Backyard Build - 4 Important Factors To Consider When Building A Car Engine From Scratch
Whether you’re building a car engine for the sheer enjoyment of it, testing your DIY skills, or fixing something as a way to bond with your son or daughter, building a car engine from scratch is a big job. In fact, it is downright misleading from the onset, appearing to be fairly straightforward – after all, you’re just assembling pieces, right? Those who’ve had any experience with the process, however, will know how insanely complicated it can get. Here are four important factors to consider when building a car engine from scratch.
- Invest In Quality Parts
The last thing you want is a blow off valve that can’t handle the pressure or the engine mounting or seizing because of a loose screw. You must ensure you have quality parts for your engine and also quality tools that can tighten, loosen, reach, and grip without causing you to strain yourself.
- Fast Is Never Cheap
If you’re building a hobby car for joy rides and squealing tires, you’ll want that turbo boost. Just be warned – it’s not cheap. The faster you want your hobby car to be, the more you’re going to pay. Turbo is easily boosted with a simple setting, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous. Not just for the driver, but for the car and your budget. Many a home mechanic has had to go through multiple engine replacements after succumbing to temptation and boosting the turbo beyond what the engine could handle. If you do foresee this being a challenge for you, invest in the right car parts – like a bigger intercooler and better ignition control – to allow your engine to stomach a staunch turbo boost.
- Have A Daily Runner That’s Not A Hobby Build
Have you ever tried to cook a delicious meal from an adventurous cookbook, only to end up ordering pizza because it didn’t turn out as you expected? It’s happened to the best of us. Apply the same back-up principles to your DIY car building experiments. Have a daily runner that you use for your everyday commutes, and save the hobby car for special outings. The truth is, your hobby build is going to spend a considerable amount of time disassembled. You don’t want to be rushing the job of remounting the engine because you need to buy groceries.
- Bag And Label Each Part When You Strip It
Do you love solving complex riddles? How about building the impossible jigsaw puzzle – minus the picture to guide you? Even the most avid fan would struggle to maintain a cool temperament when there’s a car that’s good and ready to hit the road if only you could remember which bit goes where. The hack? As you disassemble parts, bag them and label them. It can be as simple as a sticker label or even a scribble. The only person who needs to understand what you wrote is you. Just be sure you know how to name the parts correctly!
It Will Cost More Than You Planned And Take Longer Than You Thought
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everything went smoothly (as planned) and came out on-budget? It doesn’t matter how carefully you plan a backyard build – it never goes to schedule in terms of cost or time. That’s okay. In fact, it’s part of the joy. Any keen driver will appreciate the unpredictability of a new road, even this proverbial one. Embrace the unexpected, and keep your checkbook handy.