How To Start A Project Car – For The Beginners – Boost And Camber

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Have you ever wondered what you can do to your new car, or what car should I have as a project? Maybe you’re new to modifying cars or you’ve been doing it for years and need a little inspiration?

Sometimes you can get a bit of a mental block, we get that and sometimes it helps if someone has a fresh view on the situation. If you are completely new to modifying cars, take these steps in your stride, you don’t have to rush them, modifying a car takes time and patience. LOTS of patience.

In this article I will try to help you pick a platform to work on, explain the next steps including what you can do to your car, how long it should take, how much you want to spend and what the first modifications could be.

Disclosure: Posts on BoostAndCamber include ads and affiliate links where if a sale is concluded through the links, BoostAndCamber receive a small commission at no cost to yourself to help with the running of the site.

Picking A Platform

First thing you want to do is pick a platform to work with. This means picking a car you like that you know you’re going to be in it with for the long run. This doesn’t mean pick a 1.2 corsa that you want to put a hemi v8 in. Let’s get serious.

What it does mean is picking something that already has potential, for example a Seat Leon Cupra. Already has a great engine, comes with upgraded bits like better body kit, stiffer suspension and sporty looks. It doesn’t have to be a Leon though, but something that takes your fancy.

We want to project an S2000, mainly because it already has a great chassis, won’t need a lot of work to get more power but has great tuning potential. Not only that it has a great stance when lowered.

What we usually do to get an idea for a stanced car we might try googling a few things like

  • Stanced cars
  • Slammed cars
  • Lowered cars

This gives us a choice of cars and what we like we might narrow the search to

  • S2000 Slammed
  • S2000 fitment
  • S2000 modified

Something along those lines, then we might add in Liberty walk or Rocket Bunny, to get a great idea of what I can do to the car before moving onto next steps.

Another step might be to YouTube the car and find out some reviews, what makes that car special, why it’s a great tuner and what it might sound like. They sometimes have heavily modified ones on there too, whatever you search, so that might give you some more inspiration into doing something crazier down the line, like a big old engine swap.

This car is going to be in your life for a while and you’re going to be getting to know each other very well, chose wisely.

Deciding What The Goal Is

If you’ve picked a car out now, you need to decide what goal you want to go for. Mainly what you need the car to do. If you want to take it to a track, you aren’t going to spend hours detailing and working on body kits. You will most likely be too busy on power output.

You can go a few different ways with your car in our experience and each car has different traits, like a 350z might be great for drifting, but a Clio Sport might be a good track junkie.

It really depends on what you want to do, here are a few ideas though

  • Track car
  • Drift car
  • Stanced Show Car
  • Monster truck
  • Crazy engine build

So long as you do something you want to do and you enjoy the process, build relationships and create a bad ass car, it don’t matter what the haters say, just make sure you bring it to the next car meet or share it on our Instagram!

Setting A Budget / Timescale

Probably a harder task to set yourself would be to estimate a cost and a time frame in which you want to do it in. Pretty much because you haven’t a clue because you’ve never done this before. To get some ideas, decide whether you want to spend a lot or a little, you know your bank account better than anyone.

You can go down a cheap route or an expensive route. Cheap isn’t always bad but your quality of product might be less than satisfactory. Cheap is usually a good place to start though if you are a beginner because it means you can learn the basics and understand how stuff works without spending a million quid doing it.

So if you’re just looking to change wheels and coilovers, expect to spend around £1,000, although it can be done cheaper. But in reality you could spend as much as you want.

For a timescale, I would say if you have the money ready, you’ve got all your bits including your car, you could have your coilovers and wheels fitted in a day with a little help from a friend. If you haven’t got a car yet and you need to work a little harder or you want to save for something special, it can go on for years.

A project car can literally take a lifetime and cost as much as you want, start small with a little project then start adding with new and bigger stuff like turbos and wide body.

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First Mod Ideas

We’ve kind of already covered this, but your first two mods need to be

Simple. You could even start with a more budget Coilover too like JOMS. These upgrades are nice and simple and give you a good starting point for any project, even if you’re looking to track, drift, show, anything. The benefits of these two things are really the staple of a good project.

If you want to do more and take it to the next level then you can start thinking about what it is you need the car to do. For example, if you are drifting you might need more Camber in the front for better traction.

One way to find out what a next mod might be is look into whatever you’re doing with your car and maybe do some research on how to improve your car. We usually google things like “how to get my car lower” or “how to Camber my car”.

That way I can learn while I’m doing and have fun doing it. You just gotta start it. No point sitting around and dreaming, just get it started and have fun doing it.

Get On It

Whatever your dream or goal, just get on it. Get it started, start working on it, get your car bought and do what makes you happy. We’re all in this world together, so do something that you enjoy. If you’re anything like us you’ll take great joy modifying cars.

If you need any advice, drop comments below or get in touch on our Facebook, the community are always around to answer questions and help anyone that needs it.

Enjoy

Kevin

Kevin@boostandcamber.com

Founder of Boost And Camber

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