Comments: 1-15, 16-22
Bought this car for $500 with these problems, which I fixed.
Fuel pressure regulator.
Oxygen sensor (fouled because of the above problem).
Steering rack.
Hood release lever.
I LOVE this car. It handles like a rally car, and has great acceleration.
I plan a series of performance upgrades to turn this into a Mustang killer, and SCCA race vehicle.
It has the double spoiler on the back and gets lots of attention. You don't see these every day, more like twice a year!
These cars, also came with a lot of great options - sunroof, heated leather seats, lumbar support, power windows and rear wiper.
This car is a great sports car, and you can usually find one for less than $2000 in fair shape. Just plain fun!
I agree on some of the points that he made. Although there were a lot of problems with my Merkur, like turbo transmission, and now fuel injection, it is a very noticable car when driving though town, a lot of heads turn.
My friend's Cavalier would get me at the start but if we went over 115 mph I would kick his ass (his Cavalier had a governer to reduce speed, but the highest I ever went was 121mph).
I had an '86 XR4Ti, awesome car loved it!!! Very fun on the interstate in Wisconsin. Everyone would pass me, or try to anyway, trying to figure out what it was. Then slow up and still be confused when the only identifier they saw was the XR4Ti on the rear lid.
If anyone can show me another 4 cyl. automatic completely stock that will push 120+ I would like to know what it is. Beware of shorts in fuel pump wiring harness! That's how mine meet its demise, up in flames, it has been greatly missed.
Hmmm, a 4 cylinder automatic that will push 120 hp stock. well for starters, the mazda Miata pushes 130, the subaru impreza wrx sti pumps out about 280, and the Toyota Tacoma pickup pushes out right around 140. (Did I mention that the toyota and the Mazda are NON TURBO?)
Don't get me wrong, I think murkers are cool, but don't try and say that 120 horsepower is a lot.
I believe he means 120+ MPH.
Yeah man the xr4ti is 175 hp stock!!!
Yeah; the guy that attacked with ignorance must be a whiny liberal. Wrong information, ranting bloviations. He went off because he was out to lunch. Typical. These cars are great!
The only older 4 cylnder car I would be afraid of is a mid 80's mitsu starion... another very fast 4 cylnd in its day.
Topping out at a very high speed is not an intrinsically challenging mechanical problem: virtually anything could exceed 120mph -- with "tall" gearing.
My current project rocket is an '89 Prelude with "short" gearing -- despite a 6750 redline. With taller gears, that car would blast over 150 easy.
The difference is that this car will get there in a real hurry if you get in the boost. The downright scary thing about the XR4Ti is that you can hit 100+ and not even notice how fast you are going until you look down. It's that smooth, and applies power with little effort given the age of the car.
I'm sure your prelude could do 120, but this is in stock trim. You would have to do a lot of transmission work to get a Prelude to do that.
I currently have a 85 Merkur and I love it. With some minor tweaks and a boost controller, it now runs consistent mid 13's in the quarter! Where are the Hondas now? That's right, last time I checked it took my buddy a $5000.00 motor swap to run with me, well he is almost there :) I still beat him by a car or two depending on the launch. So in other words, Merkurs rule! Just wait till I put on all the performance parts.
I have a Question? what is really the stock HP of a merkur xr4ti automatic transmission. Merkur are fast sports car and love it better than my neon before I love my merkur better.
The stock HP of an automatic merkur is 175HP and it can go as high as 350HP if you want more HP change your transmission to a manual one so you can tweak it up to 500 HP.
I had an 87 XR4Ti and never had more fun with a car than when I drove that one. Very fast, great acceleration, and tons of features.
For anyone comparing other 4 bangers to this one, compare stock specs and performance and then go out and race against one. I wish you the best of luck. ;) I took mine up to just above 150MPH while I was living in Colorado and it still felt like it had more to give me, but sanity kicked in so I backed off on the pedal. In the time that I owned my Merkur I gave many a car owner that wanted to race my back side as I passed them and still believe that to this day it's a hard car to beat for the price and performance. Anyway, I hope to get another one some day as a collector car, but only time will tell.
I'm about to get a xr4ti, and I'm excited as hell!
My girlfriend's uncle had it sitting in the yard of the house he bought from and english guy like 5 years ago, been there ever since, I'm gonna get the seats reupholstered, some turbo upgrades as well as engine upgrades! holy crap, I can't wait!
Actually, I can easily hit 120+ in my bone stock 2002 hyundai elantra. Matter of fact, I was doing just that a week or so ago on the AC Expressway.