Welcome to Gaia! ::

^^^I'll have to go with what Mille's put forward here. Its like having a bloody war for spare parts these days. Five years ago, if you wanted to have something that worked you searched high and low, researched and broke your brain to find out the solutions for yourself.

And then the shops that sold(and still sell) parts caught on, established internet presences for themselves, and force-fed the youth their own brand of "gospel truth." Its gotten to the point where if you don't have "Brand X" parts in your car, something is wrong with you. I have seen suspension bits that are absolutely crap marketed as the next big anti-gravity tool, brakes that are utter rubbish pushed as being able to make the laws of inertia their b!tch. And so on so forth.

Rays wheels, TEIN coilovers, Voltex bits hanging off the bodywork, HKS intercoolers, Mitsubi...excuse me, GREDDY turbo kits, N20 kits, these are the things that every kid with twenty bucks in their pocket and a set of wheels wants these days.

Recently, I had this kid show up with an unlimited budget to build his car up. My boss put up the engine plan, and told me to put together the chassis and handling package. We have ended up with about 12K(read: TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS) of suspension and chassis work, sans coilovers and brakes.

This boy turns around and goes "are these things any good? They aren't HKS, AMS or Greddy. Are they Chinese or even Japanese?"

I didn't tell him that the bits I put on his order sheet come from a company that doesn't advertise much, doesn't campaign online, but still manages to have some of the quickest cars for their designed application out there.

I fail to understand the mentality of these people. And I mean EPICALLY FAIL.

What is this "carburetor" you speak of?

And which sounds the best in a circuit racing application. Especially when there's one to a cylinder. 3nodding

I wouldn't be bothered. Not my kind of car. The windowsills are too high, suspension to stiff for what it is, nasty plastics. If you are rolling stock, then.. you're rolling stock. Wouldn't make me think "Poor tuner".

What makes me think "poor tuner" is the mismatched bodykits and fart cannons, stick-on flame appliques, cheesy chrome license plate covers or k-mart special snap-on hubcaps, bubbly crap tinting, huge useless wings on fwd vehicles (Or AWD and RWD even), and basically, 90% of the useless tat I see out here. smile

The really poor thing I am seeing is the trend of the young and uninformed which for some reason causes them to try and emulate the Japanese "time attack" cars in appearance, then blend that appearance with the classic "ingredients" of a "tuner car" for the road.

Its bloody stupid, and downright impractical.

Why? Example. I had to drive a car back to the city that had scalloped front fenders in the rain(from Sandown Raceway, a good while ago) long before anyone had even heard of Voltex. You would not believe the amount of road debris, sludge and other assorted crap that was sticking to the side of the car after. At least we know the scallops work; you could see where the air went from the pattern of crap on the side of the car. rofl

Aye, that's one thing I've never quite grasped about "TOONer" culture.. I can understand taking a shitbox and making it surprisingly quick.. but then, all of a sudden, it was no longer a shitbox, it was "These are great cars and fast stock." Uhh.. since when? I've seen so many 95 Civics with bodykits and fartcans and no engine changes, yet people still think they're fast.

Buying a cheap economy car and turning into a fast car has a certain appeal. We've been doing this since the 40's with cars. That's what the Muscle car culture was all about. Grocery getters with huge engines that burned up the streets, and could be built for summer-job money. So, yeah, you were driving your moms Chevy Nomad, but you spent the summer working to save up and buy a 454 to drop under the hood and *make* it fast. You didn't slap a big exhaust on it and call it fast.

And to make matters worse, now people are overpaying for 91 CRX's and Integras, so they can slap a fart can and wing on it, and think they've got a sports car. Hell, I know a kid who paid 4k MORE than I did for my 02 mustang for a 97 Eclipse GS. WTF?

Aye, that was the source of my confusion and frustration with him. In fact, we had a conversation about that, along the lines of "Do you know what I could do to my car with the 4k more you spent just to get yours?"

That also came up with a coworker, who spent nearly 8k on a 92 Integra, and was then planning on sinking another 5k into the engine... He kept going on about getting the whole thing up to 400bhp. He was so "in your face" with his rampant bullshit, so I finally went on craigslist, found a fox-body mustang with a solid 302 for 2k, then put together a shopping list on summit for a new intake, carb, cam, headers, con rods, pistons, spacer, exhaust setup, shocks, springs, and brakes for ~3k, that would build the engine to ~400bhp and make it handle better. "Oh, look, I've only spent 5k. With your total, I still have 8k to play with. Maybe I'll add a supercharger, new rims and tires, some sway bars... Get my point?"

Paying stupidly high prices for "cheap" cars, and then spending even more money to make them fast.. Where's the logic?

However, I must admit, I'm very biased about most of these. I don't like FWD, I'm not a big fan of imports, I don't think they look very good, I don't like the sound of 4 cylinder engines, I'm not a fan of turbochargers, etc, etc.

And hell, I buy classic cars. But, to me, at least they're a goddamn adventure. XD "Oooh, drum brakes!"