As a rude-boy, you will (hopefully) be familiar with the 'Guide to fast driving' and the art of 'Rude-Boy'ism. It's a necessity to be able to drive fast, but when your mates take the piss out of you for driving your Mum's Fiesta 850 it is time to enroll the advice of the second entry to rude-boy'ism: MODIFYING YOUR MOTOR.

Modifying your car is like a drug. You start with just a small mod; be it a pair of fluffy dice or a white dial kit, you think you can stop there and give up. However, the opposite is very often the case, and it can get wildly out of control.

Here is a brief guide to help you cope through the next few years (or days, if you have lots of cash).

BODYWORK

This is often the first thing many rude-boys start modifying. 'Modifying' in this sense is only a very loose description, as it covers altering of the car's styling by methods such as trees, hedgerows, bollards, sleeping policemen, awake policemen, pensioners, foxes, badgers and other wildlife: the list is virtually endless. (Just lend your car to Nase_2K when it is snowing, he'll get all of that done for you, and more - DJ Ess)
Modification by these methods rather than by angle-grinder and hacksaw will send Mr Family Man to Kwik-Fit. You should instead head for Demon Tweeks. 

HAYULP!

Question:

I've taken out my front bumper on a high kerb. The paint's all peeling off and it looks crap. What can I do?

Answer:
1) Go to Halfords and look for your car's colour of spray paint to re-spray the damage. Seeing that a perfect match is unavailable, settle for grey primer. It looks even more shite than peeling paint and hence gives you a good excuse to:
2) Cut a big air dam out of the centre of the bumper and fill it with mesh and P38, therefore removing any signs of the previous damage.
Or:
3) Make it the reason to buy a huge besplittered, fog-lighted, air-dammed, meshed beast of a bumper, which is low enough to scrape up white lines. The only disadvantage with this is you can't get into Maccy D's for the local cruise 'cos of the speed-ramps. It just means you'll have to doughnut around the roundabout outside in reverse, to see if you can make an excuse to buy a matching rear bumper…

WIDE-ARCH KITS
Anybody who owns an E reg Escort will know that wheel arches don't stay intact for much longer than 2-3 months after the car came out of the factory. This is a perfect reason to get a big set of plastic arches like the bloke with the Beemer down the road has (or had, depending on how tight cash is). Any unsightly holes can then be hidden from sight. When the kit falls off because there is no more metal close enough to Sellotape it to, the time has come to get a larger kit. Don't think of this as a waste of money; think of the cash you will save not having to get the arches rolled.

OTHER RUSTY BITS
Use Duck tape to cover them up. Everybody else does (See your nearest Austin Montego for further examples).

AERODYNAMIC AIDS
See those massive wings the blokes who run the touring cars fit to their motors? 
See if you can fit something bigger to the back of your car, thus aiding the airflow and keep the back end on the road. If you know people at Boeing, it helps. 
Note that rear wings often don't do much other than to live in permanent fear of being dented and smashed on your garage roof. (This is a good excuse to buy newer bigger ones, which don't allow you to put the car in the garage, therefore allowing rapid expansion of the size and number of wings on your car).
The sides of your car should have skirts that are low, low, low to the ground. If nobody makes side-skirts low enough, fit kits to kits until the desired look is achieved.
Quarter and half-splitters have recently become very popular amongst fans of the 'DTM' look. The real ones are made from carbon fibre, but are damned expensive. Do the proper thing, and fabricate some splitters from the sides of your bath at home. You get that fibre (glass) look, and a shiny colour to match (that is, so long as you don't have a pink bath). Attach the splitter with bits of old coat-hanger like those little wires they have on the touring cars, and nobody will be able to tell the difference between yours and the real thing (at least, not from a distance of about 300 yards).

STICKERS
Applying the team colours of your motor's rally equivalent will certainly make your car stand out in a crowd if it is done well. Alternatively, you can paint it on but beware, if you were never very good at painting Airfix models, avoid this one like the plague. (Also be warned, painting or sticking numbers onto your doors like racing cars is illegal. Bummer- DJ Ess)
De-badging the back of your car can hide either how fast or how slow your car really is, and will leave the guy next to you at the lights to find out what size engine you have. You'll either have fun and piss all over him, or more commonly, he'll piss all over you.
Alternatively, fitting a 'Turbo' badge to the back of your car will arouse suspicion at the lights, but getting the 'charger from the car that the badge came off as well will prove more effective. (And don't forget that you can also paint white stripes down your car - DJ Ess)

WHEELS
Round bits found on each corner of cars (apart from those ones parked on the council estate). 
The ones that come bolted on as standard are ALWAYS too small and have a really shitty spoke pattern (i.e. none at all, or little round holes) (Unless you buy a Rover 620si-se - DJ Ess) (Or a TVR - X-Files) (Or a Vantage - Nase_2K). They are the first thing rude-boys want to change about their motor, but are often some of the last. Have you seen the prices of decent wheels?

HAYULP!

Question: 
I've got some cash to spend on wheels, but what do I choose? I have heard something about choosing wheels with as few spokes as possible, but what do you think?
Answer: 
Anything with more than three spokes. Three spokes are arse. Four spokes aren't much better. Your wheels must have five or more to earn you respect on the road. 

Style Note-
If you have a car with three-spoke wheels, yes- you know who you are, grab a hold of your car and throw it in the bin. Burn it. Scourge of the wheel styling world!

Your wheels should be as large as possible. The top of a proper rude-boy car's tyres (and even rims) should not be visible. They should be hidden well up in the arches. 
Please note that putting fifteen inch wheels on a Mini just isn't cool. It just makes the car look like a roller-skate.
To counteract the size of the wheels from a side-on view, it is necessary to buy the widest wheels you can, otherwise from the front or back your car will look like a bicycle (or a 2CV). You will need to fit wider arches (unless you own a Nova or E/F reg Escort -see 'Wide-Arch Kits') to fit the new wheels.
Tyres that look like they have been worn down to the thickness of a very thin thing by an endless burnouts are the order of the day.
Rude!

LIGHTS
Okay, you can make your car look the bollocks at night by going to Halfords and buying a set of blue headlight bulbs, but there are limits to this:

A producer every time it's dark, often foiled by driving with no lights on at all
A producer for not having your lights on (arse!)
A producer for impersonating a police car (what the hell!?!! -it happens regularly)

All of these are a waste of time on the police's behalf, but that's why we pay their wages with our taxes, don't we? So we can give them more money in fines! It's a tidy little scam they have going…

How often have you found yourself on the motorway at night, doing well over the ton racing that Golf that cut you up, and you look in your mirror to see those ice-blue lights behind you?
Shit! It's gotta be a police Omega. You slow down, lose the race, and the bastard in his new Audi A6 goes past- that is SO not funny.

There are kits that you can use to make your Escort into one of the rudest police car light-look-alikes:
You know what to do… Go get that Audi!

A cheap thing that all rude-boys must remember is REAR LIGHT TINTING SPRAY.
Read the tin, which says "It is illegal to use this with more than three layers on your lights". Ignore that, and spray away until that nice, solid black is achieved (approx. 20 layers). We actually found it is quicker and cheaper just to use gloss black car body spray paint. What a boon! The police thought the lights were Ford originals! (Ho-ho! Bugsy obviously doesn't suggest you do this to your car! What a joker, eh kids? DJ Ess)
As well as the rear lights, the front indicators and side repeaters (if you've got 'em), rude-boys often attack headlights and windows as well. Doing all of this really only looks good on a black car. If your car isn't black, take to it with the tinting spray until it is, too.

NEONS
No, not the Chrysler sort, dip-shit. Those really funky glowing lights found underneath a lot of modded cars. They're expensive to buy, so if you haven't got the cash, take a trip down to your local Bingo hall. Just make sure your mates can't see the words underneath, otherwise they will make pensioner jokes that will last you the rest of your life (until you are a pensioner, then just about everybody will take the piss). (Especially the catheter - DJ Ess)

INSIDE THE CAR

DASHBOARD
Usually a big grey or beige plastic effort is stuck into all but the best of cars. Even then, the manufacturers just put some sticky-backed fake wood trimming to the plastic to give it an 'executive' look. Don't put up with this! Don't stop fitting things to the dash until it looks like the inside of a jumbo-jet's cockpit. That way you can't see any of the plastic, and know everything from how hot your engine is to the time in Abu Dhabi. You should have as many gauges, instruments, mobile phone and drink holders as possible. Even a TV, video and PlayStation set-up is good.

MAGIC TREE
Goes without saying. Buy one to complement the colour and smell of your (last) car.

STEERING WHEEL
The smaller the wheel that will fit to your car, the better. This is the only wheel, note, which is good small. It makes for quick steering and very big arm muscles.

SEATING
A set of Momo, Sparco or Cobra bucket seats that allow no movement at all are best. It means you can't give fat birds a lift, and also means you don't fall out of your window when negotiating tight bends or roundabouts. Quality. (Personally, I just use my seatbelt - DJ Ess)

WINDOWS
The rear windows should be 100% tinted so no light gets through. Note that buying a van makes doing this cheaper.
The front windows need to be tinted heavily (don't forget, you need to be able to see the driver next to you for a race off the lights), and the windscreen should have a sunstrip (solid colour) which is at least two-thirds the way down the windscreen. This also allows for the positioning of a slogan. Usual examples include 'Motorsport', 'PhastAsPhuck' and 'Darren-Sharon' to name but a few.
All this causes the rude-boy driving stance, which is with the seat as far reclined as possible so you can just see out the front window.

STUFF THAT ACTUALLY MAKES YOUR CAR GO BETTER (Anybody else dubious? DJ Ess)

ENGINE BITS
Anybody knows that tuning your motor makes it go faster, but there are certain things that a hardcore rude-boy needs to do to. Here are a few pointers:

ENGINE
A turbocharger, nitrous, race cam, stage two head and throttle bodies. Mmmmm.
Or a 9-litre Mack engine from a truck! Nothing is too wild in this department.

EXHAUST
Any car looks and sounds crap with its standard exhaust. Fit a couple of large pipes as you can to the rear box of your car to make it look better. As an alternative, you might want to try this:

RECIPE FOR RUDE-BOY EXHAUST:
You will need…
1 Angle Grinder
1 Old Exhaust Pipe
1 Welder
1 (Metal) Gas Boiler Flue Pipe (5-7" depending on how low your car is)

Method:
Use angle grinder to remove old exhaust pipe from manifold.
Weld the flue pipe to bottom of manifold.
Cut flue to length.
Fit to car.
Enjoy!

Note that we have already tried this with a Mk I Fiesta. Now, that was a good sound!
Unfortunately we blew the engine before a sound recording could be made, so you'll just have to imagine, or even do it to your motor!

SUSPENSION
You will already realise that any rude-boy car must be as low to the ground as possible, even if it makes the car undriveable.
Max Power featured a Peugeot a few years back, which was quoted "We lowered it to the floor, then raised it a little so it could move." This is the correct philosophy, and should be followed at all times.

A LITTLE SOMETHING YOU WON'T FIND IN YOUR HAYNES MANUAL

Now, seriously, it is as easy as this to lower a Mk3 Escort. All you need is:
Spanners
A lump hammer
Your trusty angle-grinder
A jack

First, the front. 
Jack up the car.
Remove wheel.
Undo clamp ring around base of shock.
Hit caliper assembly with Lump Hammer repeatedly until it comes off the shock
Undo the top bolt (in engine bay)
Remove shock and spring
Undo nut on top of it - watch out, it'll fly off when it's undone (Put a bit of rag over it - DJ Ess)
Carefully count how many times round the spring you go
Cut spring with angle-grinder. Note: 3.5 times from the bottom is the lowest you should go with 13" wheels, any lower and the car handles like shit
Place cut portion of spring back onto damper
Reposition, and tighten nut.
Put back into top suspension mount.
Put caliper back on and tighten clamp
Replace wheel.
Position spring so it sits in tray
Lower car back down again.

Now, the back.
Remove lower shock bolt
Jack up back of car
Remove spring
Cut spring
Put spring back in
Lower car down
Reposition shock and replace bolt.

It's that easy!

(We take no legal responsibility for you killing or injuring yourself whilst performing this operation, nor do we hold any responsibility for the actions of the car on the road if you lower it in this fashion.)
(Astoundingly enough, apparently he actually did this to his own Escort. Quick safety point, kids. Unless you are feeling very lucky, don't cut the springs on your own car. Chances are that the first time you hit a bump of use the brakes it'll all collapse. Bad thing. BAD thing - DJ Ess)

FINALLY
Even if you do all this, there is much more that can be done, but you will have one rude motor. Sorted.


All you need now is ICE...

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