bastardized parts
 

I'd love just once, to be able to buy a part for my 66 coupe without having to bastardize it to get it to work right. Everytime, there's always a light known issue, or problem that has to be dealt with. Looking at TCP power racks, you have to be cautious with the pump pressure so using a standard OE pump with its higher pressures increases the possibility of R&P leaks later. Looking at aluminum heads, sorry they tell me after dozens of emails, they come with roller springs but you need to change them out for hyd tappet, Oh, by the way, you want to run above 6K RPM. . . Wheels? What do you mean you can't tell me what your $500 billet wheel weighs? Can we please start a sub group specific to parts and pieces, what works and what doesn't. I get allot of my input from this forum by searching parts and pieces and do's and don'ts. I'm sure you folks have gone down this same road more times than I. When I buy something, I want to know all the information, no bits and pieces, and "Oh, by the way" after the fact..... Was looking at deep front sump pans, "oh, buy the way" no deeper than stock to clear the R&P on the back half. Feel my pain! Don't get me going on the subject of wiring harnesses.. . .

I feel the same way. I will start making a list of things that I know will work!

That's just something you learn over time. If companies can't make their **** work right, and can't tell me about their parts, then I won't buy from them.

Certain companies will give you tons of info, but you also pay extra, and to me that's worth it. There are parts that are true bolt ons and don't require modification, but you have to know which ones they are. Though on the matter of heads, the springs need to be matched to the cam, so it's better to get bare heads through a cam grinder and let him assemble the valvetrain package. The head companies themselves typically will use a spring combo that works with the most common cams, so it functions with the majority of stuff out there, but it's never going to be right for everything.

I purchased a complete weather stripping kit for my 69 and many of the pieces were not even close to correct. Can't remember from who but I could narrow it down... Bought supposed original wiper refills from yearone and they sent the right part (checked part number) but it was not even close to correct. I don't know why, but my baer tracker kit had to have the sleeves 3/8" machined from either side of it to work properly with the original inner tie rods, and inner tie rods cut about an inch or 1.5". I don't know why I had to do this, but again the part numbers were all correct. These things are frustrating, and my list goes on and on. Summitracing sent me a totally incorrect pcv valve. My brand new mustangs plus 4.5 reverse eye leaf springs are already having issues less than 500 miles in, the rearmost leaf retainer thingies are plastic and one side has already fallen off. They are squeeking like crazy even with everything freshly lubed...TODAY! Seriously I can't tell you how many times this happens.

That's why I recommend a lot of the stuff I do, but people often don't want to spend the money on it to avoid things like that. Good **** costs more money, you really do get what you pay for with high performance car parts (for the most part).

There's never enough money to do it right, but there's always enough money to do it over.

One other variable in this equation, and I don't mean to sound "nationalistic" or such, but a LOT of aftermarket parts are, unfortunately, made in China and with very low quality-control and loose tolerances. And don't even try to understand any written instructions that might come with them! I wouldn't put Chinese parts on my car unless I needed to just fix something in order to quickly sell it.

Anyway...my opinion.

Well, made in China isn't always a bad thing these days, depending on what it is. Scat for example, their cast steel cranks are produced as raw castings at plants in China (too expensive for foundries to operate these days in the US in many cases), and shipped to the US where the machining is done. They have a reputation as being ridiculously strong, and handle far more than their rated power.

Most stuff made in the US tends to be of much higher quality, depending on the company. Lots of electronic stuff comes from China though. That said, unless you know exactly what comes from overseas and under what standards, imported parts aren't always a good deal. Most made in China stuff is cheap crap, fine as long as it's for cheap non important parts, or things that rarely fail (relays for example).