What happens when...

  • Thread starter Thread starter halfracedrift
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halfracedrift

halfracedrift

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You 'modify' a car? (I know the warantee is void)

If you aren't too good at doing these things, where do you go for help? (Professional) Are there private garages and such?

Also...

What will you need if you plan to do some minor adjustments and modifications on a car? (Swapping out the entire muffler, air filter, ecu. etc)
 
Air filter and ECU are easy. A set of screwdrivers, hex set, and torx set should be enough.

The muffler can be more tricky, and if the one you want to put in needs welding, fuggedaboutit. But if you just hack-saw out the old exhaust and bolt the new one in, all you need are jack stands and patience.
 
Well, for what you listed, you hardly need anything. I'd reccommend going to sears and buying a mechanic's toolkit (one that's around $150), a set of pliers (40 or so) screwdrivers(35) and one of the auto sets they have, which has a jack, jackstands, chocks, a mat to lie on, jumper cables, lugwrench, and a few other things ($99).

The muffler should be nothing, just a few bolts. Air filter and ECU are even easier, just a bit of screwdriver work.
 
So... Give me some examples of 'not so easy' work.. Because those would seem hard to me... :lol: (What do you expect? I'm only 14!)
 
i dont find any work (on cars) 'not so easy', just more time consuming (e.g rebuilding engines, gearboxes, cutting out rust, replacing clutches etc)
 
Originally posted by Takumi Fujiwara
The muffler should be nothing, just a few bolts. Air filter and ECU are even easier, just a bit of screwdriver work.
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Muffler: Well, on a new car...in ideal conditions...try taking the original exhaust off a 20 year old prelude, and trying to keep the flanges intact so that you can reweld them back to the muffler so it'll pass inspection. Yeah, now we're talking an hour of fighting with an air wrench.

Air filter: yeah, these are usually a scedriver or set of hex heads.

ECU: In theory it's easy, but you end up looking for torx (for the battery terminals) and sheet metal to pull out the dash panels. Then hex wrenches for the ECU box.

Hard stuff? How about tuning a carb? It's a lost art nowadays.
 
Originally posted by skip0110

Hard stuff? How about tuning a carb? It's a lost art nowadays.
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:odd: wtf?
you have absolutely no idea of what you are talkin about, right? its the easiest thing to do, and believe me, carbs are big right now, and are here to stay. Im surprised by your wide knowledge about cars that let you say such things :rolleyes:

Cano

as Viper said, work on cars most of the times is "time consuming" but there are some hard to do things, like paint (if you dont know the tricks of the trade, you are doomed) and complicated bodywork, like chopping a top or sectioning a car. also, it depends on what car you are working.
 
I'd say the "hard" stuff is anything that requires more than simple mechanical tools. So, paint, welding, or bodywork. And anything involving fabrication.
 
Originally posted by Cano
and complicated bodywork, like chopping a top or sectioning a car. also, it depends on what car you are working.
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yes, i agree

getting body work to line up (after fabricating), and getting paint perfect can be damn hard and time consuming
 
Installing a new braking system, including master cylinder, rotors, calipers and fluid took 1.5 hours. Installing new springs, struts and shocks took about the same time. It was easy. You just spend time twisting bolts. Anybody can do that. Doing both of these upgrades really improves the handling and braking of your car.
 
Originally posted by Cano
:odd: wtf?
you have absolutely no idea of what you are talkin about, right? its the easiest thing to do, and believe me, carbs are big right now, and are here to stay. Im surprised by your wide knowledge about cars that let you say such things :rolleyes:

Cano
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I don't know about tuning; getting a carbed car to run is fairly easy, but getting cold-start performance as well as speed is tricky, in my (limited) experience.

But as to the future of carbed cars, I'm surprised that you think carbs are here to stay, especially considering how you follow the pro-touring movement. The hot rodding industry has always eventually moved to the newest technology the OEMs have to offer. Flatheads were "everything" until the OHV engine was introduced, and now you see them far less then you would have before. There is a time lag of 15-20 yrs, but eventually FI cars will take over. Today, the biggest thing is putting fuel incection on older engines, wheras in the 80's people were retrofitting carbs to their fual injected cars because an aftermarket had not developed.
Also, FI offers better control over the A/F ratio making forced induction setups easier to manage. That's what has allowed turbo to become viable setups (a twin-turbo small-block was basically unheard of in the 80's).
 
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