Let me put it this way... Right now there are 134,496 members of www.Thirdgen.org. You just named 4 guys that you think have their poop in a group. For my opinion to change, name 68,593 members that know their *** from a hole in the ground. Because in my opinion, less then 10% of the membership here have any business working on their cars. I could probably list every member who's opinion I trust and I'd have less then 100 names.

Meanwhile there's an army of FNG's streaming through here that give mountains of bad advice every day.

The problem as I see it, is that we're just too concerned with being nice, and polite, to tell someone when they're wrong. We encourage people to participate, but the cost is that new members get bad info, and seasoned members have to spend all their time correcting info. Worse yet, you can give good advice, and still be outnumbered by the majority giving poor advice. It isn't good for the old members, or the new members, everyone ends up getting screwed.

 

That's every forum buddy, this site would go uder without new members. Who cares if they give incorrect or correct information, throw the bull aside and state your opinion.

 

I think the point that Drew is making is that incorrect information is a problem, if it is wrong ultimately it is useless no matter how nicely it was put or the intent, it was still wrong... The problem Drew sees, rightfully so, is so many Camaro and Firebird owners really do not give a rats butt to what they do to their car, it has no pride involved, in many cases a change, just to change it. If you want to add cup-holders, find some factory cup-holders from 1991 & 1992. For crying out loud, if you are living in your car then why not install a small picnic table too, or a Wii so you can play games in your back seat

John

 

I'd like to see a factory camaro cup holder. you have a picture you would like to share with the class?

 

Don't get me wrong, I love it here and we have a ton of people here who's opinions I respect immensely and lean on for help.


But.....


Some of the hack jobs and completely tasteless mods I see here sometimes, with as you mentioned, "idiots cheering on" do make me a little sick. What we need is a 3rd gen SWAT Team with the ability to slap someone upside the head and seize their car!!!

 

It's a guaranteed hack job if they spell it duel exhaust.

 

They came in 91/92 Firebird with power windows.



Random image I found of the cup holder.

 

I misinterpreted what drew said sorry man.

I think the definition of a complete ragged out rusted POS is the 87 IROC i was going to buy until i looked at it in person. Rust everywhere smelly/mildew mixed with a hint of cat interior last Saturday.

 

sometimes I dont get you guys.

first you have to compare a 88 camaro with an 88 mustang. ( not an 98 )
both of them you will find back in rattle paint and others you wil find back in sweet paintjobs.

you have to compare a 98 camaro with a 98 mustang.
I havent seen to many og those with a rattle can paint job. ( ofcours over here we are happy we can just spot 1 of those cars )

you guys shouldn't fight about mustangs or camaro's


muscle cars are a dying kind of car and you shouldn't fight a war against eachother about whats the best muscle car. but you should battle imports en euro's. give some respect to the other muscle car.

over here almost al american car enthousiast greet eachother when we travel along the road. or we cruise together if we are going the same way on the highway.
we dont car if the guy is driving a gmc van, a c3 corvette, a pontiac grand prix of the 90's.
we respect the fact that the other is willing to pay a lot of money ( specially taxes ) for a car that probably isn't worth that much anymore. ( taxes on cilindersize 1200 euro vor a 3.1 and 2300 euro for a 5.7 yearly)
if I go to the mall or when I go out, and there is a corvette or mustnag or challenger I always try to stand next to it. together we stand strong.

 

www.corral.net is the Fox body Mustang equivalent of this forum. They've been around just as long, and have a similar membership (133,916 members). Their forums are open for public browsing, go ahead and go browse their discussions. What you'll find is a lot more interest in modifying their cars without destroying their car's identity. The quality of work over there is much better then what you'll find here. There is some REALLY wild stuff over there.

www.foureyedpride.com is a forum for 79-86 Mustang enthusiasts. If you dig around a bit over there, you'll find out that they do not allow members to part cars in their classifieds unless it's shown that the car is beyond repair. You also won't see nearly as many tacky modifications and hack job projects as you do here. Keep in mind these cars don't have a huge aftermarket, they don't get the respect of the later 5.0 Mustangs, and yet you don't see the kind of stupidity that defines Thirdgen.org. They actively document, preserve, and promote their cars.

Spend some time on the dark side and you'll see why we have such a bad reputation. I hardly recommend Thirdgen.org anymore, when I do I suggest taking everything with a grain of salt, because there is so much bad info here. I'm not saying that Fox Mustangs are better cars then thirdgen Camaros. Those Mustangs are garbage compared to our cars (apples to apples, in similar conditions). Yet their enthusiast community doesn't have so many of the problems we have here.

There's nothing wrong with FNG's. There is a problem when there aren't any old school guys around to give them guidance, or that guidance falls on deaf ears. Right now the newbs out number the experienced members so bad that it's like a full time job for anyone that tries to help. It's so bad that it repels the experienced members. Really, some threads are so ludicrous that there's no point in replying. Trying to give the right answer when 10 people are giving the wrong answer is just going to rock the boat or get lost in the confusion.

 

PERFECT EXAMPLE RIGHT HERE............

 

I said a camaro cup holder. you said anybody that wants one should install one from a 91-92, and I'd like to see one.

What's the difference between installing a firebird cupholder in a camaro (that requires putting holes in a door panel not intended for one) and installing a cavalier cupholder (that requires no holes to be drilled)

which one is more of a "hack job" as drew calls it?

 

but, i just hate mustangs....never liked ford,,never will!

 

I've just spent 45 minutes or so checking it out. Very cool site! Lots of tips which can be applied to our cars.

 

The grammar, oh the grammar. The grammar/spelling is so terrible in so many posts here that our low echelon and uneducated status makes itself so obvious just looking at how half of the people here type their posts. Half the posts I read I'm convinced are written by high school dropouts. Like has been said, a lot of people are competent, intelligent, etc., but we get so many people that just swagger in, slop some letters into a box and hit the post button without thinking for a second what they are saying.

...

And that is the very same car that half the people here would race over to buy, lowball the owner beyond belief, then make a post here about their bucket and how they are going to fix it up, while in the same sentence saying they have no money, and/or are on a super tight budget. Rattlecan ensues. They are always "temporary" or "for now" or "better than it was" which ends up being "temporary" until the car gets parted out. To this day I have yet to see someone rattle a car "for now", and then come back with a build thread with a real paint and body teardown later. I mean did you see how everyone wet themselves over the one guy who painted his car with tractor enamel on a patch of dirt under the trees in 100 degree heat for 100 bucks? I'll give the guy credit, it didn't look bad in photos and given the conditions, but there were pages of people who couldn't wait to emulate having a tractor paint job.

It doesn't really matter, you really don't need to compare year to year. Even if you do, the LS1 cars are generally far more ragged out than the equivalent year mustangs. The old foxes generally aren't so beat either. We really do own the beaters of the performance chain, sorry to say. Camaros, as a whole, in general, attract another class of people compared to Mustangs/etc. too for some reason. I say that as an owner/lover of thirdgens, but it's the truth and it's been staring us in the face for almost thirty years. These cars are almost 30 years old, and with few exceptions, they still aren't worth anything, and we still run them into the ground. If they aren't worth anything by now, they never really will be. I joined this site in 1999, so I'm by no means new, but after a few years I got tired of seeing the crap that happens when cars are at the bottom of their depreciation curves, so I left and got busy with life for a while, and then came back last year. I thought for sure as these cars hit close to 30 years old that the crap I saw ten years ago would be gone for certain, but it hasn't. What I see now are exactly the same hacks I saw in 1999.

This brand loyalty is so utterly retarded. This is another thing I find, Chevy owners--as a whole, not just thirdgen owners--have the most hillbilly sense of brand loyalty than either the Chrysler boys or the Ford boys. On the Mustang forums, I'm finding that everyone loves my Camaro. Whereas here, you see "Rustang" and hear 305 owners talk about how junk the 4.6 Ford motor is. The latter is very LOL, because at least the 4.6 can make 500 horsepower with a blower on it--a lot more than can be said for any 305 ever built. In other words, the 4.6 is actually worth building.

And to Mark--I'll give you credit, yours doesn't look like a rattle job, but that's the exception.

 

My question is why is it so important for thirdgen owners to have cup holders? It's pretty obvious that cup holders weren't needed prior to 1990 in most cars, so why do we need cars with 13 today? Maybe if more people "drove" their cars and didn't eat, drink, talk on the phone, play with their iPods, etc, we wouldn't see so many posts about people wrecking their cars. Then we get the questions about if the ding king tool will remove a crushed in fender and door!! My crew cab Silverado has 6 cup holders!! Good thing I don't let people eat or drink in my cars or truck.

I also like all of these posts where 3rd gen owners want lambo doors. I saw a post last week where a picture was posted of a car with lambo doors behind a lambo with regular doors. Most of the modifications I've seen on the other forums of TGO are hack jobs. Very little of what I see is a restoration, resto mod or quality mod. Just hacks.

 

thanks.. even though I experiemented with rattle can, I DO know how to paint. I'm doing a restoration on a 58 impala, and it's painstaking detail. those are the HARDEST cars to restore. Because that car is in the building that I would have used to paint, and at the time didn't have a motor in it for me to move it in and out several times, I decided to take the challenge to do the best job I could with what I could do here at my house. (where I don't have a pro compressor like at my dad's)

here's the details on that restoration in case any of you think I'm a hack... I assure you I'm not. http://ourimpala.com

I made a promise to my elderly father that I would finish the restoration he started over 12 years ago. I have to put his car above mine, because it's his experience that is guiding the project. I can't do it without him, and I don't know how much longer I'll have him around.

BUT....The impala is running now, and even driving (video on the website) so I'm determined to start the process this fall of a total repaint. that's when I expect to be done with all but the final touches on the Impala

and puma, I'll send you the link to the thread I'll start, just so you don't miss it

 

I actually drive my car, and my wife and kids ride in it. It's nice to have, and after having modern cars with modern amenities, it's tough to go back

I didn't have Air conditioning in the first 3 cars I owned, that doesn't mean I would buy another one that didn't have it.

 

I love that motivational poster with the lambo doors.

The king of the trash heap to me is the true dual exhaust. Say what you will, but the cars:

A) Were not designed to accomodate it from a clearance perspective

B) Receive literally no benefit from it

It's been proven time and time again that our exhaust, or an aftermarket variant of it, is PLENTY to support hundreds of horsepower before you really need true duals. And it goes from there, that the cars with the true duals, are usually beat too--this isn't opinion, this is reality.

I don't care who put a dual exhaust on it, how professional it is, it looks terrible and doesn't outperform anything on the market.

 

Good job on the Impala! I've been following your Camaro threads with interest too.

 

I don't get it either....

 

Thanks, it's a labor of love, but frustrating at times. Hanging one of the doors is making me want to scream

 

see it this way.

you can either drive this.



or you can drive this

 

I hate Fords too! I hate that my first car was a 75 mustang i bought for $350. It looked like crap ran like a Swiss watch and was a lot of fun. I would love to own a mustang but since I'm tall I don't fit. Actually I don't fit in a lot of Ford products so I drive GM vehicles, but that is MY choice. I will probably never own anything other than a GM product, but that's OK. ALL of the car makers have good and bad vehicles in their offerings and GM has had a lot of bad ideas, but so has Ford.

If you want to post pics of your hacked up mods go ahead I will be here to ridicule you all day long. If I could I would slap the crap out of many of the people on this board and I feel there would be a line behind me of others who want to do the same.

I don't care what you drive but take some pride in it.

 

Technically they were on the Firebird, I am not sure if they were available on the Camaro or not, I do not think so. However you could add them to most doors, The holes are there in the door and everything, the only thing you have to do is locate the holes in the Cardboard door pad.

John

 

the holes are in the door, but not the pad. "hacking" the door pad (or ruining it if you didn't like the mod, which is typical for that type of cupholder) would still be needed.

you would think a moderator complaining about misinformation would be more careful about spreading it.

No, they were not available on the camaro. I think about 90% of us know that. I assumed you would too, guess not

 

 

Gotta ask...Just how tall are you? I know of people here on TGO that are pretty tall yet I've never know them to say their height "forces" then to drive one make over another so...Just how tall are you?

The door cup holders will only fit on Camaros & Firebirds with the Camaro door panels. Or worded better....Those factory door panel cup holders will NOT fit on Deluxe Door Panels due to the panels shape & contour, like those in the GTAs.

 

he's right, mustangs are small on the inside

I couldnot drive 1 on a daily basis either

 

you do know over here you see more of those cars driving around then you see a camaro or mustang.

if you want to drive something hip and fun you drive a new mini cooper
if yuo want something more luxureous you drive a Beemer or mercedes 320 Diesel or 525 Diesel. not pontiac G8 or dodge charger.

you want a sportscar, you drive a porsche.

I can honestly say that I only saw 1 camaro today, and that was on my driveway.
I saw 2 audi R8's
10 porsches
100 Beemers
10 smarts
3 toyota IQ
4 priuses

 

I'm also frustrated with the site being over run with hack jobs that get praised. I really want to see the membership of this site raise their standards. I'd like to see people take pride in their cars and themselves. When I see someone writing their posts so poorly that you get a headache trying to make sense of what they wrote, I can't help but feel that the person doesn't have much pride in theirself. When the site is full of people like that, I find it hard to take pride in being a member. I think it's great when someone comes here uninformed and asks questions in an intelligable manner, so don't think that I'm opposed to new members.

Here's the big question: How to we fix it? How do we motivate people to raise their standards? I don't think we should viciously attack people who "hack up" their cars, but we should confidently state our belief that 3rd gens are far too nice of cars to be treated like old junk and have poor quality modifications done to them. We also need to support each other when one of us is told we're "being mean" or "insulting someone's hard work".

 

what your definition of a hack job?

sounds pretty subjective to me

 

While we're airing out beefs...

I sometimes find that we might have less than optimum respect for restoring anything correctly around here. That bugs me because THIS has to be the place for that info and discipline for our cars. There is no other place on the internet where we can go for specific 3rd gen info like that. I find myself hitting other sites, (Mustang, Porsche, BMW, etc,) for restoration topics and tips.

I mean, I'll click on a thread which says something like "My '89 Restoration Thread", and basically find it to be an LS1 swap, 4th gen interior swap, non-factory color repaint thread. Or a "Restore Your IROC Wheels" thread which tells you to strip and sand and buff to a chrome like finish. Those things may be useful/interesting for some people, but certainly not "restoration".

If more of us don't start respecting the techniques, the colors, the materials, the finishes, which make our cars look correct - soon no one will know or even care what a correct factory 3rd gen is or looks like.

 

Stephen,
I did say "MOST" Door panels, I did take into account the molded door panels from 1987 - 1989, however I did not call them out as such... Thank you for clarifying that for all of us.

John

 

One reason i bought a third gen was so i could have a fun, creative outlet that my work on my 58 impala didn't allow me. That car is original down to the casr design on every bolt head.

Sometimes you get tired of being a stock **** and you want to have a little fun. You notice i do have some guidelines. I started with a base model v6 car, one that has little collectors value. If i had an IROC, i would be more original with it.

 

using the term "hack job" was the least important part of my post. I don't want to call out specific people or events, so I used that term to keep it general. You can't define it, but you know when you see it. Here's the thing... I don't want to ridicule anyone for what they do. If you need an example, I'll go with the rattle can one. If someone spraypaints their car to make it all one color because they simply can't afford to get a real paint job, well that's just fine by me. But when a krylon paint job gets very high praise as if it's something somebody should want to do to their car rather than be forced into it by circumstance, it does make it look like 3rd gens don't deserve better. Rattle Can paintjobs AREN'T AWESOME! Why do we have to pretend they are?

 

People here are talking here like they want to police hack jobs.

If want to police it, you better be able to define it

 

Where are all these people finding 6k to 12k paint jobs? My car has a professional, proper paint job, and I don't think I paid more than $3600 for it.

 

Good point. The restoration stuff is pretty straight forward. The hack job stuff has more gray area to it.

 

Wow this thread exploded the last day or two.

I think the 3rd gens are in that time frame where they are almost between 20 and 30 years old. There are nice examples and some crappy ones. Look what happen in the late 80's when all of the exotic cars/foreign cars were big $$$ and a few years later the bottom fell out. We are in the same time frame now. Even back then, the economy fell out for a few years and we are in the same situation now but worse.

One of my pet peeves is misspelling. That makes the person looks uneducated/or does not give a crap and when I see that, I already lowered my expectations for them.

How many times have we seen "camero" or "it is not for sell".

I have always been a car person who has kept their cars original. I think the most I did on my 91 RS was add an aftermarket exhaust. I thought about doing that to the 85 z but decided to keep it stock. Yes, it is quiet but it rides so smooth.

The mustang crowd has always had a respect for each other and their cars as a whole. Their is a lot of tradition and pride in the mustang crowd and always will be. Why? Ford backed up their customers and gave them what they want and supports the Mustang with history. GM did not do that or if they did, I missed it. They are trying now with the new camaro.

Now lets see some of those hack jobs!!!

 

Let me point something out that you may not have considered.
1) I clearly state "I do not think so" when it came to whether or not they were installed on a Camaro. However apparently you did not read my entire post, you just wanted to go off on someone, and show your superiority to a moderator. If you have that big of a complex, so-be-it, and you have that right to be that way. I did not bash you or your ideas in any of my comments, I am not even sure why you are coming off like a jerk at this point. I just wonder if you have a point to prove.

2) It was a suggestion, I was trying to use an example of something that was actually an option on a third gen. It was intended to be an alternative to installing a big hole in a center console as Drew mentioned. The example you gave was fine in my opinion, I would not put it on my car, but it is completely up to you. As a complement, what you have done apparently is completely reversible, and since I really prefer things that are reversible, that is what I like about your mod.

3) As for the holes in the carpeted door panel. The way I figured it If done correctly, once removed, the holes should not be visible, or barely visible through the carpet. If they are obnoxiously visible then the installer hacked it up. Carpet is reasonably cheap and could be replaced on the bottom of the door pad if the installers skills are so lacking.

John

 

If you need specific thirdgen.org examples, go to the body, interior, exhaust, etc forums and just start reading. When you find a thread where someone used a hack saw, and you can tell, that's a pretty clear indication. Pretty much anytime someone says "check out my custom XXXXXXXX" it's a safe bet. There's a 8+ page thread with pictures of dual exhausts that's full of crush bent pipe, 2-3" ground clearance, flexible exhaust pipe, nasty welds, turn downs, etc. Engine swaps where all the emissions equipment and half of the hardware is replaced with generic 1 size fits all parts are hack jobs. Missing inspection covers on transmissions are a good example. So is any job where you have "left over parts". The 1" carb spacer spread bore/square bore adapter is one. Missing air cleaners because the owner used an intake too tall, or the aforementioned spacer is another. Gutted catalytic converters or missing mufflers because "it sounds better this way!" are both hack jobs. I almost forgot a classic favorite... The Sawzall or tin snip, fuel pump access hatch.

A proper modification doesn't make compromises. When a custom project is done it should blend in with the interior around it, and it should make you wonder how they did that. Drilling and cutting is usually a bad sign.

 

58mark- We're having a good conversation here but it seems like you're looking to get into an argument with someone instead. None of us are going to take the bait.

As for the "hack job"/restoration thing- Everything doesn't have to belong to one category or the other. It would be nice if people understood and respected what restoration really means. It means that you are trying to restore your car as closely as possible to the condition it was in when that exact car was originally delivered from the factory.

I know my car isn't a restoration and there is no shame in that. I've changed the drivetrain, interior, wheels, spoiler and paint color. Mine is a customized/modified car. I wouldn't even call it a Resto-mod, because it seems like a contradiction in terms to say something is restored AND modified. Modifying cars well shouldn't be frowned upon, unless someone is destroying a truly very good original or special car to do it. Modifying cars poorly should be frowned upon if we truly want to elevate the image of 3rd gens. I don't have an exact definition for a hack job, but you usually know one when you see it. One good guideline I like to use is that if a less trained eye wouldn't pick it out as non-factory, then you probably did it right.

 

Drew,
Thank you very much, the quote is more than *perfect*



John

 

Was this not your post? If somebody else wrote this, then i'm sorry

 

enough about the cup holder. I put a cup holder in my center console that okfoz wouldn't like either, but I'm not going to argue with him about it.

 

here's my point, and then I'll drop it. Okfoz very clearly was chastising the group of of us that add cupholders to our cars, saying that if it's something we really need, we should have the brains to at least use a 91-92 cupholder, which according to him was the proper way to go about it.

two problems with that. he didn't even know that NO third gen camaros came with door cupholders, so adding one would be just as much of a hack (or worse) than doing what I already did.

Besides, as somebody that drove a formula for a 6 hour drive one time, I know personally those cupholders are a PITA, which seem to the be common consensus around here. Why would I use something that's not even correct, especially of I didn't even like it?

I like original, when it works properly. you'll notice from the pictures I posted I have a factory stereo. why?? 90% of TGO doesn't. I have one because I LOVE IT. it looks great, works great, and there's no reason in the world to "upgrade" you want police hack jobs? start jumping on the backs of the guys who install single din steroes in their third gens. In MY OPINION, 99% of them look like crap. (I have seen a few exceptions, but the mount is more expensive than the stereo)

I have a set of polished IROC wheels over here. I decided not to put them on because they aren't original enough for me. I'll either keep them in case I ever do buy an IROC, or sell them.

What I'm saying is it is possible to appreciate a factory look, but still have an eye for creativity and make small changes that enhance an already amazing car.

When talking about hack jobs it's too easy to paint with the broad brush and condemn everybody for the sins of a few

 

Opinions on what is a hack job will vary. I don't think a single din stereo is a hack job unless it's hanging out of the dash. I don't think a decent looking cup holder is a hack job.. unless it looks way out of place. I do think that cheap tachs and other guages screwed into a dashpad or into the dash itself with exposed wires look like a hack job. I think the A-pillar guages with exposed screws holding the pod onto the the original A-pillar look bad, but I probably wouldn't go and call someone out on it. Some things are just obvious though. If someone screws a speed limit sign onto their firewall where the heater/air conditioning box used to be, that's a HACK JOB! If someone puts a camaro front end on a firebird, that's a HACK JOB. We can do a "You know you're a hack when...." thread and go all day long with the things we've seen on this site. Compared to what will end up on that list, I agree that a simple cup holder will seem pretty minor.

 

"You know you're a hack when...."

a sure fire lock, but it would be entertaining while it lasted. maybe that's what drew was talking about, a little public chastising to give the impression that there are some purists on the site a little sick of the stereotype

I'm not sure even the history/restoration forum is isolated enough to make that fly. more than likely it would have to be a whole new forum, one for purists.

 

58Mark,
ONCE AGAIN, you did not bother to actually read my post. I actually complemented you on your installation... AND you apparently have no sense of satire...

YES cup holders would be nice, BUT they were only available for a few years, the Camaro was not blessed with them, and you apparently felt attacked by my comment... I made a suggestion and you felt attacked... I apologize for offending you, even though the comment was not directed at anyone in particular, you have decided to take it personally.

I have officially apologized for unintentionally offending you, if you cannot accept that as an apology then it is officially your problem.

As for the Wii... YES it has been done, maybe not a Wii, but a PS2 IIRC...

John