Here's one I stole of Jeepforum.com - What was your most regretted mod?

We've all had great ideas and good intentions that didn't quite come out as expected. What was yours?

I think mine must have been stripping the Nikki last summer and going with mechanical secondaries. The throttle response was jerky and hard to predict, the gas mileage dropped off by several MPG and I have to clean the yellow spot off my back bumper every week.

I swapped a stock Nikki back in along with the rats nest, runs much better now.

 

I guess I have several, though only one was started by me . Previous owner did the rest, and I tell you: Its a pain in the bollocks trying to undo them.

Removal of AC. This car is only driveable in summer x.x Dont remove this, please! It hits 35-40 celsius here, why, WHY?

Removal of the air pump. I thought this was kind of needed... I had to find another one elsewhere.

Now MY biggest regret? Attempting to remove the sound deadening tar from underneith the seats and carpet. I plan to replace it with better stuff, and truly it let me know of one or two spots of impending rust.. but.. I had to scrape it off for hours. No one around here carried dry ice! It took forever! Dont do this x.x I wouldnt do it again.

 

Going with the camden on a 140,000 km motor and popped it, should've done a TII transplant.

 

did mech secondaries really do that much for you?..... i can't tell you exactly what the difference was for me since when i drove my car and it had rats nest and everything it had a vacuum leak and it was horrible at idle anyways and throtle response sucked, then i got the rats nest removed and mech secondaries before i fixed my vacuum leak so...yeah, i think it feels fantastic tho now that it's running like it should iddling about 750, steady idle, i think it's great!.

anyways mods, hmm...haven't really done much to the car besides rats nest, mech secondaries, and a fart can on the back, but i suppose the fart can because now i get accused of being a ricer or something :P

 

I regretted streetporting the engine in the white REPU. It just wasn't as fast unless the RPMs were way up there. It was less enjoyable to drive around town.

There were other factors in play here, but changing nothing but port timing was wrong.

 

I liked mechanical secondaries at first but like you said Ray, very jerky and hard to drive smoothly, ended up going back to a complete stock intake (rats nest and all) and have no interest in moddifying it at all...
I also regret completely removing A/C (including the evaporator, and filling in the holes on the firewall....) from the same car and am in the process of reinstalling it...

 

Respeed 1" strut spacers for my brake coolers. Don't regret it, but if I knew it would be such a pain in the *** to install everything...

 

I regret not having the A/C compressor...not that I took it out or anything, but in *checks current temperature* 106F heat, it really sucks

 

So far, my only regret was the gold accent paint I used on a bunch of engine metal during my engine compartment overhaul. Looked frigging awesome for a couple months, then engine heat robbed it of all it's gloss, and it looks cheezy. Re-doing it all is a pain, one bit at a time.

Other than that, my mods have all been for the better IMO - - minor though they are. I could have bought a more expensive stereo, I guess.

Oh, and my do-it-yourself window tint on the back glass; fine, except around the lift bolts. yuk.

 

Ummm Who said you need an air pump??? Unless you really need if for emissions or something in California...

 

i dont really have any mod that i regret. I would start to say the A/c removal but then i remember that it weighed 100lbs and i doesnt bother me any more lol.

All of you with jerky throttle response and complaints about mech secondaries never took the time to adjust your connection between the linkages to get it smooth. a little work and a few runs to get the secondaries opening at the right point of throttle pull makes a night and day difference.

isaac

 

Gilmer pulley kit. the damn thing squeals horribly above 6k. you need a tensioner for it to work right. Good luck trying to make one for a 12a first gen....

 

So far, I have followed the advice and experience of others here with their cars. Making sure to follow up on their opinions of their mods, and the adventure to the moments they share. Hoping to avoid killing my car, my wallet, and my spirit for the triangles.

My regret is not finding yall sooner, and not buying that sterling carb and intake last year from a guy locally, which ties into not enough time.

I like both mechanical and vacuum secondaries, 2 different experiences. With the vacuum secondaries, I dont have to worry about my wife revving the car up to lean

 

I would also have to say removing the AC. It worked great when I did it.

 

flight_of_pain, yeah I've been able to make the mech secs work fine every time. I don't understand how a full rat's nest and vacuum secondaries work better, unless the mods Ray mentioned were done poorly. Whenever I do them the results are way better than stock in the area of driving enjoyment.

 

I dont think I have any. I made sure all my mods were done correctly and by someone who knows what he's doing and does it well (Robert-RW-7). Mechanical secondaries works smoothly, emissions removal has improved gas mileage, racing suspension handles great.

I guess id say i wish i did the respeed coilover kit sooner.

 

I drilled the stock blue airbox... It looked like **** and didn't help at all.

 

It sounds as if everyone wishes they left their cars stock

I don't really regret any work I've done... all the work I do is to restore the car back to stock, though

I wish the previous owner hadn't installed the alarm system though. I still haven't tracked down all the electrical problems that introduced.

 

Amen! My car randomly buzzes and churps. and then locks and unlocks...its possessed by the Clifford Demon!

 

taking out the stupid rear storage bins, and the center consul plastic divider freed up allot of space.

other mods were replacing the faulty OEM heater air conditioning, instrument dimmer rheostat, and lamp retractor switches with toggle switches...2 gauge for battery cables..quick disconnect negative battery terminal, and my favorite is making a wooden battery box. The wood absorbs the acid!

Been meaning to order a barefoot gas pedal from J C Whitney's

 

JC Whitney.. the Johnson-Smith of auto parts vendors...

 

I don't regret anything I've done on the blue 1st gen. It loves each mod or part upgrade I give it.

 

T Dont Regret Anything I Do For My Car It All Is For Its Benfiet

 

I think this thread is beginning to show a trend. Those with skill don't regret their mods. Those who may not have as much experience wrenching on things tend to regret things after the fact.

Take for example my one regret mentioned earlier; the white REPU's streetport job. I didn't change anything other than the port size. The end result was less than stellar performance compared to before when it had stock ports (and flat rear apex springs causing a weak one rotor idle but ok from mid to high RPM).

What did I do wrong? I didn't upgrade the exhaust or intake (carb). It is prudent to upgrade these things to allow the engine to breath. If you don't, you're shooting your foot. So don't do that, and do upgrade the intake and exhaust if you have a streetported engine.

Yep, my one regret. If I hgad it to do over again, I'd throw on a header, a coupe Borlas and the exchaust would be done. The intake can be an Edelbrock or Holley or SC with Edelbrock or Holley. Or perhaps an even more interesting intake project would be to get a functional 6 port 13B in there with actual working aux ports so you have mamoth loads of low end torque that a streetported 4 port just wouldn't have (not even a stock ported 4 port for that matter) and you still have the high end of a streetport so there is really nothing to loose here, besides bland driveability.

 

How could somebody not like mech secondaries??? I've done this on a couple of different carbs and loved it every time. And, it can also improve your gas mileage because YOU control when they open.

I love all of my mods. But I guess if I had any regrets, it would be spending the money on Racing Beat springs and swaybar when I should have gone to the Respeed stuff right off the bat. It sucks having to redo your work a year later.

And maybe I'd go a different route with exhaust if I had to do it again. Racing Beat stuff is pretty pricey, and I probably could have come up with a better system if I had just bought a header and pieced together the rest of the stuff. I've heard 7s with Borla mufflers and it sounds great. Or maybe the Mindtrain system if I could have found one.


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