Originally Posted by
wrc7732
As nice as it would be to just drop it off with someone and say "here you go, fix it", I'm afraid that is missing the whole point of the exercise. If we wanted to do that we could've just dropped $6000 on a trilogy kit and paid someone an arm and a leg to install it. As it stands today we're looking at $4,000 in parts and $500 to get it tuned once it's up and running like it should. We chose this route for multiple reasons. Cost is obviously one of them. It's a challenge to make it work on your own without all the custom (said expensive) parts that make so that everything bolts right up, and we like to work on our own cars. There's a snse of pride that you have when you can say that I did it myself, and I didn't have to take it to someone who did it for me. That's why there's so many folks around these days, stuck between a rock and a hard place because they need things done, can't afford to pay someone (without putting it on a credit card), and don't know how to do it or figure out how to do it by themselves.
I very much appreciate all of your suggestions, posts, comments, links, advice, etc. And that's why I love these sites. It's a place where we car nuts can join forces and take down one crazy car project at a time. If I'm still on here 2 weeks from now posting problem #20 then so be it, and if no one wants to help anymore then so be it. But I'll figure it out. I always do, eventually. And it's always a learning experience. Sometimes it ends up costing more in time or broken stuff than it would've to done to have taken it somewhere, but at the end of the day it was my accomplishment, my blood sweat and tears, that got the job done. And that's something that I am always proud of.
I'll admit that this is probably one of the more challenging projects that I've taken on, mainly because of all the computer stuff, sensors, etc. But she fired first time and that's a lot more than I can say for some of the less complex tasks I have taken on.
Sorry for jumping up on the soap box. It's just that everytime I post anything these days, with my newly acquired Cobra especially, everyone says that I need to take it to a shop and have them look at it. First off, I don't have the kind of funds to lay down $100+ an hour to throw it on a dyno and check the tune every 5 minutes, and I can't imagine that many people really do. Secondly this is my hobby. It's what I enjoy. If I wanted to drop it off at the shop everytime something went wrong, I'd have to get a 2nd boring job just to pay for it. And that wouldn't be any fun at all.
Thanks again for all of your help. I'll be sure to post up some pictures and some numbers as soon as I get her tuned/cleaned up, and we can all be happy knowing that it was just a regular jo and family (MM.net folks included here) that made it all happen. And we can all be proud together.
Well that's my .02 cents. I'm sure something else will come up, so I'll talk to you all again soon.
Will