Just heard about a Shelby Dodge Lancer. Anyone got any info on it? specs, history, etc?

Modified by LordJax at 3:51 PM 7-7-2004

What would you like to know?

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"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen - WE DON'T NEED HIM. We are God's unwanted children? SO BE IT!"

Mmm...'87 Lancer ES Turbo with 15lbs of boost...Too bad it popped on me.

I know nothing about these cars, other than they tend to blow up in the middle of the night in the middle of the Quad Cities in the middle of January. Oh, and how to replace a clutch at 2:00 AM. in sub-zero temperatures after using a MINI Cooper S to tow it into Parklife's garage.

They are K car based, which means you could have everything from a marshmallow mobile to a Koni-shocked Turbocharged monster. And the price difference between the two extremes is positively minuscule.

They can be made voraciously fast for beer money.
They can and will blow up on you and require huge amounts of cash and work with no warning whatsoever.
They are very roomy for their age.
THey are very crude machines and cannot be expected to provide modern levels of performance/expectations.
They are not as bad as some say they are.
They are worse than what some say they are.

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"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen - WE DON'T NEED HIM. We are God's unwanted children? SO BE IT!"

Lancer: "Door ajar."
owner: "No, it's closed."
Lancer: "Door ajar."
owner: (turning red) "NO, it's CLOSED."
Lancer: "Door ajar."
owner: "SHUT UP!"
Lancer: "...low fuel."
owner: "AAAGRGH!"

Perhaps more than you wanted to know:

http://www.xmission.com/~demps...5.htm

Quote, originally posted by xdre »

None of us are rejecting OHC technology, we just don't accept that it's automatically and intrinsically superior. Especially when it's not.

Quote, originally posted by Juniper Monkeys »

The scale is very complicated. There was some quantitative change, the specifics of which I am not party to.

Quote, originally posted by martensvwguy »

What!? First off, the Lancer is a 5-door HATCHBACK. Secondly, they're not ugly, although, like everything, it's in the eye of the beholder. Further, they're damn fast for their age. Shelby built the Shelby Lancers to run with an M5, and they're awfully close. That 2.5L Turbo II can crank out a ton of power. Make sure if you're looking at one, though, you're looking at a Shelby Lancer, not a Dodge Lancer Shelby Edition (confusing, I know). Ask me why I know all this... Mmm...'87 Lancer ES Turbo with 15lbs of boost...Too bad it popped on me.

OK, I'll bite. What is the difference between the two? My Father purchased a Lancer ES Turbo new back in 1987. It had a good amount of power which made for fun driving lessons. I remember searching through car mags to find the HP rating and came across an ad touting it had 158hp which made me go as I thought that was a ton of power
Still to this day I would love to find a Shelby Lancer. I passed on the chance of buying a real clean one back in the early 90s on a Dodge Dealers lot for only $3,500, man I wish I could do that one over again.

ES Turbo: Sport version of the regular Lancer, decent engine.
Shelby Lancer: numbered Shelby-badged (not DOdge badged) 1987 only car with go fast everything, good suspension. Collectors item.
Lancer Shelby: Trim level top o the line in 1989, got the hardcore 2.5L engine (better than the SL) but not quite as good suspension and brakes.

Personally the pick of the bunch is a NON Shelby 1989 Lancer Shelby. No collector car status, all the hardware.

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"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen - WE DON'T NEED HIM. We are God's unwanted children? SO BE IT!"

You misspelled "All cars were ugly in the '80s."

Seriously. And the Lancer/Lebaron GTS were handsome examples of '80s cars. (Yah, I know: top.turd.dungpile.)

In 87 Carroll Shelby worked his magic on the Lancer adding 4whl disc brakes, an intercooler, different intake, special springs, bigger sway bars and a standard Pioneer CD stereo (remember this was 87, 8 tracks just went away a few years earlier). There were 800 of the Shelby Lancers made, all received a numbered dash plaque. Approx 400 were automatic cars with leather seats, the other 400 were 5spds with cloth interior. The intercooled engine made 174hp and 175lb/ft of torque. The Shelby Lancer was targeted at the BMW 5 series but lacked the refinement of the BMW, of course it's price tag was a lot less as well. All Shelby Lancers started life on a dodge assembly line as a regular non-intercooled turbo Lancer, they were then shipped out to Whittier, CA where Shelby's crew did the conversion. All 800 cars were Red with a grey interior.

Dodge made a handful of Lancer Shelbys in 88 and 89, 5spd cars got the 174hp intercooled Turbo II engine, Automatics got a non-intercooled turbo I engine. These were avialable in red, black and white.

As for reliability, these are nearly 20 year old cars, they will require maintenance. I would not recommend one to someone that doesn't own a good set of tools and know how to use them. The 2.2/2.5 is stout motor and it has the potential to make a lot of power. Done right they can be very reliable cars, but with their age you have to do a lot of things upon purchase to get a leg up on the failures. They are a great car to learn to work on, the fuel injection systems are simple, the diagnostics are easy and parts are cheap.

Meet the other guy who turns wrenches on the van when I can't.

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"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen - WE DON'T NEED HIM. We are God's unwanted children? SO BE IT!"

It's an American car from the '80s. What are you expecting?

The Lancer and its companion Chrysler LeBaron GTS (short for God, This Sucks) were, at the time, fairly clean and modern designs. That they haven't aged with the same grace as a Mercedes SL is to be expected.

So what about the Lancer...

It was introduced in 1985, with an a throttle-body injected 2.2 four, or a multi-port injected, non-intercooled 2.2 turbo. Five-speed manuals were standard, three-speed automatics were a popular upgrade.

There was an "ES" trim, which supposedly stood for "Euro Sport". Every car in the '80s, however, included the word "euro" in its description somewhere - even colossal stinkers like the Chevy Celebrity that your average European would avoid with all the same diligence as, say, syphilis - so let's not talk about that too much.

1986 saw the larger, smoother, balance-shafted 2.5 replace the anemic 2.2 as the base engine, although the multi-port 2.2 turbo was still optional. Women everywhere complained about the 2.5, because the base, unbalanced 2.2 engine provided all of the "vibratory thrills" of riding on the back of a Harley-Davidson while still offering the security of being wrapped in a four-door family car. The introduction of the 2.5 is largely credited with the sharp rise in divorces during the late '80s.

1987 was the only year of the numbered Shelby Lancer. The SL was not a production-line car, but rather one that was disassembled and re-built with higher performance parts by Shelby in Whittier, CA. It was (snicker) supposed to compete with (hoo-ha!) European sporting sedans of the time. Like the Spirit R/T which compared itself to the BMW 530i and Ford Taurus SHO, the car may have been faster than its comtemporaries, but the dynamics of the car and its humble underpinnings prevented it from being a more engaging or exhilarating drive than the others.

1988 and 89 saw the Lancer Shelby, which was most of the Shelby Lancer (got it?) body kit installed on a production-line Dodge Lancer. While the Turbo II-equipped Lancer Shelby and the intercooled Shelby Lancer shared similar output numbers, the factory car used a stronger transmission and had a forged crankshaft while the Shelby Lancer used a weaker transmission with a cast crank.

There's plenty of stories I can tell, including replacing the clutch on Brian's '89 Lancer ES at 2 AM in below freezing temperatures (and using my MINI to tow the car, yes ), doing a complete restoration on an '89 Lancer Shelby for a friend only to have him destroy it a week later, and the time I hit a deer so hard with an '87 LeBaron GTS that it bent the unibody and prevented the doors from opening. Perhaps I will indulge in a little storytelling later.

That was hilarious.

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"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen - WE DON'T NEED HIM. We are God's unwanted children? SO BE IT!"

ROFL!!!!
My friend had one and it did the same thing.
didn't they say something about washing the car, or dirty car or something like that..

Other than that, like alot of the Mini-Mopar turbo motors, they can put down some good numbers if tweaked correctly.

"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he chambered another round...

"The problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of the other guy’s money.” - Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Sweet ass car! I love the stock double spoiler.

I am in the process of making it a racer for Solo I.

A2Carat

Looking to buy front fenders and a radiator support for a Mk1 Jetta! PM me!

Quote, originally posted by A2Carat »

I've got a '88 Dodge Lancer Shelby with the T II. 174hp and 204 lbs. ft. torque from a 2.2L. 5 speed too!

Holy Dead Thread, Batman.

Um, if you want to get rid of it, let me know. Being as this Forum also belongs to MWerks, I'm sure somebody has a MINI Cooper S I can borrow to tow it home with.

BTW, you've probably already discovered this, but the transmissions in the SLs are crap. Are you upgrading it?

Brian, there's medication that can help control this, you know.

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somebody has a MINI Cooper S I can borrow to tow it home with.

one thing i did notice was that when you open the door not just a dome light comes on, the whole interior is illuminated by lights under the dash, a dome light, and lights in the doors. the first time i opened it at night it made me feel like i was stepping into the most ghetto mercedes ever.

Jimohio123: less than 100 posts and already hated by the entire car lounge