Modding for Dummies

[Ringo64]

This is from Camaro5 but a lot of points can be brought to any car:

From Mindz at Camaro5: http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4794698&posted=1#post4794698

Hello, fellow customizers, modifiers, and aspiring personalizers!

Today we're going to discuss tips and tricks on how to make your car special without being called short-bus special. The following will be a series of posts designed to help you out with your build so you don't have to worry about being called a ricer or being the butt of anyone's jokes. If you follow these few easy steps, you can be on your way to a great ride.

1. Make a plan.

2. Pick your colors

3. Build around your theme

4. Finish everything you start

5. Overall tips/tricks for mods

So you’ve taken delivery of your Camaro and you want to start making it your own.

First things first.

Make a plan:

There are a few questions to consider with your theme

Do you want a race car, or a show car?

Do you want to go outrageous with a super aggressive body kit and spoiler?

Do you want to make subtle changes that enhance the cars body lines?

Do you want big wheels that fit the wheel wells, or do you want the smallest wheels and the biggest tires you can get?

Do you want suede interior? Better yet, can you keep it clean and free of crumbs and coffee from starbucks?

Do you want lots of lights/strobes/neons shining or a blacked out/murdered out look?

Do you want to slam the car, or donk it out?

Pick your colors:

People have differing opinions on colors, but a majority tend to stick to 2, maybe 3 colors for their car. Anymore and it begins to become too cluttered/busy, or the paint scheme becomes a rainbow mishmash of things with one exception.

Lowrider paint schemes and wraps are the exception and are usually two or less colors, or 10+ with no real lines to them, but an intricate weaving of shapes and pinstripes.

Then there are cars with one color paint, a second color for the accents and interior, a third color for a roll cage, fourth colored seatbelt harnesses, and even a fifth color for the interior stitching. This implies that you are a jumble of ideas with no real direction, or you bought things on impulse and didn’t care what color they were. The latter can also be said of riced out Integras that are second different colors (hood, trunk, body kit, fenders and doors are all different colors).

Also, remember that carbon fiber is a color too. Make sure you do not mix carbon fiber, 3m carbon fiber vinyl wrap material and/or hydrodipped plastic pieces as they don’t look alike and clash severely. Stick with one only.

So a good rule of thumb is to pick one or two colors as black is the third color (grill, valence) to round out your cars theme.

Build around your theme.

If you’re making a race car, don’t put big wheels on it as well as subwoofers which will add weight. Also, a big wing is for race cars only, as is the splitter with support rods.

If you’re putting on an aggressive hood with lots of vents/scoops, and a front bumper, make sure you have side skirts and a rear bumper/valence/spoiler to match.

If the mod sticks on, don’t overdo it. You don’t want your car looking like you went through an Autozone drive through.

Stretched tires are for imports and have no place on muscle cars. If you try to take your performance car around a turn at any sort of speed, you will most likely break the bead on your tire and separate tire from wheel.

Lambo doors are great if done right and with the right complimentary mods.

Finish everything you start:

Basically, pick a direction and follow them.

If you are planning to show your car, don’t put on a ZL1 bumper and leave the bezel for the foglights off, showing off the holes where the tabs are supposed to go into. Fill them in at the very least.

If you want stretched tires, lower your car as low as it will go, presumably on bags and then get a very extreme body kit to fit in with the imports. Make sure you have the right camber for your new vip stance.

Overall tips/tricks for your mods

Don’t go too wide or too narrow on your tires. Make sure your tire fits the wheel the way it was built to. 315’s on a 9” rim is NOT the correct fit, nor is a 285 on an 11” wide wheel.

If you’re going to build a high hp engine, make sure you build up the rest of the drivetrain/suspension to match at the same time. Your car will break it’s weakest link when something goes. If you have sticky tires, your weakest link becomes the axles. Get better axles and then it becomes the differential, drive shaft or output shaft of your transmission, etc.

Sometimes, less is more. Changing things like adding just gills, or just wheels, or just lowering the car can change the look of the car dramatically. On the other hand if you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly.

Although it is a double standard, the general public believes that putting SS badges on a v6 is rice, but putting RS/LT badges on an SS makes it a sleeper.

Make it professional. Interior lighting is great, but don’t leave wires hanging out. Tuck them away so it doesn’t look half-assed.

Intake, cat-back and axle-back exhaust is only really for sound, until you get about 500 rwhp. A big cam or a supercharger will actually perform better with a 3” mandrel bent exhaust.

Most of all, make sure the car is what you want it to be. If you ask for opinions, you’ll get every answer on the spectrum. Some people will have a similar vision as you, while other people may answer based on their own dream car and not yours.

[becksmerc]

^this