Deciding on how you want to build your car.

Related but separate from the issue of deciding whether a car is appropriate for its intended purpose(s) is deciding how far you are willing to go to meet your goals, and which areas you want the car to excel in versus those areas in which it need only be passable.

Set realistic expectations for the scope of the project, and then set a realistic time frame and budget for accomplishing those goals. Of course, in your heart of hearts, you would like the wonder car that does everything well and always looks perfect, but for most people, it is a matter of picking the categories in which it is most important for the car to excel, and then setting a timeline and a budget for meeting those objectives. Trying to do it all is the most certain way to either disillusionment or disappointment.

All too often, when talking to a first-time modder, I hear enthusiasm without a lot of direction. For example, typical first-time modder Joe Schmoe has a 1993 Honda Prelude, and I ask what his plans are for his car. The first answer, of course, is generally, “I want to make it fast!” How fast is usually defined as faster than a buddy’s car who drives X, Y, or Z. Or perhaps a quarter-mile time is what Joe is after, “Fast enough to hit 12s!” Fair enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting a fast car, and building a car for speed is one of the oldest

American pastimes since the hot rodding days. “But I also want it to handle,” the Prelude owner says next. So now I’m thinking that Joe is going to need to do a bit of planning to balance out the time and money he will spend working on the motor with an equal if not greater amount of care in choosing his suspension components, wheels, and tires. Then Joe adds, “Oh, and it’s got to look good, because I want it to be a show car, too.” So now Joe has a very fast Prelude that handles well and still looks pristine for car shows — meaning that it will need a flawless trick paint job, some tasteful body mods, and a pristine engine bay. “But it’s also my daily driver, so it’s got to have a bumping soundsystem.”

Okay, so this very fast car that handles great and looks pristine is also going to take its proud owner to and from work or school year round, all while weighed down with a huge stereo system.  Of course, the end result is going to be a very compromised car that can hope to do well in none of the categories to which it aspires, even with barrels upon barrels of cash thrown at it.

The problem with Joe’s Prelude is that, while it could have done any one of these things very well, and could arguably have excelled in two or even three of the categories, trying to do it all ensures that it will fail in everything the owner set out to do with it. If the goal was to go fast, then a tremendous amount of money spent on engine mods would be the call of the day, and even the suspension would best be set up to provide consistent launches on this front-wheel drive platform. Certainly, extra body kit components, a fancy paint job, and heavy subwoofers would do this car no favors at the drag strip. On the other hand, if it was to be used at shows, that same body kit and paint job, not to mention the gleaming engine compartment, would soon become compromised as the car began to be used for driving all over town to and from work or school. In fact, even the act of building the motor for all-out straight-line speed down the quarter mile, if not done with careful attention to the car’s power curve, could very well ensure that its cornering abilities, even compared to a stock Prelude, suffered greatly. This is without factoring in the added weight of the stereo and body kit add-ons, or the level of paranoia with which the owner would have to drive to avoid chips on the paint job or cracks in the fiberglass aero components.

Compromises

Here you are faced with the issue of defining what it is that you say you want as opposed to what it is that you are actually willing to put up with to have it. How many of us have fantasized about owning a Ferrari? And yet the image you may conjure up of ripping down a twisty section of road on Monaco has about as much to do with Ferrari ownership as does driving the Rubicon trail for most of the SUVs you see at the local strip mall. When you factor in about $5,000 in routine maintenance appointments, $400 for tires, and crawling in bumper-to-bumper traffic with no safe place to park when you finally arrive, the reality of what it must be like for regular folk to own and drive a Ferrari every day sinks in — and the next time you find yourself drooling over one on the freeway, you might even feel a tinge of superiority — especially when you see an elite Italian exotic disabled at the side of the road or on the back of a flatbed while you drive past in a dependable little Japanese econo-car.

The allure of advertisements for flashy new products in magazines is no different. That straight through exhaust would look great on the back of a Lexus IS300 — and it even adds 15 horsepower at the wheels! Of course, the Lexus that had previously been a quiet and sophisticated driving experience now drones and buzzes endlessly like a high school kid’s pizza delivery car, police seem to be following the car wherever it’s driven, and the local dealership charges a small fortune to replace a catalytic converter that failed prematurely. And the 15 horsepower gain? That was a peak reading at the very top of the rpm range just before redline.

Elsewhere, the car’s horsepower levels are the same as stock or just a hair above — certainly not enough to feel — and the torque, which was enjoyable in the midrange, is now greatly diminished. The reality behind car mods designed to extract additional performance from your car is that every part, no matter how well engineered, is based on an inherent compromise. In the preceding example, while the shiny new exhaust looked great and made higher peak horsepower, drivability suffered as a result of excess noise, the midrange torque that matters most for around-town driving was diminished, the car drew unwanted attention from local law enforcement for a probable noise violation, and a factory part failed as either the direct or indirect result of the installation of the new exhaust.

The same spring and shock absorber package that allows for greater control in corners and better road feel will nearly always compromise ride quality. The turbo kit that provides all the extra power you could ever want will generally cost a small fortune to both buy and install, will have a number of hidden costs in the form of needing an upgraded clutch, fuel system, a set of gauges, engine management, and tuning, and will become a real headache for emissions testing purposes. Furthermore, the car’s engine warranty will become a distant memory and routine maintenance will need to be followed religiously to prevent engine wear. The roll bar that enhances safety will render the back seat all but useless and may be more dangerous for street use than if it had never been installed. The list goes on and on. When buying a new performance product, understand that most every product on the market is designed to make your car do certain things better, but at the expense of letting certain other areas fall by the wayside.

In addition, performance products generally hurt the resale value of your car, even as they add to your enjoyment of it, because not all buyers would get the same satisfaction out of the modifications that you might. Even if they did, they would strongly suspect that the car has lived a hard life by virtue of the fact that is has been modified — whether or not this is the case. Lastly, replacement parts for damaged or failed performance items can be hard to locate. Certainly, these items are not as easy to come by as those from your local dealership’s parts department, and the more rare and desirable the part, the more of a headache it will be to replace if it is ever damaged or worn.

Car mods can dramatically improve an aspect of your car’s performance, but can also

• Sacrifice another aspect of performance.
• Hurt your car’s resale value.
• Be expensive or difficult to repair or replace.

The key here is to make sure you know what the main purpose of your car is to be and build it around what you not only want it to do, what will make you happy, but something you can live with depending on the purpose of it.

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