A Newbie Requesting A Guide

lilhugo · Oct 16, 2009, 02:22 PM

Hello, I recently got into the car stage of my life (because of my lancer) where I want to make my car more "personalized." The problem is, I do not know anything about cars at all, and I'm willing to learn about everything that can be done to a car.
My request/question would be that I was wondering if anyone knew of any lancer guides/wikis to what tuning is and what each part does for the car. I tried searching around on many forums, Google, and Yahoo, but I wasn't able to find one. Either one doesn't exist yet, or I tried the wrong key words to find it. =/
I currently drive a CVT (

) Lancer GTS 2009. I wanted a manual, but I did not know how to drive stick and my parents didn't approve of it. So i know I am limited to what I can and can't do. =(

Thanks for the help. I'm sorry if I infuriate any of you guys with my newbie-ness and I hope I didn't post this in the wrong forum. =x

kalpakiotis · Oct 19, 2009, 06:27 AM

its going to be hard to write something up on everything you could do to your car. The best advice I could give you would be to go to a place like www.roadracemotorsports.com and check out what they have available. There are lots of posts on here on all their products with opinions on both sides of the fence. But its a good place to start to get a handle on what is available for the car. That's too bad about not getting the stick, it is so much more fun

Enjoy the ride.

MasterAK · Oct 19, 2009, 08:45 AM

There's no universal guide. Just drive your car and see what needs to be improved so that we can be a little specific and suggest something that fits your budget.
Know what to expect beforehand. Don't have the illusion that simple modifications will have a drastic effect on your cars performance, they're more like subtle changes.

CMcraz23 · Oct 19, 2009, 12:14 PM

Get rid of those Dunlop 5000 Tires!!!!

lilhugo · Oct 20, 2009, 05:59 AM

kalpakiotis: Yeah, i've found that website. I've been browsing it everyday and dreaming of the day I could get to buy a bunch of the stuff on there. =] It makes me sad reading on the other posts that modding a lancer wouldn't be the smartest of ideas. =/

MasterAK: Thanks for the tip. =] I'm so far really enjoying the ride, and I guess I'm wanting to increase the smoothness of the ride. I know I won't be able to get it to an AWD level of smoothness, but do you happen to know of anything I could do to it that would get my car closer to that level? I read somewhere that sway bars would help, but i'm not too sure what they do.

CMcrazz23: Haha thanks, but I might keep them for a little while longer. When I look at tires, i'm blown away by what all the numbers mean. I have no clue which tires are for what. I heard there are racing tires, all-season, and asymmetrical (?) tires. I'm pretty much a daily driver so racing doesn't help me. I live in Tx so it doesn't have snow or icy roads too often so I figured all-season wouldn't really help. I have no clue what asymmetrical tires are... Some guy that worked at Discount Tires told me those were good, but he didn't explain what they could do for me...

I know that a universal guide is hard to find, but I sort of found one.
http://www.evogarage.net/wiki/index.php/Modding_101
Its not really for lancers, but it does explain a bunch of the small stuff for me. =] I was just hoping there was something similar out there for lancers.

By the way, Thanks for all the input guys. =] I'll try my best to get better and not annoy everyone with super easy questions. =(

03chi-town0Z · Oct 22, 2009, 09:32 PM

on this site, look for a member by the name of ambystom01 and click on the link at the bottom of one of his posts in his signature. very very helpful for beginners. and congrats on the new car, glad you like it

lilhugo · Oct 22, 2009, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 03chi-town0Z

on this site, look for a member by the name of ambystom01 and click on the link at the bottom of one of his posts in his signature. very very helpful for beginners. and congrats on the new car, glad you like it

Awesome, thank you so much. =D
I was wondering, since it said 2002-2006 it won't matter too much if my car is 2009 right? Typically all parts are essentially the same right? Also would there be anything that changed between 2002-2006 to 2009?

03chi-town0Z · Oct 22, 2009, 10:46 PM

on a naturally-aspirated (non-turbo or supercharged) engine you arent going to see a whole lot of performance gain from simple parts, but there will be a little bit, and it will likely make the car sound a whole lot better too. basic bolt-on parts most people add onto their car at first are going to be very similar, regardless of model year, so it does still apply to you mostly. while reading that link, dont worry so much about the specific products or brands available, just concentrate on the general knowledge of what the parts do and how they compliment each other so you can learn a bit first and then decide how you want to approach your modifications. just dont get into it expecting to end up with a race car, cause thats not what you bought, but there are definitely a number of ways to make the car you do have a whole lot more fun