This is a rant more than a question. I have been working on my car now for the better part of three years trying to complete an everything swap, essentially all that is staying is the rear end (and well see about that). Granted I have been working slowly on it, between job, relationships and everything else. Everytime I touch it though, there is some engineering difficulty to overcome. Nothing fits right and my dremmel and die grinder have more than paid for themselves. While I do expect this to some extent, how about something fitting right?

Just this weekend I went to try and mount the injector rails and I knew that the new injectors were slightly shorter than the old. I had to then cut the rails and the mounts on the manifold to allow them to seat properly (nearly done). Not the end of the world mind you, but for crying out loud, this should be fairly standard stuff. Now that I have done that however, I will need to cut relief into the rails to allow for for runner bolts and hoses for breathers. WTF??

I guess I have two questions in closing.

First, what does everyone think about changing a term in the nomenclature of mods? Does anyone object to refering to "bolt-ons" as "Grind-ons" from now on, as that is generally what you have to do?

Also, has anyone ever done a mod where you stood back and said "Wow, that was easy"? If so, I hate you.

SB

 

LOL I hear ya on all of those. Everything on my car had to be changed in some way/shape/form, except for a few items.

Oh and the only easy mod I've ever done was a JET airfoil. The strut tower brace was easy as pie too!!!

 

Totally with you bro, nobody has had more problems than me I swear. I dont think anything has ever just gone tottally right with any little thing I have ever done to my car.

 

I think some guy in "Blackhawk Down" said it best when he said..."Five minutes...nothing takes five minutes..." I dont remeber who said it...but it rings true.


I tell ya...a saws all, hot wrench, and 48oz hammer come in real handy most of the time.

 

Amen to all that.

You know what the damndest thing is. I can understand things not matching up when they are aftermarket. My AFR heads had accessory holes that were about 1/4" - 1/2" off of where my brackets holes were. OK fine, enter the Dremmel to resolve the situation.

When you are just trying to replace stock **** with stock **** though , it blows my mind when it doesnt work, or requires you to take apart unrelated stuff. For example.....

Why in the hell do you have to take your suspension apart to replace your motor mounts? How the hell was that a good idea?

Why did it take every last bit of my patience to pull the tank to replace the pump? I was cursing a blue streak and hanging from the unbolted tank at 2am and it still wouldnt give it up. You invariably break the filler neck (JB weld) and then the little plastic fuel door assembly doesnt fit right and needs to be cut up.

You truly build a one of a kind when you try this, cause none of this crap will EVER fit on anything else....

SB

 

Were they SVO injectors?

 

I've never had this problem, everything I've ever done has just slipped in, hell, I never even have to grab more then one tool, just today I did a full on window adjustment, and removed the seats to clean the carpets real good, took me about 10 minutes tops for all of it....

Nah, I'm just messing with you it took me 2 days just to fix the windows (loose), then I broke the gimpy cardboard panel, and simply bolted everything back in place so that the panel 'looked' like i didn't just break it... then I proceeded to accidently dump a huge big gulp on the passanger side of the car, 4 hours later, after removing all the seats on that side (my girlfriend wanted it cleaned real good cause I'm allergic to mold ) and just got done cleaning everything, mind you, this all started because I wanted to reglue the plastic wrap looking thing under the cardboard panel abit better then it was.... Ah, off subject I guess, but i figured I would atleast show that even simple things like putting a panel back on can result in taking apart and cleaning stuff on the complete other side of the car.

Or maybe I lack an attention span, and am a complusive poster

-Karma

 

Sometimes better product selection can prevent future headaches. There are enough bolt-in rear end products available that there's no reason to hack & slash unless that's your thing. Same thing with good fitting injectors. You're always going to come across fitment issues when mixing a ton of aftermarket parts, but doing a little planning ahead of time will make life a whole lot easier. When I assembled my TPI, I pre fit everything ahead of time. I knew that the SLP runners didn't mate perfectly to the Accel base, so I fixed it before I did the install. I also knew that the SLP runners had an effect on my alternator bracket, so I planned for that and kept plenty of shims around.

So far the only project that I've done that required real modification was installing my Griffin radiator, but I knew ahead of time that it was going to require fabrication, so it went as planned and worked out very well. If you approach the project knowing that it's going to need modifications, you're in a much better frame of mind to perform those mods.

What irks the sh*t out of me is when stock stuff doesn't fit.

 

When Parts have the words *bolt right on* or *stock replacement* beware. Because you will be doing some additional work to make them fit.

 

When I did my carb from TPI conversion I had to buy a new alternator bracket bacasue the holes on the intake are different. So I bought a universal bracket from Advance Auto Parts. Universal my ***, that thing if off by like 6"

 

Actually.... I believe they are. I checked the length with my old injectors and they differed, however I had a set of 24lb'ers sitting around and they were identical. I also went over and looked at new ones a friend was going to install and they were the same.
Are all of these some odd form factor, or is that the new standard?

 

dang man... I am about to put a Stealth Ram on my motor I think and I hope it doesn't take long to do. Its a DIRECT BOLT IN though so I am gonna assume that there is no modification required.

Usually projects don't take me that long but I am just blessed like that. I put in my R-1 racing seat on the passenger side of the car in about 2 hours start to finish. Had to modify stuff and everything.


I think what Jim said rings true. Expect to have to modify things and you'll be a lot less P O'd when you do have to modify stuff.

In your sig you should write somthing to the effect of, " I have modified ALL my mods."

 

added per DarthIROC's Post
Also another word on a part to beware of * universal fit* because it will not fit anything in this universe.

 

Hahahahaha

I had been sitting here trying to think of a clever way to say that.

SB

 

Modifying? How about just taking the motor apart, someone wanna give me the EXACT count for the number of bolts on the TPI runners? Like 7? GM used as many bolts and vacuum lines as possible...just a terrible car to work on overall....