Star/Quest General Consensus?

I got a little side tracked the other day and went perusing about on craigslist, where I found a 95' Mitsubishi mighty max truck for sale. I started looking at turboed trucks and it lead me around to the starion and conquest cars.

Last I looked into them they were pretty cheap, turbo, rwd, and somewhat plentiful. All things I tend to like. But given the track record of later dsm cars I am weary of picking one up. Are the reliable? Handle worth a damn? Suck gas like a P71 vic? I would probably want to hop in, turn up the boost some and drive it around daily. Also, do these cars tend to like megasquirt? I bet there is some power to be found there.

Discuss.

I think grm has been over this fairly recently.

I think they're one of, if not THE most attractive/affordable cars of the 80's.

Mechanically, I'm terrified of them. 12-15 years ago, when there were still some non-enthusiast owned survivors out there, they were gigantic piles of crap that would rsuffer random catastrophic failure in new and imaginative ways.

parts are hard to find and the motor is a bit different than most others in the dsm family and can be difficult to find aftermarket parts for.

body parts are starting to dry up, especially all the wide body stuff.

In general though, no different than any other japanese turbo of the late 80's/early 90's.

A bit heavy, chassis a little soft, but cheap and easy to modify and fun to drive.

I might be thinking that the other answer for all things GRM is V-8 swap. I love those cars. If you concentrate real hard, it might turn into a giant fighting robot.

I would call mine an LS Taco.

No, No, Yes

But they are so uber 80's Japanese cool looking that all can be forgiven.

This is my next project car, they are hotness...

One showed up at our track day last weekend. Didn't even make it through the first session. They do look awesome, though - pure 80's Japan.

Will a Nissan 350z v6 powertrain fit in there without oxy re-engineering 1/2 the front end? 280HP of NA goodness... a little cage to stiffen it up...

There has been at least one of these at the $200x Challenge with a domestic V8 under the hood, I think one was using a MoPar 318, which makes sense since those are nice and narrow vs. the classic Chevrolet small block.

That said, there are factory parts that would help give the 'Quest a port fuel injection setup, which would probably really boost reliability of these things. That said, I think an XR4Ti would be a better way to go for your '80's RWD oddball.

Slap the 2 liter turbo in it from the later cars and call it a day. I wouldn't use it as my sole means of transportation tho...

I saw a picture once of a star/quest with the 4g63t in it.. seemed like a beast

I have always thought that the wide body "Starquests" were incredibly good looking cars! I had somebody offer to trade me my motorcycle for one when I was selling it, I still regret not doing it! One of those would be an awesome ride with a built 4G63!

Before you get too excited about them, find one and sit in it, they have very little interior room (somewhere between a fiat x1/9 and an original miata).

Nitroracer wrote: I got a little side tracked the other day and went perusing about on craigslist, where I found a 95' Mitsubishi mighty max truck for sale. I started looking at turboed trucks and it lead me around to the starion and conquest cars. Last I looked into them they were pretty cheap, turbo, rwd, and somewhat plentiful. All things I tend to like. But given the track record of later dsm cars I am weary of picking one up. Are the reliable? Handle worth a damn? Suck gas like a P71 vic? I would probably want to hop in, turn up the boost some and drive it around daily. Also, do these cars tend to like megasquirt? I bet there is some power to be found there.

Funny you should mention the trucks, my friend just got his turbo Ram 50 fired up tonight.

No they aren't reliable, no they don't handle, and yes they suckle on the teet of OPEC. Should you get one? Yes.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/ctd/1391895943.html

If only I had a spare 5000 laying around. 2500 for the car, the rest for parts.

http://www.racetep.com/dod_mit.html

Here's my 2.6 turbo Mighty Max / Ram50 in the Readers ride section.

In reply to hotg54b:

DROOL!!!

I've always wanted a Starquest. I usually find em in two ways. Rusty or expensive. . . .

The decent examples are moving back up the depreciation curve