I just got back from a vacation in Ireland. Hertz upgraded our rental and it turned out to be a Volvo C30 which only has a 1.6D but it did have 205-50-17s and a great suspension with a 5spd. Man driving on the wrong side of the road and having to shift with the left hand was entertaining. I learned that the roads in Ireland, especially Mayo Co. Western Ireland are three verys.....very narrow, very twisty, and very bumpy. Driving was like a week long road race. The people either drove 20-30 under or 20-30kms over the limit which is 80km/hr in the country and 100km on the "highway". I had an absolute ball pushing that little car hard and only had a couple of near misses....one with a sheep and the other with a large truck....in over 1200kms of driving. I must admit to more than a few missed gears with the left hand and only a couple of times of forgetting which side of the road I was supposed to be on The 1.6D had no torque, but did have surprising mid range at the speeds we were going. It was absolutely beautiful and there was a pub every five miles even in the *** end of nowhere. The Stang would have been just too much fun there! Just wanted to share [8D]

 

i absolutely LOVE driving over there. when i was there we had a nissan sunny 4 door. basically a sentra. still fun! we ended up driving into a peat bog and getting really f@cking lost, but it was great craic! actually the diesels have great torque, butno horsepower. although if it wasn't a turbo it had neither!

i actually wanted to ask if you ever figured out your backfiring/hesitation on acceleration issue? i could just drive this car off a cliff right now that it's got YET ANOTHER problem. ggggrrrrrrr.....

 

now that your back and driving your stang again, have you tried to shift into second and opened your drivers door
sorry could not resist...

Did the Same thing in Australia...

Good on-ya Mate...

 

LOL....the first day back was a little interesting. Things looked different. I didn't open the door, but did reach for the turn instead of the wiper [8D] OK, no torque and no ponies, but good midrange....at least it seemed that way until we got back to an actual 4 lane road and I realized the thing was really slow as a dog. I ran the SCT through it's programming and didn't have any more problems with backfire.
The only time it did it was after cruising on the hwy, stopping, and then romping on it to get back on.