Our project starts with a regular BiC lighter. This one I stole from my
girlfriend, and something had to be done to it. It just did not look right
for a manly man such as myself :)

First of all you should remove the factory paint job, since it only adds
weight and the design was not too manly either. I have used a pair of Snap-On
$350 pair of scissors. I've heard of people try to do it with a regular pair
of scissors, but the results are just not the same. Be extra careful not to
scratch the body since the body shops will charge you arm and leg to fix it,
and not many people have all the tools necessary to fix those mistakes at
home.

You could also try some chemicals, but make sure you wear protective eyewear
and gloves. After you leave the chemicals for a few minutes the paint should
just peel off. Take your time doing this, since the bodywork is what everyone
can see.

Now you are left with what we industry professionals call : "naked street
version R"

Keeping in line with our super sport Race theme, the next part to go will be
protective metal. No serious racer needs chrome on their lighter. It only
adds weight and it doesn� look that good either.

You will notice that there is a safety metal strip that goes around the
ignition wheel. We will remove this safety measure since it only adds on the
consumption of energy needed to bring your machine to life. Here you can see
it slightly bent out of chassis. In order to remove it you will have to
remove the ignition wheel first (look at the next step)

Carefully remove the ignition wheel from its housing. Be extra careful here.
The spring-loaded igniter rock will shoot out at extremely high speed. It
could potentially leave you blind or paralyzed. Now the safety strip should
easily come out.

Here is what it all looks like after few days of disassembly.

Since we have opened the hart of the machine we might as well give it some
more WROOOOM! I have purchased an after market spring from
www.racinglighters.com for a measly $700. The price is nothing for the amount
of power you will get. You will notice in comparison that it is much larger
increasing the internal pressure. Even thought the stock spring was
progressively wound the new should give us faster ignition.

Now you have to put it all back together. In a case you don� have a spring
compressor, your local lighter performance shop should let you loan one for a
day.
It took me only couple hours to fit it all back together.

Now you should start the machine and run it easy for at least 20 seconds, then
you can push the pedal to the plastic and burn your competition.

Look at that beautiful flame. But we are not done yet. Here is where your
imagination will come to the surface. Design your own body paint, and take it
to a renowned paint shop to finish the work. Have them detail the body and
polish it afterwards, and enjoy.
Here are some of my racers.

Here is also a picture of the old parts. Some of them you might be able to
sell on Ebay...

In conclusion we have created a great lighter. We did consider re-jetting the
throttle body but our budget was already exceeded....