New Dart, Anyone have one?
That's why I said "if they are done right". Mopar didn't do it right. 160-184 is a sad joke.
I agree. A Fi 4 banger should be making 225-250HP without working hard to do so, at all.
my MC40 had a 1.8 pumping out 225 bone stock, run 14's and would outhandle a vette.
Quarter mile speeds and trap times for a street car are meaningless. WHat matters is having to power and speed to enter a freeway safely. 0-70 mph time is far more important than drag strip performance.
A car needs to be comfortable for the driver, have ample power to be able to accelerate our of trouble if necessary, it needs to be able to enter a 70MPH freeway safely, even with 4 adults in the car, it needs to stop and handle well in emergency situations, again, with 4 adults, in the car, and it needs to have excellent crash test results.
The OP states that the car is for his wife as a daily driver. Personally it's drag strip performance is the last thing on my mind for a car for my wife. I wouldn't even recommend a manual trans for a daily driver, unless you live way out of town. City driving and manual transmissions are a pain the in the ***, and besides, most people when driving a manual trans get worse MPG's than they would with an auto, simply because they don't drive for "economy" they drive for power.
Think about that realistically.. How many people do you know that drive manual shift cars, actually drive it to get better MPG. That's a fallacy. Most people wind out the gears and dump the clutch pretty quickly. Driving for economy requires slow starts, and shifting at low RPM, and never even approaching a gear max rpm.
On average, with today's automatic transmissions, cars with auto transaxles will yield better MPG than a sick ( because of driving habits) and in most cases, beside normal maintenance you'll have no issues, and you'll never have to change a clutch.