Finishing a project car requires staging a thousand different jobs as their deadlines all collide on you when you're running low on sleep, money and patience as you just want to fire this nugget down the road and see if the mad creation you've dreamed up rules like a king-god almighty. But first, you need to make it live.
This is normally when impatience and a looming deadline conspire to stitch you up, causing delays, breakages and set-backs. So, here's some tips from someone who has had to deal with the last-minute disasters while trying to finish cars.
GET AS MANY PARTS IN AS POSSIBLE BEFORE YOU HANDLE FAB WORK
If you've got an engine-swapped car, like my mate Jimmy's Barra-powered Lexus IS200 (Altezza) here, you'll find most of the fab work actually happens after you've got the engine and transmission mounted in the car. Before Jimmy can get the dump pipe and exhaust, intake, intercooler, or radiator mounts handled we had to chop out a bunch of other work, including plumbing the fuel system, sorting radiator hoses (to get the radiator in position to then be mounted), as well as plumbing the other parts of the car.
This meant Chris from Castle Hill Performance knew where he COULDN'T put an intercooler pipe or dump pipe, as that space was required for something (like this turbo oil drain). While Jimmy could have sorted a drain hose around an intercooler pipe it's better to suit a simpler solution where possible, and if Chris needs more space then there's always the option to liberate some sheetmetal. Now, once the car comes back from CHP Jimmy knows the turbo (plus intake and cooling system) is basically ready to rock.
REMEMBER TO MAKE SPACE FOR WIRING
Cars today need a bunch of wiring to work, and fitting that wiring can be quite a task. Of course, it's easier to sort out a path for a whopping great wiring loom to run through your firewall before you have the engine in place, but that isn't always possible. So, now we're down to making space where we can.
Splitting looms into smaller runs of wires, like in this Haltech Premium wiring harness is a smart way to get bulk wires through without having to squeeze a giant python of loom around a hot, moving engine. Bending wires on tight angles in a hot engine bay is a bad idea, so it pays to spend a small amount of time working out wiring paths before you button up all the hardware in the engine bay, so you're not pulling it all apart when its full of fluid and creating a mess that takes hours to get back to where you were originally.
GET A BIG KIT OF GOOD QUALITY TAPS & DIES
Cross-threading bolts and nuts will happen on a project. It sucks, but it doesn't mean you need to then go ferret through an enormous bucket of spare fasteners for the next hour searching for a replacement. A good quality tap and die set means you can clean threads on a car or part before you bolt it all back together, or repair threads and get your car running sooner.
FLUID PLUMBING IS MORE THAN JUST FUEL
Sorting out a fuel system is one thing, but a modern engine also needs a cooling system with radiator header tanks, oil coolers, fuel tank vents and evap cannisters, PCV systems, and then you've got catch cans, some engines have coolant running through the power steering and alternator assemblies, plus intercoolers, A/C plumbing and more. Fitting up and connecting all this hardware takes time, but also sometimes needs a map so you don't wind up forgetting part of it and having to jam components in places they don't really fit or work properly.
While we're busy making our new engines go 'brrrrt', power steering lines are often an overlooked part of an engine bay until the 11th hour. Many power steering systems on modern cars are simple in theory but feature strange bends in the factory lines that can chew space and may not have the correct fittings on the ends of the lines. This can also be made worse if you're trying to use a non-standard fluid reservior.
While this can be adapted fairly simply with custom lines made by any hydraulics shop (at a cost), it's best to sort these issues out before you have a packed engine bay full of sharp edges you'll cut yourself on while hunched over the front guard swearing at the steering line which isn't threading in cleanly...
WRITE A LIST OF JOBS
Understanding what is left to do and being able to tick off each task as you accomplish them helps to not miss anything as you try to handle dozens of jobs all competing with your attention and budget. Looking in the engine bay and committing things to memory will invariably mean you miss something - I've seen people forget to fill their motor with oil before the first start, or fail to fit injectors before priming the fuel system.
These seem like simple errors, but it cost one friend his newly built engine (lack of oil on first start) and the second nearly burned their garage and car down. Having a thorough check-list should safeguard against the biggest, most-dangerous clangers you'll face.
CABLE TIE FAB & ENGINE BAY PAINT
You can dummy fit out parts on your car, and especially your engine bay, using cable ties to hold all the parts in place while you check the bonnet shuts, or that the path to the parts of the engine you need to connect are easily plumbed or wired. Having these parts held in place temporarily will also allow you to vibe-check how the bay looks, so you don't go to the trouble of fabricating mounts for these parts only to hate how it looks and having to go back to the drawing board, costing more time.
One big SNAFU which cost me weeks of time was not choosing to paint the engine bay of my E30 325i project car when the bay was empty. With the engine in the bay it's plain to see how badly both it and the engine need to be painted. While it's easy to whip the rocker cover and intake manifold off the engine to freshen them up, doing a good paint job on that bay will require pulling the engine and transmission back out. Learn from my mistakes, kids.
