If you've been watching out latest build on our a red Daihatsu Cuore (SEE LATEST EPISODE HERE)  then you'll have watched us spin spanners in the OG driveway, and do things on a real budget level. 

Here are some of the top ways you can save big bucks when building a cool car...

RESTORE, DON'T REPLACE

What's cheaper than buying a brand new part? Tidying up the tatty, but still completely serviceable part on your current car that you already own! 

Our Cuore has spent decades sitting outside so not only is the red paint all faded, but all the black trims and parts like the wiper arms have faded under the harsh Aussie sun. While we had the luxury of being able to sand-blast these parts, we could have used three different sheets of sandpaper (which is dirt-cheap to buy by the sheet at hardware stores) to sand the surface rust off, before using some cheap epoxy primer, and then a neat satin black paint to top-coat them and have them looking new. 

Similarly all the black trims on the car can simply be rejuvinated using plastic trim restorer dye. This can extend to working on carpets, where you might want your blue, brown, or grey carpet and door trims to be a nicer shade of black - you can give them a deep, thorough clean and then use trim dye rather than buying or retrimming all those parts!

SPEND TIME, NOT MONEY

The biggest way to save money on your build is to spend another important currency: your time. The easiest way to build a car is to ship it off to a professional shop and have then do it all for you, but that's a great way to spend tens of thousands of dollars (at the cheapest), so roll up your sleeves and get ready to do all the work yourself. 

At night or when the money is running low, spend your time looking for parts you know you need and hunt as widely as possible. Don't just rely on the top search on Google - look on Marketplace and websites where second-hand parts are listed (Gumtree in Australia is a brilliant, oft-forgotten resource) and don't buy the first one you see. Search for the bargains, save good examples and come back to them when you've exhausted all the options.

GET THE CLEANING EQUIPMENT OUT

On the back of the bargain hunt, quite often people will overlook parts that are dirty, stained, a bit rusty or crusty, simply because they're not shiny and new and ready to fit. If you hunt around you can find second-hand bargains that just need a good clean up. 

A great example of this is with seats. There are often bargain seats online that need a good shampoo clean with a proper trim cleaner, then a run past with a steam vacuum (like our maaad Ryobi above). Minor tears in the cloth or leather can then be taped up with heavy duty fabric tape (like duct tape), and a seat cover thrown on top to provide you upgraded seating that's clean and ready to use, but at a fraction of the cost of buying brand new seats. 

DON'T OVER-SPEC YOUR BUILD

Future-proofing for more mods is all well and good but, when building on a budget, try to keep a tight lid on the parts you buy. If you're building a basic street car (like the nuggets we are) you don't REALLY need to spend big biccies on semi-slick tyres, or remote-damper coilover suspension when there are far more budget-friendly options. 

It's all too easy to convince yourself that "while I'm in here I should do/buy..." but unless it's critical to the car's reliability or making it work, don't go down that path. We could have fitted a way higher-spec ECU to the Cuore but the car doesn't really need all that extra cost or complexity, and we're building this car as a simple street car for us to enjoy - if you're not building your car to win races or "break the internet" then do you need all the super-expensive mods? 

FOCUS ON RELIABILITY FIRST

Nothing will burn through your budget quicker than a car that is always breaking parts, especially for silly reasons. Spend the time to ensure the car works properly by doing things like servicing it - fresh fluids, spark plugs, double-check the timing belt (or chain) and all the belts and idlers.

Is the clutch good? Are there any sensors, vacuum hoses, or cooling system parts which need to be replaced? Can you see oil leaks that need to be taken care of - do them first before you start making the car maaad, because once you're in the thick of the build it'll be easy to get carried away with spending all your meagre money on cool stuff rather than sensible stuff. 

But, you know what's cooler than a broken car sitting in a garage? A working car you can drive with your friends and do cool stuff with.  

KEEP THE BUILD SENSIBLE 

Here is the biggest tip. It's great to have big dreams, but if you're trying to build a car then you need to be realistic about what you can achieve on your budget. Everyone's idea of a "budget build" is different, and everyone's goals for their cars are different, but it's vital you keep a lid on the daydreaming and focus on your sensible end goal for the car. 

This will keep your motivation up, will help you continue to make progress on the project, and will let you actually get to enjoy reaching your goals... which should be to drive the car and enjoy it. Spend the time researching how others may have done budget builds in the style you're thining of so you can get a bit of an idea about whether you can afford the project you want to do, or whather you need more experience, money, tools, or a place to actually do it, before you buy any parts or cars. 

All too often people sell unfinished projects because they got carried away and let what began as a sensible project roll completely out of control - or they didn't sit down and work out if they could actually finish the project they initially set out to do. 

It's better to be a bit humble at the start, and approach your project with humility rather than getting cocky, wading into a wildly difficult project and having to scrap it or fire-sale it off. Most of all: consider whether your project will be fun to build, and fun to own.

Because that should always be the end goal.  

Working outdoors can certainly be a great adventure. From fixing cars on driveways, pulling down parts cars in a backyard, or doing a remote rescue of a new project from a field or forest, we shouldn't ever look past an opportunity to spend some quality time outside in the sunshine and using our brains. 

But, over nearly 30 years of working on cars, I've gained some hard-won knowledge from doing plenty of builds outdoors. So, here are my top 5 tips on how to work on cars outside. 

GET RID OF HAZARDS

This is an easy one to start off, but a big one. No matter where you're working you need to watch out for hazards. Before you jack the car up, do a site recce to see what you'll be dealing with, and if you can make the place you're working any safer.

The big one is to watch your proximity to passing traffic if you're on the side of a road or next to a driveway. I had to pull an engine on a suburban side street once, and this taught me a lot about the danger of passing traffic as cars cut way too close to me as I leaned over the front guards (fenders) to access bolts and wiring - even with the car half on the verge!

Keep in mind sight-lines for drivers if you have to lay under the car - can drivers see your legs sticking out, or see the car while they're navigating where they're going? Is the car on a bend, or are there trees and shrubs blocking the view of it?

The same can be said for farms and properties where machinery or animals might be moving past you. This actually happened to me while helping a friend rescue a 1960s Holden from a paddock with a very unamused bull - there was nowhere else to put the bull so we had to just keep an eye out for it as it moved around. 

Are there likely to be snakes, spiders, wild animals or stinging/poisonous insects (highly likely in Australia)? Are you in magpie season or working on a hot day where snakes might be active?

You'll need to sort the animals out before you start unloading tools, and - even away from a road - the area you're in can be just as dangerous. Is the ground firm enough to support a jack and stands securely? Are there tree roots you might trip over? Sand, loose rocks or wet ground can all provide pretty substantial hazards when you're trying to work on a car.

Working in dry riverbeds can be scenic but deadly with the risk of flash-flooding (which can occur a long way off and travel rapidly). Will you have light to work through the night, or power to charge tools, or will you have to pack up before it gets dark (so you're not tripping over trying to find tools)?   

If you can't make the workspace safer, you'll need to work out how to move the car somewhere that is safe to work on a car. This may be getting it trucked or trailered to a better location, or flat-towed or pushed behind a car or 4x4 to a better spot.  

KEEP YOUR TOOLS ORGANISED AND TIDY

Often you'll have to carry a selection of tools to the place you're working on the car, so try to be prepared ahead of time (as much as you can). First up, charge all your batteries, grab some lights, a jack and stands, and then work out what hand tools you're likely to need, outside of a good socket set, spanner roll, a breaker bar, pliers, side-cutters, torches, and anything else general mechanical work can require (picks, some rags, lubricating sprays, etc). 

In particular think hard (or use Google) to work out what types and sizes of tools you'll need for any specific jobs you know you have to do. Having a workshop manual (or a charged-up laptop with internet access in metro areas) will also allow you to quickly work out how to complete the task you're stuck on.  

If you're pulling an engine do you have space to swing a crane in? Will you be having to roll it on gravel or dirt (which is next to impossible) but, more importantly, can you and any helpers fit all this stuff in your car and load/unload it on your own?  

Once you're working, keeping tools tidy is the best way to avoid losing them. I typically keep tools a few metres away from the job, but somewhere easy to get more. I then take a tub or bucket with me per-person working on the car, and anyone working on the car keeps the tools they're using in that tub to stop sockets rolling down driveways into drains (it's happened), or losing expensive breaker bars in long grass.

KICK THE WEATHER IN THE FACE

When you're outside you're at the mercy of the weather and, in many parts of the world this can be incredibly harsh. Australia can be both freezing cold or stinking hot, or it could be horrifically humid and this comes with its own risks you'll need to be aware of. 

Working on super-hot days is just not a great idea but, if you have to, try to be swinging spanners before breakfast time (remembering local noise laws, guys) and figure that you won't be doing anything on the car between 11am-4pm. Similarly, in storm season you're unlikely to be working into the afternoon if the storm clouds roll in - don't work on cars in electrical storms! 

Working in the freezing cold is the same, but opposite. Working in the daylight hours to make use of the heat of the sun (if you don't have access to portable heaters) is how to survive, remembering to watch heaters or naked flame around flammable automotive fluids. Having had to work on cars outdoors in sleet and snow, I take my hat off to car enthusiasts who have to do it regularly!  

If your garage is full and you need to work on your car on a driveway, investing in a large pit tent is a great idea. This will give you shade on hot days, but also shield you from light rain showers.  This is great as you won't have to pack up all your tools, close the car up and cover any exposed mechanical pieces to protect them from the rain.

Having a camp chair or 2 is also a banger of an idea, as they're much more comfortable than sitting on a driveway while you smash a kebab with your mate. 

GROUND COVER MAKES FOR A BETTER EXPERIENCE

You'll note the lack of ground cover in the above image of my father-in-law (sorry Robin) as we stripped the poor, blue 323i BMW. However, I tpically have something to throw on the ground to protect us from whatever we're laying on.

Great things to bring out include a picnic rug or moving blanket on hard surfaces, to a large sheet of plywood or thick cardboard on wet, muddy ground, sand, or gravel. These will make the experience of digging around under a car in the wild far more enjoyable - but don't take someone else's picnic rug in case you accidentally ruin it with brake fluid, axle grease, and all manner of other automotive gunk (I ruined my mum's picnic blanket with leaking petrol and coolant back in 2006 - learn from my mistakes, kids).  

Blankets and towels are great to lay on, but be ready to rip whatever you're laying on out from under the car the second you need to use a trolley jack, engine crane, or to wriggle heavy parts out. Their casters, or your shuffling back, will get caught up and make it way more painful to get into position compared to just laying in some muck for a minute or so.  

PACE YOURSELF AND WATCH YOUR ENERGY LEVELS

Even when the weather isn't against you, working outdoors in the elements will typically tax people more than inside a workshop in a controlled space. It's all too easy to get carried away thrashing to finish whatever you want to do, but look after yourself (and anyone helping). 

Bringing an Esky with some snacks and drinks, somewhere to sit, and a portable music speaker (remembering to mind the noise around neighbours) will make for a way more enjoyable vibe. 

Once the afternoon sun hits if you don't have at least one floodlight and a few worklights you probably won't be getting anything useful done on the car, so this can be a great time to pack up, take note of where you are in the job, and plan what comes next. 

What began with two mates modifying cars and making DIY videos on the famous driveway (WHICH WE RECENTLY RETURNED TO FOR AN ALL-NEW PROJECT) has now spanned almost 20 years of shenanigans and adventures. Now, the NFSA will preserve a curated selection of Mighty Car Mods content in the national collection for the next 100 years.

The induction is part of Creator Capsule, a global first partnership between the NFSA and YouTube created to formally recognise and preserve the cultural impact of Australian digital creators. Creator Capsule is a global first partnership between YouTube and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Mighty Car Mods is one of 10 Australian creator channels selected for the inaugural collection, with a curated sample of their content entering the NFSA's official national collection and being archived for the next 100 years.

“When we started Mighty Car Mods, it was just the two of us on a driveway, working on cars and filming it ourselves, because we loved doing it,” says MOOG. “We weren't trying to become influencers or start a media company, but to know some of the cars we've built, the places we've travelled, and the stories we've told will be preserved as part of Australia's cultural history is a huge honour.”

“We don’t have any formal automotive qualifications at all, but we're still buying questionable cars, pulling them apart and making videos every week, as we have done for almost 20 years now,” laughs Marty.

Louise Alley from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia said, "Marty and MOOG have inspired countless people to pick up the tools, have a go, and build confidence in their own skills. In the process, they’ve helped transform the way Australians share skills, passion and creativity with global audiences. Preserving their content in the Creator Capsule recognises their impact, plus the important place that digital creators now hold in Australia’s cultural memory.’

We were so blown away by this induction we talked to a few of our friends from the car scene that we've made over the last 20 years, who talked about why they think the Australian Government chose us to be included into this historical record for the next hundred years. 

Grant Wardrop, Top Gear Producer said, “Culturally important and Mighty Car Mods are not two phrases you’d ever expect in the same sentence…. But the National Film and Sound Archive begs to disagree. Bloody well-deserved boys”

David Freiburger, ground-breaking automotive journalist, Roadkill presenter, and all round car-legend knows all about modified car history and culture. So, he seemed like the perfect person to ask "why us?"  

“The Mighty Car Mods guys have had an impact not only in Australia, but also upon car enthusiasts in the United States, Europe, and beyond. Their global influence as pioneers in automotive content creation can’t be understated.”

Nats What I Reckon loves to cook and his WRX, and he said “Mighty Car Mods is original in ways people I don’t think anyone can fully grasp, it’s all them, all in house. They give a massive sh*t and it really shows. MCM is a such crucial stuff in a sea of otherwise vapid egomaniacal garbage.

"Blair and Marty openly share what they know with us all while also doing something not a lot of blokes do… expressing an occasional honest “dunno” then ask their mates for help. Truly an awesome display of community, sending things into their respective bins, original unreal tunes and a of course a few skids.”

Our on-call car journalist mate, MCM book co-writer (and occasional trunk-dweller) Workshop Manuel said, "Since 2008 Mighty Car Mods has made it easier for novices to embrace car culture, no matter their mechanical knowledge or budget. There are no barriers or ego: MCM has always been the benchmark for user-generated content. By car enthusiasts, for car enthusiasts."

If you want to celebrate MCM's first build and all the good times we had on the driveway, you can HEAD HERE TO GRAB A LIMITED-EDITION POSTER. We've even got a special discount on Heritage Pack merch from 2008 with poster purchases!

Okay Pookie? (It is ok if I call you Pookie, isn't it? Thanks Pooks!) 

Right, so now we're all up to date on the future DOHC turbocharged six-cylinder future ahead of Martin's two-door Commodore, the great elephant in the room which needs to be addressed is the fact Monaros had a performance 6-cylinder variant from the very first time they burst onto the Australian market. Way back in 1968 Holden dropped the "HK" Monaro, named as it was based on the HK-series Kingswood sedans they were selling at that time. 

A large, roomy five-seat grand touring coupe it today is remembered as the first proper muscle car from Holden thanks to the top-shelf GTS 327 model winning plenty of races across a variety of motorsport classes. Sold in three basic trim specs (Base, GTS, and GTS 327) many people forget the garden variety entry-level "Base" Monaro came with two choices of Holden's pushrod straight six, either a 2.6-litre (161cui) or 3.0-litre (186cui) engine. 

The Base Monaro was a pretty plain looking thing, with very limited interior features and none of the flash styling we associate with muscle cars. Buyers of the mid-spec GTS, however, remedied this with go-fast stripes, sporty looking wheel covers (hub caps to us old punters), more gauges, and either a 210hp five-litre (307cui) Chevy V8 or a hotter 145hp high-performance variant of the three-litre 6-cylinder, called the "186S". 

Packing nearly all the good looks of the far more expensive, limited-edition 250hp GTS 327 that was destined for racing glory, but coming in at a fraction of the price, the Monaro 186S sold like cold beers on a hot summer afternoon in Sydney. With a four-speed Opel-sourced manual the lighter weight over the big HK nose also helped handling and braking, though nothing was turning the family-sized Monaro (with its wooly steering and drum brakes) into a dynamic corner carver. 

It has been suggested the 186S model was offered thanks in part to a push from a different General Motors department a few years earlier to get a hot 6-cylinder performance car up. Pontiac had been developing overhead-cam V8 engines as far back as 1961, with prototypes running around in cars for years. 

Landing in 1966, it was a project which had been pushed internally by Pontiac's bossman, John Z. Delorean (yes, the fella later responsible for the car from Back To The Future). Pontiac was General Motors' performance division in the USA and he understood the engineering benefits to running a camshaft in the cylinder head, rather than buried in the block as most American engines did at that time. 

Available in two guises from 1966-1968, Pontiac gave buyers the choice of either a basic "OHC-6" with 165hp, or a far-hotter Sprint-6 with 207hp. Though the OHC-6 was designed as a smooth-running upgrade to regular six-cylinder Tempest and LeMans mid-size models, the Sprint-6 boasted higher compression, a bigger carburettor, better intake manifold, upgraded valve springs, and other tuning work.

It was designed to be the first shot in what John Z had hoped would be a way Pontiac could postition itself as the engineering epicentre of General Motors, with overhead cam V8s to follow quickly. However, GM brass were famously focused on the numbers and that was where the overhead-cam projects fell down. 

More expensive to produce than the basic iron-block pushrod engines of the time, the economies of scale killed the overhead-cam projects dead in the water. It came down to the fact that Pontiac were selling plenty of the cheap-to-produce iron pushrod V8s, so why bother with these costly engines?  

Thankfully, the Aussies at Holden took note of the six-cylinder muscle car concept...

The 186S option was so successful Holden kept it around for the 1969 HT Monaro revision, and the following HG series in '70 and '71 as well. However by this time things had changed from under the Monaro. 

Touring car racing was massive business globally in the 1960s and '70s, with the old "win on sunday, sell on monday" mantra ringing through car company boardrooms across the world. Ford, who were Holden's main competition Down Under, had started the muscle car wars with a "Mustang-bred" GT Falcon. From 1967 the GT Falcon engine steadily grew from a simple 4.7-litre (289cui) Mustang Windsor unit out to five-litres (302cui) in 1968, before FoMoCo got serious in 1969. 

This was when the new XW Falcon scored a huge 5.8-litre (351cui) V8, which was bigger than Holden's vaunted 5.4-litre (327cui) Chevy-sourced small-block. Holden had countered with a Chevy 350 (5.7L) in the top-spec HT and HG GTS Monaros, but within the Holden Dealer Team, a push was on for a lighter, better handling car. 

And, in 1970, Holden shocked locals by switching its racing programme from a burly V8 muscle car to a little six-cylinder coupe. The Torana GTR.

Known today by its code of "XU-1" the small LC Torana was based on an Opel-sourced mid-size platform that today would be considered almost a city car. Designed originally for a four-cylinder and as basic pedestrian transport, Holden engineers soon worked out how to lengthen the nose and jam a variety of their in-line 6-cylinder engines under the bonnet. 

The go-fast GTR model was a striped up two-door muscle car variant, aimed squarely at younger buyers who didn't need the big roomy five-seat interior of the Monaro. The base GTR scored a 2.6L (161cui) 6-cylinder and in a 900kg LC the 123hp made it plenty fast for the time.

What many of the kids focused on, however, was the top-spec model called the XU-1. Packing a hot, 160hp triple carburettor-fed 186S engine the XU-1 was designed to race. 

With the heaviest LC Toranas rated at a little over 1000kg, some 500kg lighter than Ford's thundering new 351cui GT-HO Falcons, Aussies got to watch a proper David versus Goliath battle on the race track. Week in, week out, the little Toranas showed what Minis and Lotus Cortinas had years before: big grunt is great in a straight line, but light weight is what often wins races. 

By the time of the LJ model in 1972 the XU-1's engine had grown to 3.3-litres (202cui) and power had jumped to 187hp. The police famously used LC and LJ XU-1 Toranas as pursuit specials back in these days, such was their storming performance. 

By 1973 the racing regulations had changed. Safety concerns prompted authorities to replace Series Production (ie: standard, road-going cars raced using homologation rules) with purpose-built touring cars under the Aussie Group C rules. In 1974 Holden launched an all-new, locally-designed LH-series Torana, and it ushered in a new era. 

The new range was topped by the SL/R models, boasting either a 3.3-litre 6-cylinder or (for the first time in factory guise) the choice of two V8s in the Torana range. Though the LH Torana was bigger and heavier in every dimension than the previous LC and LJ models, it also proved to be faster with the factory-fitted five-litre V8 (SL/R 5000).

While the SL/R 5000 (and later L34 and A9X homologation specials) went on to become racing legends, the older XU-1 Toranas became staples in grassroots motorsport, especially rallying, hill climbs, and circuit racing. Their mix of light weight, compact dimensions, and big-six power kept them at the pointy end right through the 1980s. 

Through the 80s, as Holden downsized to the Commodore model (see HERE for that history lesson) there were slim pickings for fans of fast 6-pot GM-H tin. The old Holden in-line six was well-past its used-by date, though we did get a rare treat in 1986 with a car many Aussies consider the Down Under local to Buick's epic GNX model: the VL Commodore Turbo. 

Packing a 200hp turbocharged RB30 three-litre straight-six, it made the VL-series Commodore a stunningly fast car from a roll. The engine had been sourced from Nissan to get around the fact Holden's own, old 6-cylinder was too expensive to run on the new unleaded petrol mandated in Australia from January 1, 1986. The overhead-cam Nissan fixed that for Holden, who smartly negotiated exclusive use of the single-cam turbo engine variant for their own uses. 

As the Holden 5-litre V8 (304cui) was still laboured with an emissions-strangled carburettor set-up, the turbo-6 Commodores were the road-going performance models of choice, even today. And it was the last time Holden ever put a fast six ahead of a V8 model, sadly.

Holden's own go-fast performance car arm, Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) was born in a 1988 agreement between Tom Walkinshaw Racing and GM-H. It replaced the previous Holden Dealer Team which had, under ownership by racing legend Peter Brock, had turned out plenty of fast road-trim Commodores through the '80s, but had to be abandoned by Holden after Brock's wild descent into quackery with "healing crystals", "Energy Polarizers" and all manner of absolute bulldust. 

While they released the odd six-cylinder special edition through the years, these were largely overshadowed by the more powerful, faster V8 variants. Holden had moved in 1988 to a pushrod EFI 3.8-litre V6, originally derived from Buick but redesigned In the mid-'90s to the Holden Ecotec engine. 

Fans of fast 6-cylinders got a boost, literally, in 1996 with the introduction of the L67 engine. Boasting an Eaton supercharger it was offered in VS, VT, VX, and VY Commodore series, as well as the CV6 Monaro, and had up to 220hp. But, while it found fans it was hampered by only coming with an automatic transmission, and GM-H's own focus on V8 powerplants - especially the 300hp 5.7-litre LS1 which hit Australia in 2000. 

The ultimate incarnation of the L67 came in the 2001 HSV XU6, which took its name from the legendary Torana of the early '70s. Packing 241hp it marked the final proper hot-six Holden to be developed locally, but by then the V6 was being absolutely clowned by Ford's four-litre Barra, which had been developed under the codename "Seagull" as Ford engineers knew "it would crap on everything". 

Some commentators are starting to really get shouty about their hope for a Coyote swap into the Falcon or Monaro. I fully understand the appeal of the Ford V8, and this was actually something which was discussed behind the scenes for MOOG's XR8 before the realities of life stepped in.

And sometimes life is but one issue which stops the perfect engine being swapped into a given project car. Let me explain...

While I'm on record as a huge fan of the LS V8 (I have owned a bunch and we put a very spicy supercharged one in my '64 Pontiac seen on MCMTV2) the Ford Coyote is an engine that I firmly believe is one of the best V8s around today. 

What is a Coyote? Well, it's the modern five-litre V8 (or 302 cubic-inches in the old money) based around Ford's "Modular" motor family that debuted way back in 1990. Ford switched their passenger car and light-duty pick-up trucks to a controversial smaller-capcity, fuel-injected overhead-cam V8 back in 1990 and they are a good thing which unfairly live in the shadow of the GM LS. 

There'd been some awesome Mod Motors released (SVT Mustang "Terminator", SVT Cobra R, and 2005 Ford GT), but things started really coming together for Ford in 2011 with the launch of the 5.0-litre Coyote variant of the Mod Motor in the all-new, retro fifth-generation Mustang.

Packing between 307kW (412hp) and 357kW (486hp) this all-alloy EFI V8 featured a forged steel crankshaft, rev-happy square bore/stroke design, strong six-bolt mains, high 11:1 compression ratio (later generations of Coyote upped this to 12:1) for snappy throttle response, and deep-breathing quad-cam cylinder heads. With a six-speed manual it made the new-gen Mustangs feel like a proper performance car.   

Part of what made it so good, apart from the great base architecture light weight (at 195kg or 430lb), is the Ti-VCT independent variable cam timing on both intake and exhaust camshafts that works in real-time. This means the engine is able to operate at peak efficiency in the driving environment it is currently in, so there's always performance there. 

And they can make ridiculous power. 

The green Mustang is Brett La Sala's infamous "Snot Rocket", powered by a Coyote making over 3000hp at the hubs. Sure, it's a long way from stock but this thing has run epic numbers on the drag strip, while Coyotes have also been used to smash fields in circuit racing, hill climbing, drifting, and more. The strong bottom-end and deep-breathing top-end means Coyotes take to boost (superchargers or turbos) like an unsupervised boomer takes to AI-generated conspiracy videos on social media platforms.

So if this engine is so good, why am I making out they have problems that prevent bulk people from jamming Coyotes into as many and varied cars as possible?

It comes down to a few factors, but (very generally) you can say: locality, size, cost, and scope of work being the main reasons.

 Any engine can be made to fit any car, but there are some key reasons why this absolute pearler of an engine might not be the one you should automatically gravitate to for an engine swap. 

Let's first talk about physically fitting an LS versus the morally superior Coyote into a car they weren't designed around. You can see in the image above (which I shamefully stole from Google Images as I didn't have a Coyote and LS3 in my back pocket to compare) just how big the Ford 5.0 is versus a 6.2-litre LS3.

Fitting this into a car with strut towers or narrow chassis rails up front requires a LOT of work, and this can be difficult in Australia with our fairly strict rules about modifications in street cars.  Those awesome DOHC heads take up enormous real estate and will often hugely complicate exhaust routing, which ends up costing a lot of money to fix.  

The packaging issues complicates the time it takes to complete a Coyote swap which is where problem #2 pops up. MOOG and Marty have enough other project cars they want to put time and effort into sorting, so neither of them wanted to be spending months making either a drift pig Falcon or Marty's itch-scratching Monaro different for the sake of it when the engines they both chose would work just as well at the jobs they'd be doing, but in a fraction of the time. 

This brings us to point #3: cost. In America the Coyote swap is a vastly easier thing to achieve, as they've been fitted to all manner of cars and pick-up trucks for 15 years now. In Australia, we've only had them in a small number of FG and FG-X Falcons and locally delivered Mustangs since October 2010. 

This means even high-mileage wrecker Coyotes are expensive Down Under.

For Aussies the process of finding all the parts needed to make a Coyote swap run in their car can be a laborious challenge, unless you're starting absolutely from scratch and are prepared to spend a bunch of time and money importing everything to make it work.  

The different generations of Coyote can also catch people out. Since 2018 Coyotes have been available with direct-injection fuelling, which greatly complicates swaps for many people. Changing the engine back over to port EFI isn't quite as simple as banging an earlier intake manifold on, swapping to an older wiring harness, and slapping it on its rump. 

DI engines aren't supported by every aftermarket ECU, and factory ECUs can be a pain to sort out if you aren't experienced with getting around inbuilt security, body control modules, CAN lanuage, and more - even the tuning software (if you're not a Ford expert, for instance) can be a huge headache as you'd need to learn a whole new programme. 

There are also some hurdles with aftermarket parts. While the industry has definitely got WAY more go-fast equipment on sale today than there was even 5 years ago, things like dress-up parts (rocker covers, for instance), and other hardware can be expensive on Coyotes.   

Changing cams requires four-times the investment compared to doing one cam in the caveman-spec LS, while the timing chains, guides, and associated hardware are also all more expensive thanks to their more complicated engineering. All those benefits of the Coyote can come back to bite when it's time to rebuild one, though there are some amazing Coyote and Coyote-based crate engines you can get

I really wanted to go here just to shout-out to one of the best-sounding V8s I've heard, which was a stock 5.2-litre "Aluminator" crate motor in a 1966 Mustang I saw running at the Optima Street Car Invitational many years ago. A factory-built hot rod Coyote displacing 5.2-litres with no forced-induction, making the same 430kW (580hp) as GM's 6.2-litre supercharged LSA cate motor. Meow!

Ford also released a 5.2-litre flat-plane crank variant of the Coyote called the Voodoo, in the GT350 Mustang. Producing 386kW (526hp) and revving to 8250rpm it was the most powerful naturally-aspirated V8 released in the 2015 GT350 circuit-oriented Mustang. Above this they later released a 566kW (760hp) supercharged variant called the "Predator" V8 in the range-topping GT500 Mustang - this engine is vastly different to the supercharged 5.0-litre Coyote-based "Miami" V8 used in Aussie FG and FG-X Falcons.   

Ultimately there's only one person who needs to be happy with the engine that gets fitted to a car: and that's the owner of that car. The person paying the bills, servicing it, and driving it is really the one person who needs to be satisfied as to whether the additional time, money, headaches and complexity is all worth it.  

If you've got one project car that you're pouring your heart and soul into, and you're happy to spend months or years getting every detail absolutely bang-on, take the time and do it with the engine you want. But, if you're trying to get your car back onto a track, or you want to simply drive a car you're missing, why not focus on getting it running using the quickest method possible? 

Before I go, I also need to mention something (info below):

Now, before the General Motors fans howl the house down that I've ignored the new 680hp LT6 and 1065hp LT7 5.5L quad-cam engines from the eighth-generation Corvette, I have left them out on purpose, even though they are (pound for pound) even better than The Mighty 'Yote. 

Firstly, these engines are not available as crate engines, and are not yet stacked 10-high at local wrecking yards. While the C8 Corvette has been out for a while now, the new LT6 and LT7 engines are ONLY available in the very rare, high-end Z06 and ZR1 high-performance Corvette models. 

Secondly, while they carry an "LT" prefix these DOHC-per-bank 5.5-litre engines share NOTHING with the direct-injected pushrod V8s used in other General Motors cars. The LT6 and LT7 come from the "Gemini" line of engines and have been specifically engineered for use in mid-engined cars meaning fitting them to a front-engined Monaro from 20 years ago would be a huge engineering challenge... if you could even FIND one of these engines for sale (or afford it). 

Controlling that engine would be another challenge. So yes, I left these engines out, for now, as they're an even worse option for an engine swap compared to the Coyote. While a 1065hp factory standard V8 seems cool, I'd argue building a 580hp Aluminator-powered car that's actually running and driving is way cooler. 

Now, maybe you've never played with fuel systems before so before you go reading on below it might pay to read THIS STORY on AN fuel fittings and lines to work out what is going on. This is because we're going to dive into the next phase of custom car plumbing: hardlines.

If you hang around high-end car shows or motorsport events you can see some details on cars that you really don't see anywhere else, and one of these details is beautifully arranged hard line installs. Hard lines can be any sort of metal tube, but normally they're made of steel or aluminium, as opposed to rubber or braided flex lines you may be used to seeing in custom installs.

While I was making a new AN10 fuel line for the back of my Harrop-supercharged '64 Pontiac [CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO ON IT] it is a pretty simple piece. To demonstrate how cool hard line can look I've pinched some photos from Phil at Pro Gen Performance and Auto Hoses, because he is an absolute wizard with making beautiful-looking, well laid-out, and engineer-approved hard line installations. 

If you want to know more about how to make your own braided or rubber fluid lines, you should start with THIS STORY HERE that I did a while ago about AN fittings.

This is important to understand because you'll likely have to use some AN fittings to join the hardline to whatever part you're connecting, or as a flexible link between fuel components mounted to the body or engine, and hard lines mounted firmly to the chassis.

Having flexible hose between components mounted to the body, and parts mounted to the engine, will provide important vibration damping. This will prevent breakages and premature wear, which is especially important for fuel lines - you don't want to be stuck by the side of the road with all your fuel gushing onto the ground (I have recently had this issue when a part failed). 

Using custom-bent metal pipes in place of traditional rubber or braided lines is more time-consuming to do, more difficult to plan and execute, and requires a few specialty tools. However, many engineering signatories would prefer you use a majority of hard line rather than rubber or braid for fuel lines.

Hard line installs can also be much more compact thanks to their rigid nature and ability to handle tight bends better than hose, and while hard lines can crack or fatigue through age or improper support, they won't collapse or degrade internally like rubber line. They also look fantastic when installations are carefully planned out. 

Choosing the right material to use is the first step. Aluminium is lighter and easier to bend, but not as strong as steel line. Aluminium's heat-shedding abilities does make it attractive for those making custom heater or water:air intercooler lines, but it is not suitable to be used for 45-degree flares, brake lines, or high-pressure lines, like what is needed for power steering, air suspension, or some other high-pressure oil lines. 

If you're not sure what material you should be using for the different parts of the car, do some research into what pressure the various parts of the car will see. You can then check with hydraulic component suppliers (like Pirtek or ENZED, for 2 examples) as to what they'd make the lines out of. 

Joining your hard line to the parts and hoses will normally be done with aluminium AN fittings, as described above. When using aluminium tube for fuel or oil lines you can use tube nuts, which seat on a 37-degree flare as per regular AN fittings, and don't require welding on like steel fittings.

One tip I like to use is to put a tag of brightly coloured tape around BOTH ends of the tube after I cut it just to remind me to check if I need to weld the fitting on, or add the tube nut, BEFORE I get distracted, flare the pipe, and then realise I wasted all that time and pipe. 

In the pic below I have mapped out how I'd like the fuel feed (left-hand side) and the fuel return (right-side) would run and be affixed to the chassis BEFORE I committed to flaring the ends or adding fasteners. It took me quite a while to roll the line out straight, then add bends in the right spots, and work out where I should add joiners should I ever need to service the fuel system.

Designing your installation can take a little time to find the best way to run the tube, and find all the spots to support it properly. Use proper-fitting P-clips fastened to the chassis or body to support the line, and the number of these will depend on the type of metal you're using and diamtre of the pipe. 

You should also work out how easy the lines will be to remove from the car in case you need to repair or service them. Adding some bulkhead joins to aid fitting or removal can mean the difference between a speedy road-side repair, and stripping your car to correct a simple problem. 

Metal hard line is sold in per-metre (or feet in countries using Ye Olde Measurements) lengths, normally rolled into a coil. This means you'll need to straighten the tube before you try installing the bends you need, but don't race in and start hand-pressing it as you can easily kink small-diametre tube, and large diametres will just make your hands hurt. 

There are tube-straighteners you can buy which make the job far simpler. You basically just pass the tube through the rollers backwards and forwards to get your lenghts ready for bending.

You can use a grinder or hacksaw to cut the tube, but there are also special pipe cutters available incredibly cheaply which will ensure a dead-straight cut across the face of the tube every time. This is vital for getting a good seat on the fitting, which in itself is paramount if you don't want fuel, oil, transmission fluid, or coolant hosing out under pressure (and then catching fire).

Once the tube is cut the end needs to be dressed with a deburring tool to remove sharp edges and swarf. These are normally sold with the tube-cutter.

Bending the tube isn't terribly difficult but it does take practice to get neat. Just like welding or spray painting, this is a skill you'll build rather than being an absolute guru from the first time you try it, so consider having a few practices on scrap tube before you try to make the lines for real.

Start with simple bends and shapes on small-diametre tube first, as this will teach you how the metal moves - you can overwork it, stretching it too tightly and making it thin, or causing it to kink in other parts so have a practice before commiting. Planning out a section with a few simple bends to start is a good idea, and then work from there into more complex shapes, layouts, and compound bends. 

Once you're happy with your line, fit it up with some fresh P-clips and revel in the new skill you've discovered. 

Some younger viewers may be confused why we're racing around a big dirt lot full of junk cars, because they've never experienced the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with going Wrecker Diving, and that makes me sad. 

Car enthusiasts of a certain age know of a special place that was a challenge to navigate, a test of your patience to interact with, but always an amazing adventure. It was a storied place full of lost hope and despair, but also the promise of future life as the buried treasure within its iron-sheeted walls could hopefully breathe fire back into your project car. 

I'm talking about wrecking yards. 

Wrecking yards, called junk yards in the USA and "breakers" if you're in the UK (or "my bloody backyard" if you're my parents) are special places that have slowly died off. And that's sad as younger enthusiasts are cheated of the life-enriching experience of driving - sometimes several hours one-way - to a dirty yard to pull a part off a busted, burned or smashed car that will make your car righteous and awesome. And then negotiating with the hard-nose trolls behind the front desk to not have to pay a king's ransom for this used piece of hardware. 

But they were also full of gold. 

These places were massive, covering acres of land. They could be arranged in different layouts, some with crashed cars stuffed down into a back corner while the best had everything set out by marque and in alphabetical order.

Their heyday ran largely from the 1950s until the 1990s. It was a regular task for ordinary people, even those weird ones who don't love cars, would visit a wrecking yard to find second-hand parts to keep their cars on the road and functioning well. 

This was before the Internet meant you could order brand new spare parts from your lounge. Spare parts were, arguably, also more expensive and frugality was - generally - valued as more of a priority over the speed and convience of taking your car to a mechanic for basic maintenance, or buying brand new parts instead of servicing what you had.

Got a noisy CV shaft? See if you could find a good one at a wrecker. Cracked a radiator end tank? Go find one at the local Pick & Payless. 

Their origins are many, but largely they were a place operated by the local tow yard who'd haul smashed cars to an empty lot. Insurance companies would often just cut the car owner a cheque and the smashed car would be given to the tow operator in lieu of them getting a tow fee. So, they'd sell parts off (or sell the smashed car to a wrecker) to make their money back.

This meant sometimes you'd be walking past cars that had been in gnarly crashes which had messed up (or worse, killed) the occupants of said car. This was the grisly part of wrecking yards and, on more than one occasion, parents of teenagers about to get their licence were brought to a local yard to show them the consequences of driving like a bin rat.

But these places were especially valuable for car enthusiasts wanting to build something cool.  

Even 10 or 15 years ago I remember people finding classic cars in the junkyard that had been left there when they were worthless second-hand old rides. Sure, they weren't going to win any shows without work, but they were prime project cars. 

The very sport of hot-rodding cars was born in junkyards as teens searched for the latest-model cars that had been crashed to pull their V8s, big brakes, transmissions and differentials to put in their chopped down rods. Long before it dominated NASCAR speedways hot rodders hunted Chrysler 331cui and 392cui Hemis, along with 331cui Cadillac V8s and 389cui Pontiacs. 

In the 1970s these yards became fertile ground for kids wanting to take their poverty pack (base model) Ford Falcon, Holden Kingswood or Torana (or Camaro, Mustang, Satellite, Le Mans, or Malibu in the USA) and make it just as fast as the top-spec models with a V8 from a wrecked full-size model. 

Typically, as the parts were used, they'd be cheap. As the price to operate and wrecked cars became more expensive to source the operators had to charge more to stay afloat. And this was where the decline arguably started. 

It's a sad fact the humble wrecking yard is today a rare business to find. The internet and online spare parts shredded their business model, while the cost of recycled metal plummeted and environmental levies and Workplace Health & Safety regulations made operating the businesses difficult and barely profitable. Land prices became the final straw.  

The cost of tying up acres of land with dozens of smashed or wrecked cars to have people come past and take one part off at a time is simply too high when real estate developers will gladly pay for their acres of open land. 

If you've got a wrecking yard near you, go have a wander through it while you can. You can sometimes see some absolute gold there, including rare classics, cool retro mods, or sometimes just an old car you haven't seen in an age. 

Understanding why people love the six-cylinder BA-FG Falcons over the V8s is pretty easy when the XR6T had the iconic Barra engine that made more power when you looked at it sternly. But why do so many Aussies, particularly those from 25-50 years old, have such a sentimental draw to V8 Holdens over Ford Falcon V8s? 

The answer comes from something which happened in 1982.

Ford had driven their big, burly Falcons through the 70s with the XA, XB (see above), and XC models boasting more interior space and bigger engines than what the competitors at Holden or Chrysler could offer. They'd started the Aussie muscle car wars in 1967 with the original XR Falcon GT, sporting lots of parts from the Ford Mustang, like the 289 V8, four-speed manual, steering wheel, go-fast stripes and bright gold paint, but by the launch of the XA Falcon in 1972 there were thumping 351 cubic-inch V8s under the bonnet promising up to 380hp. 

 The idea of a big brutish Falcon had been welcomed by Aussies, and GM-H and Chysler had responded in the early 70s by up-sizing their own large cars. The Holden Kingswood (and Monaro), and Chrysler Valiant and Regal grew nearly a full platform size to take the big-bodied fight to Falcon, which was booming in sales by the late 70s.

The big, roomy, hard-wearing Falcons were beloved by taxi operators, cops, and fleet buyers. These things could be hucked over kerbs without folding in half, and there was all sorts of space to relax while carrying your workmates or work gear. Fleet sales were how Aussie car manufacturing survived in those days, so appeasing this market was key.

Then, in 1978 something shocking happened...

Holden replaced the iconic big-hipped Kingswood with a mid-size Commodore model. A pastiche of two Opel models heavily re-engineered for Aussie conditions, it was tiny compared to the enormous, all-new XD Falcon. 

Holden figured a smaller car would woo buyers conscious of fuel mileage, while Ford added a smaller six-cylinder engine option but kept the big, roomy, full-size Falcon. Despite two V8 engine options in a small-sized, good-handling car, the Commodore bombed and the Falcon boomed. 

Fleet buyers swarmed to the big, new Falcon in droves and it took almost a full decade for Holden to claw back the sales it lost to Falcon. Even with the legendary Peter Brock winning on the race track like crazy in the early 80s, Holden just couldn't convince interior space-obsessed Aussies to buy Commodore. 

So where did Falcon lose the V8 market?

In their chase for efficiency, Ford decided to drop the V8 engine option in 1982. The annoucement was met by the thundrous clap from millions of palms slapping forcibly against the foreheads of exasperated Aussies. How could FORD, the company that STARTED the V8 Aussie muscle car scene walk away from the very concept it'd had started, and then fostered dilligently for years?!  

It pissed a bunch of people off when Ford dropped the GT option from the Falcon range with the launch of the XC model in 1976, but that was nothing compared to the OUTRAGE many Aussies felt when the news dropped they wouldn't even be able to get a V8 Falcon. In the decades before turbo-diesel utes and SUVs, you'd tow your caravan, boat, trailer or horse float with a big, Aussie V8 station wagon.

And now Ford were dogging the boys all round. Mutts.

Now, Holden had binned the slow-selling Monaro soon after Ford removed the GT model from Falcon. Thanks in part to new emissions laws strangling cars, Aussies had taken a pause on shouty racing stripe-equipped muscle cars painted like easter eggs in the mid-70s. That said, the mid-size Holden Torana could still be bought as a racing homologation model (A9X) with fat fender flares, reverse cowl scoop, and thunping 308ci (5-litre) V8. 

When Holden launched the Commodore in 1978 it killed off the Torana and Kingswood models for 1980, so they knew they needed a car to homologate for the local touring car racing, which was still very big business. Enter their star driver, Peter Brock, who'd just bought the Holden Dealer Team: Holden's satellite factory race team.

And the Aussie performance car scene was about to be revolutionised by him.

Brocky was the most-popular racer in Australia, even past his death in 2006, and was the most successful racer ever at the Bathurst 1000 race. In 1980 Bathurst stopped the nation, so success on Mount Panorama was paramount. 

Brock started building hot, tuned-up road-going Commodores at his HDT workshop to homolgate them for racing. Eventually he'd add lesser trim spec Commodores to his model range to broaden the appeal of an HDT-tuned vehicle. 

Over in Broadmeadows Ford had the ESP model. It stood for the European Sports Pack and it gave you alloys, an optional 302ci Windsor V8 or the full-fat 351 Cleveland, along with upgraded seats and handling, and a very mild bodykit. But it looked like a taxi compared to the ground-pounding, be-striped Falcon GTs of years past. 

And then, in 1982, it was gone. 

 Ford said V8 sales had slowed to a point that it was obvious nobody wanted a V8. So they cut it. But the ESP wasn't marketed well. Compared to Holden shouting about the V8 SL/E and HDT Commodores from the rooftops, Ford kept the V8 option in the Falcon almost a secret. 

Holden nearly followed suit in 1985. The news Australia was switching to unleaded fuel on 1 January 1986 would mean their 253ci and 308ci V8s would need to be re-engineered to run on the fuel and burn through a catalytic convertor, and - frankly - Holden didn't have that kinda hooch to pay for such work after the Commodore sales bomb. It was only the Editor of Street Machine Magazine organising a huge grassroots campaign called "V8s Til 98" that saved it until the LS1 appeared in Australia in 2000. 

So, if you were a red-blooded Aussie who drove V8s and watched Bathurst every year, passionately screaming for your favourite Ford driver, what did you go buy when there was no V8 Falcon? Some rusted-on Falcon fans refused to be swayed, but their kids grew up remembering how Ford had ditched the V8 and left the Falcon without any sort of performance option. 

Meanwhile, Brocky was dominating the race track and road car sales...

 Lots of 80s kids grew up in Australia understanding that blokes who won drove V8 Commodores. They saw them in the street, and most of us knew SOMEONE who had a thumping five-litre Commodore at some point. While we later discovered the unbridled joy of turbo Japanese performance cars and sweet-handling European machinery, there's a huge slice of national pride to see something like an Australian-designed, Australian-built car that you know is a fast thing sitting in the street. 

Ford didn't reintroduce the V8 for 10 years, eventually bringing it back in 1991 with the EB Falcon's XR8 and 25th Anniversary GT models. But the damage had been done and a good slice of the V8 heartland that was once died-in-the-wool Ford V8 fans no longer bled blue. 

The Nissan RB is over 40 years old. When Nissan introduced it to the world way back in 1985 the Chevy small-block was only 30 years old, so just marinate on that one for a while. Toyota's JZ-series entered production just five years later in 1990, and even the mighty 4.0-litre Ford Barra is almost 25-years-old, having been unleashed on the Aussie public back in 2002.

THE PROBLEM WITH RBs, JZs & BARRAs

Cast iron blocks have great strength, to a point, but they're heavy and this affects the handling of your street car. Additionally, time has marched on and stocks of these engines have only been going down as power-thirsty modders have blown up countless examples in the chase for tar-burning horsepower. 

So (unlike 2005) you can't get a sub-20,000km-old 2JZ for $1500, jam 30psi into it and expect it to live without needing a timing belt, valve stem seals and possibly a lot more work. As I said above, they're old engines and they're starting to get expensive as they're harder to find today: the Barra ended production 10 years ago (2016), the RB stopped in 2004, and the 2JZ in 2007.

SO, WHAT NOW? 

In the face of ever-tightening emissions standards and mass market who seemingly don't want performance internal combustion cars anymore, many enthusiasts thought the days of glorious turbo six-cylinder performance were over. However, there is a rudely good engine available in a wide range of contemporary cars - most being rear-drive, too - which loves to be boosted up to make huge power.

Salvation for force-fed six fiends comes from Germany, and an unlikely source: BMW. Formerly renowned for their naturally aspirated in-line six-cylinder engines, BMW has been building turbo variants as far back as 2006, with the N54 showcasing a pair of snails on a three-litre DOHC six, before it was replacing by the single-turbo N55, and now the subject of today's post: the B58.

If you've watched the last couple of episodes of MCM (EPISODE 1, or EPISODE 2, or EPISODE 3) you'll have seen MOOG's B58-powered M140i in action.

GIVE US THE SKINNY, WORKSHOP MANUEL

Introduced in the 2015 F30 340i 3 Series, the B58 is a wholesale new engine over the previous N-series turbo sixes. It displaces 2998cc, and runs 11:1 compression ratio, with a strong, closed-deck aluminium block increasing the engine's weight 8kg over the N55 for a total dry weight of 139kg.

It is a long-stroke design with an 84mm bore and 96mm stroke, with a four-valves per-cylinder DOHC aluminium cylinder head featuring direct-injection fuelling, dual-VANOS variable valve-timing and BMW Valvetronic variable valve-lift technology.  

The turbo is a single twin-scroll unit using water-to-air intercooling; they run a traditional wet sump with a sensor instead of a dipstick and a water heat exchanger; and these engines are factory rated between 213kW and 324kW (290hp-440hp) with a spicier S58 available.

PUT SOME HEAT IN THE CHICKEN, MATE - GIVE US THE SPICE!

The S58 is still an all-aluminium three-litre DOHC six, but it uses a lower compression ratio (9.3:1). There are also twin-turbochargers, and it produces between 338-375kW (460hp-560hp).

These are used in BMW M-Sport and Alpina cars as dedicated high-performance variants. Now, anyone who has been keeping up to date with what late-model cars are being made into ridiculously fast underpants-ruiners will have heard of the G-series M2, M3 and M4, and know these things are being turned into luxury dailies capable of single-digit quarter-mile times with ridiculously little work. 

So, the B58 and S58 are certainly tasty schnitzel, Ja?

B58 IS BLOODY GREAT, MATE

The original 2015-spec B58 was replaced in 2019 by the updated B58TU that features a few upgrades which make bolting on upgrades to make over 400rwhp (+300rwkW) a snack, while there are plenty of people pushing them to more than double that amount with internal work. 

The TU-spec engine features a simpler single-piece timing chain to make the front-end of the engine more compact, as this is the spec which is used in Toyota's Mk5 Supra, and it also has a better (bolt on) fuel pump that runs higher pressure. For people with Gen1 B58s, you can fit this to your engine to make increasing the power easier - a handy little fact.

So we've got a light, strong three-litre six. What's the catch? 

EASE UP, CHACHI. THEY'RE NOT PERFECT.

All engines have problems, and the B58 is no exception. Direct-injection engines don't mist fuel onto the backs of intake valves like a port-injection engine, so carbon build-up in the head and through the crankcase ventilation system (PCV) is a common issue among DI engines of all sorts, and the B58 is no exception to this.

Similarly, turbocharged, DI engines with high compression ratios generate a LOT of heat. This places huge strain on the cooling system which, in the B58, is complex - BMW split the cooling for the head and the block between two circuits and that means there are a LOT of hoses and they're not you're simple old style slip-on rubber you find in any regular parts store.

These are specially moulded with proprietary clips to fit specific sections of the engine. Similarly, the plastic oil filter housing can leak, and the mechanical high-pressure fuel pumps often wear.  Some owners find high-kilometre B58s can wear out coilpacks leading to spark issues.

However, all in all, these engines are a tough modern powerplant.  

SHOULD I SELL MY SPLEEN AND GET ONE?

Strewth, Pookie, I dunno mate. How attached to your spleen are you?

In all seriousness the B58 was fitted to over 40 different BMW models since it hit the scene over 10 years ago, and there is a huge amount of knowledge on these engines today thanks to the high-performance scene jumping in boots and all to support them. 

If you're after a modern, safe, comfortable car you can make ridiculously fast, I think you could do a lot worse than looking at a B58-powered BMW. Just find a good independent mechanic; service it on the dot; and never skimp on maintenance.

The days of budget Silvia and Skyline builds, or affordable E36 and E46 M3s, are long past now. The newest of those JDM classics are almost 25-years-old! With dwindling supply and prices rising we need a new hero, and I reckon that hero is the first-generation BMW 1-series.

Lets get one thing straight right off the bat: these things are no oil painting in standard form. In fact, when I went to the media launch way back in 2005 I recoiled in horror at the narrow, tall styling of the 120i, looking like a regular BMW wearing an over-sized top-hat. 

In time, however, I've seen so many modified examples the styling has grown on me massively. 

Allow me to present my argument as to why the 1 Series BMW is the RWD project car we should all look into:

THEY'RE THE LAST VESTIGES OF CHEAP 80/90S DRIVER'S CARS

What other small RWD car on the market offers such a wide platform from which to build a cool car? And affordably? 

From Japan you have the MX-5, S2000, and 350Z. But, these are only sold as 2-door, 2-seat sports cars, which sucks for people with families or who need space.

RWD Mercs of the era are mostly autos and upgrade parts access is a huge barrier. They also don't have the small, sporty vibe of the BMW. 

Holden's Monaro (aka Pontiac GTO) is a great RWD performance car, as are Falcons and Commodores of this era, but they're two whole platform sizes larger and good base model cars are much more expensive than the BMW 1-series. Plus, they're really only popular in Australia and NZ, counting out the rest of the world for access.

THE E30'S SPIRIT IN A BETTER, STRONGER PLATFORM

Many of us love the E30 for its small dimensions and light weight, which helped greatly make the tiny economy model into the enthusiast hearthrob we love - the semi-trailing-arm rear-end certainly wasn't it! The good news is even the cheapest 1er, the 5-door 120i, is around 1350kg and which is is a proper featherweight today.

And even moreso given the plushness of the factory interior (for the time). And they've got great neutral handling balance so you won't completely cook the cornering fun by slamming a similar-generation 3L in-line six up front in place of the asthmatic 2L four!

The suspension and brakes are great, the chassis is stiff, and they're capable of handling way more power through their chassis and suspension than earlier enthusiast BMWs like the E30 or E36.  

THE 1 SERIES IS MASSIVELY PRACTICAL

Available as a hatch in both 3-door (E81) and 5-door (E87) variants, there was also a two-door coupe (E82) as well as a convertible (E88). Inside there is a good amount of space, even in the rear for tall passengers, though luggage space is obviously heavily compromised by the car's compact dimensions. 

Inside featured all the features we wanted in any premium car of the day (2005), with plush trim, A/C, power windows, cruise control, and keyless entry featuring on almost every 1er. This means they're still quite nice to drive as a cheap daily driver and, with ABS, traction control, and SRS airbags, they're far safer than our old 80s and 90s project cars. 

 E8x 1ers have a generous 2660mm wheelbase, but compact exterior dimensions of 4220/4380mm long (depending on the model), 1700mm-wide (1800mm for 1M), and a kerb weight of between 1250kg and 1540kg (E88 convertible). They've got an excellent footprint for making into a proper handling machine.

THEY'RE PLENTIFUL (CHEAP) AND UPGRADE PARTS ARE EASY TO GET

Produced from 2004 until 2013 the E8x BMWs were available in petrol or diesel, with factory manuals not uncommon to make engine swaps easier. All up approximately 1,547,751 E8x 1 Series were built in the model's 9-year run, and today a good number have survived. 

The breadth of the model range, from base 118i up to the bombastic 1M, means there is not only a huge aftermarket for servicing consumables, but also for upgrade parts. There are also plenty of ripe pickings in the 1-series range for OEM+ upgrades off high-performance 130i, 135i, and 1M models.    

As the E8x platform shares many of the E9x 3-series designs, it means there are also a huge number of upgrades which can be poached from the larger sedan/coupe... like the E9x M3's 4-litre V8 and 6-speed manual, which is a popular swap.  

FACTORY TURBO MODELS MAKE FOR EASY MODDING

One of the reasons so many of us love old muscle cars and 90s Japanese tuners is because you just look sideways at their engines to get them making more power. Unfortunately (as an E30 tragic) 80s and 90s Euro cars are not in this same boat, but the 1-series represented a huge change that we should all be excited by: affordable turbo performance RWD cars. 

Launched in 2005, the 130i (E87 5dr only) had a 190kW (195kW in some markets) N52B30 three-litre NA six-cylinder and six-speed manual, but horsepower junkies got their prayers answered in 2007 with the 135i. The 135i coupe (E82) was offered with two different direct-injected turbo three-litre in-line sixes over its life. 

From 2007-2010 the N54 offered 225kW (300hp) of twin-turbo power, replaced for the 2011 model year with the single-turbo N55 that was rated at the same power.  Opinions are divided over which engine is better for modding, as some prefer the stronger (forged) base of the N54, while others wanting milder upgrades like the simplicity of the N55. 

Both of these engines have been proven to handle over 800hp with appropriate engine work, so you're spoiled for choice.

So, that's my open announcement that I reckon the BMW 1-series is a car we RWD junkies should be looking at more closely. Yes, they're a bit Noddy-looking, but this can be wildly improved with the right kit, wheels and stance. They're common. Cheap. Light. They handle well and have nice interiors. And (if you service them) they're reliable. 

What's stopping you?

The LM was launched in 1994 as a lightweight two-piece forged aluminium wheel designed for use in endurance racing at the hardest circuit race on the planet: the Le Mans 24-Hour. Wheels have to cope with smashing over kerbs, rough tarmac, fearsome loads during 24-non-stop hours of hard braking and cornering loads, and brutal high-speeds seen on few other circuits. In short, these have to be the best of the best, and the LM quickly became renowned for being able to handle all that was thrown at it. 

But the story of why the LM became the hot ticket for tuner builds can trace its origins back to the early 1970s.

Having been founded in 1970 by amateur racers Heinrich Baumgartner and Klaus Brand to make plastic bodykit parts, by 1972 BBS revolutionised motorsport wheels with a new three-piece design called the "BBS Mahle" (Mahle being the manufacturer).

It was a crucial development at a time when motorsports classes were dealing with sudden, radical jumps in race car horsepower, improved chassis design, and the newfound discipline of aerodynamics requiring stronger wheels that could handle higher speeds and brutal cornering loads. At this time magnesium was popular in wheels for its light weight but its fragility meant cars breaking wheels wasn't uncommon, sometimes with fatal consequences, so a stronger wheel was needed but the manufacturing costs of casting all the different PCDs, offsets and diameters was too vast to be able to handle. 

A modular wheel design which featured a face that could be put together with different lips and barrels to create a strong, lightweight wheel that was far stronger than a conventional cast alloy wheel was the answer. And BBS had it.

Through the 1970s and '80s racers latched onto the BBS designs, with their modular, multi-piece construction also meaning they were able to be rebuilt after being damaged and saving money. Privateer teams could also buy 2nd-hand wheels and have them rebuilt to suit the specs of their car if they didn't have the hooch to plump for a brand new set each season. Hooray, indeed.   

By the late 70s & 80s tuners were developing cars for top speed competition more than quarter mile or Nurburgring lap times (I talk about this a little HERE) so they needed a proper motorsport wheel that could handle properly wild horsepower and speeds. Taking wheels from Tier One motorsport cars racing at Le Mans and the like was a smart move and, as I mentioned above, being three-piece they could be rebuilt to the exact size the tuner needed.

The BBS LM filled a massive hole in the aftermarket in the mid-1990s. Its 2-piece construction from high-quality forged aluminium meant it was as strong and light as a proper BBS motorsport wheel (like the centre-locks above), but it was cheaper to produce and came with quicker lead times than a full bespoke 3-piece. But it still looked like the wheels you saw on the cars winning the Le Mans 24-hour, the toughest race in the world. 

The LM wasn't sold solely through motorsport channels, it was a part of BBS' regular line-up and while you weren't going to buy a set working a weekend paper route they were far more attainable for punters with street cars than a set of exotic centre-locks designed to wear slicks and last hours, not hundreds of thousands of kilometres. 

The LM's simple, open-spoke design provides a far cleaner look than the cross-spoke designs BBS were far more well-known for in previous decades. As with BBS designs from the 80s perfectly matching car designs of that era, like Mk2 Golfs, E30 BMWs and W124 Mercedes, the BBS LM suits 90s designs like the E36 and E46 BMWs, BNR-generation GT-R Skylines, JZA80 Supras, FD RX-7s and more.

As these cars quickly shot from around 300hp up to double, triple, and then quadruple the factory horsepower figures they needed a wheel which could handle the performance. And the street cred from having an expensive, well-engineered racing wheel like the BBS LM was almost an unparalleled flex for anyone into modified cars, even in the early 2000s when the ballas on the cover of DUB magazine seemed to exclusively run HREs.

Even cars like the Big Red Camaro (below) which, arguably, kick-started the "Pro Touring" movement of building classic muscle cars that handle runs BBS LMs. This Camaro has dominated the Silver State Classic open road race through Nevada many times, averaging over 200mph through wild, snaking desert roads, so it needs well-engineered wheels.

The LM has, for over 30 years now, represented a genuine motorsport wheel that can handle the worst a circuit can throw at a car and also a wheel you can literally bolt to your street car. This is the purest, rawest interpretation of an upgrade: taking directly from the round-the-clock epic race at Le Mans and putting it on your MaccaNats sled is hard to top.

While the TE37, RPF1 and countless other wheels are great they simply don't have the history across GT Racing, touring cars and tuner cars to compare with the feats the LM achieved across many different continents. Even today these wheels will elicit low, revered whistles when punters realise they're not dealing with a set of BB5s but the real deal LMs. 

Personally, I reckon Marty got it bang-on right for his wagon. 

No idea what I'm on about? Watch the video here:

I got it for $32,000 Aussie dollars, landed on the road registered with all taxes paid thats $40,000. Thats $29k USD for reference. Cheap. The car was $100,000+ when new in 2017.

It arrived with stock wheels. And flat tyres. Why? The original wheels were buckled, the tyres had sidewall damage and eventually popped on me. 

I started hunting for wheels immediately and soon realised this was going to be HARD. Why? Because its got a 5x112 stud pattern and a weird 'reverse' offset where the front need +20 and the rear +40 - right in-between where most wheels sit meaning spacers would likely be required and there were ZERO aftermarket off the shelf options I could just go and buy.

Aaron from Import Monster to the rescue! he got some of his WEDS SA25R 10 spoke wheel modified and sent up a set. It got me back on the road and kept the understated 'slightly modified' appearance happening as the wheels were a dark charcoal. I've had great experience with WEDS wheels over the years and Import Monster have been long time supporters of the show

I decided I'd come back to replacement and 'forever' wheels later after I'd investigated more mods for the car. I found a bunch of performance parts and stuck them on, the car picked up 50kw and 200nm of torque with ZERO downside. No extra noise, no harshness - just power. Awesome! 

My search for wheels continued, but not much was popping up. Daily marketplace dives, a look through some 'aftermarket wheel' companies who are mostly just forging or casting in China, then sending to Australia to be drilled and offset for each car. Not really my thing AND I needed more durability as the thin 20" sidewalls were not doing any of my wheels any favours. I burnt through another tyre with damage from road debris. 

A few times over the years we've dropped down a wheel size on our euro cars, most notably with the RS3's and Golf's we've had. Going from 19" to 18" opened up tyre options (made them cheaper too) and improved ride and handling. So I started to look at 19" options. 

I'd seen the process of converting BBS LM's into 3 piece wheels, I like the look of the some lip and 3 piece wheels generally. I had them on Supergramps and have always liked the look. BBS = German and common on Mercedes back in the day - ok lets do it!

Just for fun: Here's two Wagons, both originally purchased and registered in Japan. Both on dish-y wheels.

This was the 'inspo' for the BBS wheels...

Now wheel taste is controversial - always! Moog and I differ big time on what wheels look good and don't, it's part of what keeps it fun and our builds different. There's some crossover, he prefers spokes and I prefer dish. When the wheels showed up and we put them on, the general consensus was that it was a big upgrade from the old look of the car - but it needed to be lower to pop. The suspension is an air system so can only be lowered by hacking it, which is on the cards.

The car rides amazingly well now, less road noise, potholes aren't a crap shoot and I like the dish - same as any other car I've put them on! Darker centres better? Yeah possibly! Do I think 20" fills the guards more? Yep! (see above, broken wheels)

Either way, I'm stoked with my daily. We have a saying that if it's better in the real world, the internet won't like it as much - and thats totally true. Because a straight piped, 22" wheeled, slammed wagon with pink paint and fluro rims is going to get way more "clicks" and create more chatter - and theres totally space for that, but not with something I'm driving to the shops and to work every way.

Hope you're enjoying the Euro-ness of the current videos, its definitely fun to jump between the two camps and stir things up!

Marty

Below is a rundown of what supplies you will most likely need in you garage when undertaking a project car of almost any type: 

FLUIDS

• 1L engine oil
• 1L of manual gear oil
• 1L of DexIII auto trans flui for autos or power steering
• 1L of spare coolant
• Spare bottle of brake fluid

It is a good idea to keep some spare fluids your car uses on hand for minor top-ups when your project is driving. Sometimes they'll need a splash more oil or coolant, and these can be handy to chuck into a toolkit if you're going to take your project car on a long roadtrip.

GREASES & SPRAYS

• High-Temp Bearing grease
• Electrical connector cleaner spray
• White lithium lubricating spray 
• Rubber grease or petroleum jelly
• Penetrating oil/lubricating spray
• Freeze-spray 
• Assembly lube
• Loc-Tite/Thread-locker
• Etch primer
• Matte black aerosol paint

The number of products on that list you will likely need really comes down to the sort of project car you're undertaking. A restoration (or resto-mod) of a classic car will need everything there, plus more, while a later model car that hasn't copped decades of life will likely require a far simpler list.

These are getting into more specialist products but they're also incredibly handy to have when you're in the middle of a job and you're trying to get stuck bolts undone, or you need to quickly lubricate a rubber seal, or stop a set of bonnet springs squeaking. You can lose a day pretty easily fighting bolts which won't come undone, or running to the store to get different products to help undo (or do up) different parts of a car, so cutting those time losses short is a good idea.

SOLVENTS

• Degreaser
• Brake clean
• Wax & Grease remover
• Automotive Sikaflex
• JB Weld metal putty
• Thinners

These products are designed to clean or help fix broken parts. You can use brake clean as a type of degreaser but there are times it is uneconomical to use brake clean as a large-scale cleaning agent. Good quality degreasers are proper caustic chemical solutions so always wear PPE and use them in a well-ventilated area.

JB Weld metal putty is a great way to fix gutter rash in wheels, or to repair cracks in metal parts of a car - just follow the instructions explicitly. 

OTHER ACCESSORIES

• Gloves
• Rags
• Microfibres
• Cleaning equipment
• Hand wash
• Funnels
• Caulking gun

It goes without saying you'll need to clean up after using things like bearing grease or if you've been decreasing cruddy old steering racks, so buying a bulk bag of rags and some hand cleaner should be a first port of call for anyone. 

Over time you'll build up quite a library of good technical sprays, greases, solvents and solutions that will help you finish a project car, and keep it on the road for years to come. As you go you should consider running a piece of paper on the inside of your cabinet door with a list of supplies that are running low so you know what to order next time you head to the store.

You want to avoid ending up with a wiring nightmare like the below? Read on to see how a little bit of planning, and a few minutes of extra work can make a huge difference to how easy it is to live with a project car. 

TOOL UP

If you're diving into an older car which has already had a bunch of mods over the years, and you're not sure what's what you should get some hardware for your toolbox as this will have you ready to dive into any wiring job: 

• A mid-range multimeter (CLICK HERE)
• A 12-volt test light (CLICK HERE)
• A heatshrink label maker (Google that one)
• A good-quality wire stripper and crimping tool (CLICK HERE)
• A crimper which can do Deutsch pins (CLICK HERE)
• A heat gun for heatshrink (CLICK HERE)
• Terminal pick set for removing wires from plugs (CLICK HERE)

You don't need to be buying the absolute Gucci-spec parts or consumables, but try not to buy totally entry-level equipment as the better-quality tools should work a little easier, especially in novice hands. If you can plan ahead for wiring tasks you can save money ordering supplies ahead of time.

KEEP A PLAN

At first glance, wiring looms are enormous pieces of terror spaghetti. However, looking at them on a wiring diagram, be it a professionally made one supplied with a quality ECU like a Haltech, or one you've mapped out yourself, makes everything much easier to trace. 

Making your own wiring map to work out what's what on your car isn't difficult once you've printed out a wiring diagram for your exact make and model of car. It just takes some time, a torch, and a notepad and pen to write down all the non-factory wires, or to write down where factory wires change colour, or have been modified.

If you have an old, obscure car or you're rewiring your entire car from scratch, you can actually make your own wiring diagram fairly simply. I found a handy online page for designing your own wiring diagrams (CLICK HERE) and if you're inputting the data you know you can trust it a lot more than if you ask AI to whip you up a wiring diagram. 

USE THE RIGHT FITTINGS

Using cheap wire, crimp terminals and plugs is attractive to get you out of a sticky situation but don't rely on them to last a long time. Those cheap white plugs can cure a random roadside breakdown, but i've seen them cause huge wiring issues (like on my mate's car, pictured above).

When the plug gets hot over time and allows the pins to walk in the hot, soft plastic, which builds resistance and fries the wire out - the thermo fan stopped working and his engine overheated super-fast.  Using quality Deutsch plugs and Weatherpak waterproof plugs will save bulk headaches, as will properly sheathing wiring. 

Similarly, on old school classic cars you should check resistance through the wiring, especially on the starter, ignition, and headlight circuits as these are prone to going hard over time, leading to failed wiring and - in worst case scenarios - a full-blown wiring fire. 

LABEL EVERYTHING

When you're modding your car it's incredibly handy to whip a little heatshrink over custom lines or wiring sections with a label printed on it. You can buy specialty label makers which print on heatshrink and give a far more professional finish to a car - it's also massively handy for anyone working on the car (including you) to remember what that particular line or piece of wiring does...

If you're working on an old car it can be handy while you're checking the condition of the wiring, to label different wiring looms so you can tell at a glance what you're working on. Similarly, if your car has a lot of AN fluid lines, you can slip a quick label on so if you send the car to someone to work on later they know quickly and accurately what they're looking at.

Cars from Japan in this era seem to resonate with enthusiasts of a certain age. On top of the City Turbo II and March Superturbo, let's look at some of Japan's greatest hits from the 80s: Mazda MX-5, FC RX7, Nissan GT-R Skyline, Toyota AE86 Sprinter, Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo, Toyota AW11 MR-2, Nissan 300ZX, Toyota Celica GT-Four, Mitsubishi Starion, Toyota X80 sedans, Nissan DR30 Skyline, Toyota Z20 Soarer... 

Whether it's the design, performance, technology, or pure rose-tinted nostalgia for what was perceived as a simpler time, there is a widespread, deep-seated love for cars made during the 80s in Japan. But, why? What happened in the 80s to make even ordinary production cars so good, over what they did in the 60s or 70s?

There are several factors to explain it. So, strap in kids, as we go back in time to look at what made 80s Japanese cars so good (bring snacks, it may be a long trip). 

There are plenty of environmental factors to point to, like Japan's booming economy of the late 70s allowing huge swathes of funds to flow into car companies to pay for the development of bold new cars. Similarly, Japanese people had more money to buy more expensive cars, and to turn them over. 

In much the same vein as the American automaker boom of the 1960s, people enjoyed the freedoms that came with financial independence - especially after meagre, hirstute years following World War II. The rise of the Japanese car industry through the 80s actually mirrors America's booming automotive scene of the 60s. 

Japan had been clawing their way back to a position of economic freedom since the 50s, rebuilding their country following the horrors of World War II. Through the 60s and 70s Japan built their reputation at home and abroad with a steadfast dedication to producing great quality goods with advanced engineering and utilising cutting edge technologies, especially to design and construct them.

Even ordinary 80s cars were good to drive because the Japanese were still coming out of a mindset of having to prove their products (no matter what they were) could be the equal or better than European, American, or English brands. This pushed them to design and build quality products, which is how you end up with amazing cars like the ordinary EF Honda Civic having advanced double-wishbone front suspension and independent rear-end, when most hatches used cheaper MacPherson strut front-ends and beam rear axles.

It was dedication to prove themselves over decades that got them to this point. 

Despite scepticism about Japanese cars of the 60s and 70s, their intelligent design, solid reliability, clever packaging, and cheap entry prices overtook the powerhouse English and American car industries through the 70s. The world suffered record high petrol prices from oil wars at this time, and diving quality control standards turned consumers away from poorly-built, unreliable cars from the UK and USA.

Japanese car companies were working dilligently to build better cars and as the Japanese economy flourished into the 80s, demand grew from buyers for more exciting machinery. Just as these car companies were hitting their stride for design, technology, and engineering. Competing car brands were suddenly facing The Perfect Storm as the most technically advanced nation was ready to take over the world's car market.

This optimism and success the Japanese car industry was enjoying endowed it with confidence, just as it had the American car industry heading into the 60s. It emboldened them and as the Japanese automakers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the legacy brands, they began to showcase more individual designs, and more ambitious projects. 

Suddenly Japan wasn't copying established designs (hello Toyota 2000GT and RA28 Celica), or using engines under licence (Prince using Mercedes-Benz four- and six-cylinder engines in the 50s). With the same sort of good vibes and excitement which gave the world lurid, tyre-burning muscle cars in the 60s, Japan was about to unleash a radical new wave onto the world.

With Japanese designers flexing their own style new types of cars inspired by neon-coloured nights, angular shapes, and dramatic, bullish optimism hit the market. Eschewing the grandiose excess and bloat of the 70s the 80s felt lean, taught and exciting.

The Japanese engineers even caught prestige European brands napping, with the Japanese packaging advanced suspension and chassis designs into cheaper-class cars while simultaneously focusing on quality construction. Japanese cars rode nicely, handled well, had good brakes, and that was true for the fastest of fast, right down to entry level hatchbacks. 

The "sudden" explosion of awesome cars from Japan, from ordinary Corollas to turbo motorsport-dominating brutes, was also helped by good timing with several important technologies we know and love reaching crucial points in their development. Advancements like rapidly maturing turbo technology and improvements in production methods making more efficient engines cheaper to produce, thereby allowing them to be fitted to a wider range of average cars, all helped but there was one true key: EFI. 

By the late 70s the Bosch Motronic and Ford EEC-III EFI systems combined fuel-injection with an ignition system, all run by one computer and digital electronics. The difference to old mechanical injection and carburettors was immense, as part-throttle-response, fuel economy, ease of maintenance, cold-start manners, and even hot-start reliability all improved overnight. 

Next to a 10-year-old, carburettor-fed, emissions-strangled V8 displacing more than three-times the capacity, a 1.6-litre 4AGE Corolla felt like a rocket. But even the ordinary family cars benefitted, and felt faster, ran cheaper, and were easier to drive than cars that came before them. And, because Japan pursues efficiency in design and production techniques, they were cheaper to make, which meant they were also often cheaper to buy than European, Australian, English or American cars.

As with sporting teams or bands enjoying a streak of success, when teams of designers and engineers hit gold and they're all vibing, the bullish attitudes often lead to more success. The world responded to epic Japanese cars of the 80s by buying them in droves, leading to more awesome cars through the 90s. 

The overriding premise here assumes you understand the basic rationale behind driving a car for maximum fuel-efficiency: keep the boost down; avoid going full-throttle as often as possible; avoid idling the car for extended periods; try to drive as smoothly as possible; and avoid carrying heavy loads if you don't absolutely need to. 

Here are our 5 fastest, easiest, and most important tips for saving fuel right now when the cost of a litre of bang-juice seems to be worth more than a litre of flurpy tears. 

 1. Scheduling Your Errands

First and foremost - and this shouldn't be a shock - but the more you drive the more you'll use. If you normally have many short trips in the car this will add greatly to your fuel use. Consider parking somewhere central and walking between each stop if possible, or taking a bike in the boot and riding the Deadly Treadly... which is kind of a modern version of Japanese businesspeople riding Motocompos to work after parking their Honda City II.

2. Avoid driving in built-up areas

Fuel economy is badly affected by continual cycles of speeding up and slowing down. Short hop fuel use is especially true if you're doing lots of short trips in built-up areas with traffic and traffic lights to get through. You'll use a lot more fuel there, compared to cruising at a steady speed on a highway. 

If possiible avoid driving into packed urban areas where you'll end up stuck in traffic, or speeding up and slowing down. This is a great time for sitting on FB Marketplace on public transport instead, looking up former magazine cover cars to buy...

3. Spread the load

Diesel is horrendously costly right now, so if you have a car which runs on cheaper petrol and you don't need your diesel vehicle for work, consider swapping the petrol car in for a stint. If that car is also flex-fuel tuned, E10 is a great fuel which is cheaper to buy than diesel of 98-RON Premium Unleaded at the pump, runs 94-RON octane, and still has  10% ethanol for knock-avoidance. It's not the fuel to go setting PBs on the dyno with, but it is a good option for commuters looking to avoid paying up to $3.50/litre for diesel right now.  

4. Check your tune (not just the engine)

If your nugget runs an aftermarket ECU, or an old school thing called a "carburettor", it can pay huge dividends to check it's running as efficiently as possible. Simple checks like having a look at the data-logs (or throwing a wideband gauge into a carburettor car) to not waste fuel by running rich, checking the spark plugs aren't sooted up from too many cold starts, changing the oil, checking the tyre pressures are all even and up to par, and even making sure your wheel alignment is correct can all have a huge effect on fuel economy.

If you can safely do it and you're not heading to the track any time soon, you can also trim a bit of fuel out of the car's tune while you're driving for peak fuel economy, but you're unlikely to save a huge deal of fuel unless your car's set-up was very rich beforehand. 

5. Judicious de-modding

We never like taking mods off our car to put stock parts back on, but there are a few ways to improve fuel economy with a small amount of work. Many of us have daily drivers with mods like roof-top baskets and pods, bullbars and towbars, some have winches, there are people with oversize aftermarket wheels or big off-road tyres, and all of these add significant weight to a car. This leads to a significant parasitic loss to your fuel economy, so looking at heavy parts that are easy to remove and installing stock wheels and tyres in place of heavy aftermarket set-ups can add up to a significant reduction in fuel consumption, saving your hip pocket.

Any valvetrain which relies on using a camshaft to open and close valves has significant drawbacks for all but the most-focused, extreme use operations. Think, particular motorsports where peak power mattes more than any other metric of performance.

"Freevalve" engines are what is the next step in internal combustion engine development. These replace the traditional internal combustion valvetrain using camshafts, rockers, and more with electro-hydraulic-pneumatic actuators to operate each individual valve independently.

Welcome to the future of petrol performance.

As the world chases ever-increasing performance, efficiency, and lower environmental emissions, "cam-less" technology is progressing past a hypothetical science into actual technology used on real cars in the real world. So, how does it work and what are the benefits over using a hawg-ass cam like in your uncle Ferb's Coke can-hopping Camaro?

I'm glad you asked, Pookie (do you mind if I call you Pookie? Thanks, Pooks xoxo)

Camshafts - no matter in overhead-valve (pushrod), SOHC, or DOHC engines - rely on triangular lobes to open and close valves, which means the valves operate on a ramp rate and only achieve full open or fully closed momentarily. With actuators this isn't an issue. They also cause parasitic losses in an engine from resistance from a timing chain or belt dragging on the crankshaft.

Packaging the timing and tensioner systems to control and safeguard the valvetrain is complicted and bulky, whereas cam-less engines don't require any of that as each valve is controlled and timed by an actuator that receives its open/close instructions from an ECU. 

Individually controlling valves as a cam-less engine does, also allows incredibly precise control of ignition timing. You can extract more from each combustion by ensuring the intake and exhaust valves are open or closed for the maxium possible time, which removes issues with camshaft overlap bleeding combustion.

So the volumetric efficiency of an engine is radically improved, as you're burning the dead dinosaurs to perfection each time the spark plug is told to go fknBANG. The Swedish sister company to Koenigsegg, called Freevalve, claim a 14% improvement in fuel efficiency at part-throttle when they tested the tech by re-engineering a conventional port-EFI DOHC 1.6-litre four-cylinder to their Freevalve, cam-less, cylinder head (see here).

Due to having better control over combustion they were able to lift the compression from 9.0:1 to 10.5:1, which assists engine response and the cleanliness of the combustion. The cam-less valvetrain also allowed them to experiment with a divided exhaust manifold, which splits the exhaust entry into the turbocharger for improved scavenging (a critical metric in improving engine performance).

Being able to control individual valve performance also allows the engine to behave like it has a variable compression ratio. Compression can be bled down if combustion temps get too hot, or if there is a different parameter being monitored... like if a flex-fuel sensor starts reading a lot of ethanol in the fuel system the Freevalve engine can push compression up to get the power party started.

This tight control on the intake and exhaust gases meant the turbocharged Freevalve engine wastegate didn't actually require a wastegate as boost could be controlled using exhaust valves. This saves more packaging complications, expense, weight... 

Similarly, using actuators in place of camshafts allowed Freevalve to significantly improve the design of the cylinder head. Valve angle, combustion chamber size and shape, as well as lowering overall engine height by 50mm, shortening length (with no valve-timing system) by 70mm, and simplifying the head casting as no oil galleries were needed any more.

These are huge gains, and the proof of the cam-less tech's power-producing capabilities has been shown by Koenigsegg... as well as enthusiastic home modders like Wesley Kagan who retrofitted Freevalve tech to his NA Miata (MX-5 - see here). 

Koenigsegg's two-litre three-cylinder "Tiny Friendly Giant" Freevalve engine is rated at 600hp (447kW) making it the most powerful three-cylinder engine on the market. Unfortunately, while Koenigsegg announced the TFG was available as an option on their Gemera, low uptake for it led to them cancelling it in 2024.

So, with ECU tech improving to soaring new heights, will we see more home-swappers trying this technology out in the future?

If your only experience with Subarus is via memes, you'll probably think it's pushed a head gasket. However, the reality with turbo Subarus is the design of horizontally-opposed turbo engines means you're FAR more likely to spin a rod or main bearing. Which is only one step down the list of "Terrible Things You Don't Want Happening To Your Engine" from throwing a rod through the block.

But, why? 

First, in defence of the boxer engine layout these engines have a FAR superior centre of gravity to a conventional in-line four. They are also thought to run smoother and no Subaru engine I've been inside of needs balace shafts (you hearing this, Honda K24 fanbois?)

I've had many turbo EJ-powered Subarus over the years, going back to when I first joined the RS Liberty Club in around 2006 and met Marty, Mechanical Stig, and Turbo Yoda (among many other legends). So I've had my share of blown-up Subarus. 

The bearing issue here comes down to a failure of engine geometry, as well as Subaru loading the dice for those of us who like to add boost to our cars like an American adds cheese to any meal. 

The crank and rod bearings of an engine ride on a tiny, thin film of oil, which keeps everything spinning nicely. When that film of oil isn't there the spinning crank or rod (or both) run metal-on-metal and instantly get super-hot. The risk for any engine at this point is the spinning crank or rod will catch an edge of the bearing, spinning it in its shell and quickly leading to it failing completely. 

These are bearings, for reference.

When a bearing spins in a turbo Subaru you are throwing out the crankshaft, as well as the block, as it is uneconomical to fix the wallered-out surfaces where the spun bearings once lived. So, why does this happen?

Part of the issue is the design of the crankshaft and block, and the forces acting upon them. With a horzintally-opposed cylinder layout there is a huge amount of elliptical rotating stress forced through the rod bearings as they cycle through their travel up and down the cylinder.

The width of the bearings you can fit in a Subaru is another issue. Unfortunately the space on the Subaru crank is tight and this limits the surface area you can run in a bearing and a narrow bearing obviously reduces any margin for accepting issues like detonation, momentary oil starvation, or running over temperature.

Subaru engines are famous for being finnicky with oil quality (cleanliness), grade (viscosity), and level (mildly overfill before doing a lap of a track). If you buy a 2nd-hand Subaru or Subaru engine you're always hoping the previous owner didn't miss a service, used good-quality oil, and ideally drove more long-distance trips than short, 5-minute runs to the shops for fresh bubblegum vapes.

Heat cycles affect engines as the alloy heats and cools, as does the oil. And all of this can have an effect on bearing life - it's often easier on a bearing to do 100,000km up an open highway with almost no load compared to 10,000km of fast trips where it barely gets to temp before being shut down.

While it is a hardware issue, tuning can play a part.

With Subaru's love of running a lot of timing in their factory tunes (possibly to help meet emissions standards) adding boost to the combo begins to really ramp up the pressure in each cylinder. And this dramatically increases stress on the bearings in boxer engines. 

When you boost up a Subaru engine you're increasing cylinder pressure with every additional, delicious PSI you screw into that poor four-banger. This is why many wisened Subaru fans won't push a random engine hard without very careful set-up of the engine combo first, and they understand it is on borrowed time. 

These Subaru engines can be incredibly rugged and make great power, however they're unforgiving and don't blindly accept abuse like other Japanese engines of the 90s/00s. 

If you pull the engine down, check the bearings for wear, and go through every component to set it up to handle a big boost combo from the outset you'll have a lot of fun. If you want to slap an 88mm turbo on a wrecker engine, you're best off playing with a different engine platform, champ. 

Stretching back to the early 1960s, the explosion of racing production cars in touring cars, NASCAR, rallying, sports cars, drag racing, and more, occured across the globe. From European circuits to New Zealand rally trails, American speedways and drag strips to Aussie road courses, car manufacturers realised the publicity of winning sporting contests helped raise their profile, which helped sell more cars.

Racing, they realised, was good business. 

Let's take a walk through SOME of homologation's greatest hits: Mini Cooper S, Datsun 1600 SSS, Ford Mustang Boss 302, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Nissan R32 Skyline GT-R, Subaru WRX STi Type RA, Ford Lotus Cortina, Chevrolet Camaro Z2/8, Lancia Delta Integrale, Nissan Pulsar GTi-R, Plymouth Superbird/Dodge Charger Daytona, Mazda Savannah (RX-3), Ford Sierra Cosworth, Holden Torana A9X, Audi UR Quattro, Ford Falcon GT-HO, Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R, Mazda RX-7 SP, BMW E30 M3, Porsche 911 GT1, Holden HDT VK SS Group A, Mercedes 190E Cosworth, Ford Galaxie R-code, Lancia Stratos, Mitsubishi Starion turbo, BMW E9 CSL, Nissan DR30 RS-X, Ford Escort RS (and later Cosworth), Mazda Familiar GT-R... the list goes on and on and on.

Pardon moi, I need a lie down after all of that.

You'll notice a lot of those cars listed above often feature heavily on lists of "the greatest driver's cars of all time" and the like. This is because manufacturers stripped them back to focus on the job at hand: being good to drive so they could win races. This is what makes them perfect for we car enthusiasts.

There is always a mythos around them, too, as these were special edition cars not seen often in regular life. There truly was an aura around them that these rare, high-performance beasts were more special than a garden variety supercar which had been purchased off the dealer's lot. Regular people who didn't typically care for cars knew these were special things. 

I distinctly remember being 5 years old and my father packing me a lunch and stuffing me into our yellow 504 Peugeot to visit a BMW dealer more than two hour's drive (each way) away from my house, despite my family not having the money to buy a BMW bonnet emblem. This was all because one of my dad's workmate who wouldn't have known a Quattro from a calculator had seen an E30 M3 race car in the window of this dealership when he drove past the day before.

Seeing Jim Richards' John Player Special race car in the flesh was the moment i really fell in love with E30 BMWs, which has continued 38 years (and many non-M E30s of my own) later. 

Arguably the greatest time period for homologation cars, on a global scale, was the late 80s through the mid-90s, which roughly aligns with Group A racing rules. This was when the governing body of motorsport, the FIA, decided to set up a global set of regulations to standardise racing classes. Group A was for "modified touring cars" and there was also Group N for "standard touring cars", replacing local classes like Group 2, Group C (Australian-only touring cars), Group B, Group C (world sports cars like the Porsche 956).

While the FIA talked about wanting to make it easier to race passenger cars anywhere in the world, and to increase the number of car manufacturers participating in racing there are many today who believe the real reason comes back to lobbying from the tobacco industry who were heavily invested in almost all types of sport at that time and wanted to improve their global reach.

Whatever the reason, these racing classes gave us some of the most iconic driver's cars and most-important tuner cars, upon whose shouldes our hobby and industry stands tall today. Homologation cars are literally engineered by manufacturers to become racing cars, so of course that means they make the perfect base for a tuner to build an awesome modified car.

But, if making race cars gave us all these absolute banger sleds to froth over for decades... what happened?

Money was the downfall.

Homologation cars cost huge sums to engineer into successful racing cars, and with the incredible pace of development in Group A touring cars and rallying - spurred on by a lot of tobacco sponsorship cash - costs to make your car faster than the other bloke stripped profit margins away from the very road cars the racing machinery was only there to help sell.

Most manufacturers were moving away from international touring car racing by the early 90s, and a push soon started to return to localised class rules featuring specially-constructed race cars that didn't need homologation. We got DTM in Germany, TOCA 2L in the BTCC, JGTC/Super GT in Japan, and Australia ended up with a 5L V8 formula after a short battle with a rival 2L super tourer class.

There was also a push, rightly so, for safer race cars. Attitudes towards deaths in motorsport had shifted greatly since the 60s, and the idea of enjoying a family day out at an event where multiple people could die in terrible crashes kinda killed the vibe. To make cars safer while containing costs, teams really needed to start with bare shells and remove the compromises the road car bases forced upon them. And that's a good thing.

With no requirement to have a racing variant in their road car line-up, manufacturers were free to pile on the luxury touches, improve NVH, strip out costly parts to bulletproof it for when it needed to do 1000km around the Nurburgring.... and these less focussed, less compromised cars still sold well. Racing variants were an expensive, niche product and the market signalled they didn't miss them.

So, the big question is: are we better off without homologation cars?

Cars are better-built and faster today than ever before so, on one hand, yes we are much better off. 

But - and this is a Nicky Minaj-sized but that would cause Sir Mix-A-Lot to pass out from fluid loss - the visceral, analogue, feedback-rich experience of driving a classic homologation car is truly a special, wondrous event to be savoured and celebrated.

It's important to note that, to get the most from the experience, you really need to keep things in perspective - there is no point comparing driving a Sierra RS500 or Mini Cooper S to your BRZ or late-model Civic Type-R.

Any classic car is a product of its time and to truly understand what makes these race-bred special editions so highly fawned-over you need to understand what other cars of that time period were like. Think of it like movies: in today's lifelike CGI and AI special effects world, The Terminator is almost laughable, but watch other movies from before 1984 to understand how Terminator influenced generations of movie-makers.  

We won't see a return to the days when scores of manufacturers would pump a decent slice of their annual engineering and marketing budgets into racing, and promoting their involvement, but this makes this era, from the early 1960s through to the mid-1990s as a special time we should celebrate. Long live homologation cars, and thanks for building us some heroes.

1. Mercedes-Benz W126

Big Benzos cost bank when new or when they're pieces of ancient art. But, once they're over 20 years old they're actually cheap to buy. As with ANY old high-end car these things can hide pleny of expensive, complicated repairs, but then that's all part of the ride whether you're buying an old Benz, a Jag, or something COMPLETELY fruity like an 80s Maserati. 

W126s represent a lot of car for not much money and, because they were in production from 1979-1991 (that's 12 years!) there are a lot of parts available out there for them. There were two body styles available (four-door sedans, or two-door coupes) with a long-wheelbase variant and engines ranging from 2.6L 6s up to the famous M117 5L V8.

Buying one to slam over some killer custom wheels would make for an epic cruiser without breaking the bank. Just get a thorough inspection done by a Mercedes specialist before buying someone else's heartache. 

2. Nissan (Datsun) Bluebird 

Many fawn over Datsun Zeds and 510s (aka "1600"), but the big brother 910 Bluebird needs some love. Light, well-built and rear-drive these might just be the classic Japanese car bargain you've been sleeping on, as they also have enormously roomy engine bays ripe for stuffing all manner of turbo four-cylinders and V6s or even V8s into.

They can rot like any 40-year-old car but generally these things are super-stout as they were built to last, having been designed in the 70s when the Japanese car industry were pushing to show their cars were the best on the planet. 

Back in the early 80s the Bluebird shocked many motorsport fans when George Fury's turbo Z18-powered brute thumped the RX-7s, BMW M6s, and all the big Aussie V8s to score pole position at the '84 Bathurst 1000. Plus, check out how sick it looks with the fat Group C touring car widebody kit.   

3. Chevy Monza

Chevy's small hatchback was released in '74 as an economy model to fight the Mustang II. The horsepower-stacked muscle car wars were long dead by this stage and GM had originally designed the Monza to run a Wankel rotary, but that never eventuated for a variety of reasons. 

They're still a light, rear-drive two-door which can be hot-rodded as well as any other American car. The Monza was also the first race car to be designed with CAD, as the crazy, V8-powered IMSA racers took the fight to Porsche's ferocious turbocharged 935s... and won. 

Today, they look awesome going around race circuits, pounding drag strips, and would be a rude amount of fun with an angry small-block V8 or turbo K24 Honda...

4. Pontiac Catalina sedan

60s cars are big bucks today, especially if they're popular models like a Chevy Impala or Ford Galaxie, but there are bargains to be had in this era if you're after a big, comfy ride with chrome bumpers. Available as four-door sedans or four-door hardtops (pillarless 4dr) the mid-60s Pontiac Catalina can be had as a bona-fide bargain today and, while they can take some work to find parts for, they offer epic amounts of floorspace for the purchase price.

With a big, lopey 389 Pontiac V8 the factory transmissions are junk, but any later model Pontiac V8 and transmission can be made to work fairly easily, and they look ridiculously cool when laid-out on air suspension. With room for a dozen of your friends these things are epic fun.

5. Mazda 929

While they went pretty round and similar to most other big cars of the 90s later on, Mazda's early 80s 929 was a big four-door luxury sled offering awesome crisp styling and bulk charm for a pittance. Today, they're pretty rare, but these things were the choice back in the day for successful sensible professionals who still had a pulse.   

Lowered with some cool wheels these things are a great way to have a semi-practical four-door with space, which would be a dream to drive on long road trips. There was a rotary version in Japan called the Luce, but unless you're ready to redo all the triangle bits I'd stick with a piston version and keep it clean and simple.

They even raced one in Group A...

We had been struggling to get the engine and transmission separated from each other, which can be quite a normal thing when dealing with older cars that haven't been apart in a long time. As it turned out there were some sticky dowel pins holding the Boxer and gearbag together, so we ripped them out together to split them on the bench, and we were keen to make up some lost time... 

Now, any old hand used to working on any sort of project will tell you the moment you start rushing you leave the door open for mistakes to creep in. "More speed, less haste" is a famous old quote, and unfortunately in our haste to get the engine and transmission apart we had a calamity...

Yes, the engine fell off the table and the old, rattly EJ is definitely pretty cooked now. But, this does create an opportunity to discuss how to secure engines if you want to lift or work on them. 

We have used a variety of methods to safely manoeuvre engines around when we've needed to lift, shift, or work on them. The main ones are:

• Using a chain bolted to points on the engine 
• Tying a used seatbelt through the intake manifold, or secured to the factory lift points
• Using a proper lifting sling in combination with a chain or used seatbelt.

You can see below the seatbelt is enough for the fairly lightweight Subaru NA SOHC four-cylinder and small five-speed transmission. Seat belts have to hold humans in place during a crash, so they're rated to more than 1000kg, and can sometimes withstand jolts of up to 2500kg. 

Heavier engines definitely need a beefier set-up, especially if you're going to be lifting them high, swinging them or jiggling them around. This is when careful rigging needs to take place, judging the weight of the engine, and how it will balance once it is lifted into the air. 

To pull the engine and transmission out of the Subaru as one unit we needed the front to rise significantly higher than the back, so pulling up from the front of the engine was key. When we fitted the Isuzu engine to Marty's Gemini he and Turbo Yoda attached a chain to the front and back of the engine, on opposite sides to balance the load and keep the iron block four-cylinder nice and level while in the air. 

Keeping the engine secure while it is in the air is key, and if we'd left the metal chain holding the engine to ride on the metal tine of the forklift it could have easily slipped or shifted. This could have led to dropping the engine, so a lifting strap was used around the forklift and the chain to keep it all secure.

Before you use a lifting strap you need to check it carefully for damage or frayed sections as these can easily snap, leading to engines dropping on the ground, onto cars, or worse onto people. 

Similarly, when you attach a chain to an engine you should use try to use factory lifting points with thick D-shackles. If you need to bolt the chain to the engine, you should use bolts with at least a 12mm head, and ensure there is at least 20mm of purchase into a solid thread in the block.

We rigged the engine to lift more from the rear, with a short chain length to avoid the risk of swinging as the engine acted like a pendulum. Keeping the engine level ensured we could drop it straight in the bay, as the shell already had the bonnet on and space was tight.

You can see below the engine sits nice and level, and is secure enough to wiggle onto the engine mounts without fear of it slipping or dropping. Don't think an engine won't slip or swing unpredictably when being moved as even workshop floors which appear smooth can hide bumps, or engines can be unsettled by the wheels on the lifting device starting and stopping rolling - all of this can start an engine swinging, which is why short strap lengths are important, and why it's key to have engines properly secured. 

So we've covered lifting and moving engines. What about once you want to work on them?

One of the key lessons from our 4DMILF disaster was we didn't have the engine secured on the table we were working on. It's easy to miss when you're focused madly on getting the damn engine and transmission apart, but still important to remember so you don't go through the same problems we now face replacing this engine (or worse, injuring someone).

If we had thrown a couple of rachet straps around the engine (front to rear, and side to side) this would have held it to the table and prevented it from falling down. Obviously you still need to be incredibly careful as the engine and table moves not to let the table flip over, or have your body in the way in case the engine does move and bangs down on the table. 

This is why rushing when doing any sort of work on a car is a bad idea as it's easy to break a hand or leg when a couple hundred kilograms of engine comes smashing down at terminal velocity. It doesn't even need to fall off the table to do damage, just rolling the engine over could easily break bones in your hand, leading to months off the tools. 

Ultimately this is a lesson to learn and an important one from a workshop safety point of view.

Youth culture changed rapidly through the 60s and while the hot rodders and car customisers of the 50s loved creating wild paint jobs it was the rise of hippies and the counter-culture movement which really showed us all how insane paint could get.

Hippies? Yes, you read that correctly: hippies. Those famously environmentally-conscious huggers of trees who loathed wasteful "gas guzzlers".  

It was in the late 60s that pop and rock music festivals became events which drew hundreds of thousands of young people together from all over the world. Woodstock, Altamont and the California Jam,  to name just three massive festivals, were replicated all over the world and became rallying points for creative youth wanting to hang out and express themselves. 

With money tight for most, the most creative groups would buy old buses and vans, then decorate them in psychadelic motifs. And everyone saw them. Media focus on hippie cutlure was at its peak in the late 60s and the sight of these lurid buses and vans packed with the controversial hippies drew widespread media attention, which in turn inspired younger people coming through.

By the early-to-mid 70s the hippie culture had withered but music festivals and youth culture were still massively popular. Young people were hanging out at rock shows, and the idea of travelling around to watch rock concerts with your friends all in one vehicle, which could double as a place to sleep, was really picked up as something people could get behind. 

The issue was, despite the vans being easier to drive and park than old buses, they were incredibly boring to look at. So the customisers stepped in. 

By '73-'74, the custom van and 4x4 culture (including dirt biking and off-road racing) were taking off thanks in part to muscle cars being killed off by high insurance and petrol costs, and this led to young people wanting to decorate their basic, slab-sided work vans to stand out and show some individual flair... sound familiar?

Fat wheels, chrome side-pipes, fuzzy dice and all the stuff people were doing to hot rods and muscle cars were easily transferred over to these new rolling billboards on wheels.

Their huge slabs sides also made them ripe for adding a splash of colour. Now, they didn't start out with top-to-bottom murals featuring vikings wielding swords at fire-spewing dragons on top of a volcano. LIke the custom cars of the 50s, things started milder and rolled up as people sought to one-up each other.

Above is a typical mild van set-up with a pop-up sunroof, fog lights, side-pipes and fat wheels. 

As the 70s rolled on and people started wanting to push the boundaries, custom painters were adding pin-striping and traditional custom car touches like panels, lace paint and fades. Then, the air-brushing trend hit, allowing full scale paintings to really blow the creativity up a notch...

By '77-'78 the van craze was in full swing all over the world, including Australia. Full-size vans weren't as popular as our home-grown "panel vans" or "panos" down under, as these were based on regular family cars like the Holden Kingswood, Ford Falcon, and Chrysler Valiant. The wildest vans were show-only rigs with insanely detailed, velvet-lined interiors and mirror-finish undercarriages, custom bodywork out the wazoo, and engines designed to score points not run numbers.

As with all trends, the pendulum never swings one way alone. By the early 80s the vanning trend was pretty much done in favour of the Pro Street and Street Machine movements, which favoured speed, race-prepped engines, and sheet-metal drag-inspired interiors over velvet trim, detailed murals, and chrome carburettors. 

The wild paint trend briefly popped up in the late 80s with graphics designs, but really didn't make a return until the late 90s and the rise of the sex-spec/MAX POWER/Hot Import Nights style of car building. 

But it was all possible thanks to the hippies. 

I'm lucky enough to have been granted access to many workshops over the years, and after almost 25 years working in this trade, I think I'm in a fairly unique place to walk you guys and gals through the dos and don'ts of behaving in sheds. So, without further ado, here are The Golden Commandments of Garage and Workshop Life:

CURSING IS AN ARTFORM

Swearing when something goes wrong is an intrinsic part of garage and workshop life. Cursing the very soul of a part which won't come undone (or go in), a leak that won't stop existing, or raging at something which has broken is a time-honoured test of our spirit we undergo on any and all car builds.  

Anyone can spit out a few F-bombs or C-bombs, but true workshop legends like Mechanical Stig understand the artform of cursing: be creative. You can't get the job you're trying to do finished when you're distracted by all the frustration and anger swirling around in your head, so take all that energy and get it out of your system by cursing the source of your aggrevation as a pack of slippery gypsies. Or a recreational botherer of barnyard animals. Or a pelican-touching, fart-sniffing, turd-taster that eats the pickles and buns off a burger but throws the meat away... ahem

You get the gist. Don't bottle the frustration up, and don't throw tools. Humans are the apex creatures on this planet, so use that big brain to come up with something humourous and spite-filled so you can clear your head and move on with your day. 

CONSIDER OTHERS

If you're in someone else's garage or a professional workshop, before you go verbally blasting the mating habits of inanimate objects which are harshing your vibe, consider whether other people need to hear this. Workshops and garages can be testosterone-fuelled places but that doesn't give anyone a free reign to act like a primate; there can be kids, partners, grandparents, or other people who don't appreciate boorish behaviour within earshot or sightlines.

It should go without saying that a bit of light riffing of others is fun, but nobody should get getting treated like a lower-class, whether they're new to the game or an old hand. And this is especially important in the workplace - our hobby is under more pressure now than ever to exist so if we hack on all the apprentices who is going to be left to help us work on our old dinosaur nuggets when we're too old to crawl around under a car on jackstands, or bench-press a transmission in?

RESPECT

Everyone deserves respect as a human being, and this is especially true when we're dealing with workshops. No matter who they are, from the person answering the phone, to the boss who owns the workshop.

We can all get upset when our pride and joy is in a shop and something hasn't gone how we wanted, but yelling and screaming at a workshop employee isn't going to get your car back any faster or magically cure the problem you're dealing with.  There's no shame in telling a shop you're disappointed at progress or the finished result, but try to remain calm and ask them to outline what happened that put you in this spot. 

If you feel yourself getting upset, tell them. Tell them so they can understand how much this means to you, and that you'll go away to calm down and call back later (or visit if you can). Nobody gets anywhere or anything worthwhile when we're upset, and these cars mean a huge amount to us, so it's understandable but something we all need to manage ourselves.

BARRIER METHOD

This is basic. If there are signs saying "do not enter" on a workshop, don't. Look for the signs, too, as you need to be aware this is normally an insurance issue, but also professional workshops don't want randoms strolling in off the street, so your first port of call should always be to the front desk until you're invited onto the shop floor.

At a private garage if you haven't been invited directly to the garage it's also nice to be polite and respect the person's house by knocking on the front door rather than snooping around the side or back.  

DON'T  BE A GRUB

Try to be tidy. Having consideration for others extends beyond not getting drunk and being boorish when it's not appropriate, and you should try to keep someone else's workshop or garage tidier than your own - not only is this polite it's easier to work in, and safer too. 

Keep your work area and tools tidy so nobody is tripping over you as they're moving around. Clean up spills when they happen to avoid slip-hazards. Think about how others are working around you - don't just start hammering the bejeesus out of the engine bay if someone is under the suspension without checking they're cool for you to do that.

Also, if you see the hand towels (or toilet paper) have run out ask someone where the spares are kept and change them. 

HOST WITH THE MOST

If you're getting Day Boyz over to your shed to work on your car, make sure you have a few things planned. Ensuring your free labour has some food and drinks to enjoy, as well as a place to sit down and take a load off their feet are all absolute bare minimum for any host to provide.

Before opening invites up to your entire social media network, work out what jobs you need done and what can realistically be done in the time you have. And do this before people turn up. There's no point inviting 20 people over if you're working in a single-car garage which can barely fit 4 people.

Consider some of your friends might be enthusiastic but not super-experienced with this work, so are they better (or are YOU better) to be running around cooking a BBQ or getting other parts? Think carefully about this so everyone has a great time. 

HAMMER TIME

Got a screw that is stuck fast and you don't want to risk rounding it? Find a screwdriver which fits the head as tightly as possible, and then give the end a solid whack or 2 with a mallet. This is often enough to shock the threads and loosen it just enough to allow you to undo it.

This works on trim pieces exposed to the weather, as well as in heavy-use areas like door strikers on old cars.

DEEP CLEAN 

Oven cleaner and a cheap gasket scraper are a banger of a way to carve thick, oily, greasy sludge off parts you want to handle. BBQ cleaner is basically the same stuff, but costs a bit more.

Oven cleaner works best if you leave the object you're cleaning in the sun so it is warm to touch, then drag it into the shade while the foam detergents do their thing. Remember to wash it off thoroughly, especially on aluminium parts, as you want to stop the acidic process, and also remember to wear PPE while using it. 

Follow it up with a heavy duty degreaser to really deep-clean parts. CT20 Truck Wash is a great one, while there are industrial degreasers which can be heated to work even better than the cheap aerosol stuff.

BOG ROT

If your project has a section of thick body filler, don't try to grind or sand it off. I have done this and the mess is incredible and it's insanely slow. Instead, head down to your local hardware supply store for a Butane torch, a good mallet and a couple of cheap paint-scrapers. 

Heat the areas of filler with the torch until you hear a crack or a pop, then hold the paint scraper along the panel (do NOT hold it perpendicular to the panel) and gently chisel the filler off in big sheets. This will knock the bulk of the filler off in large, easy to clean chunks, and you can then go  over the remainder with sanding discs to get back to bare steel.

CUSTOM O-RINGS 

You can make custom O-rings at home, even for parts which need to be fuel- or oil-rated. Industrial supply stores sell a huge variety of O-ring cord diameters and materials, which you buy in a length and cut to the size you need. A drop of superglue on each end of the cut cord and you're good to go with a custom O-ring to seal any manner of projects (like the custom fuel pump cradle in my custom fuel tank above). 

You need to cut the cord dead-on square to give the best sealing surface when you join the ends together, so invest in a brand new knife or blade for the job.   

MARKED FOR CUT

If you need to mark a spot on metal to drill a hole then you need a centre-punch. However, what happens when you can't fit the punch in place? There are paint pens like the Marxmate GripIt which can fire a shot of paint up to 50mm which will show you the centre-point, which you can then punch and drill to precision.

For deeper holes a long Phillips-head screwdriver can also be used as a centre-punch in emergencies, or using the straw from a can of lubricating aerosol attached to a spray paint can to make the spot to drill. 

 While the siren song of Marketplace and the allure of dropping a mere thousand-bones onto some biohazard nugget is so strong it seems tied to our DNA, there are some stark realities you need to confront if you want to come wading into this murky water. 

It should be obvious to anyone capable of critical thought that none of these cars are going to be ready to drive across Australia or make make big-banger power outputs. Any of these cars are projects and will need bulk time, money and elbow-grease to make into viable road vehicles once more. If that doesn't scare you off, welcome to Club Sick...

RUST VS ELECTRONIC NIGHTMARES

You can find some seriously cool old school cars around for $1k, but $1000 classic cars will have rot. No ifs, buts, or maybes. And not just chrome bumper classics, either. 

However, rust is a nightmare across all socio-economic reaches of car enthusiasm. You could spend 100 times more than this and still be dealing with rust in some way - it's just likely you'll be dealing with far, far less than in a car costing a grand. 

But are you scared more by rust or electronics issues in modern cars? There are plenty of late-model cars for sale at this price point featuring one, some, or a litany of electronics issues. Some have been drowned in floods (avoid at all costs), while others lack maintenance or are from brands and models infamous for crapping out expensive sensors.

You need to ask yourself if the solution to this car's problems was easy why didn't the former owner just do that and sell the car for heaps more mooah? Do you have the time, tools, or money to diagnose what is wrong? Faults in the ABS systems or buried in the body wiring loom can be insanely difficult to fix.

That said, I helped a friend buy a rare 1980s Maserati that had an engine bay fire for almost beer money. Several weekends of cleaning the bay, replacing hoses, and gutting the interior to replace the trashed wiring loom with a good 2nd-hand unit from a wrecked car had the old twin-turbo V6 back on the road for not much more than this budget. (Being an 80s Maserati it was almost instantly back off the road having broken down, but that's not the point of this story).    

A final note on rust is that it hides, just like an electrical issue. A paint-depth gauge will warn you of inch-thick body filler, but the only way you'll know if this old nugget is truly rust-free is to de-skin it (remove all outer panels).   

REGO

You're not getting any. No, none. Forget it. So, why is it unregistered? Does it have mechanical issues and, are they simple or catastrophically difficult to cure (like a dead engine or trans)? And, if they're easy to fix, why is the seller offloading the car cheap instead of fixing them?

Can you afford the cost of rego? Almost all cars in NSW will cost more than the purchase price to put a full year's rego on, and this might be a reason why the car is being sold unregistered, and could point to whether it has had any maintenance money spent on it during the former owner's time with it. 

You also need to carefully inspect the car, including all the legal ID numbers for the car (and check them on a PPSR database). Is the car or engine stolen? Don't spend $1000 buying a car you legally can't own. 

MISSING PARTS

There will be plenty of promising buys online for $1000 because the owner didn't know how to fix them, or have time or the money to do so. Can you? Maybe.

You need to give the car a close inspection to see if the missing parts have been hacked out using nothing but rage and the bite-force of a foul-tempered Doberman called Gerald (and I mean, fair, wouldn't you be pissed if you'd been named Gerald?). Sometimes what appears like a few missing trim panels or electrical connectors could hide a loom that's had parts ripped out with scant regard for anyone wanting to put the car back to running, driving condition. 

Similarly, try to see if the engine starts, or at least turns over. Is there a transmission or a differential under the car? I was nearly suckered into buying a car which was promised "drove when parked" until I actually jacked it up and discovered there was no transmission, flywheel, clutch, or tailshaft - this made the car not worth the asking price or the seller.

MILEAGE 

Whatever you buy will have likely the same mileage as if it had been driven to the moon and back. Weekly. That doesn't mean it is ready for scrap, as plenty of well-engineered base cars can go hundreds and hundreds of thousands of kilometres on their original mechanical hardware. 

You should perform a few additional checks to see if the mechanicals are healthy, the body shell isn't too fired (do the doors and boot or bonnet open and close easily?), and does it need major suspension components entirely replaced? If it's done a few hundred thousand clicks (or more) it should have had all of its shocks and bushes replaced a few times, and probably control arms too.

Other parts which do wear out over time include door locks, the ignition barrel, body weather sealing rubbers, window guides, motors, and seals, as well as engine bearings and transmission and differential internals (bearings, rings, idlers, and more). 

ECONOMIC VERSUS STATUTORY WRITE-OFFS

One reason you need to be careful checking numbers on these sorts of cars is because you don't want to build a sick project car out of something listed as a statutory write-off. That means it can never be registered again in your state. Dream, over.

An economic write-off will be listed as "repairable" on state paperwork. Any VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) marked with a "Statutory" write-off is not allowed to be re-registered even after a thorough inspection, as it is deemed as being "unable to be repaired properly".  

You also won't be able to insure the car, so even if you're building a race car there's no coverage if it gets nicked from your house or is destroyed while being trailered to the track (unlike Laid-Up Cover from some insurers like Shannons). Never say never - this is why we have insurance - so it's something to bare in mind before you spend all your time and money building something that you will also be unlikely to be able to sell easily.

Internal combustion engines rely on the principle of "suck, squish, bang, blow" as described above. Air comes in, is compressed (with a fuel), ignited, and then evacuated. So it stands to reason if you want more power you need more air. 

Adding fuel without matching the air will just make the tune rich, and the car will bog. It's air, and how the engine processes it, which is the key to making horsepower. And this is where people who say "turbos are the replacement for displacement" need to pipe down and let the adults talk. 

Turbos ARE displacement. Turbochargers, superchargers, and nitrous all ram additional air into the engine effectively increasing its displacement. The engine doesn't know if it's a 2.6L or a 26L, it's just processing a volume of air being rammed into it with giddy abandon.

If you keep ramming air into your engine, it will eventually stop making power. This is where the efficiency the engine can process the air comes into play. Otherwise known as "voumetric efficiency" (AKA, "VE"), engines which can perform the suck, squish, bang and blow process with greater amounts of air will make more power. Period. 

That's a universal truth about engines, so write it down.

If you want to understand VE, look up the hullabaloo created when Honda dropped the S2000 on us. Here was an NA four-cylinder making 120hp-per-litre and it was so crazy it may as well have cooked you dinner and washed your dog at the same time. 

If you want to process more air in your engine, and you don't want to go through the laborious, expensive process of improving your VE by lightening the valvetrain, improving air flow, and enhancing fuelling and spark timing, then you need to take more drastic steps. 

This is where you choose to make your engine bigger for increased swept volume, or decrease it and use RPM.

By increasing the bore and stroke of your engine (often called "stroking" an engine), you increase it's capacity, thereby increasing the amount of air you can ram into it (in overly simplistic terms). This can have its own drawbacks, with cylinder wall thickness, rod/stroke ratio, and more, which can affect reliability, redline, boost limits, and more.

We're into the mathematics side of engines here, as bore and stroke ratios, con rod ratio, piston pin height, crank or rod counterweight, all come together to advise whether an engine will hang together as you push its envelope.

Or you could start squeezing it hard.

The other option is to maximise the bore of the engine, but reduce the stroke. Colloquially known as a "de-stroker", this work improves piston speed by reducing the length a piston has to travel through the cylinder bore. This then allows you to (theoretically) spin the engine faster. 

In *VERY* general terms, increasing an engine's ability to RPM has the effect of increasing the amount of air you can jam into it. 

Look at the 9000rpm, 6L V8s used in NASCAR which run a bore/stroke ratio of  approximately 106.3mm (4.185in) by 83mm (3.25in), compared to a 6L LS that revs to only 7000rpm and uses 101.6mm (4.00in) by 92mm (3.622in) bore/stroke. 

All engines are a compromise, in terms of size, weight, RPM, and so on. And so whether you stroke the engine out, or make it rev like a Van Halen guitar solo, you're going to find there will be a point the engine won't work any better by going further.

You'll also have to pick what you're using the engine for. There's no point in putting a super-fast-spinning, lightweight high-RPM combo into a big, heavy daily driver, while a time attack car isn't served that well by a low-revving torque monster. 

But, the one thing which doesn't lie is that an engine's ability to pump air controls its ability to make horsepower.

Below are the four most important things to get right when selling a car. We've used these points for countless cars we've had to move on, and they've always worked a charm.

Take Banger Photos

Too many people upload nonsensical photos to their ad, and then wonder why nobody is enquiring about their car for sale. They need to be well-lit, with a clean car (yes, wash and vacuum), and showing the whole car. At the very minimum you need the following angles: both front three-quarter sides, both rear-three-quarter sides, engine bay, and interior. 

Good photos show you care about the car and give the prospective buyers confidence that you're not hiding anything with the car's condition. They will respect you've taken the time to go out and photograph the car for the ad, which helps them trust that you care about the car. 

When you go to take the photos (ideally as soon as possible after cleaning the car), a phone camera is good enough but try to choose a nice, neutral background like a well-lit, empty corner of an outdoor carpark. If you have to take photos at night, try to illuminate the car as best as possible, even using the headlights of a friend's car - you want to show the car from as many angles as possible. 

If you're selling a project, clear plenty of space around it so you can see as much as possible, and remember details matter. If your car is modified remember to take detail pics of the modifications as they might well make the difference for someone to pick up the phone and enquire about the car.

Research The Market... Thoroughly

Understanding how to price your car fairly is a key part of selling your car. Nobody wants to sell their car too cheap, but pricing it way over the odds is guaranteed to light your inbox up with low-ball offers, and little else.

Try to find comparitive ads for the same car and as close to your year/make/model/spec-level as possible. Ideally you can find cars in the same colour, similar mods and mileage in your local area so you can price your car accordingly. You will have a much harder time selling your car if it's the highest priced example for sale and you can't clearly tell people why.  

When researching prices don't just rely on one website: look at FB Marketplace, eBay, sales websites, and speak to anyone you know who sold a similar car recently. Part of the reason for being so thorough is because modified cars appeal to a pretty small window of people, as a buyer for your car needs to share your exact taste in cars and modifications. In some cases you can be better off putting the car back to stock as this can net you a faster sale and better price. 

Write A Proper Description

We live in the age of TL;DR, but if someone is going to buy your car you need to give them the very basic information to interest them: year/make/model, what spec it is, what the mileage (kilometres or actual miles), any and all modifications, how long you've owned it, how much registration is left, and any known faults.

You don't need to write every single detail of the car's history, but you should give any potential buyer a good idea of what they're buying. Things like if it was your daily or weekender, whether you imported it or not, how kuch paperwork it has, how often you serviced it (or who it was serviced by), and the like all helps give a prospective buyer the feeling they're not taking a huge risk buying your car as it won't seem like you're hiding anything. 

Be Honest

Having the buyer trust you and the car you're selling is paramount to not only a good sale, but to avoid being low-balled like crazy by someone who is thinking they're going to have to completely rebuild the market-priced car they're buying off you. You don't need to explain every tiny fault with a car, but you should be honest so the buyer can trust they're not buying a lemon... and if you're selling a total soggy nugget then they know what they're buying. 

If you've explained major and minor faults to a prospective buyer it also gives them less room to haggle on the price, if you've priced the car inside the market value for your example. Hiding faults with a car doesn't actually benefit anyone, as you're unlikely to be making life-changing money by failing to disclose faults with your car. 

Ultimately, we're all car enthusiasts and we should look out for each other as much as possible. It's a small world; you'd hate to be ripped off if the shoe was on the other foot.

Sell, Don't Swap

Today we see a lot of people offering to swap their car for one we're selling, sometimes with cash on top, and sometimes asking for cash from us as part of the trade. In our experience this has never worked in both parties' favour.

Someone always gets the worse vehicle in the wash-up, and it's highly unlikely you're going to be lucky enough to have them want to trade you a car you've been dreaming of owning. You're almost universally better off selling your car and then going and finding the car you want, rather than the car randomly being offered.

Swaps nearly always take longer to facilitate, and lead to rushed decisions. If someone really wants your car they'll find the money and sell that car they're trying to offload. Stay the course, sell the car.

Having spent 25 years buying, building, driving, wrecking, and blowing up cars (good lord, I am old), here are some of the key ways to avoid blowing your engine up like a goose (ie: don't do what I did).  

Health Check

When you get a new project, or you pluck it's new heart from the clutches of a wrecking yard, It's way too easy to tear straight into trying to make it run. Many of our favourite enigines (including Barras and LS V8s) are well over 20 years old, and so you can't expect to slap one into a car, boost it up to double the horsepower, and then have it last for another 20 years. 

Before trying to get your car to make noise go right over the engine looking for simple problems like cracked vacuum hoses, wiring that is brittle (and therefore needs replacing), and fluid leaks. You should also pop the timing cover off the engine and turn it over by hand to check the condition of the timing chain or belt and the tensioner, as these are wear items and will need to be replaced at some point - it may as well be sooner rather than later.

RPM

Taking an engine to redline is a lot of fun (hello Hondabois and classic BMW M-car drivers), however this is one way you radically increase the risk of killing your engine. Paul Rosche, the noted engineer who gave us some of the greatest performance engines of the 20th Century, once said to me that the strain on an engine exponentially doubles for every 250rpm past 8000rpm.

That means you're putting four-times the strain through an engine at 8500rpm compared to 8250rpm, and that strain will do damage. The bearings in an engine are actually wear items and by spinning an engine to its redline, you're accelerating the wear on those parts. If you're doing it with a second-hand engine you don't know the intimate history of, then you're risking your entire engine.

It isn't just enough to know you've chucked in fresh oil and a new filter. Friends of mine much smarter than me took to installing oil pressure and oil temperature gauges so they could see how their 2nd hand engines behaved before they sent them to the moon. They also did compression tests to have a good understanding of how tired the engine was, before they even put the car on the road - one simple check can tell you if the engine you've just bought is a dog, or a superstar waiting to change your life.

The wrong oil

As engines wear with age they actually need to have their oils changed to suit. Hang around old-timers who play with pre-80s engines and you'll often hear them talk about how engines would "free up" over time, as they got more kilometres on them and would apparently run better. Part of this comes down to engine tolerances being looser back in the day, as well as the lack of modern ECUs/fuelling/ignition systems meant having less control over how an engine ran (when was the last time you needed to take a car in for a "tune up"?)

You can kill a high-mileage engine super-fast by using the same oil it was specced with when new. As the engine wears and tolerances grow, moving up one grade of oil to a heavier option is often one way to prolong engine life. If you're unsure what oil to put in your car, ask a trusted engine builder. You might be fine with what you have currently, but this is one quick, easy way to avoid a spun bearing (and curing that requires a new crank at least). 

It is also important to realise that a 5W-30 oil from the 60s has radically different chemical make-up to a current 5W-30. A lot of classic muscle car owners are killing camshafts and lifters because oils today miss important additives like zinc, which help lubricate mechanical parts, but are left out of modern oils as current-tech engines simply don't need those additives.  

Oil control

If you're a fan of corners (let's face it who isn't?), then you know sticky tyres and modern suspension mods allow you to rail through bends faster than we've ever been able to go before. However, chucking your car merrily though corners on a stock oil pan comes with some fairly heavy risks. 

As with running old oil or the wrong grade of oil, you need to ensure your engine has a constant, properly pressurised stream of oil being delivered to all its reciprocating components. The single biggest impediment to this is a factory oil pan and windage tray - if it has one. 

Few engines of the 90s featured complex baffling systems to stop oil slosh, and their windage trays were often designed to prioritise cost efficieny over preventing oil aeration (and that frothing does bad things for the oil). If you're going to drive your car hard consider safeguarding your motor with a gated oil pan, high-volume oil pump, an upgraded windage tray, and potentially an oil accumulator.  

Cylinder pressure

Here is a big one for everyone wanting to do a "stock bottom-end" build, or push a used factory turbo engine hard. Cylinder pressure will kill a lot of engines, and normally it takes a while before the problem shows its head. Once it does, however, then you'll be buying a new engine, or embarking on a full tear-down rebuild. 

"Cylinder pressure" is a dynamic beast, changing as the engine runs through its four stages of the combustion cycle: suck, squish, bang, and blow. Cylinder pressures are at their highest during the squish (compression) and bang (combustion) process,  when the piston is literally fighting against the compressed air and fuel miture sitting in the combustion chamber. 

In overly simple terms, think about an aluminium NA engine. These were designed with a certain cylinder pressure in mind but you, Johnny Modder, have come along and strapped a bus turbo to the side of your engine in the aim of turning tyres to smoke, and you want to push 35psi through it because you've read that's what the cool kids on the Internet do.

The more boost you jam into this engine, the more force you're pushing into the cylinder and onto the head studs. This is why so many people running high-boost set-ups upgrade their engines with stronger aftermarket studs, as the factory bolts will stretch under the increased cylinder pressure.

A lot of early adopters of turbo LS1 combos found they were turning their round cylinders oval (killing pistons) as the additional pressure from turbo boost was deforming the cylinders. The 2.5-litre Volvo "whiteblock" engines are also renowned for having weak cylinders that are perfectly reliable at the stock 300hp, but will almost certainly fail once you add boost.

How do you fix this? Simple, keep the boost sensible. 

So, why do modern engines seem to make power much easier than older engines? There are several reasons for this, but it mostly comes back to engines being far more efficient, and better controlled.

While we think of overhead-cam EFI turbocharged engines like the Nissan RB and SR, Toyota JZ, Ford Barra, Honda B-series as "modern", engine design has evolved massively since they hit the market. Most of these engine designs date back 40 years or more, so today they're as old in tech as the carby big-block V8s they took over from. Feeling old yet?

The computing power and amount of data capable of being read by modern ECUs has allowed engineers to design better engines as we understand far better what is actually happening inside these engines as they run. Think of the ECUs used in 90s cars as only being able to see 24 colours, but modern ECUs see in 4K resolution, and now replace "colour" with "data" and you get an idea of how far ECUs have come, and how modern engines are so finely timed and fuelled.

If you know precisely what the engine is doing you can extract every ounce of power out of it, and this allows engineers to put the engines together with much finer tolerances.

Tightening emissions laws have driven manufacturers to chase more efficient engines, which has benefitted enthusiasts as these engines make power easier than old school engines which had to fight for every horsepower they made. If you look up the specs of a lot of modern cars you'll notice a lot of modern engines have high compression ratios and run quite thin synthetic oil, and these both help enignes be responsive and spin more easily.

Lower compression ratios make for a lazier engine and thicker oil will drag more than a lightweight oil. However, with old tech ECUs (or mechanical injection and carburettors) people couldn't tune engines precisely like they do today, as they didn't have such fine-control over fuelling and ignition timing, while wideband sensors were rare and MAP-based tuning was just a concept.

All of a sudden our modern engines can spin faster, safely, and the oil technology has improved to match with it. But so has the technology in fuel systems, coil-on-plug ignition systems, the low-resistence serpentime multi-rib front-drive belt systems, and the big one: turbochargers.

If you're not deeply invested in the automotive aftermarket you might not realise how much turbo design has evolved in the last 15 years alone. To put that in perspective, I'm talking SINCE 2010. 

Lightweight billet compressor and turbine wheels, better blade angle design, wastegate efficiency (and precise electronic control), and better bearing design for the centre cartridge have revolutionised how fast turbos spool and how much power they can make. All of these improvements mean the (now more efficient) engine doesn't have to push as hard to make a single PSI of boost, improving performance. We're doing more with less. 

Modern piston and con rod design has also evolved as thinner, lighter piston/rod combos are no longer the domain of race engines, while piston-to-bore clearance, bearing clearances, and even more tightly controlled piston-to-valve clearance have all improved engine efficiency, which benefits emissions but also allows engines to work easier; they're not big, lumbering dinosaurs anymore.

With modern ECUs being able to read more data and have more control over an engine's operation it has also allowed engineers to push technology like active cam control and cam phasing, as well as valve and timing changes, and even adjustable intake manifolds. All of this helps enthusiasts enjoy more potent engines that make a wider spread of power.  

The metal engines are being made from has improved out of sight. We've had aluminium engines since the 50s (and in some rare, super-exotic cases, even earlier) but modern metal processing and engineering means the blends of aluminium alloys used in modern engines offer far superior tolerance to heat cycling, high cylinder pressures, vibration, and strain from RPM. 

Some of our favourite turbo hero cars use cast iron blocks as this was the only way to hold the cylinders in their correct shape when dealing with boost. Only 15 years ago it was fundamentally understood any turbo all-aluminium (barring super exotic aftermarket block/head combos) were on a borrowed timeline as, eventually, the cylinder pressure would oval the bores, lift cylinder heads or fatigue the block and break the crank. 

SImilarly, manufacturers now design deep-skirt blocks that put the whole crank tunnel in the block itself radically stregthening the main cap area.  Look at the pic above to see the difference between a typical 1960s passenger V8 (Holden 308), and a late-90s passenger V8 (5.7 LS1); we've now got dense, light alloy blocks (vs cast iron), 6-bolt main caps (vs 2), better cylinder head sealing, and that's ignoring priority mains oiling and other race car tech which has found its way into production engines. 

Honda's K-series backs up these claims. These storied transverse four-cylinders make rude power NA, let alone once they're fed delicious turbo boost, and they're able to do so thanks to the engineering progress we've made over the last 30 years. And it it isn't just the quality of the design and the parts being used.

Production tolerances, thanks to improving the quality of the design, the quality of the parts being used, and the precision of the machines building the engines, have all been tightened up out of sight compared to old engines. 40 years ago it wasn't uncommon to hear of someone having a lemon car where the engine suffered catastrophic failure through some silly manufacturing mistake, but this has largely been eradicated today.

All of this is great news for people at home wanting to build fun, fast street cars at home. We can turbocharge common, easy-to-source NA engines, control them with precision, and make more power than supercars had in the 90s.

And we can do it ourselves as the base equipment the manufacturers are giving us are so much better designed and built than they used to be. 

From bodgy Subaru RS Turbos, to nugget E30 BMWs, decrepit V8s, to my out-of-control pound puppy Pontiac, I've done the hard yards so you guys can learn from my mistakes.

Knowledge is key, organised knowledge

If you haven't worked on this model of car before, take a bunch of reference photos and videos before you start pulling it apart. Have a cloud-based service to them save them, and in a file structure. I use Dropbox but there are a bunch of ways you can do this: the important thing is to not just have 2764 images in your camera roll with no key to what they are. I'd suggest something like [base car folder]/2025 rebuild/mechanical work/engine removal - you can add other folders alongside "mechanical work" like "respray", "interior", "suspension rebuild", "brakes overhaul", and more.    

Workshop manuals exist for almost all bar the rarest nuggets, so get onto Google and find yourself as many manuals for your specific make and model as you can find, and remember that overseas market cars may have key differences to yours (LHD vs RHD could change the steering system, and more). I will often take notes on how a particular part of a car came apart so I have a record of what order parts need to be refitted, and how some complicated systems are assembled - the time it takes to write this stuff down will pale into insignificance compared to the time lost as you struggle to remember how it all fit together several months (or years later).

When browsing the Internet for parts or for information I tend to bookmark as many pages as possible within a folder system for the project. This has become increasingly important as I have two E30s BMWs, an E34 5-series, plus my Pontiac I'm working on so I need to keep all my information organised. 

Use the right products

Organic schmutz needs soap and water. Oil and grease requires solvent cleaners. When it comes to cleaning up dirty projects most people start with hosing the car down, but you're actually often better having a good look at what you're trying to clean, because all that water and soap won't do much against years of grease and oil.

With really old, grimey cars you're often better served by applying cheap Oven Cleaner to the heaviest grime, and then washing that off just to see what you're dealing with. Heavy degreasing truck washes won't shift grease like an aerosol option, but they're much friendlier on the budget and can be a great option when paired up with properly caustic options like Oven Cleaner. 

If you're dealing with a classic car that is covered in bulk grot, you'll most likely need heavy mechanical assistance to actually shift the worst of the grime. Cheap flathead screwdrivers and paint-scrapers and gasket-scrapers are brilliant for dislodging the most stubborn grot and even caked-on mud. Be careful with Oven Cleaner around aluminium parts as you'll need to de-activate it with soapy water otherwise it will corrode the alloy. 

Having a few bottles of supermarket All Purpose Cleaner and a tub of a paste-style household cleaner (Aussies can use Gumption) will also work wonders on your interior, or for mossy, mouldy surfaces.

Cleaning up OEM bolts, brackets and assorted metal pieces is best done with a cheap ultrasonics cleaner. Just remember to change the bath solution regularly so it cleans most effectively, and don't forget to use a good-quality heat-activated cleaning agent.   

Find space however you can 

When you pull a car apart you will find the parts will consume more than double the space. Giving yourself room to work is absolutely fundamental to being able to complete all the tasks you'll find you need to do to take a car from "meh" to "MAAAAAAAAD". When space is at a premium you'll have to be smart and strategic about how you tackle jobs, but I have seen people build amazing cars in single-car garages in apartment blocks - the key is to look around for how people work in confined space and use their ideas. 

When space is at a premium, or you're working in borrowed space, you need to have a plan to tackle your jobs so you don't get in the way of other people. Hiring large workshop equipment to get jobs done (like swapping engines) without soaking up heaps of your precious space buying a large, bulky tool you'll only use once or twice. Being efficient with your space also means it is easier to find parts when it comes time to start putting the car back together, and you'll probably find these parts won't be damaged or broken from having been left in a pile you've tripped over a dozen times for a year or more.

Similarly, having tools or storage on wheels so you can empty your space out to work on your car is another great idea i've seen, while I currently use height and vertical storage options in my single-car apartment garage. You'll never regret having more space.

Don't lose days buying supplies 

Spend the time and money investing in some sprays you can keep in your garage, and try to have three cans so you know you should have plenty on the shelf when you're in the middle of thrashing on your nugget. This is important as the amount of time lost having to run to a parts store to get a can of specialist spray will blow your mind.

When you start a project you should have good-quality degreaser plus an acetone option (AKA carby/throttle body cleaner) and a liquid form of brake cleaner will be friendlier on your budget than buying cases of aerosol cans. A basic penetrating oil is a must, but also a specialist hardcore option for those fasteners that simply will not play ball, while a butane torch and freeze-spray are also mandatory.

Similarly, you should have Contact Cleaner for electrics, All Purpose Cleaner for cosmetics (ie: so you don't get filthy), and a giant tub of hand cleaner so mum/wife/etc doesn't yell at you for getting the towels dirty. You should give serious thought to picking up a good-quality gardener's scrub for your hands so they don't get completely ruined by all the chemicals, rust, dirt, grease, oil and other harmful chemicals you're going to be using - you've only got one set of hands so take care of them. 

It's not a bad idea, as your project rolls on, to keep some high-temp bearing grease (for lubricating parts), anti-seize (for doing the same to fasteners), thread-locker (for doing the opposite), Superglue (to hold cosmetic parts together), petroleum jelly or rubber grease (to lubricate O-rings) in the cupboard. A tube of gasket goo can also save bulk time when you're faced with a hurdle to overcome.

Look after yourself

Working in the garage it is way too easy to lose track of time. However, you're a human so you need to eat and stay hydrated so the bare minimum is chomping down on some fruit and remembering to drink plenty of water (not just stuff with an alcohol content).

Remember to stretch. Project cars will see us lifting heavy objects, rubbing bodypanels down for days, or contorting ourselves into cramped spaces for hours at a time. Give your body its best chance to do what you need it to by taking regular breaks and stretching your muscles out. Doing this (and not drinking a million beers while working on the car) will also help you stay sharp, focused and ready to come back into the garage each day.

Being kind to yourself also requires you to walk away from a task when you're struggling. Overcoming these battles is great to show your tenacity, but our projects are meant to be fun and so you should take a break and go touch grass when you feel like you aren't winning. The only thing I've regretted from walking away from a task I was struggling with was not doing it sooner as, most times, it was solved minutes after I came back from my break with fresh eyes and a clear head.