There is something that appals and depresses us about the modified car industry in Australia. Perhaps it's like that in the rest of the world as well, we don't know. And what are we referring to? Well, to cut straight to the point, most of the industry dealing in modifying late model cars is incompetent. Yes, we did say 'most'.
Simply, more often than not, workshops and parts suppliers don't have much idea of what they're doing.
Fred's Hot Performance
Any idiot can set himself up running a workshop modifying cars. No qualifications are needed for Fred Smith to put up a sign, 'Fred's Hot Performance'. Fred doesn't have to be a qualified mechanic, Fred doesn't even have to have a basic understanding of how cars work. Fred might have read a few magazines, decided that he knows what makes a car go fast, and then rented the space, borrowed the tools and set up in business. But worse - much worse than that, Fred can also be pretty stupid.
In fact, it's very likely that Fred is stupid.
Stupid? A slow learner, who reads little about what is happening in the field (the magazines - he just looks at the pictures), someone who cannot draw valid conclusions and relationships from sequences of events that he sees occurring, someone who is slow to grasp a point and so conceptually limits problems to just one or two dimensions.
After all, that makes all problems easy, doesn't it?
The sort of person who puts a two-and-a-quarter inch exhaust on a four cylinder, finds some power, then assumes that all four cylinders therefore require a two-and-a-quarter inch exhaust. The sort of person who derides factory engineering - he can always do better. The sort of person whose knowledge is more often than not extraordinarily narrow - he knows a bit about one make and model and nothing about anything else. The sort of person who makes no attempt to understand why a modification works - or doesn't work.
But maybe Fred is a good tradesman - a good welder, for example. And he looks around, sees lots of poor quality welding of intercoolers and exhaust manifolds, and so sets himself up as a custom turbo fabrication business. He knows nothing of flow patterns through plumbing, of course he has no flowbench or dyno or any other test or measuring equipment, but - oh, boy - he knows his intercoolers and intercooler plumbing and exhaust manifolds are top-notch.
And just how does he know that? Well, buddy, that engine of mine over there (could be anything from a WRX to a twin turbo Big Block boat engine), that engine pal, that made lots of power, or that ran a quick quarter mile.
Whether it could have done far better with an alternative design of modifications - who knows? There was no trialing of different systems - who can afford to do that?
Whether that engine gave better results than others elsewhere have done - who knows? It's what Fred sees in Fredland that's his complete yardstick of achievement.
Colder than Ambient...
Fred's the sort of guy who loves a panacea - a quick fix that overcomes all problems in one fell swoop. This new breed of intercooler cores? - they're so good that the intake air temp is lower than ambient! In fact, after making this statement Fred looks our way with an air of expecting congratulations. Why? Cos he was Scientific enough to make a measurement.
And we have had a major Australian turbo workshop tell us just that - that after their supa-dupa core, they can measure temperatures lower than ambient....
Or maybe Fred discovers a new technique. Like hanging the dyno intake air temp sensing probe up on the wall every time he does a dyno run. Why? Well, as Fred says, that stops the temperature varying all over the place.
And we have had another major Australian workshop tell us that as well.
We don't think they ever bothered reading the operator's manual on the dyno. Now we think about it - of course they didn't. The proprietor has probably never read a single publication of that length in his entire life...
An innocent customer of this industry would think that people working on cars keep up with what is changing. The really naïve would assume that with the widespread availability of good quality information - from the Institute of Automotive Mechanical Engineers' base-level magazine right through to the engineering-level Society of Automotive Engineers research papers and TAFE further education seminars - that in fact people in the late-model modification game would know where new car engineering and designs are heading.
But that innocent and naïve person couldn't be further from the truth. If there're more than twenty people in workshops in the whole of this country who even attempt in an organized manner to stay abreast of the cutting edge in automotive technology, we'd be astonished.
But why should they, you say?
Well the person who has read about tuned length intake systems wouldn't take off the factory airbox and small diameter plumbing leading to a Daihatsu Charade throttle body and replace it with a 3-inch duct with a cone filter on the end, would they? Well, not without a morning of intensive dyno testing to decide on the right pipe length and diameter to actually improve mid-range torque and peak power - not destroy it. And with power and torque changes of up to 8 per cent available on this car (see "Pipe Dreams"), it's a pretty vital area ain't it?
Tell that to the young lad with his Charade who paid good money for just such a big-equals-better modification.
Happy? No he wasn't.
Tell that to the guy with the NA Subaru Impreza - happy, he wasn't either.
And of course all products sold with a label specifying a power increase have had intensive testing to prove their gains, haven't they? In any other area of society where consumer laws exist - sure. But not in the aftermarket car industry, where completely fallacious claims appear in print every day. Try plug-in chips with power claims that are simply physically impossible, try power-up kits with kW stickers on the back of cars which are inflated by sometimes 20 or 30 per cent, try some modification parts which when fitted result in a decrease in power.
Nah, surely not. Well, tell that to the guy who lost 20hp at the wheels after he fitted the new over-radiator sports air intake to his HSV GTS 300. Of course he was told that the item would make his car go better...
That's not even to mention in any detail a major aftermarket cam manufacturer who is grinding cams that he's never even run in an engine... Testing? What testing before he sells them to you? (See "From the Editor" for more on this great R&D effort.)
We guess that at the most optimistic - which right now we're not feeling - you could say that lots of you are likely to be part of an on-going trial-and-error process conducted by workshops and parts suppliers at your expense.
The pessimistic would say that you're nearly all suckers being taken for rides.
Action!
But, folk, you can do something about it!
You don't have to put up with people who don't know how to use their dyno. You don't have to put up with people who believe that their intercoolers are able to break the rules of physics. You don't have to put up with modifications that make your car slower - or handle worse - than it did before greasy hands were laid on it.
How? Well, this is our way of finding good workshops.
Firstly, these days we'd be very wary about quizzing other customers on what they think. (We used to suggest that you do just that, but now we realise that asking a bunch of sheep what they think doesn't result in knowledge of calculus. After all, the sucked-in are more than likely to tell you how great a place it is. They'll be the same people telling you how the one-size-suits-all chip made such a huge on-road difference, how their new intake is just awesome - and how Fred's a bloody guru. (If Fred is still in business it doesn't necessarily mean he's good - it is more than likely to mean that he's just skilled at sucking-in people. Sadly, we see it all the time.)
Instead, put the workshop proprietor on the spot. If the workshop specialises in a particular car, ask them about that car. What do they think of the latest model? (You'd be surprised how many of these places won't even know that the latest model has been released - one hasn't come into the shop yet and remember, they don't do any reading or other research of their own accord. For example, very few workshop proprietors bother going to car shows.) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different models that have been available over the years? What are the quick, easy and effective mods?
Ask them about specific modification results and the measured improvements that resulted. Sure, they could lie about them, but the lie becomes very difficult to maintain if you dig deeper. OK, the exhaust gave a power gain of 'X'. Was that with or without intake modifications? Oh, it was without. What then, did the intake mods do on their own? What do the intake mods and the exhaust do to the power curve? What did a revised chip or new management do after that? What did the chip or management do on its own? Were there any power losses through the rev range? Can I see some sample dyno graphs please?
Under this sort of intense questioning Fred will say, "What are you asking me all this shit for? I tell ya mate, it works. Ask Johnno over there - his car went like a cut snake after we'd finished with it."
It is expected that you will overlook that (a) Johnno is an employee of the workshop - or a friend of the proprietor - and (b) that Johnno owns a completely different car to yours.
No decent workshop in this day and age should be selling any performance improvements without having quantified data to back it up. Dyno runs are cheap and easy to get - and even if the workshop in question doesn't have a dyno, expect all good workshops to have a relationship with another workshop that does have rollers. An exhaust shop that tells you how the restrictive backpressure has been decreased after their new exhaust has been fitted should be able to tell you 'before' and 'after' figures.
We've met only one exhaust shop in the whole country that has ever even measured exhaust backpressure...
Don't be disheartened by people who get their backs up when questioned so closely. Instead just leave. (By the same token, make sure that you have the money to spend and if you intend asking lots of questions, make an appointment for a time when the shop isn't too busy.)
Be pedantic. Be picky. Be precise.
Often a workshop prop will tell you, "Yair we fitted a VF22 and boosted it to 20 pounds for two-fifty at the wheels."
Then someone else, head buried under a bonnet, will chime in, "Nah, that wasn't a VF22, that was a T04!"
This kind of vagueness about critical information is common - they really don't know what they did or the results that they got. Ipso facto, they can tell you nothing with certainty about what you will get.
And make sure that you're not the unknowing guinea pig. If you're the first person to have a modification done to your type of car, you must know about it.
You must!
Because the likelihood is that the modification initially will be, to varying degrees, unsuccessful. If the workshop is up-front and honest about this, some people are quite happy to be the guinea pig. But don't pay more because they're slower to do it, and don't pay if they break something. They cover that; that's their R&D cost.
Find out what the personal background of the proprietor of the workshop is. Has he worked as a factory technician, for example? Someone who's recently worked in a BMW or a Jaguar or a Lexus dealership will at least know of the concept of self-learning, of variable valve timing, of adaptive transmission shifts, of electronic throttle control. Simply, the majority of workshops modifying cars wouldn't have a clue about these technologies. You take your late model car to them, and it's quite likely that your car has technology that they have never even seen before.
And you're letting them modify it...
Has the prop always been in the automotive industry? Oddly enough, some of the best workshops we have seen are headed by individuals who actually started out in another industry, before turning to cars. Whether as an industrial electrician, or a refrigerator mechanic, or even a plumber, we have seen very able people come from these fields. Perhaps they bring to cars a more rigorous logic - "If this happens then as a result this happens, which in turn will affect this and this. Therefore, if we....."
In comparison, lots of mechanics just say something like, "Oh yeah, that always happens when you do that. Seen it heaps of times - nothin' you can do about it."
And people who started in a more academic discipline - eg mechanical engineering at uni - before deciding to become mechanics also bring a much more intelligent approach.
When you're having a mod done, ask what its downsides are. We've talked to the head of a major aftermarket automotive electronic product supplier who refused to acknowledge that his product had any downsides at all. And who threatened legal action if we wrote a balanced report, one that listed both the positives and the negatives. He's not a stupid man - just a greedy one.
And you're the ones who'll get sucked into fitting his product, thinking that everything is wonderful.
Pretty well all modifications have negatives. A cold air intake will usually require that you change the filter more often. A stiffer suspension will usually downgrade ride and increase NVH - and it may also make the car much more skittish in the wet. A new exhaust will result in more cabin noise, and - unless the workshop has done an identical car before - there can be no guarantee that there won't be resonances. Any internal engine mod will usually result in less reliability. Aftermarket management nine times out of ten won't pass an emissions test. A sports wheel alignment may well result in poorer tyre wear. Higher grip tyres will wear more quickly. Almost any mod will invalidate your insurance unless the company is informed, and any mod is likely to put into jeopardy your new car warranty.
Good workshops will tell you the positives and negatives. If they have only a list of positives, be actively distrustful.
Reputations
And don't believe a great reputation. We have been in workshops that are very well known. They have lots of cars in magazines, they are mentioned often around the tracks, they command a big presence and equally big dollars.
And after being in the workshops, seeing first-hand what they do and how they do it, and talking in detail to the proprietor - well, we wouldn't let them fix our bicycle.
They're stupid, their workmanship is poor, they're narrow-minded and introspective, they make no attempt to keep current with technology, they use customer cars as guinea pigs, they make claims that simply aren't supported by the facts, they're 'experts' whose knowledge is really paper-thin, and their modification advice is based solely on what's got the biggest mark-up and is the quickest to fit. And some are simply greedy liars.
But, thank God, not all workshops are like that. Don't support the ones that are.
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