end of the quality spectrum.

anyway here'sthe speakers i got if you're interested... they're on sale right now.

Mike_AR · Post by **Mike_AR** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:47 pm

Welcome and enjoy your stay here. There's a great group of manual drivers on this forum.