Not me! I think it would be cool to get one of those Vespa scooter things like in FLCL, though. I remember saying I was going to get one when I got older, but then I kept getting older and still don't have one.
There's a real romanticism to having a solo vehicle and being able to repair it and stuff.

i'm an engineer that hates conventional vehicles, if this matters

>>3917
>. It feels hard to start being a "car guy" without any knowledge going into it
normies don't go into this alone, they always find themselves some gay frat homo energy communities where they pass the "I blew a trans" slang
many such cases with DIY activities

>>3920
What is with this trend of outside slang and mannerisms on kissu lately...

>>3921
must be all them hikaru3 shabs

Not a mechanic and I sadly own neither a car, nor a license.. As cliche as it is, I've always loved the look of the AE86 since before I even watched Initial D, it remains the only car I've ever felt the "need" to own beyond just having something to make getting groceries easier. It looks cool and I also really like tight spaces and pre-2000s interiors.

Cars are cool, but I just like machines in general. It may seem overwhelming at first, but as you learn how they work it becomes a lot easier to find mechanical faults. I'd say the worst part is dealing with electrical faults or some sort of leakage. My first car was a 1995 Saab 9000, really neat but ended up being a LOT of trouble, especially with a lot of the electrical quirks of that era. It was poorly kept too. The CV boots were rotted through and at some point the axle completely broke while I was driving. That was a fun one. Unfortunately my living situation hasn't provided me any space I'd be able to work on a vehicle.

As for a dream car... I really want a Lancia 037, but that will never happen. Nowadays I'd be happy with just about any old "beater", so long as I have the ability to do what I want with it.

I make my living building engines for race teams. My dream car is a first gen MR2 with t-tops chopped and lengthened to fit a NA V8 engine in the back. Along with many misc. modifications to keep it from tearing itself apart from so much added power. I haven't found a car I'm willing to chop up yet with t-tops. They're getting pretty rare now and I don't want to ruin one in good condition.

>>3924
The Lanica 037 would also be my choice for a non-modified car. But good luck finding one. Then there is the issue of having to replace the turbo every time you drive it.

>>3925
Yeah first gen MR2 is super cool. I probably wouldn't want to modify one too heavily though, unless it was practically scrap. In which case, the body itself is probably not much good.
>But good luck finding one.
Indeed, it's just a dream...

>>3917
>If anyone has good advice or resources I'd be really grateful to see it.
Youtube has made maintaining cars and trucks much easier in the past. When you used to have to rely on old wives tales, prayers and if you were really lucky a manual. I've learned a lot just searching for random issues with various cars on youtube. It's very nice to see someone else working on something and sharing tips with video instead of having to read the manual then discovering what you're working on is totally different.

Newer cars are also a huge pain compared to stuff pre-2000 or so. So many electronics or parts designed to fail just outside of warranty. I try to avoid working on new stuff if I can. But even the 90s-era cars I work on can be incredibly frustrating.

Find your local junk yards and establish a friendship with whomever owns it. Much better to pull parts from stuff for cheap than sending money to random people on amazon and ebay. Last week I got ripped off hard by some faggot selling spark plugs. I needed spark plugs for a 1962 tractor. Haven't been able to find plugs in decades so I've been pulling the old ones out for years and cleaning them. Finally found some guy on amazon that claimed he had the right ones. Only $15 each (I needed 8). When they got here I discovered he sold me spark plugs for a lawn mower that he paid $1 each for.

Anyway, working on engines isn't hard. They're just air pumps. Air, spark and fuel. You need those three things and if something is right then your issue is with one of them (or timing of them). Pretty easy to troubleshoot most problems. If you get stuck take a break and come back later. Usually it's something simple you over looked.

You'll learn to hate the people in charge of designing these cars. This week I have to pull the entire dashboard out of my Grand Marquis to fix the little gear that switches from heat to AC. Why is the gear built out of plastic? Who the fuck knows. Why is it located in the worst spot imaginable requiring you to pull out the entire dashboard to replace it? Who knows. But someone at Ford thought these were good choices. I really hate working on Fords.

I'll probably take the glovebox and passenger airbag out instead. Break the part already in the car. Drop in the new one and only secure it with two bolts instead of four. Since it's impossible to reach the back two without removing the dashboard. Good enough.

I also might just say fuck it and nigger rig a clothes hanger and route it behind the dash into the glovebox so I can manually switch it from hot to cold when I want. Since I only need to do that maybe four times a year tops.

I'm just thankful that it's stuck on hot instead of cold at the moment. Which means I can be lazy and put this off if I want. Since I at least have working defroster.

>>3927
As for tips. Invest in a good set of tools and don't let anyone EVER borrow them because they never return them in good condition (if at all).

I do 99% of stuff with a set of metric+standard sockets, wrenches, screw drivers etc. You can get a good set in a nice suitcase style carrying case for not much money. The one I have now is a 154 piece set by Kobalt that I keep in the trunk at all times. Buy a good hammer (or two) to keep with it. Along with an impact wrench for sockets for stuff you can't get by hand and an inverter so you can power it from the car battery. Ditch the jack that came with the car and get a decent hand jack that doesn't take up much space. They sell a bunch that are pretty cheap and much better than the crap they give you when you buy the car.

Also learning how to solder and keeping a soldering iron or two with your tools is a good idea. Along with spare wire, electrical tape and leaded solder. I have two soldering irons one powered by AC/DC and another butane one powered by lighter fluid. They don't take up much room in the tool box and they come in handy often.

If you have room get a small air compressor so you can pump your tires back up in a pinch and don't have to ride the rim looking for a gas station with a working air compressor.

At home a decent work bench with a vice on it is always a good thing to have. Along with a grinder. I often times have to make tools by grinding down old wrenches to small sizes so they'll fit. Had to do that to pull a carb on a Kawasaki lawn mower engine just this week.

Also gauges. Always good to have gauges for checking air pressure and things like the current charge on your AC system. Pick them up as you need them. Keep an air gauge in your car at all times. Very helpful when you need to fill up a stranded motorist's tires because they were dumb and rode around at 5psi.

Buy a bunch of extra fuses and keep them in your car because eventually you're going to need one. Same goes for lights. Go ahead and buy spares for all your headlights and taillights. Gotten out of a few tickets because I could replace them quickly on the side of the road when I got stopped by the road pirates.

Same goes for oil and transmission fluid. Keep a quart or two in the trunk with the tools in case you ever need to top up. Spare air filter might be worth keeping around too but not as important.

Do the usual stuff and do it on time. Checking fluids, changing them, checking tires for wear, looking over everything a couple of times each season, greasing anything that requires it (CV joints, suspension etc). Speaking of that invest in a grease gun.

Hand wash the car bi-weekly so you see and touch everything. I've caught a lot of issues easy because my Dad taught me that when I was a kid.

If you car requires it invest in a OBD scanner. Saves a lot of headaches and you don't get ripped off by the shop.

If your state/area requires emission inspections establish friendship with the shop where you're taking it for that every year. I have mine done at the same place I buy tires. They will pass anything I bring in. Even if it requires hooking it up to another car. Since none of my post-1999 stuff is anywhere near legal.

In general if you do what you're supposed to be doing you'll catch major problems early or prevent them all together.

Just got called to substitute drive a really fast 604 late model tonight. Usual driver has stomach flu or something. $15,000 to win at my home track in a car that's not finished outside of the top 5 all year.

Wish me luck. Going to get paid $5k if I finish first and $1k if I finish top 5 because they need to finish that high to have a shot at winning season championship at the end of the month.

>>3941
Holy shit good luck anon

>>3945
>>3946
Thanks but I ended up not getting to race. They ended up pumping the usual driver full of imodium, fluids and something to keep him from puking long enough to qualify and do the heat race+main. He finished 4th I think. Not much of a surprise since they're basically riding around with a cheat code and have tons of money poured into their race team when most of the other guys that race barely have any. The prize money drew in a bunch of out of town people and two of them finished in the top 2.

I was looking forward to it but they called back around 6pm and told me not to bother coming. The regular driver was feeling better by then and they found out the rules had changed. The plan was to have him qualify and run the heat race. Then switch drivers for the 50 lap main event. That way he would have still gotten the points because he qualified the car for the main. But the rules forbid that for these big money races.

I also found out that my helmet is no longer legal because of rule changes. So another $300 I'd have to spend to get behind the wheel on top of what it'd already cost.

I'm considering running a few races next season but it's hard to justify investing all that money knowing full well that I can't be competitive because some of these guys are dropping $10k+ each weekend to win a race that only pays out $500. Tires and gasoline are so expensive now compared to just a few years ago. I should probably get rid of my old race car while I can still get some money back out of it before the rules change again.

They did say I'd be first on the list if they need a sub in the future and the guy is willing to buy anything I need like a new helmet. So maybe I'll get lucky and get to drive for free sometime soon.

>>3948
I'm still worried about the safety even if you aren't and don't care about the potential consequences yourself, but I still wish you the best of luck that those guys present you more opportunities in the future. Would be cool to get an update if it does happen.

>>3948
>Not much of a surprise since they're basically riding around with a cheat code and have tons of money poured into their race team
What advantages do they use the money for?

>>3951
Lots of things. Reserving the track for testing costs a lot of money most people don't have. That team reserves it all of the time for a full day to do testing. So they might have 200+ laps of testing a month compared to most teams that barely got 5 laps in practice. They can buy all the tires they want most teams try to limit it to 2-3 sets a weekend and the guys in the back might use the same set for an entire month.

In the 604 class they're supposed to be using sealed GM engines. But all the top teams crack them openly and illegally modify them. They pay big money for parts that look like the stock ones and can pass a visual inspection all day that give them a horse power advantage. This team in particular drops several thousand dollars just on valve springs for example. They also experiment with a lot of gasoline additives and can afford more barrels of race fuel.

The chassis they have is really advanced. Most teams buy a pre-built standard chassis this team fabricates their own. They have a lot of money in the suspension and I know they're using a set of springs that were deemed illegal two years ago but they aren't getting caught because they've figured out how to slip it through inspection. You can tell their car gets hooked up better in the corners than everyone else's just by how it runs. He's been going flat out through corners for the last few months where most everyone else has to lift at corner entry to set for the turn.

They're doing something with the air intake I haven't figured out yet to force more air into the engine which lets them run richer gas mix which equals probably 20+ more HP alone.

Everyone cheats. They just have more resources to cheat more.

To give you an idea of how illegal that car is. They sandbag every 3rd race because if they win 3 in a row anyone else can buy their engine for $300. When they get protested by other teams (happens every weekend) they have a whole kit for that now. They pack the engine in dry ice while it sits for the required 3 hours to cool off before inspection. That way it shrinks just enough to pass inspection. They've got some guy working for GM that sells them modified parts over the counter at the auto parts shop that are stamped with fake GM serial numbers.

They also have some kind of trick transmission set-up to pick up a few 10ths of a second.

I was really hoping to drive for them to get an idea of what they're doing. In the engine and drive train. I know what they're doing with the suspension for the most part because we were doing something similar. The guy building their engines is 78 years old and he keeps his secrets well hidden. Can't get any hints out of him. The guy loves the sealed engine rule because he's making even more money than he was when you could build an engine without restriction.

>>3952
>They also have some kind of trick transmission set-up to pick up a few 10ths of a second.

This probably isn't what they're doing but back before the sealed engine rule change we could change engines as often as we wanted. So the top teams were bringing at least 2 engines every weekend. One was only for qualifying and could only run for 3-4 laps tops before it would blow. You'd build really loose and tune it to run right at the limit. Well this team figured out they could do the same thing with the transmission.

The old man designed and fabricated a transmission that looked stock but it would fall apart on purpose when you shifted into high gear. All the gears would fall out and it would be direct drive to the rear end. You could pick up almost half a second sometimes depending on the track. They did that for awhile before they got caught because people started wondering why there was always debris on track after they ran their qualification laps.

Oh and soaking tires. We aren't supposed to soak tires but everyone does it and companies sell compounds for that openly. They're all banned but it requires sending samples off to a lab to prove it. Promoters and track owners don't have the money to police it. The local track tried to make a rule change where they'd supply tires and you had to buy them at the track. But most of the top teams said they'd go race somewhere else if they did that so it didn't happen.

These guys don't fuck around and will do anything to shave a tenth of a second or find a little extra HP. Most of the top teams add a shit load of benzene to their leaded race fuel now. If you get within a few hundred yards of the track you can smell it very strongly. It has a really sweet smell. They say if you can smell it then it's probably going to give you cancer. So they're giving everyone watching them race cancer lol.

These guys are super rich so they give no fucks about spending $100,000 to make $1,000. This team is owned by a guy that races in IMSA and builds his own cars for that. He has a $50,000 simulator to do iRacing now just to train for IMSA races. That way he can do testing on tracks he couldn't otherwise afford to reserve for a day. Well...he can afford it but he'd rather put that money into the car(s). He employees 20 people at his shop and they don't do anything but work/build race cars and travel with him for IMSA races at his crew.

Three of my friends work for him. One as a spotter and flash light girl and the other two are car/crew chief for the IMSA team. His late model team is comprised of a bunch of old guys that have been involved in the sport since long before I was born. His engine builder has been building engines for top teams for decades. Built engines for several GM NASCAR teams in the 70s-early 2000s. Rich guy pays him well and keeps him busy so no one else can use them for their own operation. The guy has more money in his go-karts than most people have in their passenger cars. He's got a pretty impressive collection of classic cars as well and he owns a couple of super cars too.

I finally got enough free time to replace my front brakes. It was a really, really straightforward job, except that the jack and stands I had gotten were too short, for some reason. I ended up having to stack blocks. That and the fact I was doing it outside after dark slowed me down. But the brakes feel great now, and I had fun! I'll open up the rear drums when I have better lifting gear and a full day.

>>3952
>>3953
Thanks for sharing. Somehow I never thought racing teams could get away with being that sketchy, but it's not surprising now that I hear it. It actually makes me really want to visit the local speedway again, cancer notwithstanding.

I'm definitely not anything close to a mechanic, but I've been watching this restoration series for over 2 years and it is a thing of art with the attention to detail shown.

Was driving this new off-the-line piece of shit van recently to move the last of my things out of storage. It's genuinely impressive that GM has resisted any sort of modernization for what's apparently a 29 year production run. It made me appreciate modern aerodynamics and safety systems like lane keep assist. There's an straight stretch of highway I drive on regularly and it's to the point that occasionally the driver awareness system kicks on and makes some noise and flashes a warning on the dash saying to take control of the steering wheel (which normally happens because it hasn't detected any steering torque and is meant to kick in due to drowsiness or medical emergencies, but in this case just happens because there's no need to move the steering wheel left or right because the road is so straight). Well, driving this van was a world of difference. The steering was extremely sloppy despite only having 8000 miles on it, wind would push the van around due to its abysmal aerodynamics, and the lack of any lane keep assist all contributed to the van to swaying back and forth within its lane and having horrible steering dynamics.

Genuinely a worse driving experience than driving my family's newish SUV trailering a 12 ft trailer.

4/10 would not recommend for daily driving. Bless the contractors who have to drive these dogshit things regularly

It didn't even have Bluetooth or USB for audio... It did, however, have a backup camera built into the rearview mirror which was neat, but not exactly impressive because backup cameras are required by law. In a truly monumental feat of resisting any updates not deemed strictly necessary, the camera view didn't have steering lines or distance indicators... Not having steering lines I can understand because being a piece of shit 90s design they refuse to update, I doubt there was any steer by wire system to detect the steering wheel position. But no distance indicators is pretty egregious. Even the most dodgy cheapskate backup camera systems from AliExpress at least have distance indicator lines.