What not to do to you lude

I have a 94si. 130,000miles. Was bone stock when I got it. first thing I did to it was short ram air intake. All it did was made a cool sound when I hit the gas. I don't know if it helped any. Next was an overpriced muffler ($280) that I don't even remember the name of. With no cat and overpriced muffler that damn car was loud, too loud (2 1/2inch pipe). I couldn't hear the radio. I had a 3foot long resonator welded in. Its the longest one I could find. It tamed my exaust down a notch or two. I decided to lower the car and I bought an over-rated, over-priced set of adjustable springs. Maybe I lowered it too much. I ate up my rear tires withen a month. So I raised it back up a bit. It handles much better now. Lowering the frontend put stress on the swaybar endlinks and broke one of them. I fixed that and then hit a 4ft deep hole at 60mph and broke the swaybar, endlink, lower control arm,etc.. Then had to fix it. I guess the guy that had it before me never changed the timing belt, and I suffer for it. The damn thing jumped time and bent seven valves. while I had the head of I mildly ported and polished the exaust in intake ports. Sent it to the machine shop and told them to check it for cracks, install new valves, true up the head, etc... when I got it back on my car, the engine cranked slower. So I put the battery charger on 200 amp and cranked it up. The first time I put it on the pavement was like a rebirth. The damn thing is faster, much faser. Just for curiositys sake I check compression. Slightly over 200psi pr cylider(with all the plugs out).
I knew with that kind of pressure I was going to blow the rings soon. So of course, I needed to upgrade ignition. MSDAL 7,000rev limit. First day I ran it with the ignition I wrecked it. But it felt good going down the road. So I took it to the drag strip. I soon learned that launching at more than 3000rpms just burns tires tooo long. I spun for 50 or so feet. I never got the good hookup at all so my times sucked. my best time was 10.14@89mph in the 1/8 with a 300lb fellow riding shotgun. I didn't spin as bad with him in there. The car can do better when I get it to hook up good. Well after that night of shifting at 6500rpms I smoked the rings. Now my car smokes. Now I have a ride that runs good, smokes bad, slightly embarracing.

If you are going to build a prelude of anysort. Don't Half-ass it like ME. Im a Mechanic. I knew better in the first place. Spend the money, do it right the first time.

cliff notes?

You're a mechanic and you still took short cuts? Kind of a pointless story, but point taken I suppose.

That was pointless.

Since you are a mechanic would you mind if I asked you a question about the mechanic I am using? I think I am getting ripped off!

ask away

Piontless... But Funny, ... and sad, very very very sad

Yes I was young and stupid and did too many stupid things to my poor little prelude. What I forgot to mension was that 99% of the work I did to the car was about 5 years ago. I've learned my lessons. I hope that not too many other people go through the same stuff that I went through.
lilwhitelude