Info on mods needed Options

[Sxrman]

Hey all I'm new to the site n I Owen a sx-r n i wanna increase the performance of my car anyone have any info on mods that will help me including compatible motors

[JoshuaM]

WARNING: This is my sensible and logical brain having a mini-rant about legality and consequences. Certainly no offence is intended to anybody on this thread, its just that I disagree with some of the logic posted. If you can't handle an opposing opinion look away now!


In reference to the comments about legality, sorry to be the downer but various tactics to avoid a defect notice is completely irrelevant. If you were pulled over with an engine swap that wasn't declared, what would happen? You'd get a slap on the wrist, a fine, and a defect notice making you either get it engineered or return it to stock.... frustrating and expensive yes, but not a big deal.

If you were to have an accident (Which statistically is likely given many of us are young males), your insurance would NOT be required to pay you out (check the fine print). Even if you were not at fault, you could be accused of being a contributory factor give your unroadworthy vehicle. So, your $2k-10k Celica gets written off... again that is very sad, probably more emotionally than financially, but again it isn't the end of the world - you can rebuild.

However, if you were to write off a new $80-100k premium BMW / Merc / Audi etc (Which is not hard given Australia's pricing at least) in the process, you would be ruined! With no insurance to cover you, you will be buying them a new car... which would mean years and years of huge debt - say goodbye to buying your own house or expensive car any time soon. This is of course assuming you don't go bankrupt after losing whatever assets you may have, and being unable to take out any form of lease or loan for the next 7 years.

If, heaven forbid, you were to seriously injure another person in this accident you would normally be covered by up to $20 million in legal liability insurance through CTP (This is an AUS thing).... Unless of course they were to hear that your car was illegal too in which case who knows... that would cripple yourself and the poor third party who you can't afford to pay their medical expenses that your insurance should cover.

The chance of this happening is quite small, however those consequences are very severe. If people weigh up the risks and still want to go ahead that's completely up to them, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a sensible option, especially to newbies. And, unless you are in a financial situation that would cover any of the above situations, in my opinion it is also grossly unfair to other potentially innocent road users who may also be ruined financially if there was to be an accident.

Technically, this logic goes to anything at all that we do to our cars... many of the tiny modifications such as clear side markers and JDM tail lights would technically come under the same provisions, but it is unlikely that they would be noticed, and you would have a good case to argue that they were too minor to be a contributory factor (Though I still go through the painful process of declaring them all to my insurer - even just for fire and theft which is already capped price).

Laws are very different with regards to all of this stuff in the states, so I don't know how much of my comments are relevant there, but they are certainly true for Australia.

So in summary my first plan if I start looking at a swap is going to be how I am going to get it approved and insured, but thats just me