Tuning Cars: Do It Yourself or Have Someone Else Do It?

[JohnBM01]

When it comes to modifying cars whether for looks or for performance, some people elect to take on easy projects themselves and maybe leave more challenging tasks to someone else. About the only bit of car work I've ever done was change the oil filter on my mother's van. I am so skinny and agile (I'm about 165 lbs), so I was able to do it without having the van jacked up. Or say you have a 1997 Camaro Z28 and you wanted to do an engine swap and give it a ZR1 motor and a performance muffler kit. And nowadays, "kids" are getting into the art of tuning cars. Be it for looks or for performance, most of them don't usually do parts themselves because they are pretty much inexperienced and maybe don' know real work. So when I say "do it yourself," that means that you elect to work on it, and maybe call over some friends of yours to help. Then "have someone else do it" means what it says. This literally means giving your car to someone else to modify it in any way the team sees fit. When it comes to modifying cars, which do you prefer? Which is better? Speak now.

Oh, and by the way, no indirect traffic and no belittling. I've seen my share on GTPlanet already.

 

[TsLeng]

Depends on what you want to do and your ability to do it.

 

[-Fred-]

I work on my own cars, thank you very much. Should I ever need help with something, I'll ask friends of mine with whom I work on cars regularly. And I'm not talking about stuff like bodykits and neonlight installs... We're talking engine swaps and that kind of stuff.

There's a sense of pride in accomplishing work, either regular maintenance of modifiyng, that you can't get if you let someone else do the job for you. Oh, and it's usually cheaper. And you're sure the job's well done, that it wasn't rushed by some grease monkey.

 

[Mike Rotch]

How did you get the knowledge to do those changes PR? Did you just tinker with clangers till you learnt, or was it manuals or what?

My Aussie cousin is the same. He swapped his V6 Commodore engine for a LS1. Now he has bought some sort of Toyota engine and plans to supercharge it. How he had the knowledge to do that stuff escapes me. I would love to do it, I just haven't a clue where to begin.

 

[-Fred-]

Originally posted by Mike Rotch
How did you get the knowledge to do those changes PR? Did you just tinker with clangers till you learnt, or was it manuals or what?

School thought me a lot... Besides, automotive knowledge seems to run in the family.

 

[Mike Rotch]

*needs to looks for workshop manuals*

 

[X5.]

Closest ive come to moddin is changing the back lites of my '94 540. Other than that i carry out the basic servicing myself e.g changing of oil, cleaning filters etc

 

[KSaiyu]

I go to work on Saturday's with my dad at a Volvo classics garage, so I know the basics, plus some specialist things. I'll probably research stuff for my first car (hopefually an AW11 MR2) when I want to tune it, and use my dad's garage.

 

[Joey D]

I usally do a lot myself depending on what it is. I got my stero all professionally installed since I had never done anything like that before. But swapping my lights I did my self, and when my grill gets here I'll be doning that as well. Also when ever I get off my ass and descide the lowering kit needs to go on I'll try that myself as well.

I also do most service my self, rotate tires, change oil, grease, etc.

And as for saying most kids don't do it themselves I think you are wrong. Most kids do do it themselves just do to the lack of money to have it installed. Honestly do you think that if some kid barely is able to buy his Honda, then he works his ass off to say buy a body kit, he won't shell out extra money to get it put on.

 

[X5.]

I totally agree with you on that one, BlazinXtreme. Because the main reason why me, as well as me m8s, carried out our own servicing and a few extras (light switching,panel replacing etc) was to save hard earned cash.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by BlazinXtreme
Honestly do you think that if some kid barely is able to buy his Honda, then he works his ass off to say buy a body kit, he won't shell out extra money to get it put on.

They certainly never seem to shell out the extra money to get them painted.

I do most of my own car work. Usually I do all maintenance that doesn't require special equipment (alignments, A/C work, etc). I've done a couple of engine swaps. I took my wife's Neon from 2.0 SOHC to the 2.4 DOHC out of a Stratus, with help from a guy I met in the Neon community. That required some research and experimentation but it basically came out all right in the end.

I also did a lot of body work on my old Pontiac about 20 years ago, including painting it and replacing the convertible top.

Most of this stuff I learned from my father, who was an excellent shadetree mechanic and machinist. There's no doubt the Neon swap would have come out better if he had still been alive. The rest I learned by trying.

Any project (I hate the word "tuning"; it sounds like a piano) requires three things:

• Skills/facilities - you need to know what you're doing, and you need to have the tools to do it.
• Time - self explanatory.
• Money - also self explanatory.

If you have enough of all three, you're good to go. Enjoy your hobby. BUT:

If you're lacking just one of those three items, you better be able to double both of the other two to make up for it. If you don't know what you're doing, prepare to spend a lot of time and money figuring things out the hard way. If you don't have enough money, you'll need a lot of time and knowledge to make the most of it. And if you don't have enough time, you better know exactly what you need to do, and be ready to spend the money to get it done quickly.

Unfortunately, if you lack two of those requirements, the only one that will really fly by itself is money, and even then you need exponentially more of it. That's when you need to call in the pros, and pros aren't cheap.

 

[TS1AWD]

I have always done the work to my car whether it be regular work or it be aftermaket mods. As of right now I am slowly building up a shortblock because my engine currantly has developed low oil pressure. My dad has been a Mitsubishi mechanic for 14 years so he has grown with the DSM's and knows them inside and out, he has been a great teacher. My brother before me picked up on his wrenching ability and we just love to be out in the garage. As a dad for a tech, the garage is filled with tools and DSM parts, with a huge compressor that makes things easy.
I think that doing work yourself depends on what tools you have. Someone may have the knowlege and skill to do anything they dreamed of on their car, but if they had the money in the bank to spend on tools is another story. Tools are not cheap.

 

[AP1]

Do it your own, because you know that you put a lot of blood and effort into the car so you won't feel guilty.

 

[Rx7Ownz]

i may not have a car right now but i prefer to do things myself unless i dont have the nessesary tools like a lift for changing tranny or something. My dad, his brother and granpa are all mechanics, ive learned and helped do lots of things. i changed oil and the basics, change suspension parts, brakes, lights, alternators , mostly stuff i dont needa large lift for ^^. i hope to learn to do engine swap one day like the guy up there =].

 

[McLaren'sAngel]

hiya!


I would 100% at a time have someone professional do it! Why? Because I am no professional mechanic . I just get this creepy feeling like my other friends get when we think about trying to fix something that looks or is complex to us. We just dont feel like touching it because we are afraid to mess things up or take it out and realize we dont know how to put it back. Like for example, I plan to get a K&N Fuel Injection Performanec Kit and SLP LoudMouth for my 93 Camaro Z28. They both include instructions and I have seen them on the net. But I just dont trust myself to do it. I have no experience at all with tunning or installing something like this in a car. I just rather take it to my local mechanic place or to the school's autoclass and have the teacher and the boys do it !

 

[JohnBM01]

As a saying once went, "women can't fix cars." But Lady McLaren, you feel safe having a mechanic work on your car? Well, okay. I'm just asking a question, and all. Nice to see you again.

Based on some of the answers I've seen (even if you hate the word "tuning"), the majority of people said that they would rather work on the cars themselves and maybe bring over some friends if they have to. But I think if you're not sure how to take care of your car, it's very wise to take it to a technician. This even applies to if you want to make your car a show car. Whether it is a hot Japanese ride or American muscle that may never be a reality on the streets (for example, a pony car that looks like a street-legal race car and packs enough power and performance to do such), whether it is on fixing the engine or working on the A/C, it depends on how well you can do things. Now, is there anyone here who worked on a car themselves and then turned his/her car to professionals for further work on the car?

 

[McLaren'sAngel]

Originally posted by JohnBM01
As a saying once went, "women can't fix cars." But Lady McLaren, you feel safe having a mechanic work on your car? Well, okay. I'm just asking a question, and all. Nice to see you again.

Based on some of the answers I've seen (even if you hate the word "tuning"), the majority of people said that they would rather work on the cars themselves and maybe bring over some friends if they have to. But I think if you're not sure how to take care of your car, it's very wise to take it to a technician. This even applies to if you want to make your car a show car. Whether it is a hot Japanese ride or American muscle that may never be a reality on the streets (for example, a pony car that looks like a street-legal race car and packs enough power and performance to do such), whether it is on fixing the engine or working on the A/C, it depends on how well you can do things. Now, is there anyone here who worked on a car themselves and then turned his/her car to professionals for further work on the car?

hiya John!


Yea I feel VERY VERY safe that someone who is the master such as a mechanic is going to do the job for me. I would rather pay the mechanic to do the job than pay more for the mechanic to undo my "attempted" mess of trying to put or tune my car AND then begin building again. I understand how some of you guys can do some tuning or installing things onto your car by yourself or with your friends without a qualified mechanic. But its just sometimes its like the idea of "I can do it!" and then there is a little counter for it to go "Yea...but are you SURE you did it right?"

I am not saying that people you do some tuning or installing shouldnt be doing the mechanic's work to either save money or just want to do it themselves. It's just that there are times when you dont realize you might have did something wrong and it might damage something along the way and cost you alot more than if you actually have the mechanic do it for you.

I am afraid myself of doing some of my own thing my own car. I can clean it, but I dont trust myself to do the tuning or installing. Anything can happen to me...

1. Hair gets sucked into the rotor or timing belt as the engine gets turned on by someone.
2. Broken finger nails.
3. Hood just close back down to smack me in the back of the head.

And....the list goes on and on. Just my little opinion on tuning and modding. If you are going to do it yourself, I think its a good choice to take it to a trusted mechanic to check on what you did and make sure you did it right just to be safe.

 

[Joey D]

Whoever says girls can't drive or work on modified cars or trucks is crazy. My girlfriend has built up her own Ranger with a few inch lift, some bigger tires, and a little bit of engine work. While I helped her with some she did most of it on her own. Looks like I found a winner!

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by BlazinXtreme
My girlfriend has built up her own Ranger with a few inch lift...

So, you took a few inches out of your truck and she put it in her truck?

Wait a minute, that didn't sound quite right...

 

[SPD_RCR]

i just do all the works myself i just swaped my motor and tranny

 

[Pupik]

Originally posted by SPD_RCR
i just do all the works myself i just swaped my motor and tranny

Your credibility hasn't been shot down enough, has it?

Wow, I suppose I'm the first admit that I can't do much more than change my oil and filter and rotate my tires. Even then, I'd rather let someone else do it, since I work where I do. Any other work, I leave up to pros (or at least, semi-professionals). Why? I don't know how, I don't have the tools, and I don't know how.

The only tuning I've done myself (and with my brother) has been with my car stereo installation, and even that i'll leave to professionals with my next setup.

On the other hand, I've almost never trusted anyone to wash my car, no matter what kind of beater I've owned. The only expection was the one time I auto-washed my Talon after a dozen birds hit it from a tree, and I had a date one hour after work!

 

[JohnBM01]

First off McLaren... the three things you discussed in your numbered list- I'd hate to see that happen. Don't feel safe? Just put on some NFL padding and wear a Houston Texans helmet. Why? To support my hometown team, of course! (^_^)

But McLaren does serve a point. She claimed that even if you've done the work yourself, you may want to have a professional along to troubleshoot. Now sure, you can work on the car and then give it a shakedown on the road. But what if you're still baffled about what is wrong with the car, or if your performance additions don't add up? So I'll have to agree with McLaren on this one.

This past Saturday, my cousin came over with his Cadillac. He had some fluid run from the right-front of his car. My brother was helping him out and everything, but I don't think I would have known what it could have been. Could have been the radiator, the engine, maybe a battery leak (if there is a such thing), or anything like that. I think if you can work on your car but still baffled on the car, seek help from a technician. Auto Zone, Advance Auto Parts, Pep Boys, doesn't matter. Find someone and find someone fast.

 

[90TurboDSM]

I always do the work myself, seeing how I'm going to collage this year to learn how to work on motor/do body work. I need the practice.. and let me tell you.. I do get enough of it. I used to have an 86 IRoc that had a 305 that had been changed from throttle body to carb.. and it ALWAYS had problems.. and I was always fixing them. I mean, nothing hard like changing out the lifters, or replacing the crankshaft. It was small stuff like lifter knock, gaskets, transmission always going out, rear end. It took me a good amount of time to fix it.. but It taught me alot.. more than just going in to a shop and shelling out massive cash for some guy to jiffy rig it. I still don't know how to do alot, but the point is.. what I do know.. has come from hard work, my hard work.

So I suggest that you start small... if something big comes along, have some friends help(some friends that KNOW what thier doing, that helps!) and just watch them, and jump in, try your best and you can't go wrong. So yes, I suggest you do your own "Tuning".