Your biggest DIY screwups

zguynate

I have a few of these lol.

I had a turbo 04 Spec V Sentra that I installed myself. The turbo kit was my first attempt at any mod of any kind on a car lol. Every mod I have ever done to any of my cars is DIY.

When I first turbo'd the car, it ran terribly. I couldnt figure out what was wrong with it for about a week. The idle would surge really bad. I finally figured out that I installed the MAF tube backwards when putting the intercooler pipes in lol.

I removed the compressor housing on the turbo for some reason I dont remember. When I put it back on, I didnt tighten the bolts on the housing tight enough. After driving how ever many miles, I kept hearing this weird noise. Like if you were to cut a metal pipe with a skil saw. I popped the hood when I got to work and the compressor housing was cocked slightly due to there being 3 missing bolts to the housing. It damaged the compressor wheel a little bit. Boogered the blades just a tad. Said f it, tightened them back, got some new bolts, and drove it that way for a long while lol.

I decided that the oil return from where the kit developer put it in the oil pan was a pain to deal with when it came to maintenance (maintenance due to a design flaw) since it was so close to the DP, so I moved it. When I moved the line on the oil pan, I moved it to a spot that was below the resting level of the oil in the pan. Drove it very briefly and quickly blew the oil seals in the turbo. No one would rebuild it, not even Turbonetics, so I had to buy a new turbo. Doh! Precision SC61 though

Needless to say I learned a WHOLE lot when modding that car. I started when I was around 19 with 0/zero/zilch/nada knowledge to cars. I finished at 21 with a pretty good grasp of a broad spectrum of car knowledge. Some mistakes cost me a lot of money, some other minor ones werent near as bad. This is the reason I think that anyone who will be modding their cars should get a cheap car to start on so they can fudge things up, and ultimately learn from them like I did. Unfortunately this is the best way of learning lol. I didnt have any major mess ups modding my 350z, and so far havent had any with my 370z. My 370 is pretty unmolested at the moment but I hope mistakes stay non-existant lol.

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2009 370z touring w/sports package