Tuner Tips

RED, not PINK Taillights.
If you've seen a car with the clear tail lights, you know about this problem. You get "red" bulbs with the clear taillights, but when they light up (especially at night), they look light red/pink. A good solution is to dip or spray them with some good heat-resistant engine red paint. It lasts for a while, but you have to keep doing it every so often.

After Market Lowering Springs making noise
If you buy some brands of after market springs they tend to make a rattling noise when driving in rough road (which is everywhere in Trinidad). We have had this experience with Sprint and Jamex brand lowering springs especially. The reason for this rattle is because the aftermarket springs are progressively rated springs, to achieve this the spring's coils are closer together at the top or bottom, this helps in cornering by offering progressively stiffer rates. The coils on the spring that are closer together sometimes touch each other as the spring is compressed. From experience the rear Sprint Springs for the Mitsubishi Lancer had to be installed upside down from the directions in the installation manual (go figure! it just works that way). There may even be 'dead coils' in the spring when compressed, these are coils that rest right next to each other even when the car is at rest. When the coils bounce against each other while driving they make a rattling sound (it sometimes sounds as if the whole front end of the car is loose!).
To prevent this rattling we tried pushing rubber hose around the coils, this works very well and hardly changes the height of the spring. Garden hose works well too (but dont look too well when you jack up the car, especially when you have sweet blue, red or yellow colour coordinated springs). We even tried plastic harness looms cut in short pieces, this worked for a while put two potholes down the road they slipped out and the rattling returned.

Stop bonnet and trunk rattles.
If your bonnet rattles a quick and easy solution is to (dah) adjust the 2 round rubber mounts located near the front of the engine room. Screwing the mounts in a counterclockwise fashion makes them longer. This puts more pressure on the bonnet, thus stopping the rattling. Takes about 2 minutes to do.
Also we received an email from an importspeed fan with the following other option:
If your trunk rattles I think that the trunk springs are at fault. I found that if you take some "woogies that the wife put in her hair " and wrap them about one quarter of the way down the length, and three quarters of the length of those springs and tighten them enough they will stop rattling. Along with stuffing the springs under the back dash, I also put felt pads that are used on the bottom of desk utilities (i.e. stapler) or two-way sticky tape underneath my license plate and/or put four screws through every corner instead of two, and tightened it down as hard as possible.

Clean WAX build-up
We all love to WAX our cars to make them shine. But isn't the white residue in the cracks and door jams annoying? It's also very hard to clean and get rid of. One of the best solutions is a small paint brush or tooth brush with stiff bristles. Use it to gently brush away the residue. It only a few minutes!

If you have some decent tip or idea and you would like to share it with us please email us the tip at info@trinituner.com, we will be glad to hear from you.

Also check out our Glossary of Terms or refer to De Forum for interactive help from people in the know.

Questions or comments? let us know - email us at info@trinituner.com