Towards the end of my husband’s deployment this year, he started to put together a list of things he wanted to get for the STi. We also bought a few of them and she’s already not quite stock anymore.

Goodies!

While it’s not a lot, she did get a new piece of exhaust piping (enough to delete the mufflers and add a nice bit of noise), some necessary mud flaps (rally car, duh) and some yellow fog light covers.

Really, nothing super crazy… But enough to make her look really nice.

Of course, her most expensive bit was her new set of winter wheels — a set of the gold BBS’ from the older STi’s, that were practically brand new and already had Blizzaks on them.

Showing Off

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, you’ve probably already seen them. Or maybe you missed them. Either way, I feel like properly showing her off here.

The exhaust is only an axle-back, but just getting rid of the mufflers was great. (It's also completely custom.) And every STi deserves a great set of mud flaps!

Definitely like the effect of the yellow fog light covers on her, and it was ridiculously cheap too! Haha.

And here she is in "winter mode," with the winter set of BBS wheels. (Kinda extravagant, no?)

My husband’s current deployment is a bit odd to me. In many ways, it’s similar to the first one I went through. In others, though, it’s completely different.

For one, I didn’t really develop my love for cars until *after* he came back from the first one. I actually did my first modification to the Miata, her TSI’s, while he was gone. That was when the modification bug first bit me, and didn’t really bloom until after he was back. (And that’s when she got her Enkei RPF1′s and Flyin’ Miata suspension.)

I also chose to not get into racing until he was back… Which was kind of a good thing, as the Miata really needed that suspension upgrade. Her stock suspension was pretty much gone, so not sure how that would have went!

This Time…

This time, however, cars are my life. They are pretty much what gets me going to work every day. I know I need to make money so we can do the things we want to do — which are nearly always car-related.

So while I was nice and stockpiled the S2000 parts he ordered the last deployment, I think it’s my turn now…

I’m creating a nice little stockpile of parts for the 240SX.

My Plans

I’m hoping to get most of the brake parts set aside while he’s gone, so when he’s back we can upgrade her brakes.

I will also start saving for my Silvia parts, though I don’t foresee myself getting that stuff ordered until he’s already back.

At any rate, I have a lot of parts I plan on ordering and setting aside. I’m kinda keeping quiet about my plans because I don’t want to jinx them. If all goes right, I’ll have big things to announce next summer…

Current Parts

I currently have a couple of things set aside for her. I tend to share photos like this on my Tumblr more often because it’s hard to make a decent post out of one thing. Now that I have a couple of them, though, I figured I’d share it here for anyone that isn’t following along elsewhere. (So sorry if this stuff is old news to you!)

Hopefully I’ll be adding some brake lines, brake pads and rotors to my stockpile in the coming months… But we’ll have to see. It’ll be some slow going I’m sure. (That STi is eating a *lot* of funds, haha, but she’s well worth it.)

For one, I bought this 180SX Type X Spoiler off of eBay a couple of months back. It's sitting around waiting for paint... I need to get the Type X rear bumper pieces yet.

A friend of mine gave this to us -- It's the owner's manual for the 180SX. Beat up, yeah, but it's from Japan and pretty old at this point! I have it inside right now but when the 240SX is done I'll keep it in the car. Figured it'd be fun for shows!

The latest parts for my stockpile are these OEM Nissan calipers. My set actually came off an R33 in Japan, but these are the same size as the turbo 300ZX's in the states. I got them for a pretty good price off of eBay, so I went ahead and got them sooner rather than later. I plan to refinish and possibly rebuild them this summer.

Hopefully my stockpile grows a fair bit between now and September… I still want to make decent progress on my 240SX despite the STi being around! (As much as I’m happy with the progress we’ve made in the past two years, I’m looking for MORE! )

I hinted about this, as well as went out and blabbed about it on Twitter before I even ordered it. But here it is!!

With my part of our tax return, I bought myself my SB-600 speedlight for my camera and this beauty — my very own Bride Zeta III seat. So happy!!

The Install

I think the install went smoothly mostly because of the Zeta III we already had in the S2000. My husband had already messed with installing it before, so he pretty much knew what he was doing. (Besides, this was our third seat install, lol. Counting the Miata’s Corbeau.)

Unlike the Miata, neither the S2000 or 240SX are currently fitted with a harness bar. So they’re just running the normal seat belts. I’m on the lookout for a good easy-ish to install harness bar for my 240, if you know of one let me know, please! (Also debating on whether or not to get Takatas or go with Sabelts… Leaning towards patronizing Sabelt.)

At any rate, I was pretty useless with the install, as usual. I’m good at finding tools and remembering where things were. I also vacuumed out the driver’s side once the seat was removed — she needed it BAD! I should probably go back sometime and get the passenger side… Haha.

But what I do well is taking photos to document the changes!

The Result

Oh, and documenting the result… My favorite!

These two photos were taken a day or two after the install, when my super awesome SB-600 showed up. The lighting in the garage is awkward at best, and these were only possible with some fill-lighting. (So the SB-600 and a diffuser, my beginning combo of choice.)

The seat in the 240SX!! Sooooooooooooo comfy....

I really like how this shot turned out. Thank you to the SB-600 for making this possible!

Summer is fun for many reasons, but one additional treat is that each of my two cars have joined me in a summer month.

In July of 2007, the Miata came in and eventually changed my entire life.

Almost two years later, June 2009, the 240SX became my first huge car project.

I’ve had a ball ever since the Miata came into my life, but the 240SX has simply been on a whole other level.

One Year!

Earlier this month marked one whole year since the 240SX became part of our family. There’s been a lot of headaches and pain, but she’s also been an absolute joy that I wouldn’t want to trade for the world.

She’s been a good demonstration in how plans end up changing and you never know how things will go — I never imagined that less than a year in we would attempt the SR20DET swap that I wanted to do. Sure, it was going to happen… Someday. I never expected someday to be so soon!

Quite the change from only a year ago...!

She’s gotten new wheels, new tail lights, a whole lot of new suspension parts and a totally different engine in a year.

Place to get work done…

Despite all this work, she’s still got some haunting issues. My gauges aren’t working, save for the tachometer. There seems to be an electrical leech somewhere in the system, and we aren’t sure that the radiator fans are kicking on.

These issues have been keeping her from being a 100% up and running car, and she’s been limping around with them for months now. Down in Arkansas, there was pretty much no place we could take her with any sort of guarantee that anything would get accomplished.

So I knew we’d be waiting until we got to Washington, and I was hoping we wouldn’t have to take her all the way to Seattle, though I was prepared to if necessary. Lucky for us, we won’t have to go all that way…

We just need to get her to KaizenSpeed‘s shop.

Great Visit

We got the recommendation for them from some locals out at Spokane County Raceway, which was what I was looking for. Not only that, but they’ve worked on SR20DET’s before. Yay!

So I made sure to email them, and one Saturday we took a drive down to visit the shop. I wouldn’t trust any shop that wouldn’t let me do such a thing, honestly — I need to know the people there, see the shop and get a feel for the place before I feel comfortable dropping off my baby for some work.

Well, needless to say the visit went very well, and it’s looking very good that she will finally be 100% by the end of the summer.

Edit 6/25: We met some new people who know Nissans very well and volunteered to fix her instead, so she’s over at their place being worked on now. No crazy long trips being towed, yay!

Besides…

I instantly love any place that lets me poke around with my camera for a bit! Hehe. Check out what I got to see on our visit:

I'm pretty sure all these supercharged S2000's are going to lead us to end up supercharging ours...

A very classy, race-prepped Evo...

Oh, and then this little treat -- An R33 Skyline. (GTS) Skylines make me happy now that I know their significance. (I didn't when I was in England and saw a few.)

One thing about the majority of petrol-heads is that we like to do our own work. Yeah, mechanics are great for help and those super pesky tasks, but really, we like to turn wrenches ourselves. There’s just something to working on your own car, putting on that new part that makes is that much more you. Having your parts put on for you just isn’t the same.

Cost of Convenience

Being able to turn your own wrenches is great, and it’s always awesome to build up those amateur mechanical skills. Hey, ya never know, someday they could come in handy, and maybe even make some money. Despite all that, we mostly do it for the love of the work. The feeling of accomplishment is hardly unparalleled.

Unfortunately, life can get in the way big-time. It’s not always easy to find the time, place or tools to complete the work that needs to be done, or even the expertise. My husband is extremely mechanically-inclined, as he should be since he’s a jet engine mechanic, but he still would rather have someone who really knows what they’re doing around just in case. So it took us a few more weeks than we’d have liked to do the S2000′s brakes, since we had to line up time with a friend of ours.

While I love to work on my own car, I’m so busy that it’s hard to find the time to do so. Between work, school and homework, my life can be pretty darn crazy. It’s only made worse by the fact that where we live, auto maintenance is frowned upon and we’re pretty much told to take it to the hobby shop. Which, quite frankly, I would love to, if the freakin’ place was ever open. Seriously, three day weekends every week? Shove it, some of us don’t have only eight hour work days.

In my life, convenience is important… Time is rather precious and definitely limited.

Some things need to be done sooner than I'd have the time for them.

Thus the Outsourcing!

That said, it’s hard for me to have the time to sit around and do my own work. Sadly, I’m not very mechanically-inclined, so it takes a while for me to get something down. Even so, I need someone with me since I just don’t have that much upper body strength. My body type makes for an awesome driver, but a sucky mechanic.

So while we did the brakes on our S2000, my Miata spent the day at her version of a “spa,” with our mechanic. $500 for all the parts, and $200 for the installation. Yeah, ouch. It was definitely money well spent, as they were awesome for the track and I’m looking forward to many autocrosses with my Hawk pads.

But not everything gets done by our mechanic, either. It took way way way too long for my Miata’s shiny new high-flow catalytic converter to get installed. I didn’t really feel like bothering our mechanic with it, I mean, c’mon… Four bolts!! My schedule just refused to match up with the stupid hobby shop, though, and the rattling was driving me crazy. (She was bottomed out pretty bad leaving Hallett; she started rattling the next morning.)

My awesome husband volunteered to do it himself, to save what little bits of my sanity I have left. It ended up not being that much of a straightforward job, since bolts don’t like being moved after staying in the same place for 12 years, but he got the job done. He’s extremely appreciated, to say the least!

Guilty Conscience

The worst part about outsourcing is the guilt of not doing the job yourself. While I probably wouldn’t have been much help swapping out my cat, I would have still been there to help work on my car. Doing my turn signal intakes myself was a huge confidence booster, and I got an even bigger kick out of doing my cold air intake and my exhaust. Not being there for this mod was really disappointing for me.

Then again, if I didn’t let it get done while I wasn’t around, I’m not sure when it would have ever been done. The latest for the Miata was a set of carbon fiber side mirrors, her first bits of carbon fiber. It’s also something that I  definitely was around for… It was easily done in our driveway!

And while it’s not as sexy saying I installed new side mirrors as it is saying that I installed a new catalytic converter, it’s still work on my car, it’s still a new mod and I still love the time I spend with her.

I'm always happy to do mods myself, even if they're super easy.

Sometimes the best laid plans with the best intentions just don’t work out the way they were, well, planned. But that’s okay, because not being open to change isn’t exactly a good thing, either. Plans change, people change, life changes… And if you can’t adapt to those changes, you’re probably going to be a rather miserable person. Believe me, I know… I’m always getting new surprises in my life, both good and bad. (Military life is pretty crazy, even without kid stress.)

So now what’s up?

I’m very, very pleased to announce that I am just full of good news lately! Well, I could dig up bad news if I wanted… But what fun is that? Besides, even my bad news isn’t entirely bad — Work holiday hours suck, but that just means extra money in December… No, cars aren’t as expensive as a lot of people think, but they still need quite a bit of money!

Anyhow, this latest bit of news has to do with my ever-lovely Nissan 240SX. After just five and a half months of ownership, I’ve fallen for the car in ways I couldn’t have ever expected… And she’s definitely both been extremely good to us and very handy. (We recently brought home a new tv, and couldn’t have done it without her massive amounts of interior space.)

That said, I’m only too pleased that I can do for her what I’m about to do… She deserves it. Even if it’ll make the other two a bit jealous.

The engine swap is imminent.

On November 18th, I went ahead and purchased a Red Top SR20DET for my little lovely. Over Christmas break As soon as all the parts get here, my husband and two friends will be swapping out her stock, ~300k mile KA24E and transmission for the “proper” JDM engine. I can’t even begin to share with anyone how excited I am, because it all feels like some crazy sort of dream yet. Getting to see that engine, in a box when it gets here, is going to be one of the happiest days I can imagine having. (For anyone following me on Twitter, you’ve already heard about this purchase. )

I waffled quite a bit on the decision, because I’m still making payments on the car. However, I know that there isn’t any chance we can’t handle the loan, so I’m completely fine with it. In fact, my husband assured me that he would chip in if anything happens and help me out. He’s already agreed to fund the “other half” of necessary engine swap supplies — all the little nitnoid necessities, upgrades and parts that comprise about half of the estimated $3,000 expense.

Why now?

Of course, this was a pretty sudden thing for me to come out with. I always planned on doing the SR20DET swap, so that wasn’t really new. But to do it so quickly… Yeah, it surprised me too.

Part of it was the deal we got on the engine — Yes, off of ebay, but one of our friends checked out everything before giving us the go-ahead, and I also checked as much as I could. The seller has sold quite a few engines and has nearly perfect feedback. It was $1,650 for the engine and matching five-speed transmission, and listed all the goodies. Pictures looked good.

No, it wasn’t everything, but many of the other expenses are upgrades, such as a new radiator and better intercooler. Or other cool bits like a boost gauge (maybe some others) and a new blow-off valve. So yeah… It’s gonna be awesome. And while it’s not super cheap, we plan on doing it right the first time, so we don’t have to spend a lot more later on…. Even though I plan on fully building the engine. Eventually.

I know I said I’d build the Miata right, but for some reason, I’m more excited about doing an awesome 240SX build right now… The Miata is a lot of fun as is, but hard to get respected for, a problem I don’t have with the 240. I’m not giving her up, though, and I’ll still turbo her someday. She’s gonna be my track monster, after all. The 240 is more for show/cruising/drifting.

Also, we figured it would be beneficial to do it while we’re here rather than after we move. We’ve got a friend who has an engine hoist and all the tools we’ll be needing, as well as another who’s done engine swaps before. Thanks to this, we’ll get to save on the cost we would otherwise pay to have someone else do the swap for us… And yeah, we already will be saving money from the deal we got on the engine itself. Budgets, people, budgets.

What’s in store…

All this is great news for my blog, I think. Why? Because I’ll be sharing as much as I can about the engine swap process, as I learn it myself. I won’t be present for a vast majority of the actual swap, for two main reasons: 1, it’s hard to get time off during the holidays and 2, I wouldn’t be much help anyways. I’m still learning about engines and their parts and stuff, but I don’t know enough nor have enough confidence to be of any help. (I’d worry about screwing it up.)

I really love it for a few reasons, mostly: I’m cementing myself firmly in the tuning community through this project, it’s one of the first cars I feel like I’m making a huge difference to (she needed TLC and I can provide that, the Miata’s always been a good car), the car actually attracts attention (almost fans, ha, and 240 owners are a friendly bunch and mostly in my age group! big plus) and is just overall an awesome car that really does fit me. Oh, and I get to learn first hand about turbos, because I’ll finally have a turbo myself.

Yes, it promises to be quite the awesome journey.

In September, I went through and bought new brake pads, rotors and brake lines for my Miata. Since I’ve only had the car for just over two years, used OEM-equivalent replacement rotors, stock lines and Axxis Metal Masters pads for those two years, I figured I’d get some advice on a good brake set up for daily driving, autocrossing and occasional track use.

What I wasn’t expecting, however, was the lack of usefulness of asking for opinions. Even on two different Miata forums, I got no closer to an answer than just going from what I already knew and some reviews on Tire Rack.

What I went with:

Eventually, I settled on buying the brake components individually through Tire Rack. I looked at various brake packages, mainly the one from Flyin’ Miata. However, I wasn’t sure of how the overall package would work… I’d heard of some of the company names, but not all. I tend to get nervous when I don’t hear a lot about something as common as brakes. Plus, with some better stuff, it was getting expensive. The total came to just shy of $500, including all the shipping.

So what’d I get exactly? Hawk HPS pads for the front and rear, ATE slotted rotors all around and Goodridge stainless steel brake lines.

Eventually, I got so confused with opinions that I just got what I thought was best in the end. I should have done that all along, and won’t question myself as much in the future. I got so much confusion with each piece that it just wasn’t worth it in the end, and I waffled back and forth a lot before finally settling on what I decided to get.

Brake pads

These were the easiest part to figure out. Yeah, I liked my Axxis pads, and people still run them on their cars. However, I wanted to expand and try something new… And very few pads come as highly recommended for autocross as Hawk HPS, plus we have them on our S2000 and they’re rather nice on that car. While I got a lot of opinions for other pads, I went with what I knew the most about. (HPS = high performance street.) They’re also big with the SCCA, which made me more comfortable with my decision.

Brake lines

For some reason, there were two camps: one who lives by SS lines, the other who sees no point in them. I was shocked by this, as I thought it would have been the easiest bit of all!

Apparently, some people see them as useless. They see no difference in stock rubber lines compared to the stainless steel ones, and claim that the group advocating the SS lines only liked them for looks/show. Ooooooooookay then.

For me, I went with them anyhow. I have no idea if my brake lines were ever changed, and rubber doesn’t last forever. I don’t feel like going to a track and having possibly 12 year old brake lines fail there. No thank you.

Plus, coincidentally, Modified ran an article comparing rubber lines to the stainless steel ones right before I purchased my stuff. After reading the article, I was completely sold on the SS lines. Even if I couldn’t feel a difference in braking, they’d be a great way to replace my rubber lines anyways.

Brake rotors

Now this generated huge debates. Plain, cryo-treated, slotted or slotted and drilled?

For most cars, plain do just fine. If you want a slightly better rotor, you can get cryo-treated. (More resistant to warping and excessive wear.)

But it’s the slotted and the drilled rotors that get people all up in arms. Which totally confused me more. I sure wasn’t a brake expert before, and I still am not. So the lack of consensus was not helping me at all.

As I said before, I went with ATE slotted rotors. They were fairly cheap, and are an upgrade… No matter how much some people want to argue with them. I’m sorry, but if drilled and slotted rotors weren’t better in some ways, why do Ferrari’s and Porsche’s have them stock??

Really, I’m not here to debate the merits of rotors… But it seemed that some people thought slotted rotors were ricey, and that if I were to get them, I’d be a ricer.

Excuse me??

So…. Now that I have slotted rotors on my car, am I a ricer?

I know, there are ricers who get them. Idiots who throw wheels on a car, do nothing to suspension but maybe cut springs, buy the wrong sized tires and act all cool. Who also put slotted, or heaven forbid, slotted and drilled rotors on mechanically-unmodified Civics.

But because some idiot bought slotted rotors for his barely driven economy car, I shouldn’t get them for my autocrosser? Seriously?

So one part, that isn’t exactly a ricer part, makes me a ricer because it’s donned by ricers?

So if there’s a ricer who has a Civic hatchback, who gets his hands on a Spoon steering wheel by some sort of magic, means that having a Spoon steering wheel is ricey, right? Because that’s the same sort of logic that I’m seeing here. Highly improbable, but not impossible by any means.

Others don’t matter as much, it’s your opinion that counts most.

Really, I’m still confused by the whole thing. However, I’m happy with my end choice. My car is built for performance, and that is definitely obvious now…. If someone wants to say my entire purpose-built autocross/track car is ricey because of brake rotors, go ahead. I’m not going to listen to your opinion anyhow; first because one bad apple doesn’t ruin the whole bushel, second because I like them and I like the added look and performance. My RPF1′s show right through to the rotors, and shiny slotted rotors look kinda menacing behind black, light-weight racing wheels.

It was a great lesson to me in doing what I feel is right, despite what everyone else says. Too often I wonder about what other people think… I need to stop.

If my car makes me happy and conveys a message close to what I’m aiming for, nothing else matters.

And by the way…

The set-up handles great! Both on the track (where it was definitely put through its paces) and off.

Okay, to be honest, this isn’t really a horrible, awful, difficult installation… But I had a hard time myself finding any sort of comprehensive write-up on how to do it, or simply prepping yourself for it, so I’m hoping that this can possibly help someone else along. Despite the large number of forums for this car, there’s nothing straight-forward out there.

Overview:

It took us maybe an hour and a half? I’m really not entirely sure, we ended up having to run and get wire connectors before we could get started. Basically, you take it all apart and replace it! Stupid easy, right? The only part that takes some extra effort is crimping the wires together. To make it easy, have everything you need and do it in the daylight. Preferably when it isn’t raining too.

Supplies needed:

• Wire stripper, crimping tool
• Wire connectors (18 gauge) We had two packages of 16 to cover the job.
• Tail lights, duh. To have a complete kit, it should come with: the four main pieces, the bulbs, new sealant and a replacement lock. Yup, you need all of it to get the job done right.

The boring details…

I don’t think I need to go over too much, no? Just some pictures to go along with it all and a bit more to expound upon.

First off: My car is a 1990 S13, and the tail lights are the JDM 180SX Kouki lights. This little write-up is specifically for that combination. No, I don’t know about the installation of any other lights on the same car. All I know is what I went through and did.

Why it’s not a straight plug and play install: The wires are the exact same, it’s the plugs that aren’t. So what you’ll need to do is cut the plugs off the USDM lights, cut the plugs off the JDM lights and, well, put the USDM plugs on the JDM wires. I know it’s simple, but I had a hard time confirming that this was all needing to be done. All I wanted was someone to say this outright. Now, though, I can tell you this: Swapping the plugs is the only complicated part to the whole process.

Okay, here’s a brief write up and some pictures to go with it:

Gather up all the necessary supplies, open hatch and feel free to start with the removal of the tail lights. We did it in the order of: middle panel (with reverse lights), bottom center piece, two tails. There were also three people, so while one crimped all the plugs, the other two of us worked on removing the stock pieces.

Butt connectors are all that's not included from the order from FR Sports.

They're stupid cheap from RadioShack. 2x packages of 16.

Thanks to a wiring expert helping, it took really no time at all to get all the plugs swapped over. The tail lights were a bit tricky to remove, one of the screws is sneaky and easy to miss. Just make sure all the screws are out (five I want to say) and feel free to use some force. The studs and the sealant doesn’t don’t make them come out as easy as one would like.

Readying the tail lights for the install.

Remove all of the old sealant, as best as you can. The old stuff is a pain to remove, and the new stuff isn’t the easiest to put on. You’ll also need to swap out the lock — the stock one is too short for the middle piece of the lights. In the end, they do stick out a bit further than the hatch… Honestly, it doesn’t look horrible though and isn’t noticeable to the point of being crass.

Remove the old sealant as best you can, but it doesn't have to be perfect.

The new stuff goes on fairly easy, it's just sticky... And hard to do at night.

After all the crimping is done, the stock bits removed, the sealant replaced and the new lock in, simply put in all the new stuff! We did it in the reverse order of removal, which made it super easy.

Lastly, make sure to test it all out. This will tell whether you did a good job crimping or perhaps just forgot to plug something in. Not sure if it was just ours, but the reverse lights don’t work. Then again, we can’t remember if they worked before or not, so… I can’t vouch for that part at all.

Oh, and then there’s getting to admire the great new look. Totally worth the price!!

Ta-da! It's totally worth it, isn't it? Beautiful!!

Conclusion

This write up was probably wholly unnecessary, but hopefully will answer some questions out there about it. For me, I was confused from what little bits I did read… Was it the bulbs that were the problem or the plugs? Are the wires the same or not? Now I know both answers: the plugs are what’s different, and the wires match up exactly… Same color and everything.

All in all, it’s a fairly simple process that produces results that are nothing short of amazing!

I will be the absolute first to tell you this: It is NOT cheap, by any means, to build a nice car. No matter what you start with, no matter the cost of the mods or how much you can do yourself… It is never, ever cheap to take a car on as a project.

But there’s hope.

Just because an overall car project won’t be cheap doesn’t mean you have to wait to get started on it. If you’ve decided that building a car is important to you, you can start to make an amazing car. However, it’ll take time… The more money you have available, the less time a drastic transformation will take. Of course, the reverse is true… Less money means more time, just a fact of life.

Quality vs. Cost

Just because it’ll take you a while to get a project done doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start. The reason it takes so long? Quality versus cost. Sure, you can take a Civic and modify it to death on an itty bitty high school student budget. But at what cost? Little money, and horrible parts…. Enter the ricer crowd, where you get all the looks with none of the performance.

Ricers have a hard time admitting something: Quality performance parts cost real money. Why spend $400 on an exhaust, when you can get smoked headlights, altezzas, a cold air intake AND an exhaust for $400?! Then you’ll have a REALLY modified Civic, and not just a project in the initial stages of modification.

I’ll tell you why: If you truly value performance, and want to build a car to gain respect from the best of the car community, you’ll suck it up and pay for the good stuff. I’m not saying that every guy who has a Civic needs to outfit it with Mugen and Spoon parts and nothing else, that’s ridiculous. But at least spend some time looking into the horsepower gains of an exhaust before you just settle on whatever is the cheapest.

And, for the love of all cars, please refrain from making your car sound like a weed-whacker.

Please.

You look incredibly stupid when all it takes is five minutes of searching on YouTube to avoid confusion with the lawnmowers of the neighborhood when you drive by. (You can also YouTube video clips of exhausts with various header/catalytic converter/intake combinations to avoid making a good sound go bad.)

Take your time.

I know, it’s not fun. Especially when your timetable gets pushed even further back than you thought it would originally stretch. I assure you, though, that it is so worth the time and effort to do it right. When you know you want something good in the end, don’t waste money just to do something new that you’ll end up having to replace later on…

That’s wasting not only your time, but your money. (I’m assuming you’re younger, here, or just rather broke.) Since time is the more plentiful resource in this case, use it to your advantage. Leverage your time, and don’t waste your money.

Maintenance, then mods.

Of all things, NEVER neglect maintenance items in favor of modifications. That ought to go without saying… But I figured it’s better to say it than to ignore it. Pass over if you already knew this, otherwise take it to heart. Your modified car is no good if something goes drastically wrong because you neglected basic maintenance in order to do something “cool.”

No guilt over it either.

But if you’re like me, money is typically in short supply. And even expected maintenance can cost a bundle… Take my Miata’s brakes, for example. The pads were last changed just over two years ago, and are starting to give me the occasional hint of a strained life. Considering we’re hitting up a track next month, I want some good brakes for the event.

Total bite into the budget: $495, shipped, from Tire Rack. Yeah. Ouch.

Needless to say, it pushes back my high-flow catalytic converter and carbon fiber side mirrors a bit. Since I gave myself until the end of the year to do these two things, though, I can’t really be that upset. (It was all even further pushed back thanks to back-to-back autocrosses in the middle of August. That I somehow remembered, but forgot about the money….)

Research isn’t just for school.

Yup, research again…. Because it’s truly useful. More likely than not, someone has already done what you want to do. It’s not a bad thing, either, because what they learned makes it easier on you!

Research will help you avoid the cheap stuff in favor of the best performance for your dollars, and performance usually only comes from quality.

It’s what I do.

So what makes me qualified to preach all of this? Well, it’s how I’ve built my Miata.

Save for the suspension and wheels, which were my present for living without my husband for four months, I’ve paid for all of the work done to the car.

My total income for 2008? Erm, around $13,000.

Granted, I don’t have to pay for a ton of stuff some people do… But if you have just a tiny bit to devote to your car each month, you can at least get started. Maybe you’ll find out it really isn’t for you.

Or, if you’re like me, you’ll gladly sacrifice in other areas to invest in your car. You’ll end up eating, sleeping and breathing cars… And when you can enjoy cars on a tiny budget, just think of what earning more money could entail.

Final note: I’m not advocating poor financial decisions. As a finance major, I felt compelled to say that. However, I’m a firm believer in spending money on things that make you happy. For me, that’s on my car… No matter how tiny my budget.

You can find part II here.

I mentioned at the end of part II that keeping a list of the parts you want, where to find them and their prices is important. And it is, because after you’ve figured out what you want to do with your project car, it’s time to develop and draft some plans.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. (Again.)

I really like this adage, because it’s true, so it bears repeating. While not everything has to be planned out to the letter, you ought to have some idea of the direction you’re going in.

Along the way, it’s inevitable that you’ll come across killer parts deals. As with all killer deals, these won’t last long. A parts site may have a sale on something you need, or you might find it used on eBay for a great price. Or, as is my own case, you may have a friend who knows somebody trying to unload a set of lightly used wheels for a great price.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Only when you’ve given careful thought and consideration to your build will you be able to differentiate between the good deals that will take you closer to your goal and the good deals that will only further hinder you. We’ve given some thought to the type of wheels we’d like for our 240SX, so when this set came up it wasn’t really a hard decision. It’s not the exact ones we figured we’d get, but they’re much cheaper and will do better than the 17′s she’s got now.

Good deals are only good when it’s on something you would have paid more for. If you wouldn’t have bought it in the first place, you’re not saving anything. Thus the price list. We all have our own price points, and if you do a tiny bit of shopping around you’ll find that prices can range up to $100 or more for any given part. When you find a lower price than a previous price, you’re saving a bit of money. Write down the source and the price, so you can later refer to it and compare it to new prices.

The art of bargain shopping.

It’s inevitable – you’ll get frustrated because car parts are not cheap. Remind yourself of what you want to end with – a well built car. Look at the pictures you have for motivation, and remember that those cars probably weren’t built overnight. You’ll probably have a picture or two of cars with thousands of dollars worth of parts put into them, but the people usually aren’t super rich either. It takes patience to build a well put-together car, but it is wholly worth the effort.

Avoid the temptation to buy parts on eBay, unless it’s lightly used or new in box and a part from a company whose name you recognize. Sure, you can buy a ton of no-name “performance” parts for the same as a single part from a known company, but do NOT do this. You are only thwarting your own efforts to do a car right. Wasting money won’t make you feel better, it’s putting yourself at a disadvantage. You may come across a great deal, but have no money to pounce because you bought a part you’ll probably want to replace later anyhow with something better.

What’s in a name?

While I strongly advocate buying parts from well-known companies, this doesn’t mean you need to spend a fortune on everything. Well-known companies can charge more because they’re proven to be quality parts, but they may be no better than some lesser-known companies still proving themselves.

Most Honda people have heard of Mugen. Well, Mugen does make high-quality performance parts. However, if you shop around, you can usually find the same part made by another company with the same performance gain, if not more. You’re going to pay more simply because you’re patronizing Mugen, and they’ve built quite a name for themselves over the years.

And while I’m all for outfitting Hondas in Mugen and Spoon, don’t be a jerk who name drops. I’m not saying you can’t ever point out your awesome parts, but don’t get them just to go around and name drop. I know a guy who did that with his Civic all of the time, and it was super annoying. He’d spend a ton of money on parts, but all he could talk about was the company and how much it cost…. He couldn’t offer any opinion on the performance of them, or what they did for the car. Don’t be like that and people won’t care if it’s a super well-known company or not, because you know how much it improved your car.

Final Advice

Really, these are all the tips I have. I’ve never finished a project car before, so I can’t offer any insight into what it’s like to look back from the end. To be honest, I don’t think I ever will completely finish… I like tweaking with my cars too much, and there’s always something new to do.

The last piece of advice I can give is to enjoy the journey, stay focused on where you’re going but occasionally look back on how far you’ve already come.

When you can do that, even the tough times will come and go easier. When you’re getting something new, it will be exciting. When you think of each part as getting closer to your goal, it’s exciting. And, even when progress seems to have ground to a halt, you can see how many steps you’ve already taken and feel satisfied that you’re closer to where you want to be than when you started.