ok so today i took what was supposed to be about an hour and 45 minute trip down to burlington to view an rx7 that was for sale and i was interested in buying.



anywho out of the total ~90 mile trip form my door to the parking lot i think ~85 miles was on the nj turnpike. So i get on at exit 16w or 16e one of the two and I'm motoring along in my 99 Durango (bone stock) havin just bought a full tank of gas and some food i'm quite happy just sitting on cruise control at 75-80.



Anyway in the shadows behind me i see the headlights of a mustang weaving in and out fast, and catch a glimpse of the old body style celica playing catch-up with it. So they thought they were cool and zoom by me only doing like 90, with me doing 75. Luckily i spotted them and as soon as they got close and slammed it I could hear the mustang driver's surprise as his car went from a dull roar to him flooring it, the celica seemed to try to floor it too but once me and the stang hit 105 it started to slowly fall behind. Anyway this mustang was red, had altezzas, had dual flowmasters, and one of those tri-level shopping cart wings. I'm pretty sure it was only a V6 because i kept it right next to me up to my speed limiter of 114mph, and even at that the stang was barely pulling away. So anyway we mess with each other including me barreling down the slow lane at about 110 and barely squeezing thru two cars in the middle lane to cut him off in the fast lane. And this went on for my WHOLE ride down to exit 5.



As you could imagine the supposed 1hour and 45minute trip was knocked down to about an hour, maybe a bit more. I was supposed to be somewhere at 5:30, and showed up at about 4:45, so an hour sounds right.



So then on my way home what do i run into? no not a riced out stang this time....a riced out saturn!!! yes a ******* saturn with wing, crappy kit, the works. I tried not to laugh as he tried to do a flyby at ~90mph, only to his amazement i floored it and my truck happily chugged up to 110 before a cutoff, thinking i embarassed him, so he attempts another flyby, i do the same thing. Finally at about exit 11 or so he spots a cop on the other side of the divider (the truck lanes, still going in our direction) and, now i swear to god, went from hangin at about 95mph to FULL BRAKES, now this is NJ we've been having snow and **** all week and this bum is slamming on the brakes doing 95mph!! Anyway his rear starts to wobble and i saw at least 3 or 4 cars make desperate dives around him...meanwhile i kept doing my 95mph knowing the cop can't get onto my part of the road without jumping a divider with his car, once the next exit came up though i slowed to about 75 in case he radioed ahead to try and bust me.



anyway, moral of the story, my durango sucks i want an FD!



kevin.

 

aren't they gonna put the hemi in a durango? that would be sweet

 

did u know flowmasters will get ya laid? and thats kinda scary doing 114 in the slow lane in a suv like that

 

yea the 5.7 hemi is gonna be in the 2004 D supposively. The quoted numbers were something like 325hp and 355ft/lbs at the crank. So figure 20% parasitic loss to the wheels = 261hp at the wheels, approx. Right now the 5.2 only has 235hp at the crank, factor in the parasitic loss and it's about 190 or something.



The NJ turnpike is for the most part perfectly straight, and when originally designed they built perfectly level straight-aways because it wasn't originally intended for the publics use, the military designed it with level straightaways to use as landing strips in case of war, it just happens to have made a perfect race way, dangerous though as this is the first time i havent seen cops everywhere .



When my Durango was dropped 3" and has performance sway bars on it the thing handled like a car at 114mph, but now that it is stock height and stock sway bars it can get frightening to hit 114. I'm sure the others on the road were more scared of me then i was of my truck haha



anywho,

kevin.

 

and also those figures from the 5.7 in the durango were from a rumor a while back when i was into the truck a lot (before the accident a 408 with vortech supercharger was going into it, same engine that pushed a D to a 12.11 or 12.13 or something) I'm sure dodge has detuned the engine. My truck if i bought it brand new was 31,000 and it doesnt have too many options on it, so i figure with the 5.7 and the new designed body coming with it the price will be in the 40's for a good one. Way too much if you ask me, for a truck that gets 8mpg on a good day lol.



kevin.