how do you tell...

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 5:46 pm

... a work mate you've only known a few weeks that he's really wasting his money and making a horrible mess of his car by chavving up a Fiesta?

A early/mid 90s 1.8 diesel fiesta no less.

He's putting lexus lights on, underlighting, LED washers, big wing (well, this was whilst window shopping in a demon tweeks catalogue at breaktime anyhow*), 17 or 18" halfords alloys (goodbye handling!), crappy halfords racing seats etc... probably a badboy carbon fibre bonnet with vent holes, morrette style headlamps and big fogs.... triple-pod interior door handles etc, and an ICE install well into the 2 kilowatt range (as 160w all in is enough to be too loud much of the time, what kind of ear bleedage is that going to cause? given that he's already partially deaf from having worked in over-amped clubs and pubs a lot!)... chopping the springs... etc, etc...

Best of all he wants to chip it, but is dismayed that he's having trouble finding anyone that sells one for his car. My arguments that
1. You have about as much poke as my 1-litre, and the chip i've got was custom made by an enthusiast because the returns are too slight to justify mass production. For the love of pete turbo the thing at least - but make sure it can handle the damn thing before slapping it on! plus you'll probably need to change the gearbox..
2. you told me it's a non-turbo, non-injection diesel. therefore you have no spark plug timing to alter, and as its an old ford type engine without injectors your fuel supply is very likely mechanically controlled. therefore there is basically no chance you have an engine computer in the first place as there's nothing for it to control -- you'll have to have an injection conversion first
kind of fell on deaf ears or countered by "no, no, all modern cars have computers!"

hm. yes. right sherlock. so the petrol fiestas that stubbornly held on to carbs into the 90s had 'em too, right?

its similar to if i'd decided to completely GTI my own car, painful to watch/listen to how he thinks it's going to be the bomb..

each to their own of course, i'll let him waste his money and keep my opinion to myself as its not going to have any effect... just wish there was some way to wake him up --- theres a lot you could do with the 4 or 5 grand thats already earmarked for sinking into it.

*not a passing thing, he's been harping about it for a while, but a fair bit of extra stuff added on to the list when the catalogue was pulled out - sounded like a fairly benign doomed attempt to speed up a tractor-aimed diesel and add some extra speakers beforehand.

pettsy · Post by **pettsy** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 8:20 pm

good luck! thats all i can say

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 3:09 am

just found out that the nob drove home drunk last night after caning three turbo shandies and god knows what else. doesnt see anything wrong with it apparently and has been done before. prick.

heres to one fiesta around a tree, no casualties

CalvinGTI · Post by **CalvinGTI** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 10:20 am

thats a hard one mate, i had friends like that in the past, the best way is to be painfully truthful to them. Let him know that if he mods his car with cheap products and tacky items, you will not let him live it down.

Remind him that you get what you pay for and also remind him when his busy showing off his car to ppl, that they will see the non brand items and KNOW he has gone all Captain cheap.

He wont get any 'respect' off true modders once they see the cheapness of it all, and a BIG spoiler on a 1.8 Diesel ? maybe you should point out that it will probably cause more drag and SLOW him down rather than give him F1 Handling (haha)

All boils down to the old saying. . "If you cant afford to get the real deal, then dont bother . . . cheapness = tackyness.

Calâ„¢

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:00 am

precisely. problem is i hardly know the guy - and he's bigger than me.

still doesnt stop him being a prick, just means im more guarded in the opinion department. way of the world.

/coward

i think i'll just let him whack all that stuff on (including whatever box of smoke and feathers gets sold to him as a "chip upgrade") and then challenge him to a race as a send-off for the 1.0.... on stock suspension and 155 profile tyres/13 inch steelies... and whip his arse

Steve_O · Post by **Steve_O** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:06 am

Tahrey1043 wrote:... and whip his arse

Do you mean whip, or whoop??

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:17 am

just whip, lightly.

cmon its a 1.0 its going to be a hard fought battle even against 1.8D laden with unneccessary crap and performance/handling crippling wheels. one that i would win, but not exactly a can of whoopass

ie i'd intend to be a length or two ahead at the other end of the course.

Steve_O · Post by **Steve_O** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:25 am

Some guy at my uni used to drive the most awful sierra with a proper DIY paint job and some seriously bad blu-tacked on Halfrauds tat!! We were always saying we were gonna nick his spoiler, but in the end someone beat us to it!!

Also nicked his stick on air vents (the sort with no holes!!) and I believe his wheels, cos he used to clamp one of them, even tho they were s**t!! I think whoever did it were just making a point, but the stuff never got returned!!

Students eh?!!

*forgetting you can't swear on ukp's

Redline · Post by **Redline** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 1:03 pm

Tell him it'll be faster going the lightweight/stripped out route.

ie. dont spend thousands on buying stuff, just a couple of hours ripping everything surplus to requirements out of it.

Or, just tell him you can't polish a turd. And run, quickly.

CalvinGTI · Post by **CalvinGTI** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 2:44 pm

Redline wrote:Or, just tell him you can't polish a turd. And run, quickly.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

havent heard that saying in a LONG while. Totally true though, why bother spending money on a 'poo' car?

Tahrey1043, is this bloke more than likely to whop a few stickers on his car too ? If so maybe you should just let him go ahead and do his thing, when his finished take a picciue and send it into Jeremy Clarkson, he always likes a good laugh !

Calâ„¢

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:02 pm

if he does then i'll be making my own to quietly add to the bottom of whatever shopping list is created

or better, into any gap if he's a bit haphazard with the spacing

nip down the local vinyls emporium and spend a fiver.. or hell, do it with a bit of overhead projector perspex, a reversed template temporarily pinned to the back of it, a tippex pen and some clear (non-super) glue. see how long it takes him to notice an errant "Zanussi", "Alba" or "Tesco unleaded" (tesco value? smartprice??) "sticker"

oy vey i think i just thought of a great sunstrip/comedy vinyl/whatever for the nail

Tesco Value Car!

i cant really lay into him that much though, after all i'm doing the odd improvement (all hail my shiny silver door handles!

no, really!) to what is essentially a pretty poo car in performance/luxury terms... there's a bit of a difference between a box of miscellaneous shiny bits for a tenner off a forum, and five hundred quid on a set of racing seats for a car that can't generate enough cornering force to warrant them. i think it's called "scale"

mind you it still even wouldnt be so bad if he wasnt following the same tired, boring, style disaster chav formula down to the letter. if the coolest, most awesome badass diesel fiesta came out the other side then it would probably be worth a couple grand or more to spend for the rarity. but nowadays, ford, citroen, vauxhall and fiat may as well offer the mods he's slapping on (willy nilly with no sense of co-ordination or style) as sodding factory options!

Si_GTi · Post by **Si_GTi** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:40 pm

Quite simply if the guys gonna spend that kins of cash on modding a car up to his exacting standards, he really should consider starting from a better base car - I have 'nout against diesels, but its a 1.8 fezzy diesel - for the possible few grand of mods plus trade-in value he could have something much nicer!

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 11:10 pm

christ for the money he could probably get hold of a very nice 2nd hand turbodiesel somethingorother and the minor difference in insurance (...i suppose if he's going to drive pissed then he's not going to declare his mods either) can be recovered just by getting a slightly older one

say a Xantia or an Audi 80. Think there'd be enough of a smile on his face after that, that all thoughts of modding would at least temporarily disappear. Xantia TDi in 2nd & 3rd is awesome...

---Another reason i'd be trepidarious about challenging someones beliefs is the small bust up i had with my mum a couple days back. As a passenger, i suggested that after having pulled onto a 60 limit road without a quite so enormous gap, it would be a good idea to use some of the rorty 16v power she'd brandished earlier when hacked off about something... Rather than reaching 3rd and proceeding to pootle along at thirty bloody five as if no-one else was around.
With an angry looking focus flying towards our rear bumper and a truck not far behind him.
This was greeted with the gentlest of increases to 42 and a verbal barrage (including accusing me of acclerating "too hard" in such situations.. in a 1 litre??). Through which i calmly tried to make a point of: your defensive shell thing of "maybe im just better off living/riding/paiting the daffodils black on my own" doesnt work on the road, where you cant hardly move for other folk, and you need to show some consideration... any maneouver where you cause someone else to have to brake/swerve/etc is a BAD maneouver... this was shot down, hard, and if she was a physical type of argument settler rather than psychological scarrer, i would have expected a black eye swiftly following... As it was, my slowly maturing stutter simply got about 2% worse.
With some people, you just can't win---