car tuning noob

I’m a car noob that wants to know more about cars and tuning for racing…

I’m a car noob, but it appears I have a good fixerupper. I have a 1998 Dodge Neon R/T. Right now, it is pretty trashed. I want to be able to race it at some point.

As I said, I know very little about cars except how to drive manual. And I don’t really know any racing shifts or how to double clutch or anything like that.

Anyone know sites for pointers and car basics? Looking for something along the lines of this part does this in retard terms.

And how much would it cost to make my Neon into a non-ricer machine? I plan to kit it out.

The first answer is right on a huge level. You don’t want to just start racing until you really know what you’re doing. Racing a car is not as easy as it looks. It’s physically demanding and it requires a lot of experience and concentration as well as knowledge of how the car works.

But, with that said, I’m always interested in helping someone begin to learn anything new.

Your first step is to get a basic knowledge of how cars work. This will be the basis for everything you do. It’s not enough to just know, “this is the problem, here’s the normal way to fix it.” You have to really understand why certain things are the way they are in cars. You can’t understand why an oxygen sensor is important until you understand how cars burn fuel and how the computer controls the air-fuel mixture.

I would suggest starting here:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/automobile.htm

This will give you an overview of how different parts of the car work: Engine, Transmission, Brakes, etc.

If you’re really serious about this, I would suggest getting into the auto repair business. There are a few ways to do that.

One way is to start off by getting a job at a quick lube place. No…it has nothing to do with rebuilding engines, but everyone has to start somewhere and quick lube places are at least able to teach you how to change oil and do other maintenance. Just realize you’ll likely learn a LOT of bad habits there and will definitely not learn how to treat customers well and honestly at most of them.

Because of the dangers of bad customer service and improper training, I’d really suggest getting a job doing odd jobs around a garage first. You’ll be sweeping, cleaning up, taking out trash, washing the floor, driving customers home, picking up parts…all the fun stuff. *rolls eyes* Don’t bother the mechanics, but try to watch what they do. Listen to the phone conversations when the service advisor calls a customer. Eventually, they’ll teach you how to do simple things like oil changes, tire changes and repairs, general inspections, and fluid maintenance. If you’re good at what you do, a garage would love to have you and will pay top dollar for you to stay around and change oil. Well…as top dollar as an oil change person can get.

You’ll eventually get into more difficult work the more ability you show and desire you show to learn.

If the garage does not really lead you anywhere, go talk to a dealership about their training programs. I only really know about Ford’s program, but assume there are other programs out there similar to theirs. They have what they call the ASSET program. They train through a community college and you then intern at the dealership.

It’s only after you have been working on cars for a long time that I would suggest even thinking about getting into the racing aspects. If you’re serious about racing, then you have to have a very strong understanding of all components of a car because you’re going to be taking those skills and bumping them up a few notches. It’s not as easy as bolting on a turbo charger. You have to figure out a lot of detailed information about how much extra air that will add, which means you’ll have to change other areas as well. Or maybe you’ll have to add a bigger engine instead and you’ll really have to play around with how to fit everything together. Or if you add this performance product, will the transmission be able to handle the extra power? Will you likely blow a rod in the engine?

What you want to do is not as easy as it sounds, but you can do it if you really have the desire to do it.

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