The guy who built my car messed up. I think he sent the engine out for rebuild and had the roll cage welded in for him, because they're the only things that seem alright. But the engine blew up the first time I raced it because he had redone the floor pans and never replaced the accelerator stop (and I didn't know there was supposed to be one, so I never checked for it). (insert long litany of failures and replacements here) I had to rewire the kill switch, after I replaced the alternator, regulator, and battery - and now I've got a new electrical problem. I'm going to replace the wiring harness because it's the only thing left from the prior owner, besides the roll cage. Essentially, I've replaced everything he touched in my efforts to make the car run reliably. So, although I've never "built" a racecar, I have a decent grasp on the consequences of doing it wrong.

I've been building a car without wanting to do it. I don't have a shop, didn't plan to build, and don't have the time for countless hours of anal-retentive research on how to install racing components in a street car. There's no Chilton's guide for the "ITS 240z", and I can't learn how to install a fuel cell by looking at how the old one came out. One particularly frustrated day, I was tempted to call a buddy and ask how he learned all this racing mechanics stuff, then I realized the answer - he started with a race car, then he built another one. He had something to model.

Argument in favor of building: If building without a guide is hard, troubleshooting without a guide, or even the original crappy instruction sheets, is even harder. Solution: buy a proven car, preferably from an owner you know.

No one is telling you not to build - we're just warning you that it's a hobby that only appeals to a very narrow segment of the population. A lot of other people do it for the wrong reasons, and end up hating it. It's extremely difficult - I've found lots of great advice, and I'm still utterly lost. If you're building without the requisite skill and knowledge, you'll make expensive mistakes (the guy who built my car did!). Another argument in favor of crewing for someone with the type of car you want to build - you'll be playing with a "prototype", see what works, see what breaks, and you'll get to ask questions before you buy the wrong component, or install it wrong.