Reading some other threads, I started thinking about this. No one likes spending the money twice and people forget that mods are application specific. My car is a dally driver. I used to put 20,000 miles per year on it. Now its around 10,000. I spend a lot of time in the car. I like drag racing and so my car will occasionally go to the track. But not a lot. I'm not interested in the twisties and while I don't really push the corners hard. People also have different tolerance levels to things. What one hates another loves.
This thread isn't meant to become an argument over what's good and what's not. That's relative to the individual. But what mod have you disliked to a point of replacing it?
Mods that I regret:
.....1. The Original Flowmaster 40s. The drone killed my ears going down the interstate. I tolerated it for two years then had them cut out and Magnaflows welded in. I like my commute to work much better now.
.....2. UPR ProSeries UCA/LCAs with Spherical bushings. Great control arms but the NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) was more than I expected. It's OK at 55-60 but really irrates me at interstate speeds and the rear end of the car (trunk lid I think) creaks and groans going over bumps in town. I shouldn't have gotten the metal on metal bushings but should have gone with poly LCAs. I'm seriously looking at the CHE LCAs. I also should have left the stock rubber bushings in the differential instead of putting in metal spherical one. Its going to cost around $400 to undo what I have done.
Mod where I believe I wasted money:
.....1. Long-tube headers and catted x-pipe. About $1,000 for parts and a couple of hundred to have them installed. Saw absolutely no gain on the dyno (but they were different dynos). Others have see a 10 rwhp/rwtq gain throughout the power ranges. I believe that a simple off-road mid-pipe would have posted the same gains.
1) rebuilding my rear end and not spending 600 dollars extra on 31 spline stuff. (I didn't know what the difference was.)
2) buying a spec stage 3. It's way way way too aggressive for daily driving. It chatters like no body can believe at low speeds, It's too grippy at times and it always seems pissed off. I don't have the mods to justify the needs for a stage 3. I only bought it becuase i figured I'd go SC some day and need it. It was a bad choice.
Is this the first car most of you guys have really modded? I had Civic (not as bad as you may think) that I built over the years and learned most of the lessons most of you guys are going through.
I don't really regret anything I've done to the mustang so far (besides not getting different center caps when I put the wheels on). The only thing i've regretted was not getting the actual exhaust I wanted and found a cheap used MAC on ebay.
After fighting the terrible fitment and misaligned tips for the past year I just swapped to a new magnapack and couldn't be more satisfied.
I regret getting a convertible, and triple black I mean it's great and all during the spring and fall...but summer its top up unless nighttime and winter you can't take it through a car wash without getting water in your interior...and with triple black the car stays pretty for about three days (ungaraged).
Ok maybe I don't regret a vert THAT much, but damn I want a hard top bright atlantic blue GT soooo bad!
I guess that grass is always greener on the other side...
Honestly man... we have the same car it appears minus a few tweaks here and there mods/wheel wise of course lol... but as much as it is a pain to keep it clean IMO triple black is the only way to go for a new edge vert.
I hear ya on the coupes though... trust me! I actually wanted a cobra or mach1 coupe or something but when I saw this GT completely unmolested with 50k on the odometer I snatched it up! lol...
4.10 gears. I get 13.83 mpg average with 95% city driving. Maybe if I didn't drive my car as much I wouldn't mind the 4.10's.
Rear seat removal. I should have left the rear seats intact. I still have them in my garage and can put them back in, but I rarely ever have time because I'm always at work, and when I'm not, I'm relaxing, like right now.
I regret not being richer so I could keep playing with different mods and cars, boats, motorcycles and trucks without worrying that I'm pissing the money away. Yeah I know, we do it because we enjoy it, but damn, when you slow down and think about the money we toss into these things that we'll never get back, it takes some of the fun out of it when you're on a budget. But then I go to the track and the big grin comes on my face and my pulse rises and then it's like "wow, I want to go faster.......what should I do next?"
when you die your money doesn't follow. I don't regret anything i've done to my mustang, everything I did was a learning experience. Hell just working on her or finding reasons to work on her is enjoyable. I even look forward to changing the oil . I blew up my first motor with nitrous and I laughed, if you can laugh about it its cause your having fun and thats all that matters. It's all about finding a balance between paying bills, keeping the wife happy and having a mustang fund ...which seems to be a little dry at the moment.
It helps alot when the stang isn't your daily driver, but every time i drive it i can't help to have a **** eating grin from ear to ear.
So far the regrets that I have are not going to 4.30s when I did the gears, I did 4.10s and another was solid motor mounts that I just replaced back with stockers
Ahh... my old 426 wedge had the intake replaced to rmake it more streetable and it ran an 850 dual line Holley, it had dual point Mallory ignition (most everyone will not know what that is), and headers that dumped straight back (the actual exhaust came off the side of the headers so I could open them without any blockage.) I ran a Hurst shifter (as I do now) and the damn thing was fast. During all my street races (We had a track painted on a rarely used highway) with it I lost only one... It was to a non-stock 396/375 Chevelle SS. He got me out of the hole by 1/2 car and I couldn't make it up. He was running tires that I had never seen before... wide ovals.
Hmmm...mine has to be cutting a 5" piece of trans tunnel out so my T-45 shifter could come up through into the car. All that just to find out the trans was garbage and go with a TR-3650 that had a remote mount shifter already and didn't require said hole....
Oh well, one trip to home depot and 1 piece of sheet metal later...:yes
I don't regret any of the mods (yet). I DO regret letting the local "performance" shop install my MM PHB. Dumb bastards shimmed the frame bracket wrong and didn't even get it tight to the frame rail. My Bassani exhaust rattles on it like a set of maraccas. Would have been better off installing it myself.
Mac CIA: Didn't do anything for performance and threw lean codes, sold it and put the stocker back on.
Eibach 1.5in Lowering Springs: Looked good but could not get the car aligned without CC plates, even though everyone said I would not need them with only a 1.5in drop....they were wrong. I hit everything and bottomed out all the time.
These mods aren't really regrets b/c I did learn from them, however they're no longer on my car:
CAI, UDP's, 70MM TB <----all were removed for blower
Roush front sway bar - made the car seem like it handled better because of practically absolutely no roll, but once I realized how it affected the balance of the car, the understeer was horrible.
I do regret:
not doing FLSFC's/PHB as first suspension mod
not doing gears, stall, and shift kit first
eibach pro-kit instead of going straight to CO's to start off with up front
not buying a spare set of rims and dedicated racing tires to autox with when I first started.
BBK catted x-pipe was a waste. I had an exhaust shop cut out the cats and re work the piping to tuck it up underneath the car better. MY SFC's sit lower than my exhaust piping now.
So far, I have no regrets with my new motor. I am very glad I decided to go that route vs. trading the car in for something newer.
Those life mods can sometimes be difficult to take. Made of few of those but getting married wasn't one of them. I guess I got lucky. In a few months my wife and I will be married 37 years.
I was thiniking that as many cars as you have worked on surely you've seen some mods that didn't really work out.
only one mod I regret, Pypes mid pipe. I have no problem with the mid pipe itself, it didn't really have the best fitment, but it was cheap so it wasn't that big of a deal. What ended up happening though was the guy that tucked the exhaust up against the car (pypes sat low) just straight welded it to the rest of the exhaust making about everything else a pain in the ass to work on. Doing rear control arms with the exhaust in the way was a real sob, and I ended up having to cut up the exhaust to get it out to replace a bad throw out bearing. That right there really pissed me off, now my car is too loud inside and I hate driving it.
Don't let anyone straight weld your exhaust, no gain in having one giant piece of exhaust.
I'm Mike. And welcome to public conversation, it's not limited to just two people. If you want it to be that way, take it to private messaging.
Trailered car? Yeah....right.
No, you're not the only one. And yes, y'all are retarded.
Hate to break it to you, but maturity has nothing to do with age. I meet a lot of 40+ year olds that are insanely immature - and a few 20 somethings that aren't.
Trailered car would be the RIGHT way to do it, wouldn't it? Or have I been mislead by those that informed me that my ways are retarded and their ways are correct? After all, what do I know, I'm an idiot
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