Most people who buy a project car swear they will finish it in a year or two. Then life happens, parts get expensive, and the car keeps sitting. One Florida man knows that feeling better than most, because his Lamborghini Gallardo took nearly a decade.
The car builder behind @tavarish says he bought the Lamborghini Gallardo sight unseen and fire damaged nearly ten years ago. He got it back on the road without really knowing what he was doing, he says. However, it kept problems he had no way to diagnose. So he swapped out a homemade twin-turbo kit, a race clutch and its engine management system for as many factory parts as he could find.
A Deadline In Las Vegas
Then came a deadline. In 48 hours, he explains, a truck would pick the car up and deliver it to the SEMA show in Las Vegas. As a result, he could not cut corners, but he also had no time to waste.
First, the fender liners went back in. However, the front bumper is aftermarket fiberglass, so it had no holes for the liner screws. He drilled his own, slowly and carefully.
Next came the glove box. It had no handle, and he says a used Lamborghini piece with the handle costs $1,000. Instead, he used the handle from a glove box out of a 2004 Audi A6, which cost about $30. Because the latch is different, he made a small lever from scrap metal. His cameraman also added a tiny spring from a pen, so the door no longer flops around.
Chasing A Fuel Smell In The Lamborghini Gallardo
The car had been in what he calls a small fuel fire, and soot still covered the underside. So he brought in a dry ice cleaner. Before he started, he clipped on a ground cable to stop static near the fuel tank. Then he blasted the underbody clean.
Soon after, his nose found a problem. He noticed a slight smell of raw fuel around the engine bay. That worried him, because a hot engine bay and fuel vapor do not mix, and this car had already burned once.
A smoke test was inconclusive. After that, he added UV dye to the fuel and ran the engine. Under a black light, a fitting on his aftermarket fuel filter showed a faint yellow stain.
“There’s a rip in the O-ring right there,” he says once the fitting comes apart. Moments later, he adds, “It’s what I get for trying to upgrade Lamborghini’s perfect design.”
Next, he softened the O-rings in boiling water, coated them in petroleum jelly and refit them. Then he pressure tested the system to more than 80 PSI with soapy water on the joints. It held, and no new dye showed up.
A Dead Car And A Truck Outside
Meanwhile, the job list kept growing. He 3D printed mounts for the suspension reservoirs and redid his old wiring to the fuel filler lid. He also cleaned the engine bay with dry ice. When the convertible top jammed, he drove its motor with a power probe and reset it. Afterward, the top cycled fully on the first try.
Then he went to take the car for its first drive. Nothing happened, because the car had no electrical power at all. He found a frayed wire, and then a blown 50-amp fuse link under the dash. After he replaced it, the car powered up again.
Finally, the team stayed up late on gold vinyl stripes, polish and the interior. However, the truck showed up early, past midnight, while the car was still in pieces. So they kept working until the job was done.
What A Long Project Teaches
His decade with this car offers a few lessons for anyone with a stalled project:
- Old repairs come back. He found several of his own early fixes and redid them properly.
- A fuel smell deserves a real search. Dye and a black light found a leak his nose could only guess at.
- Pressure test after any fuel work. Soapy water on the joints shows leaks you cannot smell.
- Factory parts are not the only answer. In his case, a $30 Audi part solved a $1,000 problem.
- Check fuses and links before blaming expensive modules. One blown link can make a car look dead.
Where Things Stand
By his count, he has owned the car for 3,175 days and made 78 videos about it. Along the way, he says, the car taught him that “becoming an overnight success is only possible when you first work hard for 10 years.”
Now the finished Lamborghini Gallardo is headed to SEMA, where he expects more than 100,000 people to see it. Still, he admits the aftermarket rear spoiler fits badly. A used factory spoiler costs about $7,000, he says, and he does not have it right now.
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