patience and projects.

Give me strength. So I'm doing a vtec mini project. I started out with a well prepared/caged mini several years ago. About 6 years ago, I blew the engine. It sat on the sidelines ever since, got married, bought a house. Last winter, the wife finally relents and decides to let me rebuild the motor....the deal being that when the car is on the road we can have our first kid. Things move along pretty well, with the car until I discover most of the parts on the motor are now junk...and it will be expensive to fix. It looks more and more like a honda vtec conversion will be more cost effective. Enter stage right, a good friend who is an excellent fabricator. I had agreed to sell him my old audi which he took possession of, but never registered or drove as I still have the title. He intended to pay me for it, but divorce hits him hard. He suggests working it off on the mini, and of course I agree(and so does the wife). The pace of the project has been slow but steady. My wife gets preggarz. We just had the baby....and the car still isn't done. Now I'm not complaining about the project. My buddy has been great. It isn't costing me anything besides parts, and It will cost me less than an a-series motor. He's just a bit of a perfectionist. Where I tend to rush and make compromises. It seems every time to meet and work on it, we make the list bigger by wanting to do something a little bit better. In the end it will be a kick butt autocrosser/hillclimber/track car. I enjoy working cars, but enjoy running them much more. How do you guys keep the patience to keep the project going? The last time I competed with this car was 2001, and it's killing me not running it. However rushing it would be a mistake. I know many of you have multiple year projects...how can you stand the waiting?

I had one. I sold it. My only regret was not getting rid of it sooner.

It's all about priorities and other more pressing things going on. If the grasssroots passion to finish the project is not there, it may never get finished. Lord knows I've been there, as have most of us.

Take care of business, then get back to the project. Or not.

It sounds like your friend and you compliment each other well.

Take comfort in knowing that once you get to drive the car, you'll forget a lot of the downtime very quickly. Getting things done better than you expect and costing you less...that sounds like a good thing to me.

However, I'm not in your situation so...

Clem

It probably doesn't help that it's the middle of february, and their is a ton of snow on the ground. My winter work schedule doesn't allow me to participate in weekend events...so if I can just get a competitive driving fix I'll be good to go.

Short cut paint, not safety.

That's all I got....

I know being patient is the right thing to do. It's just killing me. It's like being 6 years old and waiting for xmas.

My view: You've got a new baby, and a race car being built, carefully but slowly, by a friend who's a skilled fab guy. All this at little out-of-pocket cost to you? Sounds pretty nice. Play with the baby, have some fun, when the race car's done, go drive it and enjoy. Go autocross the family truckster to get the motorsports itch out in the meantime. :)

I know things go slow sometimes, and that it's irritating in that moment, but that's OK. Sometimes other things happen. I sold my project car last fall because with 2 small boys I didn't have time to mess with it- I couldn't have kept it around for 6 years without working on it. I've bowed out of the hobby for a little while in favor of grassroots parenting and grassroots home remodeling- I'm still looking for some way to tinker with something, hence my continued participation here, but in the meantime, I consider myself to be on hiatus.

Just for the record, I'm not irritated with the friend, not even one bit. He's a great guy and very talented. Without him, I'd still be saving pennies for used motor, that would probably run like garbage anyway. I'm irritated at MY lack of patience.

My not so gentle opinion:

Patience is for suckers. I'm assuming you already have the motor. Ram that berkeleyer in. If your buddy knows how to weld, it shouldn't take him more than an afternoon to fab some mounts, another afternoon to throw some mix & match axles and hubs together, and a few more afternoons to address shift linkage, steering, etc.

If he's too slow, find another buddy to motivate you to get it done. People are always in more of a hurry when it's YOUR project and THEIR time. This can be a good thing. Get the berkeleyer in there and running. Worry about the details later.

I have a busy schedule too. Often I get home pretty late. Fortunately, the wife has hobbies too, so she can do her thing for an hour or two while I do my thing for an hour or two. Work on it every night for a month, and suddenly you've got 30 hours in.

Get it done!

poopshovel wrote: I have a busy schedule too. Often I get home pretty late. Fortunately, the wife has hobbies too, so she can do her thing for an hour or two while I do my thing for an hour or two. Work on it every night for a month, and suddenly you've got 30 hours in. Get it done!

Same here. I'm in the shop 1-3 hours pretty much every night. Usually more than 1 because it's hard to get something rolling and make good progress in just an hour. The wife is cool with it and it allows me to keep the progress going.. Tonight I'm buffing fresh paint....time consuming and extremely boring, but it has to be done.

One problem is the car is in his shop, about an hour from my house. So it isn't as if I can go home and pop into the shop for a couple of hours. To complicate matters, I don't have garage. However, if it were at my house I'd be sneaking out to work on it daily. I'm sure once the lions share of the work is done and I have it back home, I will be working on it nightly in the driveway/carport.

Fantasy is your salvation. You need to look beyond the current state and have a mental picture of how it's going to be. That'll get you through it. That and lose yourself in the details. You're not doing one big project, you're working on a large number of small ones.

For example, my MGB project. I'm not concentrating on how much has to be done. Instead, I worked on getting the new frame rails in place. Then the steering - and now I can steer my wheels back and forth. Okay, next puzzle, where do I place the engine? That's done, so I work out how much clearance I need in the transmission tunnel. Every time I solve a problem, it's a victory! And eventually, all the problems will be solved and I'll be driving the car. Of course, it helps if you're the sort of guy who likes solving puzzles...

+1. This is another reason I dig working an hour or so a night (though I understand that can't work for you, sachilles.)

Setting small goals is a good way to get through any project...life...whatever. Working in the constraints of an hour or two, you're not pressuring yourself to take on one mammoth project, rather, little slices of the pie at a time.

Last night I completely gutted the driver's door of our challenger. The night before, I did the other door. The night before that, I yanked the seats and carpet. Before that, the headlinder, plastic, and seatbelts. Anyway, as of last night, the interior gutting is pretty much "done," a couple little slices at a time.

You need to go cart racing to get a speed fix, and then continue with the project as you are now.

Paitence grasshopper

EastCoastMojo wrote: You need to go cart racing to get a speed fix, and then continue with the project as you are now. Paitence grasshopper

yeah that may happen soon. My club typically does a karting trip to montreal around this time of year. Though it depends on the ice, and whether or not we can have the ice time trials.

Besides, I need to research karts for my new little boy. On a serious note, how old should a child be before you let them try karting(providing he wants to). I would think the neck stress would be significant.

SCCA let's them run Solo2 at 8 (even 5 if your region is approved for it and you have the correct cart class)

Yup. I've seen kids who couldn't have been older than 6 or 7 in our region. It's pretty cute...unless you're chasing cones.

Jake wrote: You've got a new baby, and a race car being built, carefully but slowly, by a friend who's a skilled fab guy. All this at little out-of-pocket cost to you? Sounds pretty nice.

I have 5 (4 E30s and a 2002) projects in line. I do what I can, when I can. 2 of them are going to be road cars for my dirty-old-man period.

Take solace in knowing that it will be ready when your kid is old enough to drive. That is what I had to do. Started my project BW&K (before wife and kids) Since I bought the project, I bought the house, had 2 kids.... and so on. Project gets worked on several times a year, but not as often as I would like.

Good luck. In a few years, teach your kid fractions using wrenches.

Have fun