Thursday, 07 May 2009

• Anatomy of the "Car Guy"

  
  

  Here's a few things you might not know about a car guy....not a professional mechanic but the backyard do-it-yourself type with love of the game

  1) You may think the grease and cuts on our knuckles is disgusting. To the car guy, this is a badge of honor. Especially when there's a sick new part going under the hood that's going to really make the sucker faster...or when the clutch blew out the morning before your date and he replaced it himself.

  2) IT IS NOT NOS...or NAAAWWWWS. It's nitrous oxide. 2 molecules of Nitrogen, 2 molecules of oxygen. It acts as an oxidizer to help fuel burn more quickly and produce more power. Same thing as laughing gas, but under a lot more pressure...so don't try to huff this stuff. You will blow your lip off or your lungs out. It will hurt.

  3) Contrary to the perception formed by certain movies....a wing does not make you faster. It can, however, increase a car's stability when travelling at a high rate of speed by using aerodynamic forces to push the car's rear to the road. It is necessary for a stock Hyundai, Geo Metro, Honda, or Mustang V6.

  4) If there are a lot of stickers on the car with words like "Mugen" "Zex" "Ground Control", etc, on the rear window or door of the vehicle, chances are none of the advertised parts are actually on the car....only about 10% of vehicle owners actually put the parts in when they slapped the sticker on the side. The excuse that it's a list of things you are going to do to the car is bogus, write your shopping list on a sheet of paper.

  5) The Fast and the Furious series is, however exciting, the most technically inaccurate movie ever created. In a drag race, no driver will shift 9-10 times. This is reserved for Mack Trucks which have many different gears. In reality, the intake manifold welds are the last place to worry about....try the piston rings, apex seals, connecting rods, valves, etc. When such damage occurs, the aluminum floorboards will not fall out of the car and make sparks. There may, however, be bits of metal on the ground, oil everywhere, smoke, and loud cursing.

  6) Wangan Midnight and Initial D are animated, but not considered anime. The translations may be a bit off, but both series discuss real racing/drifting techniques such as feint drifting, trail braking, and even brake boosting. Watching either series does not necessarily mean the car guy wants to watch your episodes of Love Hina, One Piece, or Tentacle Sex 9.

  7) The first option for lowering a car is NOT taking a hacksaw to the suspension springs. Doing so will mess up the suspension's damper  and cause the damper to blow out, making the car lose oil pans over speed bumps. Use a set of coilovers, or lowering springs with upgraded dampers.

  8) The Folger's Can Exhaust does not add power. If the engine is not huge, or using forced induction, a 3" diameter exhaust with a 6" tip does nothing more than make a weed-whacker noise. This is not a shot at Hondas, their engines can sound extremely sexy when used with a proper exhaust and muffler...which actually makes them sound throaty and raw.

  9) If the car guy says don't put your ass on his paint, respect it. Maintaining a proper finish takes time and patience to properly wash, wax, and claybar(when needed). Many hours are spent making the paint look like a colored mirror. Placing your rear end on the hood may cause swirl marks, scratches, and/or the wrath of the owner.

  10) Jason Statham once said to respect a man's car. This is especially true for the car guy. Watch how gently he treats his baby. He may even talk to it sometimes. If your the car guy's girl(assuming he has time for one), just remember he wants you to be seen rolling around in a nice car. It's actually a compliment to you! Would you be caught dead in public wearing a striped tube top, stripper heels, and sporting a Farah Fawcett hairdo? Probably not. For some guys, being seen in a poorly maintained/abused/riced car is the same thing.

  11) Car guys can and will blow a paycheck on parts. Some are even comfortable eating only ramen noodles/pop tarts for months on end to save money for a huge new modification in the process. This is his passion, and if you are the discouraged female on the other end...he's not telling you to lose weight. Add up how much you spend in makeup/clothes/shoes: the result may be very close to the money he's using on the car.

  12) The brand new Mustang GT sitting in the driveway may look cool and be darn quick in the 1/4 mile, but look at an import driver who's done an engine swap himself and/or added a turbo to his car. The import driver may not always be faster, but either way he's a helluva lot more knowledgable about his vehicle than Johnny Quarterback whose rich daddy got him a new toy. The import driver may actually be more careful, especially when he knows he can't afford to wreck his vehicle. To the Mustang owners: I don't hate domestics, and maybe I should have said Corvette, Audi, or BMW but the rich kids i knew in high school had Mustangs.

  13) If you don't like going fast, get out of the car. Tell him to drive slower, but yes, you may not be invited on the next run. He doesn't want you to get hurt, but he likes the rush. He will slow down with you in the car if he's got sense, and he will go solo on the late night runs down the highway. Don't say "slow down" after the third honk on a highway roll, put your foot down sooner. This is equivalent to cockblocking. Posting traumatic videos you found on Youtube are not acceptable methods, because they're basically emotional blackmail. He may have already seen someone die on the road right in front of him. Messily at that. If he can tell you what a mixture of coolant, oil, and blood smells like....he probably already knows his risks, and accepts them.

  14) If he's on a crotch rocket in flip-flops, shorts, and a sideways baseball cap....doing wheelies....then he's a squid. Limp Bizkit's Rollin' may even be his theme song. You might want to stay away from him if you don't like the sight of gravel embedded in flesh. A good present might be some body armor or a new brain.

  15) If he laughed at you when you paid someone to change your air filter, you probably deserve it. It's a 5 minute job and may not even require tools. Next time you might suggest going to the parts store with him, get the part, and watch him put it in. He may even teach you how to do it yourself. You WILL be made fun of for paying 120 dollars in labor to change spark plugs and wires...don't get indignant.

  16) The lover says:"It's me or the car"...Really dumb move.  The car was probably there before you were. When he picks the car, you only have yourself to blame. The car is metal, and while it may rust or break down, it is always there until the moment it's destroyed or sold. It is loyal. It will not cheat on him, complain when his hair's messed up, his breath is bad, or get really bitchy when he comes in late at night.

  17) Rather than complain about the time he spends on the car at the first opportunity, try to understand the passion he is placing in the vehicle. Borrow a helmet and take a ride with him at the autocross or the drag strip and feel the changes in the car with each upgrade. You might be impressed. Watch him fix something, you might learn a thing or two. If you happen to be the girlfriend, he's at least not chatting up other women when he's elbow deep in the engine bay. Girls don't come running to a guy with a bitchin' car...they do however, tend to gravitate to a pretty boy who is "popping bottles" in the club.

  18) If the car smells like gasoline, grease, and air freshener...he cares about the vehicle and is working on it all the time. You'll learn to deal with the smell, it signifies dedication.

  19) Drifting is not really racing. Some of the techniques are necessary to negotiate extremely tight corners in places like mountain passes or the gymkhana, but if your friend thinks he is going to be faster by popping the emergency brake on a wide sweeping turn at 90 miles an hour....give him another Ritalin and tell him to stop watching Fast and the Furious movies.

  20) There will be car parts in the bedroom. There will be car parts in the closet. There may even be car parts in the bathroom. He'll clear a place for you to crash if you need it, but don't move anything. Everything was placed in a certain way so it could be found at a later time. Disrupting that order....gets ugly.

  How good are you with cars? Do you know a lot of car terms?
  
  
  

  • 9:03 AM
  • 586 Views
  • 26 eProps
  • 15 Comments