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Anyone here modify their own cars?

alkemyst

alkemyst

No Lifer
The audio / alarm stuff is not listed for obvious reasons, but here is my current project: 98 240sx SE

It's on hold for a bit as I just bought a house 🙂, but as soon as I get $3000 of money I can just burn again I am going turbo (mild build...250-300RWHP). Then I will do seats and new wheels/tires.

 
I do custom stuff all the time on my projects as I cannot usually buy the things that I want. I have also found that I can usually make a nicer part than I can buy even if one is available. Some of the stuff I do has to be from scratch as no one has ever done it before. The coupe I am going to build is going to be that way as it is uncharted water for most of the drivetrain.
 
well, I'm gonna put my upgraded suspension in, I'm going to tear my engine out, I'm going to rebuild the engine that i have in it now(when i get my t2 engine, I'm going to have that sent in to get rebuilt/ported though), I'm going to tune the suspension myself, install the bucket seats myself, as well as the harnesses(properly, to the roll cage...mount them to the ground and you risk spinal injury in an accident). i would say, a good 60-75% of all the work on my car, I'm going to do myself. fabrication is a whole other world if thats what your talking about, fabbing requires your own tooling and machines as well as knowledge of the materials.
 
Originally posted by: thedarkwolf
Text I didn't "make" a whole lot myself but there was a lot of rigging and tweaking if that counts 🙂.
Click to expand...

What times does it run in the 1/4 or 1/8?

Do you ever have problems with torque steer?

I've always dreamed about a sleeper van, something nobody would expect.
 
Originally posted by: mwmorph
Originally posted by: thedarkwolf
Text I didn't "make" a whole lot myself but there was a lot of rigging and tweaking if that counts 🙂.
Click to expand...

What times does it run in the 1/4 or 1/8?

Do you ever have problems with torque steer?

I've always dreamed about a sleeper van, something nobody would expect.
Click to expand...

I haven't had anybody to go to the track with in awhile so I haven't gone for awhile. Last time I went it was right after I installed the larger garrett turbo running only 11psi and I ran a 10 flat at 70mph in the 1/8th mile which isn't super impressive but its a freaking minivan 🙂. Now its running around 17psi and has had a complete engine rebuild so I expect it to run somewhere in the mid 9s. I really need to get a better intercooler and maybe a alky injection setup so I can run 20+ psi to get some real speed out of it. The vans are 3300lb bricks so it takes some real power to start running impressive times with them. If I could find an 80s dodge k-car wagon woody that was in really good shape for cheap I wouldn't mind swapping everything from my van over to that but the van is just so damn handy to have around.

and yes torque steer is a problem more so when its wet or slick out.
 
I'm completely restoring my Jeep from the frame up. That involves making quite a few things from scratch, plus modifying or repairing lots of other parts.
 
Originally posted by: Ronstang
I do custom stuff all the time on my projects as I cannot usually buy the things that I want. I have also found that I can usually make a nicer part than I can buy even if one is available. Some of the stuff I do has to be from scratch as no one has ever done it before. The coupe I am going to build is going to be that way as it is uncharted water for most of the drivetrain.
Click to expand...

I am never sure what you are talking about with your custom fabrication stuff on the cars you list. Most of them have NOS parts still avalable even directly through Ford.
 
This isn't about fabrication directly although that is possible. Most that try to duplicate parts fail miserably with either the materials or the methods of utilizing them.

I am talking R&Ring your own items. Not going out and buying something then taking it to a mechanic for installation.
 
i mod my 95 integra myself. im going for the JDM type r conversion. no way rice... right now i have plans to go all motor N/A...no forced induction for me
 
Originally posted by: brownboi512
i mod my 95 integra myself. im going for the JDM type r conversion. no way rice... right now i have plans to go all motor N/A...no forced induction for me
Click to expand...

I had a 92 GSR...the car was impressive stock. Sometimes I wish I could have kept it. It was unique looking.
 
Originally posted by: alkemyst
Originally posted by: Ronstang
I do custom stuff all the time on my projects as I cannot usually buy the things that I want. I have also found that I can usually make a nicer part than I can buy even if one is available. Some of the stuff I do has to be from scratch as no one has ever done it before. The coupe I am going to build is going to be that way as it is uncharted water for most of the drivetrain.
Click to expand...

I am never sure what you are talking about with your custom fabrication stuff on the cars you list. Most of them have NOS parts still avalable even directly through Ford.
Click to expand...

Some of my cars are what are know as "restomods" which means they look original to a degree but have had a lot of things updated for either safety, convenience, or performance. When it comes to restomods some people just bolt on avialable parts/kits to achieve what they want and then there are people like me who always seem to want something that either does not exist or I want better quality.

I do not like to make compromises and a lot of time manufacturers of parts have to do so in order to make a part they can actually sell because most people are not willing to pay huge sums of money for most parts.....the result is a part/kit that could be better. I make my stuff better. I take the time to engineer things that work exactly like I expect them too at the sacrifice of time. I don't care if it takes 40 hours to make something as long as I am getting exactly what I want.

My fuel tank and cable clutch/power brake booster designs for early Mustangs fall into this category. I have had plenty of people request that I make them one but I tell them they would not want to pay what it would take to replicate so I help them make their own with pictures and advice.
 
Originally posted by: exdeath
Originally posted by: thedarkwolf
Text I didn't "make" a whole lot myself but there was a lot of rigging and tweaking if that counts 🙂.
Click to expand...

This picture made me cringe:

http://users.marshall.edu/~kes...van/turbo/01010006.JPG
Click to expand...



geh, those coolant passages look like crap, bad casting process ftl. but the pistons are pretty clean, black from carbon, but no carbon buildup which is good.
but this picture, has me cringing
http://users.marshall.edu/~kes...an/engine/100_0059.jpg
 
Originally posted by: Truenofan
Originally posted by: exdeath
Originally posted by: thedarkwolf
Text I didn't "make" a whole lot myself but there was a lot of rigging and tweaking if that counts 🙂.
Click to expand...

This picture made me cringe:

http://users.marshall.edu/~kes...van/turbo/01010006.JPG
Click to expand...



geh, those coolant passages look like crap, bad casting process ftl. but the pistons are pretty clean, black from carbon, but no carbon buildup which is good.
but this picture, has me cringing
http://users.marshall.edu/~kes...an/engine/100_0059.jpg
Click to expand...

I think what you are seeing is mostly just dirt and goo build up. The head gasket blocks the majority of each of those holes so goop builds up around the edges. When I did that headgasket it probably had around 130k miles on it and being a POS old dodge caravan the last several owners didn't exactly take great care of it. If you look through the shortblock rebuild pics they look a lot better.

As for the piston yeah these things wear them out. The 2.5l engine has a 4in stoke which is pretty long and hard on pistons.
 
Originally posted by: Ronstang
Some of my cars are what are know as "restomods" which means they look original to a degree but have had a lot of things updated for either safety, convenience, or performance. When it comes to restomods some people just bolt on avialable parts/kits to achieve what they want and then there are people like me who always seem to want something that either does not exist or I want better quality.

I do not like to make compromises and a lot of time manufacturers of parts have to do so in order to make a part they can actually sell because most people are not willing to pay huge sums of money for most parts.....the result is a part/kit that could be better. I make my stuff better. I take the time to engineer things that work exactly like I expect them too at the sacrifice of time. I don't care if it takes 40 hours to make something as long as I am getting exactly what I want.

My fuel tank and cable clutch/power brake booster designs for early Mustangs fall into this category. I have had plenty of people request that I make them one but I tell them they would not want to pay what it would take to replicate so I help them make their own with pictures and advice.
Click to expand...

I don't know...just about everything I could imagine I have seen done or made for the early 64.5/66 and 67/68 mustangs. Cable clutches though would fall under conversions to 5.0/T5 usually. There are plenty of kits out there, depends if you have the money or the time...they aren't rocket science 🙂.

The big problem I see with a lot of fabricators is they don't understand the material properly. Also a lot of people think things are easier than they are (esp the ones that are going out to buy all new tools for the project) and then end up scrapping it and buying it anyway.

I have made a lot of things that simply made more sense to me or worked better for my needs.
 
"The 2.5l engine has a 4in stoke which is pretty long and hard on pistons. "

a good long hard stroke huh?

edit: yeah that engine looked a world better after it was cleaned up. the smoothing out the manifold looked better too. oh and those new pistons looked juicy mmmm.
 
I do all the mechanical stuff that can be wrenched, bolt on upgrades, etc.

There are a few exceptions. I take my cars to a specialty shop for things like paint & body, tinting curved rear windows, anything that requires a touch of art talent more than mechanical knowledge. Normally I don't like other people touching my car, but I'm good friends with various people in those areas who run their own shops, so I know I can trust them.

I'll swap heads and mess with internals and things like that, but I prefer to have an engine shop built a short block with the parts and specs of my choosing where they can blueprint and balance everything on their expensive CNC machines, and I'd rather someone else with experience who's ported heads for 20 years stick a cutting bit anywhere near my heads.

Other than those types of things, I do everything myself.

One area I would like to work on and get more experience is ECU tuning. I would like to gain some experience doing full tunes from scratch and even work with after market stand alone ECUs to integrate my computer skills (my primary skill is programming) into cars. There is only so much you can do with a hand held programmer trimming a mail order tune.
 
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