Carburetor Enthusiast™

Formerly 1990mx5! I changed cars! she/her

[ninefourfour]

Y’all. I’m just now realizing that I yammer on about cars, but have never actually proven that I own anything to back it up. So, an introduction?

The first, and the best. My 1971 Super Beetle. It was the very first Beetle I looked at when I was in the market, and it has been a perfect car. I’ve never looked at another Beetle since.

The engine has been pulled, poked at, disassembled, and then put back in by yours truly. When I first bought this car, my dad was adamant that I could do all the work myself, and he’s held me to that for the last seven years. This car gifted me a slow-building foundation of patience and skill that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Edit June 9th, 2026:

Oh, do I have a story for you! Guess whose oil leak got so bad that yours truly had to strip it down to the pistons? This car! I pulled the engine again with the intention of replacing basically every single seal in the engine. Armed with a $20 seal kit from a site that was definitely not VW-exclusive, I tore the whole thing down. I went in with the pushrod tubes as my culprit, and while I was partly right, the rear main seal takes the blame.

(Pic is of piston proof! Yay!)

Here's the complete list of replacements from my biggest job yet:

clutch plate and pressure plate

oil tower seals and arm

pushrod tubes and seals

generator gaskets (there're three!)

oil pump gasket

valve cover gaskets

head gaskets (kind of. 1600 aircooled engines don't technically have "head gaskets", but I did put sealant around the faces)

rear transmission seal

thermostat

flywheel seal

heat exchangers

manifold gaskets

exhaust gaskets

Other:

pistons (removed and cleaned)

piston rings checked

throwout bearing checked (new one broke as I was installing it, so I went back to OEM)

pilot bearing checked

general degreasing of several pounds of oil

I'm excited to say that the car is up and running again! The job took me much longer than I wanted, but it is done, and I'm proud of that. If you ever need to pull an aircooled VW engine, I highly recommend investing in a motorcycle jack.

Ownership status: 2019 — present

***

Beetle #2 — A 1972 Standard. Didn’t I just say that I’d never buy another Beetle?

This one was bought from a friend for about the price of a Happy Meal. She didn’t run, she had no brakes, and she was probably losing her clutch as well.

I once stalled her on a hill while Chic’s Le Freak was blasting from a speaker that had no volume buttons. She failed to start for about a solid minute, and after my pleading and begging, apparently got enough gas in the chamber to splutter embarrassingly up the hill.

It was the height of COVID, and I was bored out of my mind. The brakes took a few days, the engine needed a new fuel filter and carb float, and then that was it. She was back on the road. I sold her away, and I still look for her occasionally on Marketplace.

Other than the paint, she was completely stock, which made her good for stealing parts off of. I’m pretty sure she was sold without sidemarkers.

Ownership status: Spring of 2020 — summer of 2020.

***

My dad’s 1976 Transporter. When I got my Beetle, my grandad and dad started going on about 'the good old days', when they’d pile into one of my grandad’s buses, and go camping in the South of France.

So, enter VW Bus. She’s a Transporter at heart, but the previous owner stuck a Westfalia interior in there, and now we’ve got a camper! We bought her non-running, had a crisis about buying a lawn ornament, and then realized that the problem was merely a main vacuum line. She’s run fine ever since.

She’s got about 10 more horsepower than the other Volkswagens (62hp), which makes her particularly good in freeways and long-distance travel. She’s the most reliable of the fleet, and has made it down to the California border (from Northern WA) and back without a blip. She’s never broken down. Not yet.

Ownership status: Spring of 2021 — present

***

One of these is not like the other: 1990 Miata.

The Beetle -> Miata pipeline is real. I know of at least three people (myself included) that’ve pulled this trick. She’s got 300,000 miles on the clock and counting. This car was meant to be a cheap summer commuter, maybe do a little track racing, and be gone by the end of the summer. Unfortunately, I fell in love. This car has had more money poured into it than any of the other vehicles, despite her terrible paint and high mileage, no OBD system, and about fifty other problems. But I love her.

This is the car that has forced me to reckon with fuel injection, and the one that has taught me the most about “racing” (quotation marks because I was the slowest 1.6 NA at the last Auto-X).

I had to learn about rollbars, hardtops, tires and wheels, coilovers, radiators, rolled and pulled fenders, and how to handle a car with more than 60hp. All my other cars are completely stock in the engine department, so the Miata is where I started experimenting. Racing intake, performance radiator, the usual suspects. Rumor (fact) has it that I tried to ship a cheap hardtop from my university to my house. It did not work. I had to tuck my tail and go to Canada for a hardtop that’s genuinely worth more than the car. I’ve become a snob, I think.

This car has only failed me once, about two days into ownership. The clutch master went out, and I panicked, thinking I’d bought a lemon. I had not. However, she’s had to save me only one time, but it was quite possibly the greatest save known to Miatakind. A clutch disc spring exploded while I was out and about, rendering shifting to become harder and harder, and then impossible. She drove me 84 miles home in the middle of a bitter winter rainstorm at 10pm. She only refused to go into gear once on my driveway. So, I owed it to the car to fix the transmission, I guess. I cashed a lot of luck that day.

I replaced the clutch disc, plate, pilot bearing, throwout bearing, and hydraulic system in February 2025, and she drives now! It was my very first transmission pull and put-back, and certainly not the most fun I’ve ever had. But I did it, and it works (so far).

Ownership status: Fall of 2022 — summer of 2025

***

"You need to get a reliable car," my dad said. "The Miata is getting tired, and you need a car that will take you to work without issues."

I listened to him for about a week, did extensive research on early Toyota trucks, and then bought a car two years older than the Miata. Meet the 1988 Porsche 944. Full of quirky German engineering (timing belt + old = engine explosion), this is the most expensive thing I've ever bought in my life. That being said, it costs much less than any car built after 2010, so I was between a rock and a hard place.

I absolutely adore it. It has electronic everything (seats, windows, sunroof), so in my eyes, this thing is the height of luxury. It has a maroon interior, teeny tiny back seats, and an engine that has fifty more horsepower than the Miata, and that's something I haven't really tested yet. There's yet to be work done, but this is a very new car to me, so I'm sure it'll start to bring up issues any day now. But I don't care. I love it.

Ownership status: May of 2025 -- present

***

Honorable mention #1: My boyfriend's 1984 Mazda RX-7 GSL. Would you believe me if I said I found it abandoned at my new house? The car, not the boy. After years of working on my own cars by my lonesome, a suitor has entered the picture, and with it, some rotary knowledge, which is why he got the car and not me. And I love him, so. Anyway, this car has been off the road since 2001, and is currently running soley from my hand feeding it brake fluid. She's carbed, which, in my eyes only, is perfect. I wouldn't know where to start if it was FI.

I keep flooding the poor thing, but I'll get my head wrapped around it. All its fuel lines are blocked (twenty-six-year-old gas, ew!), so we need to drain the tank. Until then, I've ordered new plugs and lines so she can have strong spark. I'm excited! I really want to put her in next year's 24 Hours of Lemons, so I will keep you all updated.

Ownership status: Spring of 2026 — present

Honorable mention #2: My dad’s 1978 MGB. This is the car that taught me how to drive stick! My dad bought it when my family moved from California, and he was probably longing for a little bit of his British roots. The car was his daily for its entire ownership, and drove in commuting traffic every day for years with a cracked cylinder head. My dad pulled the engine on it multiple times, probably just for fun.

Just kidding. The clutch blew up twice. The soft top would leak, and moss grew on the carpets. My dad used to tote a gallon bottle into work to fill with water because the car would lose coolant throughout the workday. He would place a small bowl to collect oil because the company had just finished the underground parking, and he didn’t want to leak oil onto the new concrete. It had three windshield wipers! What a brilliant car! I say that with zero sarcasm. What a silly, beautiful, funny car.

Ownership status: 2006 — summer of 2021

***

I learned everything from my dad, who used to rally his Mini Cooper for pinks back in the 80’s. He learned everything from his father —my grandfather— who is exactly who you’d think of when you hear “Mancunian backyard mechanic”. He smoked like a house on fire, refused to spend more than 2k on any car ever, and was quite possibly the greatest, kindest man who ever lived. He never had a car for longer than 6 months, but always had a soft spot for aircooled Volkswagens. 

If you’re genuinely curious about my mechanical misadventures, I go by @lowbutstillslow on Instagram, where I actually put money where my mouth is. It’s subpar work, but it is work. 

When I'm not fixing the tin cans on wheels, I love to watch F1 and Le Mans, and I'm getting into NASCAR and Indycar. I'm astounded by the abilities of drivers and mechanics that're far more talented than I can ever dream. I also knit, read and write, and do dogsports with my son (dog) who I birthed (bought) myself.

If anyone has questions about anything — mechanical things*, car brands, F1, or even non-car stuff, let me know!

*If you ask for it, my advice might not be right, but it will be free, and that's certainly something.

<3!

[russilton]

I don’t even have time to touch on how deeply fucking gross it is of Ferrari to make Lewis comment on the concept of a fanfic that is about an explicit relationship between him and Rosberg, a real person Lewis keeps making explicitly clear he does not want to be associated with. Is Ferrari that starved for bullshit content

[laura-mueller]

Michèle Mouton and Fabrizia Pons, Marlboro Rallye Côte d'Ivoire 1982

'The penultimate rally of the 1982 season, and German Walter Röhrl of Opel was leading the championship with the Audi driver Michele Mouton 17 points behind. Röhrl had earlier said he would accept losing to her team mate, the Finn Hannu Mikkola, not because he doubted her skill, but because Mouton was a woman. To take the championship and become the first female WRC champion she needed to outscore him. Tragedy struck before the rally when Mouton received the news of her father's death hours before the rally began. Given his last wish for her to compete, she pushed on through the first half of the gruelling 5000 km course, keeping Röhrl behind her until a series of mechanical failures and a crash lead to her retirement from the rally. Audi won the constructors championship, but Röhrl went on to win the rally, and thus the drivers championship. Mouton would finish second in the standings.'

[verseau-lion]

Michèle Mouton

[seat-safety-switch]

For centuries, the British have been making brilliant fibreglass roadsters, extremely temperamental boxlike trucks, and a variety of commuter vehicles that are best remembered as warnings. What they've never done is create anything as majestic as the Ford F-150.

Yes, I know and agree that the Triumph Spitfire is way better than the F-150. Otherwise, I couldn't get up in the morning. I'd much rather drive one of those to the grocery store. That said, have you looked at the parking lot of your local grocery store? That's a lot of F-150s. Nobody can deny it now: the market has spoken.

Once, a long time ago, the British came up with another great idea. It was called the "locost," which is probably short for "low cost." By stripping a bunch of busted-ass old British cars, likely placed upside down in your local ditch, you could build your own kick-ass roadster for not very much money. Unfortunately, these busted-ass old British cars are no longer clogging the highways, byways, and cautionary tales of the year of our lord 2026, so a new alternative has to be developed.

Friends, I think we can bring back vintage British motoring. We just need to find a vehicle that has massive popularity, frequently gets crashed, and sometimes develops intractable electrical problems that make their owners freak out and junk them. I am speaking, of course, of the F-150. With a tactical application of a sawzall, I think we can turn an extended-cab pickup into a very ugly and somewhat large V8 roadster. Then we just need to add little Union Jack stickers to the fenders, and loosen about half of the grounds. I'll be seeing you at the tweed-blazer car meet.

[pepsinister]

autocross pics

[frenchcurious]

Mazda RX-3 Wagon 1972. - source Amazing Classic Cars.

[schecoperez]

zak brown has said that mclaren are being cyberbullied. with your help, this can continue

[rocketumbl]

How a Car Engine Works

[ceoracer]

that is awesome and very informative

[frenchcurious]

Giancarlo Baghetti (Ferrari 156) Grand Prix de Belgique - Spa-Francorchamps 1962. © Bernard Cahier - Getty. - source Carros e Pilotos.

[kushblazer666]

[what-is-this-car]

This car is a second generation (2010-2014) Cadillac CTS Coupe.

See: exhaust tips (distinctly different from the CTS-V Coupe), general body shape

- @brick-enthusiast

[miseria-fortes-viros]

man sometimes i really want to get back into welding but then i remember that the guys from the first course i took won’t be there and change my mind

[miseria-fortes-viros]

comprehensive list of things that happened to me in my welding course with The Guys:

- was the only one to get an A the first grading period. had to stop them from putting me on their shoulders

- became the official classroom mascot on account of i was the only girl. this meant i was an integral stop on any and all workshop tours. was referred to as “Our Lady Helena” on these occasions

- almost set myself on fire once bc my prof stood behind me watching me try a skill he’d just demonstrated and he shouted very suddenly very loudly. restarted my heart and asked WTF WAS THAT FOR JOHN and he called me a “goddamn wonder”. i almost got third degree burned over a compliment

- mentioned offhand ONE TIME that swords were cool. also mentioned my birthday offhand ONE TIME. one of The Guys remembered both instances and also happened to find a sword in a dumpster so he gave it to me for my birthday

- came in fifth in an arm wrestling competition

- french braided my hair in class bc i didn’t have time to do it beforehand. ended up with an audience of like 5+ guys trying to figure out how tf i was doing it

- told The Guys my college friends call me barbie. Mistake. suddenly had all 12 of them calling me Barbarian

- had some down time and made a silly little sculpture with some scraps. The Guys were endlessly intrigued by this and demanded to see some of my art school stuff. had a small crowd around my phone cheering loudly every time i swiped to a new picture

- accidentally mentioned the cafe i worked at. Mistake. several days later all 12 of them came in to bother me

- offered someone a haircut. Mistake. had to retract the offer bc suddenly Everyone wanted a haircut and it would Not Be Fair if i only did one

[wildehacked]

things in fic I'm used to people kind of faking their way through writing about:

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

what french toast is

[headspace-hotel]

read through the notes on this one trust me

[kiragecko]

Here's some of the notes, starting with the things multiple people brought up:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

ANIMALS:

catenarwhal: #mandatory 'how cows produce milk' mention#i'll never recover from that one I fear

piromantic: #one time i saw someone fake their way through describing how spiders behave

pluto-lichen: horses

misskittypotter: #stardew valley faking its way through what fresh fish smell like

pa-pa-plasma: #saw someone faking their way through knowing what a seal is once #i still am fucked up over that one to this day. they just straight up did not know #& they were NOT good at guessing it either like it was clear they had never googled that animal ever #& was only just now realizing via answering questions from anons that seals are not!! what they assumed. initially

SEX:

dykevandyke: #what a prostate is #and where it is located #as in. external.

dreamyeyedrose: #I remember back in the ff.net days reading an Ichigo/Renji fic where the writer assumed the penises go inside each other #and I was like “I mean I don't know how it works for sure I don't have one but idk if that's how it works”

SOME OTHER FOOD STUFF:

thetrekkiehasthephonebox: #add another one to the list bloggers#this character is cooking a salad

shosta: #still baffled about the published work that didn't know food could freeze

sun-dari: #once i read a fic where the author didn't understand cinnamon

alto-tenure: #read something recently where the author was just. blatantly wrong about spices

dramatic-dolphin: #i saw someone try to fake their way through what ramen is once. like 14 years ago.#but i remember.#i was very confused about ramen for a few months. they were writing it so authoritatively.

the-celery-stalks-at-midnight: #i will never ever forget someone putting leftover fries in the microwave to reheat them and setting the timer for five minutes

typeghost: #this sparked a memory of a hannibal fic where the author had to fake their way through writing about gravy

draculin: #the one fanfic where the author knows about coffee only as a concept wrote a character as a coffee drinker#was very interesting#I don't remember the fandom or the plot but I was mesmerized by the coffee actions and choices

11235811235811: #there's a lot of faking their way thru congee in the svsss fandom i'll also note

fishali3n: #read one where the person clearly didnt know what tofu is

emmy-everafter: #in the aftermath of shadow and bone s2 i saw a lot of people pretending to know what stroopwafels are #babes they are more like cookies than breakfast waffles #like yes there is a waffle pattern but you're not gonna cut into a stack of them with syrup and sugar#🤣🤣🤣

NON-FOOD STUFF:

red-umbrella-811: Shoutout to Dame Agatha Christie for faking her way through what a wrench is in a very popular published work.

bluebeetle: #once saw someone have a character put an entire phone book in their pocket

nonametis: #- sex talk in languages other than english #<- or just the petnames in a different language other than English

sadisticpony: #the fanfiction i saw this week where op DIDNT KNOW HOW AUTOMATIC DOORS WORKED #and that they arent in peoples homes!!! of course. also opening the automatic door for someone is unironically very funny but its not #its not like. grabbing the door handle to let someone in. helpppp

danmeichael: #reminds me of the fic with the figure drawing class where the character started with the feet. #i love you feet first figure drawing author

meowmix1100blr: #me watching this one fic absolutely obliterate what the board of directors does

vexedhexes: #one time i read an architect character making a doorway bigger by building a bigger door #what a beautiful world. #OH. also gravity falls fic where they go 'oh piedmont is in california so its warm all year round'

leveragehunters: #characters going to a beer garden #And it's literally a garden outside the pub#It was a very cute mistake

fitofpique: #yes! #grown men do not get blind drunk off two beers #but i am possibly guilty of the hypothermia one #assuming it does not make you very horny?

dadvans-likes: #always thinking abt the soup kitchen fic #the entire setting of the fic was 'soup kitchen' #and i very quickly realized #the author did not know what a soup kitchen was #and they thought that soup kitchens only served soup #fic

msmargaretmurry: #i love fanfiction #once read a fic where the characters played 20 questions #but the author seemed to not know how to play 20 questions and was just kind of winging it........ #immaculate

shakespeareaddict: #Look I know not all of us are hockey experts #But it takes about ten seconds of research or any attention paid to the show to realize #That the Stanley cup playoffs are not in fucking September

baejax-the-great: #the funniest one i saw #was someone faking what church is like #like 1. they really didn't have to write an entire church experience for their fic #and 2. they had clearly never even watched a show where people went to church #it was bonkers weird

twosunson: #things ive seen authors faking #knowing how to unclog a drain #knowing. literally any history #knowing what ketamine looks like (apparently- oregano) #(you know who you are)

waterhorseyblues-ao3: #beltane being celebrated in winter #wales being portrayed as a completely separated land from england (i wish) #characters getting up after weeks of bedrest like that dosnt completely fuck you up

violetfairydust: #i once read a fic where the flight time from london to seattle was 3 hours

purekesseltrash: One time, in a fic set specifically in Des Moines, IA, two of the characters casually drove 20 minutes to the ocean. The memory continues to delight me. I want to know where that author thought that Iowa was.

[tumblehcendrum]

In defense of the phone book one, some pockets are really spacious. I had a jacket that fit 17 mangas in each.

Also, @actually-i-might-get-in-trouble add yours, I know you have some.

[acotars]

how many books have you read this year?

zero

1-3

4-8

9-15

16-30

31-60

61-100

101+

Voting ended onJun 18

so sorry but no, fanfics don't count (even if they're novel length). you can define "read" however you'd like -- physcial book, ebook, audiobook, etc. and it's up to you whether you count dnfs!

[eenuaj]

forza ferrari sempreeee

[storm3326]

so happy for him 🥹

[moon-brain-90]

Yuki you are so dear to me