We all have that friend that likes to work on their own car, but sometimes, even that friend needs a little help from a professional.

YouTube user, turbo50mike, made the great decision to document his friend Jeff’s first-generation Cadillac CTS-V build, and the results are definitely cringe-worthy, but also pretty funny at the same time. This first video is a montage of all the modifications Jeff performed on his CTS-V to prepare it for a big single turbo, and then some footage of the carnage. First, he buys the CTS-V and installs a cat-back exhaust system. He then proceeds to relocate the battery to the trunk of the car and then “changes a bunch of things at once,” as subtitled in the video.

When Jeff “changed a bunch of things at once,” he added an AEM Low Impedance Injector Driver, MSD coils that were relocated with new spark plug wires, and he relocated the power steering reservoir. Once we saw the caption on the screen that said “Then he attempts to start it for the first time…,” we knew it wasn’t good based on the title of the video, CTS-V Cat Blowout.

In this screenshot, you can see a piece of the catalytic converter exiting out of one of the exhaust pipes.

Well, when Jeff goes to start the car for what seemed like a second time, we noticed all of the shattered white material on the floor in his garage. Yup, his factory catalytic converters were blown out and the car was still spitting material out as he let it run. It looked and sounded like the car was dual-wielding muskets and firing them off in the garage – that was the cringe-worthy part.

We were, in fact, cringing, but when we heard turbo50mike’s deep belly laugh, we couldn’t help but start cracking up. “More pieces are coming out!,” exclaimed turbo50mike as the car backfired and spit out more catalytic converter material onto the floor. Once we heard Jeff yell “is it running good?!,” in the tone of sarcasm, we knew that he had a good sense of humor about his failure. Turbo50mike and what seemed like a few buddies were standing around as Jeff was letting his CTS-V blow out the rest of the cats and then we heard Jeff yell “do you think it will pass emissions?!” We couldn’t help but laugh, because at that point, the damage has been done. “You might have trouble passing state inspection!,” exclaims turbo50mike in reply to Jeff.

After Jeff shut the car off and stepped out, he was bickering with what sounded like his wife and Mike about how loud the pops were and a couple of other sarcastic remarks. The funniest part of the video was when turbo50mike panned away from Jeff’s CTS-V to the end of the driveway saying “I told him, he should be getting one of these, instead,” looking at his bright orange Lamborghini Gallardo. Yeah, most people would spring for a Gallardo, but that’s not too tangible for us here at LSXMag. We’ll stick with LS power, thank you!

Jeff’s build is finally “finished”

The video of Jeff’s catalytic converter blowout was posted in 2007, and after the events that took place in his garage, he knew he had a lot of work ahead of him, as well as time and money, to get the car to where he wanted it to be. Fast forward six years to March 11th, 2013 when it was finally time to see how Jeff’s finished CTS-V did at the drag strip. The montage at the beginning of the video shows a couple of detailed photos of Jeff’s twin turbo setup on his CTS-V and it looked pretty savage.

Once turbo50mike and Jeff arrived at Atco Raceway, the car was unloaded off the trailer and it was time to see what it could do. When Jeff did a burnout before his run, something didn’t sound right – it sounded like a chattering or clacking of some sort, most likely from the rearend.

Jeff proceeded with the burnout and pulled up to the line, initiated the 2-step after he was staged, and launched the car on green, only to find out that he broke both of his axles in the process.

For those thinking that Jeff’s rear diff in the CTS-V was stock, it was actually a custom Madman 9-inch diff and he blew both of the axles. No internals were harmed that we know of, but it was a pretty nasty sound. With six years of time, money, and hard work into his CTS-V, it seems like Jeff just can’t catch a break. Pun intended or not, the choice is yours.

Hopefully Jeff can get his setup putting the power to the ground properly in the future because we’ll be on the lookout for another video. Check out turbo50mike’s YouTube channel for some more entertaining car videos!