"With me standing in front of the car and Joe 2 holding a screwdriver in the plug hole, Joe 1 cranks the engine over. Maybe you can picture what happened next but suffice it to say, when the piston came up to TDC, the screwdriver gets smacked out of Joe 2’s hand while he yells, “Crap!” Looking at me for some sort of religious enlightenment or some reaction Maybe even some other choice words were uttered… I forgot that part."

https://dragracingedge.com/the-blog/never-be-afraid/

The is an excellent article one that reminded me of my first encounter with tuning an engine. I had some experience building engines in Auto Shop at school but trying to increase the power was new to me at the time. The article John wrote reminded me of some of those early mis-steps, and there were many. Never be afraid to try, the real failure is not trying.

Message received loud and clear.

Bob

I was never a mechanic, but since moving down here to the middle of no where 13 years ago when I was 67 I have been "learning" with a lot of your same results. Latest was changing the water pump on my Mercedes. That thing must have 15 bouts holding it on and a gasket that goes in a little groove with no way to hold it in place. After hours I get it all together and have a wire in front that belongs behind and is rubbing the belt. Looks like the only way to fix it is to remove the pump----I slept on it and next morning removed the alternator and got the wire behind the pump and all is good---I could tell a hundred of these stories. We are old now John, thats right--OLD!

Great story I'm still laughing my a$$ off, we all have stupid story's I'm sure.