What's your biggest automotive F-up (failed projects, horrible ideas, etc)
 

So I like to give ol' fairyflower shit as often as possible over the whole 'sawzall incident', but I started thinking about the dumb shit I've done with cars since I started wrenching on them and I thought it might be fun for everybody to just get it out in the open.

I'll start.

Back in '06 or so, I had gotten myself a S5 FC and decided that it just HAD to be turbocharged. Being new to the whole turbo thing, I decided that I could TOTALLY do it on a budget, regardless of what every person on the forum said (what did they know?).

And so, 5 months and a couple thousand dollars later, this monstrosity was born:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18380771/rx7.png

Hacked radiator support. SAFC-II, RRFPR, exhaust pipe intercooler tubing, and copious amounts of flux core mig wire and permatex. Shit was boss.

What a fucking disaster. The shitty rubber pipe couplers I used to hobble together my IC setup constantly popped off (I never thought about beading the pipes). Oil leaked everywhere from the insane brass pipe fitting clusterfuck that I thought would be be a suitable oil feed, and the drivability was virtually nonexistant. The only marginally fun thing about the car were the ENORMOUS fireballs it shot on downshifts (they were cool at the time, I've since learned the error of my dickish ways :giggle: )

It came to an end when the rubber fuel line I used to supply oil to the turbo decided to simply burst, killing my already tired second-hand turbo and nearly causing a catastrophic engine fire. I ended up reverting it to NA and selling the car to a good friend of mine, who proceeded to wrap it around a concrete post to avoid killing an old woman who decided to cross in the middle of the street at night.

Lesson learned: If you're going to do it cheap, spend the money where it counts (and listen when people tell you not to waste your time)

So there's my dark, secret automotive past. Anyone else care to share? :facepalm:

I almost supercharged my car, until I learned a thing or two. We all know how well that would've gone here.

My car now is cleaner and more well organized under the hood than it was N/A/stock. Wish I had something more exciting to share, but I've only been driving/had a car for 4 years.

I kept buying VWs over, and over, and over after putting 14 window regulators in my car, before the class-action lawsuit. I wish I bought a Miata a long time ago, I'd have much more cash today.

I had strut tower bars, a CAI, a automatic shift manager, on my 03 Cavalier. And hideous 17' wheels ready to go on.

fuel line on my ms3

http://i31.tinypic.com/2s8so08.png

http://i25.tinypic.com/kz0k5.png

goes from the pump to the block. i didn't personally do this, but one of my dumbass "friends" kept turning the nut and turning the nut and turning the nut and wondered why it wasn't loosening. cause he was twisting my hard pipe.

When I was 18, I tried to adjust the points on the distributor on my Dodge Dart. I dropped a screw down the distributor, and rather than taking the distributor out and shaking it until the screw fell out, I got another screw and put it back together, leaving the stray screw roaming around the distributor. Let's just say it's a good thing slant six distributor gears are nylon and not metal.

Attachment 186739

Enough said...

surprised you didn't bring up your pizza in throttle incident?

i didn't bring that upon myself. that was kevin being a piece of shit

my mistake was buying a corrado g60 for a daily driver and not swapping it.

Attachment 186738

damn it was perty but damn I had to work on it all the F'in time:vash:

Buying a boosted rx7

I did a few hours of work in trade for a 2000 Volvo S40. The PO said, “It not cranking sometimes.” Once it was in my name I discovered the neutral safety switch had shit itself and wouldn’t let the starter circuit close. Since the neutral switch is a $200.00 part that involves a couple hours to replace, I opted instead to install a $2.99 push button switch going from the solenoid directly to +12 battery. And since I was short on 14g wire, I mounted the switch under the hood instead of going thru the firewall into the glovebox. So now when the car won’t crank by key (all the time), I have to pop the hood, get out, push the button. Now, not only do I have to suffer the social implications of driving a Volvo, but I also have to monkey under the hood to get it to start. Very ghetto when you’re pushing 40.
I've made far worse decisions in my automotive past, but none I'm brave enough to admit.

Details. Now.

admin of another forum (who is a piece of shit cocksucking pathological lying one-upper) put pizza crust in my intake.

on a different day, while installing my my front mount on ms3, he put plastic bags in one of the end tanks.

I once fully assembled an aircooled VW engine, heads and all, when I noticed the camshaft sitting on the workbench...

I also once had a turbo miata with an FMU... ugh

My turbo Corrado on piggy-back Haltec 15-years ago was significantly more reliable than my TT Coupe.

:laugh:

Don't stop there.... let's get to stuff you actually did...

First one to come to mind: MAP clamp... lol

thank you for reminding me.
in an attempt to be super fastz, i installed an mbc on the ms3.
i didn't know at the time, but there's a restrictor pill on the turbo, so it didn't actually do anything. BUT...
in an attempt to boost 18-19psi on the stock ecu, i had two options - map clamp or boost cut defender.
so instead of bleeding hard-earn-boost...i decided to go with a map clamp wire crimped to the ecu...lol. fuck solder.

about 30 minutes later, my car threw more codes than i could even count.
all the way from abs to voltage for the gas pedal to whatever the fuck.
in the end, i think i changed the voltage on abs wire instead of the map sensor.

that was just the beginning...

omg :bowrofl:

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/c...s/100_0417.jpg
mazdaspeed manifold with ihi/t3 adapter (I created). It actuually flowed well and made decent power. But, getto as hell.

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/c...s/a7f05252.jpg
Got desparate and picked these up (rokkor's). Never even rode on them. Sold them then picked up some koni sports w/sleves and custom springs.

These were my only actions that I consider a mistake.

going back to fmic installation...
after realizing there was plastic in the end tank (cold side too...ugh. luckily i found it before i started the car), one of the steps to installing this particular kit was to relocate the power steering fluid cooler.

only...i let too much power steering fluid out and didn't bring any to the install spot. soooooooo, i drove home with no power steering.

same front mount...the way the hot pipe is supposed to look

Attachment 240382

the way my hot pipe looked after ripping the bracket off...coupler most certainly worked...

Attachment 240383

fuel pump install - direct injection - two fuel pumps. one in the tank. one in the engine bay. idle should be around 400psi, wot should be around 1700psi.

fucked up fuel pump internals, drove home with 50psi from the in-tank pump ONLY.
backfiring all over the place. unable to drive the car above 3500rpm.

the list goes on and fucking on.

Not replacing shitty allseason tires on a used car. Never again.
https://s-hphotos-sea1.fbcdn.net/hph..._6904311_o.jpg

I bought someone else's project car that had sat for a year, still fixing crap 3 years later.

I pulled this one, too. I had this one 5 days :facepalm:


https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net..._4459192_n.jpg

Black out drunk driving in ice. Best idea yet.

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You deserved this.

+1 for talking about it.
i'm sure i'll catch some flak for this, but driving drunk used to be (just cause i haven't done it in a while) one of my favorite pass times.
i guess i was "lucky" though and never had an accident. thank fucking god.
aside from the broken car...any other repercussions?

When I was 16, my buddy and I found that forced air produced more power, and I was too poor to turbocharge or supercharge my 3000GT, so we decided to drill a hole in the airbox, duct tape the end of an air-hose into the hole, route the line out the side of the hood, through the passenger side window going to the air tank in the back seat, and my buddy would "control the boost" in the passenger seat by turning the compressor on.

We tested it out on the road, I went full throttle, buddy hit the compressor, and the car would bog down and stall.

Needless to say the car never ran right ever again. lol

I'll check to see if i still have a pic....

My god. I think we have a winner.

This beats my spinner hub caps by a long shot.

All I saw was the word Cavalier.

hahaha, wheres my trophy?

All I can think of is buying a late 80's 300zx for $600, replacing about $200 of parts (water pump, thermostat, belts, etc), and selling it for $850. Guy got 20 miles away and the timing belt snapped, I think. Paid $200 to tow it home, sat forever before donating it. Could of salvaged the slightly heavy 5 spoke American Racing wheels off it, looked a lot like my old ones on my Miata, even had fresh 225 rubber on.

Still have the haynes manual as a bitter reminder of my failure. Right after that I bought the Miata off my dad for $4000. $3000 for the Miata, $1000 for the Nissan, parts, and tow.

The sad thing is, Im one of 6 or 7 on here that had modified crapoliers.

Heres a pull after my CAI.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...amjgjmgeda.jpg

And the wheels that were going on.
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...5/SANY0670.jpg

Don't be too ashamed. I've seem some really nicely modified cavaliers, and some fairly quick ones that would probably give a lot of cars on this site a run for their money. ;)

But the majority of modded cavs suck.

Took the whip to the body shop to get work done. It took 2 months for prep work. I rattle canned the passenger side of my car because I didn't want to wait another month for paint. I guess I didn't want to miss a track day. That was a year ago! That was stupid.

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._8031206_n.jpg

Now I painted gold Jackie Chan stencils on the car and I'm thinking of putting a 'charm' on my rear tow hook. Maybe some rusted ass chain links that drag on the ground. I'm embracing the rat look until it gets painted right.

Biggest fuckup? Pretty much everything I ever did involving my '76 Beetle, including purchasing it.

This was my first car. I think it was $500, and it showed.

The previous owner had wrecked the car, and "repaired" it by doing a Baja conversion. You think a Beetle handles poorly? Try a Beetle with truck tires on it. Big, knobby suckers. And air shocks.

They'd also "upgraded" the engine by removing the factory EFI system and installing a carbeuretor. Now, in fairness, Bosch L-Jetronic was not a great fuel injection system (it was analog, for crying out loud) but it wasn't nearly as bad as what was left of the wiring harness after Robert the Redneck was done ripping it out. I never did straighten that mess out.

Oh, and did I mention the rust? Yeah. I "fixed" the body by taking it mostly down to the metal, applying a liberal amount of Bondo which I more-or-less straightened out, and I then rattle-canned it. Except nobody had ever told me about etching primer.

I didn't fix the rust on the floorpans, with the result that one day after I hit a bump, the battery (which is under the rear seat in a Bug) dropped part-way through the hole, shorted against what little metal still remained in its vicinity, and set the rear seat on fire. Fortunately, the rear seat is extremely easy to remove in a Bug (it just lifts out) so I was able to get it out of the car, flip it over, and extinguish it by throwing sand into it. Used a couple of oil bottles to prop the battery back up and stuck the seat right back in.

Then the engine crapped out. The #3 rod bearing sort of went away. I decided to rebuild it myself, having never actually opened an engine before. Now, a normal person would have either scrapped the crank, or at least taken it to a shop to have it re-ground. Nah, I just sandpapered that little bastard, polished it a bit, and put it back in. And the mis-matched rods? Yeah, I stuck those right back in as well. And I don't mean mis-matched as in "a few grams difference", I mean mis-matched as in "two of these rods don't even superficially resemble the others. I think one may be from a diesel engine and another from a lawn-mower."

I did eventually "repair" the floorpans, which was mostly about using sheet-metal screws to attach various bits of metal over the most egregious of the holes. In the process, the front seat mounts were scarified. (the front seats were shot anyway.) So I wend down to the U-pull-it and bought a set of nice-looking seats out of some early 80's Sunbird. Only problem was that the donor car was a four-door, and guess what the front seats in a four-door car do not do? They do not fold forwards so that you can access the rear seats. Didn't figure that out until the seats were nicely mounted in their new home, with some bits of plywood sandwiched between them and the floor pans on the inside edge to compensate for the fact that while a Bug has a flat floor, the floor in a Sunbird is apparently at a bit of an angle.

Astoundingly, I never did manage to fully kill that car. I sold it a few years later for $1, and I still have that dollar tucked away somewhere. I used it as a bookmark for a while.

'78 Fiat 128. I probably don't need to say anymore except that I spent the purchase price replacing the engine after the block cracked from overheating. Finally got smart and gave up after a warped head on the second overheating.

Am I the only one who put the clutch disc in backwards on a Miata clutch job? The flywheel side sticker peeled off and I didn't think twice. Nothing like doing two clutch jobs back to back on the same car.

14years ago I had a Nissan Sunny, my first car. I thought installing shorter and harder springs (on the stock shocks, of course) on it would make it handle great. It jumped like a little kangaroo on every little bump it founds.

Blackened out the rear lights and the orange indicators and promptly got 6 "repair or your car is of the road" points when I came to the yearly inspection.

Got tired of not getting some chalk spots of the roof and tried some of my dad chrome polish...

Painted the calipers with the wrong paint (found the right can in the garage days later) with obviously terrible result.

That was a ruggad and strong little car though. It took the painful and constant beating only a 19year old can accomplish like a champ.

I did it with my twin plates... though there was no "sticker" on them, it still cost me a couple hundred bucks in bent disks.