Purchasing Your Restoration Candidate

1. Buy the best car you can afford. What most amateurs do not understand is the inevitable truth that body work is expensive. Paying a few thousand dollars more for a good, mostly rust-free car can often save you more than double that investment in rust repair. If you can’t afford a car that is not a complete rust bucket, then you might want to seriously reconsider if you can afford to restore a car at all.
2. Are parts available for this car? When you are looking for a car to restore, do some research to see how many parts are being reproduced for it. If the car is rare or the market is not there for restoration parts, then the car is going to typically be much more difficult and expensive to restore.
3. Pay more for a local car. Yes, you can find that perfect restoration candidate on Ebay. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to travel to look at the car in the time frame the auction provides. As such, many people buy these projects without ever seeing them in person. It is too common for a car to be misrepresented and have rust or unprofessional body work covered by primer and filler. Additionally, the shipping costs to get some of these cars home can be as much as the car themselves. If you can find what you are looking for locally, go that route and be willing to pay a little more for it.
4. How much is this restoration going to costs? You need to do a cost analysis and try to not let emotion get in your way. Use some of the tips below when estimating your costs and try to get a good understanding of the type of project you are committing to.

Estimate your costs

1. Create a plan and stick with it. Before you start your project, you need to determine what kind of car you want to build. Are you customizing it or going to restore it stock? What kind of wheels and tires are going on it? You don’t want to buy those massive disc brakes only to discover that you 15” Rally Wheels won’t fit over them. Chopping the top? No need to buy that new windshield. By formulating a detailed plan, you know where you are going with your restoration and you won’t waste money moving in a different direction. I’ve seen garages littered with billet brackets that wouldn’t fit with the water pump the owner chose and left over parts that weren’t thought out.Most restorations are a long process. Have that plan written down so you can come back to it in a year and decide if some part you are considering purchasing will help you reach your goal. An overall plan is also handy so you can take advantage of deals when they arise and ensure that you aren’t throwing money at parts you won’t use.
2. Shipping costs money too. When listing the parts you are going to need to purchase, keep in mind that you will need to have many of them shipped to you. If you are like many do-it-yourselfers, you will be buying a few parts along the way and shipping costs can really add up. Additionally, if you are buying the car online (Ebay, etc), be sure to include the costs of shipping the car home after you buy it. I see a lot of cars re-listed on Ebay because the buyer didn’t understand that it was going to take over a $1,000 to ship that $2,000 rust bucket he just bought.
3. Look your project car over real well and decide what parts you can reuse and what needs to be replaced. Make a list of the parts you will need to replace and get prices for them. Take that price list and double it to take into account price fluctuation and any parts you forgot.
4. Don’t forget the labor. Find a shop that you trust that you can use on parts of the restoration that you may not have the time/expertise/room to handle (media blasting, rust repair, paint, etc…). Find out their hourly/job rates and try to get estimates on how much time each of these parts of your project will take. Write down their hourly rate and multiply any rough quotes by 50% to account for “unforeseen” circumstances and upgrades that always creep up in these jobs.
5. One of main ways of minimizing costs is to do much of the work yourself. If you intend on doing this, don’t forget to estimate the costs of any tools, supplies, and equipment that you may need (sandblasters, blasting cabinet, blast media, welder, engine stand, engine hoist, etc)

Minimizing The Costs

1. Do as much of the work as you can. The body shop charges the same hourly rate for welding as they do for taking the doors off your car. Strip it down and re-assemble it yourself to save a considerable amount of money.
2. When stripping the car, treat the parts that come off of it like gold. Be careful, don’t damage them, and attempt to recondition and reuse anything that you can. On many restoration jobs, many of these small parts are near impossible to find. If you are restoring something like a 69 Camaro, the parts may be available but the costs of them will add up quickly and strain your budget.
3. Tag and Label everything. When you are pulling pieces off of the car, bag them and label the bags. Store them somewhere where they will not get damaged. This will not only make your job much easier during re-assembly, it will also keep you from having to purchase parts that you have but can’t find.
4. Tool Rentals is a good way of cutting costs off of your restoration. Your local rental center, home improvement store, or auto parts store are usually good sources of tools that you can rent instead of buying. For example, I recently rented coil spring compressors from Auto Zone for $50. I had the ability to keep them up to 6 months. Once done, I took them back to Auto Zone and was refunded my $50. Doing the math, that comes to FREE, which is much better than actually buying them for $50.When deciding on which tools to purchase and which to rent, try to see what other uses you might have for the tool as well as the rental costs. I purchased a pressurized sandblaster from Harbor Freight for around $100. This is not a professional model, and took some learning and testing to get it to work correctly. However, it will do for my purposes and is cheaper than renting a high-end professional unit for a couple of days.

First off let’s talk about the fuel you have in your car. In order to get your car to fire right up on the first try you must get the fuel up to the engine, evaporated, and ready to burn. This is an easy task for your car in the summer months because liquids, like gasoline, evaporate much easier when it’s hot outside. When it’s cold outside, however, gas becomes harder to evaporate which contributes to your car being hard to start.  If you have been around the shop long enough you have probably seen someone use ether to spray into their engines. They do this because ether evaporates much easier than gas and gives your engine enough fuel to get it started. This usually works pretty well but is not an alternative I care to do if I have other options. There are other ways to get the same effect.

Now lets talk about a second problem the cold weather tends to give engines. Think about what happens to most liquids when they get cold. They get thicker. Oil is no different and can get much thicker when it’s cold outside. If you don’t believe me, change the oil in you car with the engine hot and then do it with the engine cold and see which one is thicker. That’s why I have always changed my engine oil with the engine warm. It comes out better because it’s thinner. When the engine oil is thick, it puts a damper on your engine which makes your engine harder to spin. Believe it or not, this contributes to your engine not starting right off.

I would like to let you in on a little secret of how to prevent these problems from occuring. The best way and the most widely known, especially in the north, are block heaters. This is a feature almost any handyman mechanic can install on your vehicle, which will keep your engine warm and ready to start at all times. There are several different types of heaters on the market today, which all provide basically the same things. It’s easy to install and saves a tremendous amount of time trying to get your car started first thing in the morning. Another option a person might choose is to keep their cars garaged overnight. Park your significant others 07 Yukon outside, because they will not feel the effects of the cold like your hotrod will.

The first thing to look at if you want that extra horsepower is to see if you have the possibility of replacing your computer chip. If you’re not sure about this, first consult with any performance shop or performance parts dealer to see if your car is a candidate for this upgrade. My advice to you next, if you choose to purchase a chip for your automobile, is to do your homework and find a credible company to buy it from. There are companies who try to take advantage of people in this situation. I have known people to get ripped off and spend way too much for a chip and have seen chips not live up to the hype the company promised. Remember your goal here is to increase horsepower, not get ripped off. Just be careful and protect yourself by doing some research.

In order to achieve your goal of more horsepower your engine needs your help with a few things. First thing is the engine can’t function without air. The higher the air/fuel mixture in the cylinders the higher your horsepower is going to be. Your goal is to get the air in and out of your engine as quickly as possible. The cheapest and most efficient way to do this is to purchase the air filter that provides the most air flow to your engine.

Another thing to consider when examining your airflow is backpressure. Backpressure can kill any chance of maximum horsepower and eludes many people as the source of their problem when troubleshooting a horsepower issue. I have personally seen the effects of an exhaust system that was too small for an engine. It was unbelievable how much horsepower the vehicle lost just for that one problem. Free flowing is your ultimate goal here. Bigger tail pipes and high performance exhaust systems that eliminate back pressure are usually the best routes to take to fix these problems. Do your best to buy quality products from quality companies here as well. If your budget won’t allow this, your best action is to save, and not waste what you have on the cheap stuff. I’ve never seen a satisfied person who has done this. The saying you get what you pay for is true in almost every circumstance especially when dealing with car parts.

The next thing I would look at to increase horsepower is the intercooler. As I have stated earlier in this article, all engines require air. The best air you can possibility get to your engine is cool, clean air. Of course the quality air filter you purchased for your engine takes care of the clean part so now we need to focus on getting cool air to your cylinders. The best and most efficient way to do this is to install an intercooler. The intercooler cools the compressed air before it reaches your cylinders. During combustion the cool air will expand more than hotter air thus creating more horsepower. Anytime you compress something, which is what your turbo chargers and super chargers are designed to do, you will have an increase in heat. Your turbo/super chargers compress the intake air to force more air into your cylinder. The intercooler cools this air before it arrives for combustion creating more horsepower.

One way to increase your horsepower on a carbureted engine is to buy the best carburetor you can afford. The brand you buy will make a difference. With my experience on purchasing carburetors for my own vehicles you can’t go too wrong with a Holley performance carburetor for most applications. Of course one of the other things an engine needs in order to function is fuel. The carburetor you have needs to provide the maximum air/fuel mixture to your engine. Along these lines you can also gain some horsepower by purchasing quality fuel. The highest octane your car can handle should be the octane you have in the tank. It makes a difference believe it or not.

The last thing I would like to discuss in order to get your desired horsepower increase is to replace your heads. Most stock engines have one exhaust and one intake valve. Remember I said earlier that an important goal in increasing horsepower revolves around getting air in and out of your engine as quickly, and efficiently as possible. Replacing your heads with new heads that contain more valves with drastically increase your horsepower. Also an option for the older cars is to actually bore your cylinders out to make them bigger. The bigger the cylinder the bigger the horsepower. Research cost effectiveness on this first though, because you may come out cheaper taking alternative routes to get your desired horsepower. If this is an option for you, it is not a bad idea to get a credible machine shop to do your work for you. You don’t want to ruin your engine by making the mistake of boring it yourself, unless you are confident that you can do it right.

These are common ways to increase your horsepower on your stock engine. Remember to always protect yourself by ordering your parts from credible parts suppliers, and by doing extensive research on what you desire to see the options you have to get you there. Good luck, be safe, and take care of your engines.

The gasoline offered across the country usually come in three different octane levels: 87, 89, and 93. These can vary a little, but are typically close to these numbers. Octane is gasoline’s resistance to being ignited and burning. The higher the rating number, the more resistance is provided. This means that 87 octane will ignite and burn before 93 octane will.

Why is gas rated like this? It is done this way because some automobiles, especially your high performance cars, have higher compression ratios and more advanced timing that take advantage of the higher, harder to burn octanes.

Higher octanes can also be useful when your car starts knocking and pinging. This knocking and pinging sound results when your gasoline ignites prematurely due to compression heating it up, causing it to ignite when your engine is not ready for it. Putting a higher octane, which is harder to ignite, usually fixes this problem.

Now, lets deal with the common misconception that putting higher octane gasoline, which is considerably more expensive per gallon, in your old rust bucket gives your car more power. This is a myth some oil executive somewhere probably started, that still seems to be floating around.

Putting a high octane gasoline in your automobile does not give it more power, and could potentially be harmful to your engine. The high octane gas as stated before is harder to burn, therefore, if your car cannot produce the right amount of heat to completely burn the gas, the waste product becomes part of your engine. If you are running higher octane gasoline in your car, and your car does not need it, you are probably leaving carbon deposits behind that can damage your engine.

The octane rating you should be using is what the manufacturer recommended in your owners manual. If you do not have the manual, you can typically find the proper octane rating on the internet. This should be your first course of action. The manufacturer built the car so they should know the right gas to use to get maximum efficiency. Find out the octane your engine was designed to use and always use that rating.

I was recently searching ebay for parts for my Impala when I came across an auction for a blank trim tag for the car.  For $325 dollars, I could purchase all the identification I needed to make my car a Super Sport (although changing the other details might cost a little more).  The company selling the tag will even fill out all the details to your liking including original looking mounting hardware. 

It is a sad world we live in when anytime money is involved and to be made, people will do whatever it takes, regardless of ethics, to ge there hands on it.  Just beware and do all the research you can do when buying your next classic.  You never know who you are dealing with. 

It wasn’t all that long ago that you could go out and pick up an old Chevy Camaro or Ford Mustang for a few hundred dollars and drag it home. Take several months worth of weekends and a few hundred dollars and you had yourself a decent running, driving beater. You could then drive it around, attend the local cruise-in, and work on the car along the way to get it to that pristine restored condition you dreamt about.

Then along comes Barrett-Jackson. For those of you that don’t know (all three of you), Barrett-Jackson is the largest series of collector car auctions in the world. Barrett-Jackson Auctions sells the nicest collector cars, brings in the largest audiences, and is a world of fun to attend. Sounds great, right? It is a fantastic idea, and makes a huge amount of money for those lucky enough to get your car in the auction. Unfortunately, it is these huge price tags that are killing the hobby.

Barrett-Jackson has a TV series that airs on the SPEED network that follows the higher dollar cars that come through the auction. I watched an auction the other day where they sold a rare, drag-raced, LS6 Chevelle for 1.1 million dollars. This car was in fantastic shape and had a huge amount of history that made this car unique, which validated the huge price tag.

Unfortunately for the average classic car fan, not everyone understands this. Some teenager that just inherited his grandfather’s rusted out 6-cylinder Malibu now thinks he’s sitting on a gold mine. Since Barrett-Jackson’s TV show has gained popularity, the prices of classic cars seems to be skyrocketing at an unnatural rate.

This rise in prices is driving out the lower income individuals and replacing them with high-dollar collectors that buy the car “built” instead of doing the work themselves. These guys are fine and have a right to own those cars, but these are not usually the people that show up at your local cruise-in and answer any question some new hobbyist has, thereby helping to spread the hobby.

Now, if an average guy wants to join the hobby, he has to pay an outrageous price for a car that would normally be considered “too far gone” for restoration. He then has to spend years and money that he can’t afford scraping together old parts to try and restore the car.

I don’t know how far this will go or where the hobby will go from here. I hope we find a way to keep the “average Joe” involved in this fantastic hobby. Without the variety of people that you come across, the classic car hobby won’t be the same.

Restoring and owning classic cars brings families together. Bringing your children up in the classic car hobby provides your family with a recreation that both the children and adults can equally enjoy for years to come. There is nothing better than those commonly-heard stories of fathers and sons (and sometimes daughters) getting out and wrenching together on that old muscle car. Equally as common as those stories are the stories of parents and children alike looking back upon that time as one of the best times in their lives.

In addition to familial benefits, the classic car hobby also provides fun and safe social outlets that introduce people of all different backgrounds. You and your children will be introduced to a wide variety of people all sharing a love of classic cars. There are much worse things your children could be doing on a Saturday night than spending the night with you while taking your old muscle car out to the local cruise-in.

Stay close to your children and introduce them to a hobby that will help teach them the value of hard work. The classic car hobby will provide them with lifelong memories and friends.

You can participate even if you don’t own a classic car. Most classic car owners love showing off their ride, that’s one of the benefits of owning an old car! Find a local cruise-in, take your kids down and have a great Saturday night teaching them a little history.

To increase horsepower in an engine, two ingredients are needed: an increase in fuel combined with an increase in air. Because fuel flow is controlled by the carburetor (or fuel injection), increasing it is simple. Add a larger carburetor or increase the size of your fuel injectors and this problem is solved. However, because air is usually passively passed to the engine (the engine takes what it can from the breather), increasing the air flow requires some effort. This is where your turbochargers and superchargers come into play.

Both superchargers and turbochargers perform the same basic function: force more air into the engine. They both change the way air is introduced by providing a method to actively force air into the engine. However, the difference between the two is how this is accomplished.

A supercharger is driven directly off of the crankshaft. The disadvantage to this method is that it provides more strain on the engine and therefore reduces the potential horsepower output. Regardless, the supercharger has an advantage in that it doesn’t experience the “lag” (time between pressing the accelerator and receiving the horsepower increase) that a turbocharger endures. Additionally, the horsepower increase received from a supercharger more than overcomes the strain that it places on the engine.

A turbocharger uses exhaust gases to spin impellers that increase the air into the cylinders. This difference gives the turbocharger a disadvantage because the delay the turbocharger experiences to get the required exhaust gases to the impellers causes the engine to experience a lag time.

These differences and the advantages provided by the supercharger is the main reason for it’s popularity in the performance market. The turbocharger also remains popular because it has the most flexibility when it comes to placement in the engine compartment.  It is much easier to stuff a turbocharger under the hood of a small import with any serious modifications.
If you are considering purchasing a turbocharger or supercharger, you can find more information ad pricing at the following vendors:

• JCW - $10 Off at $100 and $30 Off at $200 - Use promotion code DAWBL06 at check out!
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