Stupid Things You've Done Modifying/Maintaining Your Ride

[gone_fishin]

I think this is a rash generalization. It really depends on what mods you're doing to your car. All my mods so far have given me very little trouble. (except for perhaps installation and the initial troubleshooting phase if something wasn't installed properly)

For instance, exhaust, CAI, and JDM tails are all PNP (just have to clean the CAI filter every now and then) and great mods that are all easy. I think it's once people start tuning their engines is when reliability/driveability become an issue. Seems a lot of issues stem from AF ratios or various pressures after turboing, etc.

I guess what it all really comes down to is modding wisely and being aware of when reliability/driveability come into play and being aware of that risk. I think once we get past the basic mods we all accept the fact that one morning you may wake up and your car won't be running as smoothly as yesterday (but hopefully the days of happy zoomzooming outnumber those days)

Any performance-oriented modification you make to your vehicle is give and take. There is always a tradeoff somewhere. The tradeoffs and compromises become greater once the modifications become more serious.

With the exception of recalls, vehicle manufacturer engineers design their cars to run (relatively) flawlessly. A car is a vast system of functional parts-- all of these compositional parts are designed to work together. Once you start changing things, you upset the balance.

 

[Foolish]

Any performance-oriented modification you make to your vehicle is give and take. There is always a tradeoff somewhere.

Once you start changing things, you upset the balance.

While I understand what you're saying here, every car (and every element of the car) is a compromise in stock form, too.

Example:
Our P5 has a B&M short-shifter. The only trade-off we face for the better shifting performance is slightly more effort to shift. Yes it is a trade-off, but looking at it another way, the stock set up gives you easy shifting with the trade-off of being too long and sloppy. Which is more important to us?

Similarly, sticky tires are a performance mod, and upgrading from the stockers on the P5 helped handling and wet-weather braking enormously. In exchange for that improvement in performance and safety, we get less tire life, and have to replace them more often, so we loose out on economy. Even this is a balance, 'cause the Falkens we put on cost way less than we'd pay to replace the OEM tires with the same.

So tires will have a certain amount of wear, a certain amount of grip in the wet, dry, heat, cold, snow, etc. and they'll make a certain amount of road noise and cost a certain amount of money. Manufacturers pick a point on this matrix and so do we, but what ever tire you/they pick it will be good in some areas and less so in others.

Maybe "upset the balance" has too negative a connotation. Maybe "change the balance" is a better way to put it. Changing a car from stock form will not alway make it worse over all, which seemed to be what you were saying.

 

[iracemine]

link to wiper mod please.

 

[Sveivo]

You're welcome lol.

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123643192&highlight=cable+wiper+mod

 

[gimpo2]

i have a EVO hood so tehre's a big hole for rain to come thru and get all over mym sparkplugs and all kinds of s***. So i have to put a plastic back under the hood to stop the water. I have melted 3 or 4 plastic bags to my turbo manifold

 

[iracemine]

oh wow that looks tight. I at first would like to get rid of it all togeather like last months ROM, but he never responded how he got the glass without the hole. so this is much easyer and same clean effect.

on topic/ completly re-bilt a 1.8L miata motor that was destroyed from detonation. just to have the owner turn the bost up more and blow it from detonation 600mi later.

 

[frenchy92005]

3) installed unichip, did not turn it on, and still swore my car was faster for a good 10 minutes.

lol every time i read this i crack up i could just imagine it lol.

ive done alot of crap. had an exhaust shop make i/c piping which weighed a billion pounds and no couplers could hold them in boost. broke off the piece holding the fender by the passenger light so it has a gap. hmmm oh yeah my most memorable one, read about the stupid maf mod to take out the screen, did that then when putting one side in put my finger too far in and snapped the sensor yes! had to wake up 3 hrs and go to work w/o a car, i felt really stupid.
stripped alot of bolts. bought a cheap short shifter that sucked and would fall through all the time no matter what i did. ill think of more later.

 

[Circuit]

Had to take out my battery today to mount a fused distribution block for my Big 3 and amp power wire. While I was bolting the battery tie-down back on, I snapped the stud on the driver's shock tower. That side of the battery tie-down is now held on with the biggest zip-tie I could fit through the hole. I guess I will drill out the broken stud and tap it for a 10mm bolt once I get a chance. Crap.

 

[iracemine]

spent countless hours soldering over a two year period my own and plenty of friends cars with stained glass solder untill I got soo pised off I read the label.....


sorry to thoughs i have helped that read this(loser)

 

[Cellerator]

While changing spark plugs the first time, I melted the rubber inside the spark plug socket so couldn't pull out the spark plug and had no way of getting it out until after I had a friend get me a magnetic extending pole thing.

While changing plugs the 2nd time, melted the 2nd spark plug socket and for some reason, I didn't have the magnetic thing with me either so got some duct tape and made a gooey mess with the spark plug socket.

Then one day, I got a nice rattling sound coming from my shifter hitting the heat shield on the midpipe. So instead of waiting for the car to cool down, I got underneath, started bending the heat shield and for some stupid reason, figured I'd try to go around the exhaust pipe and actually burned my elbow real nice.

Well, I changed my shift knob to a razo weighted shift knob and because it has a bunch of little keys that you can fit, I chose the height I liked but a problem arose. It would rattle whenever I was driving so eventually I got pissed off, bought some super glue and tried to glue the thing completely so the key wouldn't rattle. Well, it worked but I got super glue all over my nice shift knob. And to make it worse, I tried sanding it down after it dried. Needless to say, my shift knob now looks like crap but I'm not buying another one to replace it.

That's all that I can remember as of right now, keep the stories coming.

 

[StealthWyvern]

Well, it worked but I got super glue all over my nice shift knob. And to make it worse, I tried sanding it down after it dried. Needless to say, my shift knob now looks like crap but I'm not buying another one to replace it.

That's all that I can remember as of right now, keep the stories coming.

Finger nail polish would of worked for ya instead of sanding it down. I know its kinda late to tell you that now but its a tip to use in the furture

 

[Action Jackson]

While trying to adjust my shifter, I burned my knee on the midpipe.

I was wearing shorts at the time....

 

[magnumP5]

Forgot to plug in the primary O2 sensor connection and succeeded in limping around for 10 minutes until I realized what was up. I never figured this car would run without the primary O2 sensor...

 

[bumpin_p5]

1. Sheared off a stud putting on my header.

2. Broke my downpipe trying to attach it to my cattless midpipe, don't over tighten.

3. Leaned over my engine working on something and heard a snap, it was my oil dipstick, the finger ring snapped off.

can't think of anymore at the moment

 

[iracemine]

bought wheel dollies to keep the tires round during the long winter storages, and also to move the car to the extreem corner of the garage. now I have littil dents all over from pushing the car around.

 

[02Protege'5]

while attempting to change my headlights, i removed the philips head screws that hold the paperclip thinger, all of them..... it took me hours upon hours to get the screws back in due to the limited space and my gorilla hands... after figuring out the correct way to replace the headlights bulbs its a 2 min job...

I was replacing my sparkplugs and I tore two of the spark plug wire boots apart trying to get them throught the valve cover... so i had to take off my valve cover to get them out....

i was rotating my tires, and my car fell off the jack, without the tire on!! luckily it didn't do any damage. the rotor just dug into the ground.

(below: not my fault)

Had gotten a flat, i had to change the flat in the winter, in the middle of a rain/ice storm. (it gets worse) with the stock 6" tire iron, with the bad stock jack, with a broken wrist in a cast.....

no biggie, i get the donut on the car, take it home, drive around on the donut till my tires get shipped from tire rack....

i get them shipped to a "recommended installer" <<<what a complete pile of s***!

Im down in the shop as they are finishing up bolting my tires back on ( i would normally do this myself, but my wrist is freshly snapped) The redneck, i cringe to refer to as a technician, comes stomping over to me and asks "who'd ya have put tis 'er donut on fer ya', cause who ever it was cross threaded the hell outa one of yer lug nuts" i replied sceptically and asked to see what exactly he was talking about. He drops a lugnut into my hand with the end of a lug snapped off flush inside it.

I replied that I had done it, and that no, in the dark, with the 6" stock lug wrench, in the rain, with a broken wrist i had NOT cross threaded the nut all the way onto my lug.

I proceeded to give this asshole hell for lying to me. (I too have cross threaded lugnuts before, i was 12, with an impact wrench, and my father gave ME hell about it.) he dropped the lug nut into the impact socket and had rammed them on using the gun, big surprise, the lug snapped.

I told the dude to step away from my car and I drove it around front, the owner of the shop was there and he would not replace the lug for me, or pay to have it done elsewhere. (im going somewhere with this i promise!)

after i get my wrist healed up, i go about the task of replacing my lug, ive done it before, so i thought no big deal.

I try to take my hub off, and destroy a tie rod end attempting to get it off, wind up saw-zawing the tie rod end apart to get it off! all because an asshole at the local lube and shine cant run an impact wrench!

Not a happy camper, moral of the story... Don't crash your GPZ

-Tony

 

[kura808]

no worries we've all done that xP

while attempting to change my headlights, i removed the philips head screws that hold the paperclip thinger, all of them..... it took me hours upon hours to get the screws back in due to the limited space and my gorilla hands... after figuring out the correct way to replace the headlights bulbs its a 2 min job...

 

[aMaff]

screwed up shock settings on the miata. Fixed them, and ran a time in all four of my fun runs that would have won my class had I been able to use them in my class runs. D'oh! Had to settle for 3rd. Next time, it's on.

 

[iracemine]

today we were rapping up a 4 speaker install with a head unit change. and found that there was static and that the front right door speaker wasent working.

I guess when I tapped all the wires together behind the head unit made interference or something. so then I just let them dangle with them selves. then as I was doing that my friend broke off the window crank at the metal part not the plastic crank.

 

[D-rock240]

Bought the MP3 shifter before I found out the MSP shift knob wouldn't fit.

Bought a kartboy shifter, the MSP knob still wouldn't fit. Trimmed the shifter so the knob would fit, and 6 months later the shifter snapped while shifting into 3rd.

More recently, did the 5 lug swap and was told by a few people here that the sedan lower control arms I have would work. The car was stranded on the lift for 5 days while I waited for the P5/ES control arms to arrive.