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I agree with you, you can’t bolt on horsepower.
You have to have the supporting modifications to the vehicle to make a difference in that system.As for eBay I think it’s a good thing a lot of people call it crap, it scares younger and less experienced car enthusiasts away from it.
There’s a lot of stuff on there that isn’t just a piece of crap, it’s failure could end up harming your engine itself. People with more experience and know what’s a name brand and what isn’t can use ebay to better effect.The crap bandwagon also comes from a lot of younger enthusiasts trying to cut corners on getting performance and buying the cheapest turbo kit they can find.
Hi Eric, I agree with you that there are misconceptions about performance parts, but the misconceptions isn’t just related to getting ‘performance’. I believe there is also misconception about the purpose(s) of aftermarket performance parts.
I remember that you once said in once of your previous videos that modifying cars is bad because engineers know better.
For me,
Building a performance car from a econobox is a learning experience. Aftermarket parts serve to help me achieve certain goals with my car that engineers had to leave out due to cost, reliability or reasons of comfort.For example, when I starting hitting double the output the manufacturers intended, bushings keep breaking. I kept replacing them, but they only lasted a year or so before breaking. Tired or replacing them, I replaced them with sperical bushings. Being that it’s driven often, I opted for those that are sealed. Been using them for 6 years now, without squeaks and rattles (unless I’m driving on really bad roads) with slightly additional vibration. So there is a tradeoff, I traded comfort and cost for bulletproof reliability.
Similar with engines. Using forged internals (the piston specifically) means the engine burns oil slightly when cold because of piston to cylinder tolerances, I have the soot out of the exhaust staining the driveway from burnt oil when I warm it every morning.
I think the misconception most people have is that they will get something out of nothing when you bolt on a performance part, when in fact its more of an equivalent exchange. more cost for less weight and better materials, sacrifice reliability for performance, etc.
But I think people shouldn’t stop modifying cars, just that they should be better informed on the pros and cons of each mod.
As for me, I feel the mods are worth the increase performance despite having to sacrifice certain creature comforts. The severity kind of depends on how far the person/modder want to take ‘performance’ into the mix when he modifies his car.
As to my experiences with header mods, I find that headers do work, but only if you can figure out the intake/exhaust cam timing that ensures the ‘tuned’ headers work (the exhaust pulses work to ensure the engine breathes best, which is why the new variable valve timings are so efficient in getting low end power) and also why some imports (I am thinking of honda, but other manufacturers do it too) can run ridiculously short exhaust headers with the cat in front of the block in their newer engines, thanks to variable cam/valve timing.
Then again, there are a lot of bad headers out there made by people who do not seem to understand header design, up to the point that even the cylinder pairings are very inefficient. It’s up to the consumer to do the research and not buy total marketing bullshit.
Personally, I do have certain opinions that may not be agreeable to everyone, and that is the purpose of putting cams in a street car. Sure they make more ‘peak’ horsepower, but when driving on the street, most of the usable power should be in the middle of the rpm range. That said, if enough power is made through the entire rpm range, then ‘average’ mid range power is enough, such as a v8, for example
Putting aggressive cams in a 4 cylinder engine where the mid range power is usually already anemic? All I can say each time I see one, is…WHHHHYYYY? Unless if it’s a drag racecar, I simply do not understand why people do this on street cars where they expect to drive in traffic where speed changes often, even most circuit cars tend to prefer a wider powerband than a narrow one.
Quite often the placebo effect take place , and all power ( pun intended ) to those who experience it ,
all I got from an performance CAI on my car was a nice induction growl .Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good video.
With many of these intake/exhaust bolt on parts, the amount of gain or loss depends on several factors.
1. If the original part was too restrictive in the first place, then the aftermarket part may increase power because of less restriction.
2. If the original part was designed correctly, then an aftermarket part may not show any gain.
3. If the original part was not “tuned” correctly for the engines power band, then changes in intake runner length, or exhaust tube length may make more (or less) power. I mention this because most newer engines are designed with fairly well tuned intakes and exhausts, and many of the aftermarket parts are designed to be used with modified engines (different cams, compression, head flow, and such.)Anyhow, I’m trying to say, it depends on what your starting point is.
Also, as mentioned in #3, some aftermarket parts are designed to work with a stock or near stock engine, while others may be designed for the racer who is totally re-engineering the engine and drivetrain.I agree,
I don’t think people realize how much thought goes into the car that their driving, especially anything made in the last 20 years. The stock car that you get is as efficient as possible within reason. The automaker wants the car to be as fast and fuel efficient as possible with for the money they have to spend to make it. There aren’t bottle necks that you can simply fix by swapping a part out (its another story if your bypassing emission controls and stuff like that).Back in the day (before modern computer modeling and our competitive market) there were probably more weak points in the system that maybe you could just slap on an aftermarket air intake or larger valves to get more power. I don’t think that that is the case.
I think that the way to go is pick your modification and analyse it to find all of the supporting mods you’ll need. For instance your weight loss. One exhaust manifold isn’t much, but if you managed to swap out more parts and shave off 200 lbs then you should would notice a difference on the Integra.
Nice video. I think I’m going to refer people to it when they approach me about installing their Ebay turbo kits.
Have you ever wondered why you see so many cars up for sale at meets and shows?
It’s because the owner after investing a considerable amount of time, energy and money in to it has discovered they went the wrong direction, and the project hasn’t turned out to be what they were expectiing, and often has turned into a POS with bad drivability and lots of gremlins.
[quote=”Jasonw1178″ post=177514]Have you ever wondered why you see so many cars up for sale at meets and shows?
It’s because the owner after investing a considerable amount of time, energy and money in to it has discovered they went the wrong direction, and the project hasn’t turned out to be what they were expectiing, and often has turned into a POS with bad drivability and lots of gremlins.[/quote]
I think your over-generalizing, but I do agree that many people who try modifying cars for the first time will get in over their heads because they don’t have the correct knowledge and experience. I think too many car shows give the impression that everything goes together in an hour with no issues. They almost never show how much time is spent planning out the project, ordering parts, waiting for the parts that may be back-ordered, having to buy or source other parts and fasteners that need to be included, but were not part of the original plan or kit, and then having to modify or fabricate parts that don’t fit or work correctly. Then they cut out many hours of labor.
Another example is a friend of mine, who I met when he was asking questions about his car, he bought a car off E-Bay sight un-seen, that was in much worse condition than he thought, so being enthusiastic he decided to buy a cheap mig welder and attempt body panel replacement / body repair even though he had never done it before. I can’t fault the guy, I did the same too when I was in high school, but he got discouraged and took the car to a professional body shop which found even more issues with the car resulting in a large repair bill, and many months of waiting for the car. Then a long story about life happening while the car just sat for years, and then he sold the un-completed car for a large loss of money. I know the person who bought the car, and I think is is still in storage in the same condition it was 10-years ago when my friend sold it.
The over-generalization I like is that cars are only sold because there is something wrong* with it, or even worse, have had a complete lack of maintenance because it was going to get sold anyway.
*”wrong” can be anything from “I wanted/needed something different” to completely totalled mechanically.. Often its something in between, stuff like timing belt due, clutch slipping, all of the brakes worn out, head gasket blown, or all of the above. That’s thousands in repairs at the stealership for otherwise simple repairs, however, for the same money people buy a replacement car (and drive that until it falls to bits too.)
Project cars are something else though, its because
– Customising makes a car harder to sell, raising the price (even by a little) to reflect at least some of the parts value and work makes it worse, leading to forever-for-sale cars.
– Car meets are “the” place to sell your custom ride to likeminded people?
– Some project cars are shitboxes that the owner wants to get rid of, but quite the opposite can be true too, sometimes its just complete and done, and the owner is just looking for something else, a new challenge/project, but they might not have the space/funds to keep multiple cars. Not everyone is Jay Leno.I’m a guy that doesn’t go to car meets and drives a modified car, practically daily. It’s not as comfy as a standard car, also makes a lot of rickety noises when going on less than perfect roads thanks to a stiff suspension, chassis reinforcement and spherical bushes. NVH? Not a concern at all.
So why did I do it? It’s always an interesting morning commute to work, lol. And sometimes even fun to take the long way just to let the car stretch its legs.
A lot of people underestimate the costs of time and money when modifying cars. We’re practically trying to improve a car beyond the budget of a major manufacturer and man-hours of a team of engineers. But with the added advantage of having a specific direction, of improving only certain aspects incrementally and purposefully, noticing the sacrifices of the modifications, one can have a decent modified car that doesn’t suck. Some I’ve noticed wanted a full on race spec performance vehicle, only to discover that the maintenance and wear and tear of the racing parts eats up a lot of the dough reserved for future mods, and they give up halfway.
Hopefully Eric’s journey with the modified engine in the Fairmont will show how much work actually goes into a modified car, and why most people just give up halfway, or do it poorly, and why great modified cars are not common.
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