Modifications To Your Car, Truck Van, Girlfriend, Wife, House You Wish You Never Did

[vintageracer]

Tell us all about the Modifications You Made to any of the above or Aftermarket Products You Installed on Your Car That You Wish You NEVER DID and want everyone to LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES OR LAUGH AT YOU for doing it in the First Damn Place!

Your late teen's and early 20's seems to be time in life that is FULL of stuff you did that you thought was KOOL at the time and now that you can look back on your life with "20/20" vision was REALLY STUPID!

[Zachalanche]

Oh man, where to begin?
I painted my interior plastic and windshield wipers to match the body color of my car.

I installed a mustang II suspension in my 70 mustang which resulted in narrower track width, deletion of power steering, worse handling, poor drive train alignment and a worse ride.

lets see, what else....

Oh yea I put a set of cheap traction bars on my fairlane that most certainly reduced the cars ability to hook up. they also contacted the ground occasionally.

I strategically matched a radical cam with some cylinder heads that had large enough chambers to drop my compression ratio down to about 7.5:1. that ran well.

Any of you ever have a set of glow in the dark pedals??? I did. I eventually ditched them along with the girlfriend who bought them for me.

Here's one of my favorites: I once used ratchet straps to pull 2 leaf springs together so I could put a 9" rear in a car that required a wider perch width. Trapezoidal leaf spring geometry for the win!. eventually the bushings wore out on one side so I had one leaf that was in its natural position, the other side was being pulled way inboard.

I painted flames on my high school car. they actually turned out pretty good. But the masking was so much work I never completed the passenger side, and that's the way it stayed. The car only looked fast if I was passing you on the right.

[rchaskin]

LOL... This thread could be epic.

A buddy of mine had a small ranger that had a fairly stock 302 in it.
No stall & 308 gears. We thought it would be a good idea to put a 292 dur cam in it.

Soooo weak out of the hole, but then when it got to about 50mph in first gear it would spin all over the road...HAHAHAHA

[TheJDMan]

Does anyone remember the 70's fad of Flocked cars? I never had the money to do it and I am so glad. A high school class mate did flock his car and he thought it was cool for about six months until winter came around and what a disaster in the snow and salt. It got even worse when he tried to sand it off. Needless to say that fad did not last long.

[Zeke.Malvo]

Not necessarily funny like the others, but I do regret lowering my engine 1/2"-3/4" in order to fit the T56 Magnum in my 69 Mach1 without having to cut the floors. The headers/exhaust sits ridiculously low. Wish I had the ground clearance to lower the car more now

There are other mods I wish I didn't cut a corner on as well.

[Paraman1]

Air shocks to give my 71 Lemans the raked look in high school. Welding the mufflers onto the headers backwards since I couldn't afford real exhaust and thats the only way they fit. Doing anything to my 1964 four door Nova other than crushing it. Heating up leaf springs to lower mini trucks in the 90's was a spectacularly bad idea but we couldn't afford lowering blocks (uhh thats perfectly good beer money) but my buddies dad had an oxy acetelene torch setup I could use for free.

[NOT A TA]

When replacing the old style headliner with bows in my '70 Firebird I decided it'd have a nice "clean" look if I eliminated the shoulder belt holders over the door windows ('70 was before ceiling shoulder belt retractors) and the dome light. I knew I'd be putting harnesses in it anyway eventually so no big deal eliminating the shoulder belts, right? However, trying to see anything inside a car with heavily tinted windows and a black interior at night with only only the under dash courtesy lights pointing in the foot wells, sucks..........

[raustinss]

for my chevelle .....purple neon lights under the dash , oh and taking it apart before I got an impaired, shop I was renting got sold , parents divorced , lost my job ........ I could keep going. All this in like 1.5 yrs and when I was 21 .....soooooo stupid

[Kenova]

In the mid '70s I built a 400 SBC with the wrong flywheel/flexplate.
Yes, it vibrated equally as bad with a manual and auto transmission. Eventually sold it to someone who proceeded to bust two automatic bell housings with it.
It went like a scalded cat though.

Ken

[btmatt]

One of my first engine builds (teenager) was 427 BBC for my dad's first gen Camaro. I buttoned up the bottom end while he was at work,only to respond to his questioning that I did everything properly. He agreed with my assessment and proceeded with assembly and installation of the motor. Fired the motor, tuned, and warmed up. He promptly mats the throttle in park and holds it there for what seems an infinity; kills it, steps out smiling and notes that i did a good job. Fast forward, the engine begins to lose oil pressure and chunks 3 rods thru the side of the block. We pull the motor to begin post-mortem and oil pump pickup is full of silicone gasket material. Dad questions where did all this stuff come from. I reply that i wanted to make sure the pan did not leak and obviously used too much. Never thought there would be enough inside to contact the spinning crank and rods. Lesson learned..

[cornfedbill]

Chevy 1st race design cam with dished pistons and camelhump heads in my '74 smog motor Nova with a mechanical secondary Holley 650 spreadbore and stock converter and 3.08:1 gears. It struggled to hit 30 mph, but then boiled the tires up to 65 where I had to shift.

Buying a rusty '55 Bel Air 4-door post because it had the full drivetrain instead of a '56 Bel Air 2-door hardtop roller that had a nearly immaculate body.

Passing up an LS6/Muncie 1972 Chevelle SS with factory cowl hood and all for my '74 Nova because the Chevelle blew some blue smoke on a cold start at the dealer.

And the list goes on...

I am glad I only had to live my teen years once. Doing it again would likely kill me.

[slimjim]

first car, installing a stereo system, needed better grounds, found a real good one...nice exposed bolt on the back of the alternator...

[NOT A TA]

first car, installing a stereo system, needed better grounds, found a real good one...nice exposed bolt on the back of the alternator...

Coulda been worse! I bought a Judge clone that burned in the previous owners driveway. Parents had bought high school age kid the car & he was trying to finish putting stereo in before he went to school. Ended up taking the bus and car burned after he left.

[pittpens24]

Had a 1979 RX 7 back in the day. Was a really cool car back then until I decided to make it better by wanting to be a car painter. Painted it Black with purple and blue pearl. Guess I put too much pearl because it came out a muddy black, purple, blue color - you know cuz more is always better lol. If that wasn't enough, I thought since my radio antenna was like 3 feet tall it would be cool to attach a pirate flag to the end of it. Then put a massive amp in the back to drive 2 "truck" speaker boxes which in turn vibrated the hell out of the back louvers on my back window in unison with the beat. Oh yeah and those louvers on the back window...........Ah the good ole days

[76TA]

Back in 2005 I paid a high end shop to install a Strange 9 inch with a coil over shock/ladder bar rear suspension set up. They did great work for a decent price. This was way back when I was 18 years old. Now, at 31 I'm building it in to a pro-touring car.

Needless to say the rear-ladder bars are likely going to stay for a while. It's only a matter of time until I have to re-do all of the rear end work and swap in a four link.

Horrible, messy mistake

As far as the women in my life...where should I begin. Biggest error was falling for a drop dead gorgeous 25 year old who had the maturity of an 18 year old. Fun? Absolutely. Wife material? Absolutely not. Lesson learned; good from afar; far from good.

[Kenova]

Back in 2005 I paid a high end shop to install a Strange 9 inch with a coil over shock/ladder bar rear suspension set up. They did great work for a decent price. This was way back when I was 18 years old. Now, at 31 I'm building it in to a pro-touring car.

Needless to say the rear-ladder bars are likely going to stay for a while. It's only a matter of time until I have to re-do all of the rear end work and swap in a four link.

Horrible, messy mistake

Replace the ladder bars with lower links and add a torque arm.
Problem solved.

Ken