Personally I think this is a really interesting discussion. I am an engineer at Honda R&D near Columbus, OH. At my location, there are over a thousand white collar workers, mostly technical. Within a hundred mile radius of me, there are a 4 Honda assembly plants, employing around 10,000 people. At other sites in the US and Canada, there are probably another 15,000 workers. Each of these plants is turning out thousands of new Hondas per day. Nearly every Honda/Acura sold in the US (by volume) is made in the US. The engines, transmissions, every major component. Furthermore, Honda actually *exports* cars from the US, something that the Big 3 can barely talk about. Sure, there are niche cars like the S2000 roadster that are 100% Japanese, but that is a tiny part of our market. I think these are pretty impressive numbers, especially if you consider that Honda is only something like the 7th largest market share in the US. Its been here since 1979, I'd wager that in those 27 years Honda has contributed significantly to Americans and their way of life. There are a lot of secure $25/hr plus full benefits jobs available in Ohio because of Honda. The US auto industry lost their way in the oil crises. They haven't been able to turn it around since then. They concentrate too much on short-sighted markets like giant fuel-guzzling SUVs. Its not that the Big 3 makes bad cars, its that they make cars that aren't in demand. Compare a Focus to a Civic. A Taurus to an Accord. Sure, those Fords might last 200k miles, but I'd much rather spend that time in a nice Accord than a hard plastic Taurus. I would rather support the thousands of American workers who build Hondas than support a few suits in Detroit and drive a Mexican Dodge. That said, my garage: 1980 Lawn Boy 7229 1996 Stihl trimmer 1997 Honda Accord (shocking, right?) 2002 Triumph Speed Triple (mc) 1976 Honda CB400F (mc) 1976 Suzuki GT550 2-stroke (mc) 1948 Johnson Sea Horse (outboard) 1949 Evinrude Zephyr (outboard)

First car... wow. 1970 VW Bug. Never tried jumping a curb, but it DID have a mind of it's own. It used to start honking the horn on it's own, blow fuses at will - boy did I get good at changing fuses, it would pop the tailpipe at will, I had to keep track of my miles because the gas gage fuse used to blow... if I had passengers in the back, the fender rubbed the tire... but all in all I loved that car - paid $1500 bucks for it and got every dime back out of it when I sold it 10 years later for a used 1987 Kawasaki Ninja... I used to pick up my girlfriends on that thing... parents LOOOOVED me! Still have the dang thing! NCTomatoman - wasn't a olive green pontiac tempest in My Cousin Vinnie??

There are a number of different ways to test for a vacuum leak, which BTW comes under the broader description of an improper air/fuel ratio and that can occur for a number of reasons. Your task in searching for a rough idle is to first confirm if the rough idle is happening to one or more individual cylinders, or if it's totally random through the engine. By using a four gas analyzer I can measure the exhaust gases and find out if the computer actually has control of the engines air fuel ratio. Plus my engine analyzer also makes it easy for me to determine if the rough idle can be narrowed down to which cylinders are firing poorly. You will have to pull plug wires (off the cap to reduce getting shocked), or find another way to ground out the ignition for each cylinder as you search for the affected cylinders. Now once identified if possible, you can concentrate on the causes. "Assuming" this is indeed a vacuum leak, one of the routines I use is to add propane to the likely areas and see if the extra fuel cleans up, or worsens the engines idle. You need to remove the PCV valve from the valve cover and shoot propane into the crancase to check for the most common leak in this engine, the intake manifold gasket. A second way to check for the intake gasket is to block the breather hose with one finger, and then use another finger in the PCV grommet to seal the crankcase. If there is an intake gasket leak, you will feel vacuum building in the crankcase, and you may even notice the engine start to smooth out once that happens. Another way we test for vacuum leaks is with a smoke machine. By plugging this machine into a manifold vacuum line, and pumping smoke into the intake manifold, we can see leaks easily by following the escaping smoke. The scan data from the computer showing fuel trim adjustments, combined with data from the four gas analyzer is used to determine if the injectors are feeding fuel at a correct ratio. Part of the testing here would again include the use of alternate fuel such as propane, to see if one of the injectors is restricted. By adding propane to the throttle body on the injector side that is leaner, it's possible to clean up the idle, and then while monitoring both the fuel trim data, as well as the four gas analyzer we can confirm if injector issues exist. Remember, fuel ratio problems can exist for many reasons, EGR leakage, intake valve seal leakage, improper injection by either too much or too little fuel per pulse can be taking place, the cannister purge system could be faulty, etc.

That does sound nice!... I'm like you davco, a car guy with appreciation for a nice ride regardless of brand, I've just always trended toward f-body's. I actually had a couple fox bodies, one notch back and another that I built up as well (heads, cam, etc), but the Z was my favorite... One of these days I'll try to dig up some old pics. Cam, tune, 3400 stall convertor and typical intake/exhaust mods it ran low 12's. Mid 11's on a dry 100 shot... And that was with street tires and the stock 2.73 rear end... Those were the good old days before kids, lol, although I did bring my first born home from the hospital in that car.