Projects are still my favorite way to spend too much time and money while learning something useful. Most of what is here started with a simple idea and then grew into fabrication, troubleshooting, redesign, and the usual cycle of fixing one problem just in time to uncover the next. Below is an index of the larger ongoing projects and the subprojects that came out of them.
24 Hours of Lemons #425 Dohn Jeere
The Passat started as a cheap Lemons idea and a childhood goal of finally going endurance racing. What we ended up with was a smoky diesel car turned John Deere-themed race car, followed by years of fixing, upgrading, breaking, and learning how many weak links one car can have before it becomes respectable. More than anything else on the site, this car became a running archive of endurance-racing problem solving, from the first race and cage build through hubs, CVs, turbos, fueling, telemetry, cooling, and all the parts that refused to stay solved the first time.
Current status: raced, repaired, improved, broken again, and still delivering a healthy mix of type 1 and type 2 fun.
Smart Fortwo Electric Drive
The Smart project started with a very clean electric Fortwo from Pick-n-Pull and a completely dead battery pack. Part of the appeal was that it was such a pure compliance-car oddball: tiny, slow to charge, limited in range, and built around a battery system that was easy to brick and almost impossible to replace. Rather than swap in some other drivetrain, the goal became keeping the car electric and building a more sustainable battery pack.
Current status: running on a custom battery pack and still a very committed exercise in doing things the hard way.
Miata Off Roadster
The Miata showed up during COVID as a very bone-stock NA in exactly the kind of condition I like most: rough enough to be cheap, good enough to be worth saving, and just broken enough to need some effort before I could enjoy it. The first job was getting it through smog after chasing down a leaking injector, a dirty O2 sensor, and a dead catalytic converter. Once it was legal, the project turned into a deliberate attempt to build the opposite of the usual Miata formula: a lifted, more usable daily that could clear driveways, handle potholes, and still be fun.
Current status: smog-legal, lifted, daily-driver oriented, and still proof that a Miata does not actually have to be lowered to be good.
E46 325XI
The E46 started as a very clean 325ix wagon with a blown engine from oil starvation, which made it exactly the kind of problem worth dragging home. The original goal was to make the least leaky BMW in the world by starting with a junkyard engine, redoing every seal I could get to, replacing the cooling system, and cleaning up everything else along the way. Being an all-wheel-drive car complicated that plan in the usual BMW way, but somewhere along the line it also turned into a very good ski wagon and one of my favorite cars.
Current status: running ski wagon, ongoing cleanup, and one of the few BMWs I can look at without expecting a fresh oil spot underneath it.
Kenneth Wong 