Related but separate from the issue of deciding whether a car is appropriate for its intended purpose(s) is deciding how far you are willing to go to meet your goals, and which areas you want the car to excel in versus those areas in which it need only be passable.
Set realistic expectations for the scope of the project, and then set a realistic time frame and budget for accomplishing those goals. Of course, in your heart of hearts, you would like the wonder car that does everything well and always looks perfect, but for most people, it is a matter of picking the categories in which it is most important for the car to excel, and then setting a timeline and a budget for meeting those objectives. Trying to do it all is the most certain way to either disillusionment or disappointment.
All too often, when talking to a first-time modder, I hear enthusiasm without a lot of direction. For example, typical first-time modder Joe Schmoe has a 1993 Honda Prelude, and I ask what his plans are for his car. The first answer, of course, is generally, “I want to make it fast!” How fast is usually defined as faster than a buddy’s car who drives X, Y, or Z. Or perhaps a quarter-mile time is what Joe is after, “Fast enough to hit 12s!” Fair enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting a fast car, and building a car for speed is one of the oldest American pastimes since the hot rodding days. “But I also want it to handle,” the Prelude owner says next. So now I’m thinking that Joe is going to need to do a bit of planning to balance out the time and money he will spend working on the motor with an equal if not greater amount of care in choosing his sus- pension components, wheels, and tires. Then Joe adds, “Oh, and it’s got to look good, because I want it to be a show car, too.” So now Joe has a very fast Prelude that handles well and still looks pristine for car shows — meaning that it will need a flawless trick paint job, some tasteful body mods, and a pristine engine bay. “But it’s also my daily driver, so it’s got to have a bumping sound system.” Okay, so this very fast car that handles great and looks pristine is also going to take its proud owner to and from work or school year round, all while weighed down with a huge stereo system. Of course, the end result is going to be a very compromised car that can hope to do well in none of the categories to which it aspires, even with barrels upon barrels of cash thrown at it.
The problem with Joe’s Prelude is that, while it could have done any one of these things very well, and could arguably have excelled in two or even three of the categories, trying to do it all ensures that it will fail in everything the owner set out to do with it. If the goal was to go fast, then a tremendous amount of money spent on engine mods would be the call of the day, and even the suspension would best be set up to provide consistent launches on this front-wheel drive platform. Certainly, extra body kit components, a fancy paint job, and heavy subwoofers would do this car no favors at the drag strip. On the other hand, if it was to be used at shows, that same body kit and paint job, not to mention the gleaming engine compartment, would soon become compromised as the car began to be used for driving all over town to and from work or school. In fact, even the act of building the motor for all-out straight-line speed down the quarter mile, if not done with careful attention to the car’s power curve, could very well ensure that its cornering abilities, even compared to a stock Prelude, suffered greatly. This is without factoring in the added weight of the stereo and body kit add-ons, or the level of paranoia with which the owner would have to drive to avoid chips on the paint job or cracks in the fiberglass aero components.
