your background in cars...
 

just wondering how all of you guys became so knowledgeable in the "ins and outs" of cars? have you worked in mechanics, just have a niche for this kind of stuff, etc.? just curious to see what some of the responses may be, discuss...

Welp. diddnt know anything about cars untill i got my mustang. A good amount of what i learned was on here or on MPH. My ol man was a colonel in the USAF and was too busy to do his own mechanic work so he never had any car knowledge to pass on to me.

aall i knew how to do was change the oil untill i got my stang. im starting to get the hang of it though. its pretty complex at first, once you see how things work together then it gets a bit easier.

my honda is what really got me learning though. so ive done a lot of the normal maintenance on it. fuel filters, oil, etc etc

however ive also had to swap out the clutch, clutch cable, fuel pump and this weekend i rebuilt the carburator.

the more i learn about cars and the more i work on them the more i like em.

same as jack the ripper. until i got my mustang i knew nothing. then i joined here, mph and modulardepot. my knowlege grew tremendously. once my friends got cars we started to actually tear appart cars and stuff. i rebuilt my friends civic motor with high compression pistons with him. after we got done with it we were proud to say we did a first rebuild. power went from 130hp to 170hp.

Well..

My dad's father was a mechanic, my dad was a truck driver for years and has passed alot of knowledge on to me. I started driving stock cars when I was around 10-11yrs old, and have been tinkering around on vehicles since I was like 6-7 years old.

Have learned alot since I got the mustang, and even more since I started reading the tech articles here, and other boards.

Year's and year's of driving Chevy product's!

You alway's have something to fix :)

haha, best response yet....

me, the little bit i know has all been learned from owning my stang, and just reading through endless amounts of threads.

Same here. I learned a lot on the forums. Then I met other ppl with the same hobby and it went on from there.

alot of my know how came from a 94 ranger that i squezed 225,000 miles out of( had less than 50,000 when i got it). with that truck i learned to do lots of stuff. plus working at auto parts store has given me even more knowledge base than when i started there.

I didnt know jack shit before I got my Mustang (4 years ago). I started off learning how to do oil changes. Learned everything from years of research on the boards, hands on expirence (this is key), and asking lots of questions.

+1

You also need to pay attention to peoples post on the boards. Ive learned who really knows their shit and knows speaking from expirence. I have certain people I go to for certain questions.

ever since i was a kid, i always liked cars. i was always reading on the new stuff coming out and had my first 89 iroc-z at 15 before i even had my temps. i started moving into the hobby of 12v electronics and became real big into car audio competition with SPL in my beretta, and SQ in my s10. thats where i learned about the physics aspect of it, and learned the entire vehicles electrical system pretty close to in and out. I now work for a dealership full time in service so all day im hearing, seeing, working on gm vehicles.

My dad was a mechanic, always loved it. I started with imports, always wanted a turboed and swapped honda civic, I know, flame away, but the important thing is I learned about them, I can still give some pretty good advice on most of the import cars, what to do, what to avoid, and whatnot, so it doesnt hurt, but I rode in a 600 hp Cobra one time, and ever since then, it just hasnt been the same :D Had to have a Mustang, so when I rode in it, I of course had to learn about it. Thats where the internet, magazines, and other info came in. Read ANYTHING you can.

when i graduated high school i didnt know how to change my oil. Then i became adicted to my mustang.

3 months of owning it i did UDP's and CAI, after another 3 months i put a supercharger on it (as well as did my first oil change at the same time) 2 month later i had a shop put in gears+posi, 2 days after that the motor blew . . .

now 2 months after that the engine swap came. with the second supercharger install.

SO that was my first year of cars, i started with not knowing a damn thing, zip, zero. to doing 2 supercharger installs and a motor swap (admitatly if i didnt have a large ammount of help from friends it would not have happend, or at the very least it would have taken 10x longer and 10x more money)

Since then i've done a twin turbo install, tranny swap, suspension etc, as well as a buncha shit on other peoples cars such as another motor swap, tranny swap clutch jobs heads/cam/intake etc

All it takes is some helpfull friends and some willpower, that or a lot of money and a firm adiction to modifying your car.

well...my graddad and uncle used to modify my uncles '69...they started out with a i6 and they swapped in a big 351 windsor but that ended up being too big because they couldnt even change the sparkplugs the engine was too big for the engine bay. so i think they did a 302 or something like that. They have been doing stuff ever since...kind of toned down lately as my granddad is getting older and my uncle does have too much money. but he still wants to get a stang and build it up. but i would say my granddad has tought me the most. Also alot of forum searching...when i first bought my stang i knew nothing...and now i have done 3 spring installs, exhaust, intake, tb and plenum. others that dont really matter. i hope when i get a new stang i will be doing a s/c install

I still don't know shit. :shock2: