Spring Break in a 91 Q45
Spring Break in a 91 Q45
ok, so here is how it goes... 4 guys ranging in height from 5'11 to 6'2 weighing in from 175 - 210, a trunk jam packed with luggage, and some twizzlers on spring break. We started out in West Lafayette Indiana, hour north of Indy, and drove all the way to Panama City, Florida in the 91 Q45 that has Fred's old motor. What a drive. I can say that this thing is by far the best road trip mobile I have witnessed yet. (other road trip mobiles tested... 99 Chevy Tahoe, my 93 Altima, 87 Mercury Grand Marquis, 94 3000GT VR4)We were traveling with a 2004 Monte Carlo SS modified with a flowmaster exhaust and some kind of low restriction intake. I can say that the Monte Carlo had no prayer of passing cars on the highway like we did, but it did spend less money at the fuel pump. Nobody complained about a lack of room or cramping, although one of the guys did seem to have experienced cramping due to another mysterious phenomenon. Anyways... we got about 19 mpg or so on our 1600 mile trip (not what I was used to when I usually drive an Altima that gets nearly 30mpg on road trips). The tires that we had on the factory 15 inch wheels were some kind of non-speed rated kind with proper (35psi warm) air pressure. We found out the hard way that you SHOULD NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT PUTTING NON SPEED RATED TIRES ON A Q45!!!!!!!!! I cannot express this enough. We learned the hard way. The left rear tire severely deformed and wobbled for about 45 minutes out of Indy on the way back, we hit about 120 or so about an hour before that, had lunch, and then drove for a while only to think that we were about to lose a wheel. The tire had gotten progressively worse and it made me wish that we had on the 17 inch Konig Tantrums wrapped with good Firestone Firehawk SZ50 EP tires. The reason we did not use this wheel/tire combo in the first place was because they are about 1.75 inches or so shorter than the factory wheel/tire size combo thus giving us a smaller circumference and more rotations per distance driven and less gas mileage. They were, however mounted on the Q once we got to Indy. Moral of the story, if you are going to take the luxurious Q45 on a road trip, bring lots of gas money, and make sure that you have good speed rated tires because the Q goes faster than you realize quicker than you can say speeding ticket, of which none of us got... knock on wood (and radar detector). :ylsuper
Count on it bro! Yeah one of my friends was really really pissed off, dehydrated, and in the depths of sleep deprivation. He was dragging all of us that also were dehydrated and sleep deprived. We got to the meet excited to check everything out and then after the initial excitement tapered down a bit we all needed to take a coma; i slept for 18 hours after we got back. But its guaranteed that I'll be dressed in my sunday best for the next meet!
Panama City???? That is an hour from where I grew up in Florida. I use to go to Panama City every Spring Break from the time one of my friends got his first car. Every Friday we would head home, pack the bags, and go party on the beach all night long and then make it home before the folks woke up. I grew up in Destin, FL, which is an hour West of Panama City. Good story and brings back good old memories.
Well, Repo is my brother... and right now he has to drive a free 2004 Cadillac CTS for his job. He also has the S13 and an F-150 that arent even being driven right now so he has a few cars that are at his disposal. The Q has been a work-in-progress machine that has been at my parents' house in Carmel, In. I have been the one doing a lot of the work on it (ie replacing the drive shaft, mounting wheels, stereo removal/replacement, interior restoration, sunroof repair, etc). My Altima has an oil leak, an exhaust leak, an almost worn out master cylinder, and the list goes on that needs repaired so I have been driving the Q for the last 2 weeks. I have the option to drive it for a while but I really dont like having it here on campus especially when it gets the kind of gas mileage around town that it does, bad compared to the 4 cylinder Altima. Plus, I do not like the fact that there are so many careless drivers around here that could ding it and not even care.