Car seems slow, is it just me?

[pscmj84]

After looking at other Camaro V6s on youtube, my 98 Camaro V6 auto seems slower than all of them. I'm not even talking about the manual cars, I'm talking about other stock auto 3.8s.

Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfgTNCjDLs

The car does have almost 175k (a bit over 150k when that video was shot). The car still gets 30+ mpg highway luckily, but 0-60 seems to be around 9 seconds. The car doesn't seem to hesitate or studder at all, but high end rpm power seems weak. I first got the car around 120k miles, and it wasn't any faster or slower then.

As far as the engine goes, all I have done to the engine is seafoam, throttle body cleaning, air filter replacement, oil, and fuel filter. Is there something I'm missing? This wasn't happening when the video was shot (it was shot over a year ago), but a few weeks ago, the 6# lifter started to tick real bad. We put it some Lucas oil to quieten it down, and it worked. So at this point, I'm not putting any significant amount of money into the car. I guess at 175k, I should just be glad the engine is running smoothly, even if it is down on power. What do you guys think?

[Shad0wguy]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

Have you tried typical tune up things? Spark plugs, wires and coils maybe?

[pscmj84]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

Have you tried typical tune up things? Spark plugs, wires and coils maybe?

Spark plugs were changed around 120k. I think the wires and the coils are original.

[auto666]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

no way wires are original the 3.8 produces way to much heat especially in an f-body your lucky if they last 100k. regaurdless of manufature claims 50k miles is pushing it for any plug except iridium and your only gonna get 70-80k good miles out of them and only on an engine designed for them get acdelco double platinums and a good set of wires. stay away from multi electrode plugs they DO NOT do anything but hurt you by interfearing with the Propagation of the flame front, ie a slower burn, higher emmisions, less power and shorter catilitic converter life

[vr4gasm]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

stay away from multi electrode plugs they DO NOT do anything but hurt you

ditto!

[pscmj84]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

no way wires are original the 3.8 produces way to much heat especially in an f-body your lucky if they last 100k. regaurdless of manufature claims 50k miles is pushing it for any plug except iridium and your only gonna get 70-80k good miles out of them and only on an engine designed for them get acdelco double platinums and a good set of wires. stay away from multi electrode plugs they DO NOT do anything but hurt you by interfearing with the Propagation of the flame front, ie a slower burn, higher emmisions, less power and shorter catilitic converter life

I'm 99% sure they are the original wires, I'll look through the service history to see if they were replaced at one point or another.

[dmw319]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

that video you posted looks normal to me.

[vr4gasm]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

i think around the end of the video it looks a little sluggish but for the most part it does look pretty normal esp. for an engine with that many miles

[pscmj84]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

i think around the end of the video it looks a little sluggish but for the most part it does look pretty normal esp. for an engine with that many miles

Cool, that makes me feel better! The car is what it is and it's all in my head. Thanks everyone!

[dobie]

Re: Car seems slow, is it just me?

For what its worth throw a can of "Restore" in it. I put some of this in my Chrysler and after 1500 miles you could really feel the difference. I was a little skeptical of using it but I was planning on doing a rebuild/upgrade so I figured it couldn't hurt anything. I changed the oil at 3K like always and kept adding Restore. 20K miles later I pulled the motor and tore it down and there were no ill effects from using it.

In short, it may not do any good but won't do any harm and it's relatively cheap.