EDIT: not sure why this posted as a reply to Sillyducky…
TEAM: Clutch Droppers
A bunch of friends starting college in the fall that want one last hoorah before they split up to different colleges. (The following RP is based on true events. Names, places, and events have been altered to protect the identity of those involved CSI dun dun sound)
Ryan - Early 20’s, software developer, and hobbiest mechanic. He enjoys the outdoors and spent most of his life in the Boy Scouts. He is pretty handy with most anything mechanical or involving rope or fire, but he is piss poor at following written instructions without constant intervention due to his ADHD. Must have a constant supply of water and beef jerky to survive. Currently drives a 1992 Jeep he restored and lifted, manual of course.
Jason - 19 (his birthday and early schooling makes him stupid young), mechanical engineer, and almost completely inept with vehicles. He knows the basic bits of a car, but no clue how to diagnose or fix anything on a car, included simple things like light bulbs. He just takes his car in for service for everything. However, he can follow instructions really well, so he can help as long as you tell him what to do… step by step. Will die without a Mountain Dew every 8 hours. Drives a beat-to-hell Chrysler.
Bob - “me, for this challenge”. Mid 20’s, network engineer, hobbiest mechanic, and all around handy-man. If it is mechanical or electrical, he can fix it… given enough time and the internet. Although a bit fat and out of shape, Bob is as comfortable squeezing under a jacked up car to replace an alternator as he is sitting in front of a computer for 20 hours straight. Must have food and a bathroom break roughly every 5 hours. Currently drives a 2004 Volvo that has had nearly every servicable part replaced by Bob, but its Automatic because Bob destroys clutches.
After hearing about this challenge they decided to pool their money and join in on the fun before they all split up for college. After scouring the classifieds they found the following car for sale within a reasonable distance:
They decided to head over to the guy’s house to give the car a once-over and try to haggle the price down to about $500.
After pulling up at the dude’s house it was clear this was not just a car guy (I mean, look at all those cars in his driveway), but this was some stupid “racer” kid. This meant haggling the price down should be easy! While Bob was talking with the kid about the car’s history, Ryan was under the car checking for leaks, rust, damage, etc., and Jason was checking out the interior of the car.
Bob - Talking with the kid revealed both a lot of information… and very little at the same time. He had bought the car about 3 years ago from an old lady with about 310,000 miles on it and it was in pretty good condition. Now, this kid is a self-proclaimed “racer” and mechanic, he told me that he drove the car hard for the first few months to see how it still performed after all these years and miles. He decided to visit the junkyard to transplant a turbo into this car to give it some pep. Its a fairly lightweight car and adding some more power to it would make it fun, he said. in the process of installing the turbo he messed up the fog lights, they now turn on and off with the turn signals. He also said he had a few minor bumps in the front and rear, but only it only caused cosmetic issues. To cover up the dented and scrapped bumpers he decided to spray paint the whole thing in matte camo-green (because kids have trash taste). Additionally, when installing the turbo he had to swap out the exhaust with one from another car, making the car louder, as well as swapping in a performance intake to make room for the intercooler and turbo piping. Outside of the work he had done on the car, he really did not know anything out the previous 310,000 miles the thing had driven. All of this info was making it easier and easier for me to haggle the price down.
I turned back to Ryan and Jason to see what they had to say about the car.
Jason - The interior looks pretty good… but only in the back. Honestly, I don’t think anyone has ever sat in the back of this car… but the driver’s seat is worn down to almost nothing. The interior plastics have become discolored and there is a mystery stain in the trunk. Most of the internal lights seem to be out, but that should be easy to fix? The guages all work, but there is a guage I have never seen that says “boost” on it. Do you know what that is about? Anyway, I can’t see anything completely off about it… its about as nice on the inside as my crappy car.
Ryan - Where to start… the shocks are blown, the engine and turbo are leaking oil, the battery voltage is low, it should be replaced soon, I am going to assume the engine is also burning some oil based on the smell of the exhaust and the car’s age. The rear drum brakes definitely need adjusted and probably replaced, the A/C belt is missing, and the thing is painted in the most unholy of all paints… matte. These wheels are definitely not standard at 17" with sport compound tires, but aside from being some sort of really cheap rim, the paint is coming off, they look alright to drive on. O yeah, and the bumpers are from a completely different car… I assume to hide the fact that the front and rear bumper rails are smashed pretty good.
Bob - Turning back to the kid with a wide smile, I went about haggling the price down based on all these problems that he tried to gloss over and minimize in his ad. After a few minutes arguing over the car’s current condition and the work and money he had put into the car, he caved, admitting he really needed the money to enter some race coming up with one of his other cars. (just looking at the cars he had and their condition, I figured he was bound to loose, but whatever makes you happy). We settled on $500 and were ready to join the challenge. As we drove away with our new car we decided to take it into a local shop to get the car checked out to see how bad off it really was.
Bob - Driving off from the kid’s house it was immediately apparent that the car had some serious power for what it was. Normally with a cheap little eco-box from the 90’s you could not spin the wheels no matter how hard you hammered the gas, but this thing could do a burnout up to 60kmh, not bad. Before meeting my comrades at the tire shop I had to jump on the freeway to see what this thing could do. Hammering up the on-ramp the wheels squeeled a bit, but those sports tires definitely gave it some much needed grip at lower speeds. The The turbo kicked in pretty low at about 2400 rpm, ramping up the power hard until about 3200 rpm. The automatic tranny was showing its age however, taking almost a full second to switch from 2nd to 3rd and hesitating to downshift when punching the gas pedal in 4th. Flooring it along a straight section of freeway with almost no traffic, I was able to push the car to about 120mph, but it was still SLOWLY gaining speed. I can’t wait to put this thing on a dyno.
Pulling into the shop I got a lot of grossed-out faces from the mechanics at the styling and color of the car, but for $500, I was fully on-board with this little beater. While the staff rolled car onto the dyno I discussed my little test drive with Jason and Ryan, both seemed pretty impressed at what we got out hands on for the money.
After the dyno run finished we took a look at the results. About 253 NM of torque @ 3200 rpm and 189 hp @ 6100 rpm sounded fantastic for this little inline 4, maybe swapping in a turbo was just what it needed. Additionally, we now knew that the car did 0-100 kmh in 7s flat… it was time to research this car a bit further. Looking up the factory specs for the car online showed us that the engine originally only made 180 nm @ 3400 rpm, 133 hp @ 6200 rpm, and did 0-100 kmh in a staggeringly slow 9.2s. Even Ryan, a naturally aspirated purist, admitted those were some great gains, just from a slapped on turbo.
After going over the car with a fine comb at the shop, we came up with a list of all the problems with the car:
Rust… everywhere
Damaged front and rear bumper rails
Mismatched bumpers
Turbo and engine leak oil
Engine burns oil
Windshield wipers always on - pulled the fuse for now to stop them
Fog lights activate with turn signals
Blown shocks
Cheap after-market rims
MATTE PAINT!!!
Battery and rear drum brakes need replaced
Interior is heavily worn… but only in the front
Hood and trunk gas-pistons (for opening and holding them open) are completely blown
End-links need replaced
A/C needs a belt
I can imagine, now I’m imagining what if Sean Connery were playing a Jewish man instead of Irish
