I wrote this early draft a couple of years back. I stopped writing for Modified Magazine and at the time I had two columns I had nearly completed (I was usually a couple of months ahead at all times). This column was meant to make people really think and shift perspective from what is usually said in a magazine. Although its still really rough and I’m honestly a little embarrassed to release it in unfinished form, I thought it’d be an interesting enough topic to put it out there. Just please dont judge it as a finished magazine column…

I hope it is an interesting read, I had fun writing it.

Fast vs. Fun

Examining the Motivation for Street Driven Tuner Cars

Over the years I’ve written about many cars and tuning techniques that make for exciting magazine content. These topics often comprise the idea of setting records for speed, handling, or simply looking incredible. However all of these discussions about “magazine superstar” cars would be doing you, the enthusiast, a disservice if it were left one sided. It should be understood that a car yielding good magazine content that conjures lust and praise does not always make it the best car for you to emulate with your projects. A core premise of all automotive customization is that there is a downside to every modification, just as there is an upside. The goal is to have the pros heavily outweigh the cons specifically for your interests. There can never be any universally right way to build a car other than what satisfies each car owner, hence the nature of customization. This month we’ll delve into the motivation to tune and specifically how it applies to street driven cars.

Faster is not always better. I know I’ll get hate mail for that comment, but hang with me for a moment.  Magazines will glamorize the most extreme and fastest cars because technically they are brilliant and they represent the most exciting and wild examples of what can be done. Yet, does that make them more enjoyable for a daily driven car? Not always…

What good is 800 horsepower when driving on roads with police using radar, planes using radar or worst of all (if you happen to be in Arizona for example), those damn unmarked white vans radaring at random locations? What good are 12” wide rims and massive traction when driving on public streets where you never pass 60% of traction potential in a corner? When I think about my own motivations for spirited driving, I find enjoyment in pushing the limits of both myself and my car. I know for a fact that I can’t push the limits of a race car on public roads without finding myself in jail. Yet a properly set up sports car, specifically set up for street driving, can be significantly more satisfying than a car built to be a supercar on paper and a centerfold starlet in a magazine, despite the pride felt from staring at a framed dyno diploma on the wall every evening.

Consider if you will, the do’s and don’ts of building a street tuned car. If you’re with me up until now, lets assume that you get joy out of driving your car rather than your car driving you. This means, you enjoy the skill of driving and mastering daily tasks like nailing the apex of the freeway onramp and testing your exit speed onto the highway. You probably also enjoy getting your car a little sideways when no one is looking, feeling the limits of traction, steering on throttle and commanding every minor adjustment of your car as you fling it through turns. Spirited driving should be rewarding, and on the streets rewards do not come in the form of time slips.

Those simple daily pleasures can be expanded upon or crushed based on how you set up your car. If you’re simply about building an impressive spec list to slap onto your car, helping to boost your bragging rights with your friends, then you’ll be missing out on most of it. Building a street car for maximum driving satisfaction can often be counterintuitive when compared to what is usually said by tuners, the media and pretty much everyone. I’m no exception, sometimes I get too wrapped up on the idea of extracting a car’s potential that I forget about the fun of extracting the driver’s potential every day as they drive it.  Although it is a tremendously complex topic, we’ll hit some of the key points and also the most controversial.

Big tires equals no fun for daily driving. If you want to push the limits of your car and feel the excitement of on the limit driving, don’t install the biggest tires you can fit. From the factory, each car is set up for the most poorly skilled drivers that could possibly buy it. This means, more traction than what’s needed, more understeer than what’s needed and every possible electronic gadget to bail a bad driver out of a potential disaster. Those default settings are sure to spoil excitement of the more experienced and enthusiastic driver. Although you lose bragging rights, I suggest not going wider on the tires. As a compromise for looks, going with wider rims can be done without detriment so long as modestly sized tires are stretched over them. In fact, going with one to two inch wider rims can often be done with stock tire widths. Also pay attention to the dynamics of the car, if the car understeers too much at the limit consider reducing the tire width on the rear a bit or running a thicker rear sway bar. If you’re as crazy as me, sometimes it’s a blast to find some cheap used economy tires to throw on the rear of the car. It turns every day into a drift day and makes mundane turns feel like you’re racing at the limits. That extreme is certainly not for everyone and only you know your comfort zone, but trust that most cars from the factory are set up so that your grandmother can drive it safely. Do you drive the same as your grandmother? I hope not.

Big horsepower equals no fun. Excessive horsepower can easily ruin the fun of a street car. Most big horsepower tuning will push the power to a higher RPM which means that you’ll have to battle through low end lag and by the time you hit the big power you’re already well past the speed limit. If you like pushing your luck and doing 100+MPH, I wont be the one to stop you. Yet, consider how often in a big horsepower car you can row through the gears, both up and down, hitting redline and pulling off perfect shifts, throttle blips and heel toeing. Then consider how much more you can actually drive a car to its limits when it has less power. If your car does 0-100MPH in 8 seconds, then you have even less than 8 seconds to enjoy each wide open throttle moment before you get a massive speeding ticket. I enjoy a good challenge when driving, and despite how unbelievably awful of a drivers car my Honda Element is, sometimes I have more fun pushing the limits of that then I do when driving exceeding fast in sportier cars that often feel sadly too effortless to go fast in. Again, if you want to go fast and set records, there’s nothing wrong with it but I’d argue that the car you’re doing it in it isn’t nearly as much fun on the street every day as many cars that are less powerful.

So what makes a perfect street tuner car? An iconic street tuner car example is the Lotus Elise. It is lightweight, powerful enough yet easy to push hard daily, nimble and can oversteer with a simple lift of the throttle. You don’t need to drive 100+ MPH to feel the excitement and experience playing with its limits. I’d venture to say that any car with those similar characteristics can be more fun at half of the speed than that of any super car when enjoyed in daily driving situations.

No daily driving experience can be as exhilarating as a good day at the track, so it’d be unfair to compare them. Yet, the street tuned car clearly has its place. For die hard track day fans, many get practical and boring street cars and leave all of their fun for the track. After all once graduating to stronger drugs, the diluted experience of the street ultimately cant deliver the fix track junkies crave. For those who enjoy the tuning lifestyle, many build award winning and record setting cars that they can drive to the track, kick ass and drive back home in while bumping their victory song. Yet there is a fine line that every car can quietly cross in which it becomes less fun for the street and more fun for the track. It is important to recognize that distinction when building our cars and to clearly determine what the goals of the project car truly are.

The trend I see currently is that most people are building the best performing and looking cars possible for their budget but that they don’t give the concept of street enjoyment versus track potential enough thought as they progress through their project. Like all tuning, there is a trade off for nearly every modification and a single car cant be perfect at everything all the time, regardless of who is building it or what the budget is (perhaps there are a couple exceptions, but not many). Planning is vital and goals must be established to ensure that whatever you put your hard earned money into will live up to everything you dreamt it would be.