These Are The Dumbest Things You’ve Done For Speed

Jalops are, traditionally, enthusiasts with a preponderance of tools, a can-do attitude, and a desire to go fast. We are not, traditionally, exorbitantly wealthy. This means that we’re often more inclined to build our own speed than simply buy something fast, and it sets us up to do all manner of moronic mods in hopes of eking a bit more power out of our cars. That’s why, earlier this week, I asked you for the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in search of speed. 

You turned in a wealth of answers, from little power-adder mods to all-out vehicle purchases — or, in some cases, buying a collection of parts assembled into the vague shape of a car. Some of your stories were dumb in hindsight, others you knew were dumb even as you did them, and still others probably should never have been done at all. Let’s see what you all said.

My first car was an old Austin Healey with SU carbs. The SU has a piston that goes up and down with airflow and oil is used as a damper so the piston doesn’t rise or fall too fast or bounce around. I figured thinner oil, instant airflow, faster acceleration. Filled the dashpot with WD 40. It didn’t work.

Submitted by: Greg Lemon

Trying to see if the smog pump would work as a supercharger on my Vega. It did not. Alas, at least I was only 17.

Submitted by: Mistress Leah

My first street race in high school, I rowed through the gears as fast as I could to get into “top gear”. Ended up bogging the engine at 1,200 RPM in 4th gear. I was really, really smart.

Submitted by: Norm DePlume

For me it was not taking the advice of Bruce Fulper, master Pontiac engine builder when I was setting up my 74 Firebird as a T/A clone street-strip car in the early 2000’s. He dyno tuned the stroked 455 I had bought for it, from a guy in N. Carolina who drag raced his Firebird with it, (the engine was specc’d out by Bruce and had his ported Edelbrock heads on it) and I was there when Bruce did some of the baseline runs on his new to him used dyno. Prior he’d been getting his engines dynoed at Westech. It blew the water hoses off the first pull, he was a bit freaked out thinking it had blown up his dyno but no harm was done. Once he got it back together he did a couple of pulls, then suggested detuning it a bit, from the nearly 700 HP it was making, for no charge. In exchange he would would take the solid roller cam, Victor intake, HP carb and aluminum rods. While still keeping a lot of the horsepower, it would be more daily driver friendly, rather than set up as a “Mad Max” type vehicle (his term). I was intoxicated by the sound and said no way, and I regret it to this day, as while it is still glorious to listen to when running, it’s not a get in and go car and I rarely drive it as a result. I had intended to go drag racing with it, it has a full cage, racing seats, and other required elements for the times the original engine owner was running, but never was able to get it to the strip.

Submitted by: Dan60

Full exhaust and 4.10 gears on my daily driven 2001 Mustang Bullitt. My hearing will never recover and shifting every 2 seconds became really annoying really fast.

Submitted by: Arnold Rimmer

I bought a very broken vintage Corvette.

I still have it. It’s been about 25 years now. It’s still broken, but I did have it running for a little bit about 20 years ago.

Submitted by: Alastair Macrae

The dumbest? Long ago, I drove a SCCA Sports Renault — sports racer-type bodies powered by bog-slow 78-horsepower Renault Alliance/Encore engines. With a header and removal of most stock engine accessories, the race powerhouses probably approached a whopping 90 horses.

Engines and transmissions were spec-built and sealed to (theoretically) prevent tampering. The cars were lightweight — minimum weight was under 1600 lbs. — so the power didn’t have to carry much. Nonetheless, you’d be pushing against the steering wheel and denting the floorboards around the accelerator pedal shoving the car ahead, trying to coax any extra bit of power you could find and inch ahead on the straightaways.

Lubricants were unregulated, so all kinds of synthetic combinations were tried to eke out a little extra speed from reduced friction. Then came running the engines intentionally on low oil to edge further ahead. Since engines weren’t built for low oil levels and lightweight engine oils like prepared engines, the most adventurous racers started popping motors like popcorn.

But the dumbest move? Loosening and machining wheel bearings to reduce drivetrain friction. These cars would track like ’50s Ramblers down the straightaways, wandering down the track while wiggling within the slop of the first loose-milled, then loosely-held wheel bearings. And pretty much drove like them too. The faster they became, the worse they actually felt. Teams would do anything to gain an edge in Formula Go-Slow.

Submitted by: jrhmobile

Manual boost controller on my T5 XC70.. which popped a line and closed the wastegate while on the highway. Making enough power to see he traction control light come on at highway speeds was (very) briefly pretty cool, but turning my 5cyl into a 4cyl was less than ideal.

Submitted by: 242_Flathood

Back in highschool my buddy had an EK hatch that we decided we were gonna make go fast.

Being broke highschoolers we could not afford to overnight parts from japan, but his dad did have a shed full of old pvc and tin drain pipe.

That poor civic ended up with an air system red green would have been proud of with the duct tape and woodscrew construction.

Lasted about a month before catastrophe, which in retrospect wasnt too bad for what went into it.

Submitted by: JaredOfLondon

I put a smaller pulley and belt on my super charged 3800 V6 in my 1999 Buick Riviera. Took it to get the ECM tuned. The tune cost $1000. The hardware was maybe $15. It got me maybe 50bhp o er stock… And the car spent most of its time to and from work, in heavy traffic, never getting much over 40mph.

Submitted by: Old_SLAAB_Guy