I read some of the latest responses in this thread last night because like a bad movie sometimes you just cant stop watching. One or two posts really kind of pissed me off, so I didnt reply. I reread them today and I'll say this.

There is a lot of experience on this thread, and there is a lot of INexperience and BS floating around too. A fundamental tenet of modifying your car is if you deviate from what the factory did, you may gain performance (but not always), but you will surely reduce longevity and reliability. It may be slight and not affect your car for 100,000 miles, you might sell it before you ever see the effects, OR it might be major and in 5,000-10,000 miles something blows up, but it will always happen.

Every persons situation is different, some have garage queens, some put 10,000 miles a year on their car and some like me run 35,000 a year. The modification vs reliability comes in the more you drive of course. Ive modified my cars enough to know that you take manufacturers HP claims with a grain of salt, you dont beleive everything you read on the internet, and if you are going to modify your car you research what the mod will do, how it will affect your car in your situation and then determine if it is worth it. Many of you out there dont take the time to do this, someone says put on a 3.25 pulley cuz I did and you will be fine but they never really find out what that actually does or what other things need to be done that they may need to do to prevent some negative effects

Adam may have been a bit thin skinned about the childish bullsh*t that went on in this site, particularly this thread, and he does lean more toward the factory solution because in his business 95% or better of the people that come to him dont want to come back because what he did broke their car, regardlless of how much faster it made the car go. His advice and information,never steered anyone wrong and I dont think he ever gave out bogus info or any advice based on hearesay. He always tried to help people do whats right to their car rather than letting them hack it up and have problems later.

In his eyes, and personally in mine doing a hack job on your car to gain HP and save money is the worst thing you can do. Been there done that! Especially when a young kid who can barely afford the payments on his car to begin with comes on this site looking for info and someone says Spend $xxx to do x, y and z its great. but no one ever warns the kid that it will case A, B C problems if he doesnt do D,E and F and his car blows up the following week.
Yes, his fault for not researching it but unfortunately I see it as our fault for not doing right by the kid. If you dont have the money to do it right, how are you going to have the money to fix it?

Adam steered people more toward the safe side and tried to give downsides of a lot of things so people would be better informed. For that you guys are telling him to not let the door hit him in the Ass. Its real nice when you guys sit there preaching tollerance of others views, yet you piss and moan because Adam takes a different view than you and you want him off the list. Why? because it makes you think? because it makes you defend your position with solid info rather than just tell people its ok go ahead and do it cuz you know this guy in city X who did it and he says its wonderful? that is just sad.

Texas GP said, and I quote:

So if there is a problem with someone is doing a u-bend delete, or tinting their windows, or putting on a pulley, then maybe that person shouldn't be here. Just because the factory does it "their way", doesn't mean we can't change it up to the way we want. I HAVE TO SAY SO WHAT AND TOUGH CRAP. If you feel the way you do, then don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

TexasGP, I havent met you and I wont judge you but I will comment on what you said.

Most of what you said in your post is true, everyone has differing opinions and different approaches. But your ending did it for me. Pardon me while I piss and moan about your approach. You claim to be a "modder" and dont mind hacking up a car. Well good for you, But Id say adam was trying to prevent people who dont know what the hell they are doing or cant afford to have their car down or throw unlimited money at a problem to fix it from doing what you did.

Let me ask you a question, hows that U-bend delete working out for ya?

Did you research the mod?
did you find out why to do it and what it entailed?
did you research where to get it done and all the other options you had?
Did you know enough about what you wanted to do, to tell the shop you took it to exactly what you needed done and why?
did you know you could have not put in the aft 02 sensor in the replacement pipe and used a simulator?
did you realize that if you bought a new downpipe in the future for more mods it automatically eliminates the Ubend?
Did you make sure the shop put the old 02 in a position on the new pipe as to limit damage that might occur from road debris?
did you make sure they cut and/or welded with the 02 OUT of the pipe else it will freeze it in there?
did you even consider it?

IMO judging by the result it doesnt look like it, but. Looks to me like you heard the Ubend delete is a thing to do and you didnt want to spend the time to research it or the $65 for the PYFC part or find a shop that knew waht they were doing so you tried to cut corners and save money and took it to some Midas who had the lowest price and had them hack your car up. Way to mod buddy! Now you spent just as much as you would have if you bought the right part and did it correctly only yours is still screwed up and you are going to have to spend more money to fix it. And of course, its the shops fault. BUT Kudos to you for posting your experience and letting others learn from it.

Again, if you have a ton of money its not a problem, but if you are struggling to make the payments and dont know any better.... Yeah I know, it comes down to personal responsibility etc etc, but IMO its stuff like that, that Adam was trying to prevent by asking questions he did and making comments he did. Make you think about what you are doing and why you should or shouldnt do it. For that you guys are showing him the door. How Nice.

As for the humor in this thread, yeah some of it was funny, I enjoyed it and added to it, but I still wouldnt buy a GA over a GP. (just trying to keep it on topic)