Thursday, November 10, 2011

how to modify your car for better performance

How to Modify Your Car for Better Performance

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

To modify your car for better performance costs money and time, and requires a great deal of knowledge to do yourself. Car power is determined by the amount of air and fuel burned. This wikiHow will introduce you to some of the modifications you can consider to increase your car's power, especially the amount of power the engine can deliver at low RPMs, resulting in greater acceleration ability.

Steps

  1. Determine whether to upgrade your existing car or to purchase a new car just to make into a "sleeper" (a car that is powerful under the hood but looks stock):
    • If you are planning to go N/A (natural aspiration) rather than the turbo route, your best bet is a small car with a large engine installed. For example a Ford Mustang V8 forced into the body of a little Ford Focus. Keep in mind that a heavier engine will likely change the front-rear weight ratio. This change could significantly affect handling, traction and braking.
    • Consider a common conversion like a Chevy LS-1 and Ford 302 (5.0L) powered Mazda Miata's. It’s a pretty easy swap and pretty cheap too for the performance these motors can be made to deliver.
  2. Do some basic research on your car to determine what kinds of upgrades are possible and how much they may cost both in time and money.
  3. Determine if you can do the work yourself or need to hire a professional. You won't be paying the full price of a Benz, Corvette, or Beamer (BMW) but you will be paying. Expect to pay upwards of up to $3,000 for an h22 motor swap to an Accord chassis, possibly more if you're not using the 4th gen. due to mounting issues and other complications.
  4. Choose to:
    • Install a turbo kit
    • Go with N/A (natural aspiration), install a small bottle of nitrous and upgrade the transmission. More than likely, keeping a car naturally aspirated will cost a lot more than a turbo set-up, however, this makes for the best kind of sleeper.
  5. Purchase tools and parts. You will need many tools and parts including but not limited too:
    • Plumbing
    • An inter-cooler
    • An oil return line for lubricating the turbo.
    • Possibly a better intake manifold.
    • A boost gauge
    • A turbo management system. And even after all that, there will likely be more.
  6. Install a cold air intake and an after-market exhaust. The reason for this is if you want power, you need to be able to move more air then the stock system will allow.
    • The intake option may be removed in favor of an intercooler set-up once you've decided to go turbo as opposed to N/A route. If you would rather stay N/A but can't afford the amount of fabrication needed to drop a V8 in your import, there are other options such as port and polishing your intake manifold, installing performance cams with overlapping grinds and the use of high compression pistons just to name a few.
  7. Research options for chipping (reprogramming) your current ECU (Engine Control Unit) or replacing it with a good one that can be chipped. Looks for these features in an ECU:
    • Make sure you can log data.
    • The ability to program your own fuel maps
    • Includes a sophisticated dyno (engine diagnostic tool for measuring performance including horsepower). The current dyno attached to your ECU probably will not be adequate for measuring your performance after modifications you make to turbo-charge your car.
  8. Understand that this kind of tuning may not be applied to a carburetted engine (static fuel map), however, carburettors have the higher torque potential. If this is a N/A track application, consider four independent motorcycle carburettors per cylinder. This should specifically be restricted to the track as this kind of set-up creates a nasty amount of power.
  9. Upgrade your tires to make sure this new power can make it to the ground without unnecessary wheel spin and over, under or torque steer. You will most likely need:
    • Sticky tires that will last at least 1,000 miles.
    • New bushings for your control arms.
    • New ball joints
    • Stiffer shocks with shorter coils.

Video

Tips

  • Don't use nitrous if you don't have to. The turbo maybe causing more than enough stress on the engine and using nitrous should be restricted to the track anyway. If you're going to go beyond 10 psi or possibly 20 psi, it is absolutely necessary you build a better motor. You don't necessarily have to replace the whole engine, but new camshafts, cranks, pistons, connecting rods, and maybe a better head wouldn't hurt.
  • Dont use Nitrous as your accelerator. Save it for when you need it.
  • Nitrous isn't all bad. For example, if with a stock small 4 cylinder engine, a "Dry" system would be better suited than a wet single or wet direct port nitrous system. Small-shot Dry systems also have a very low chance of damaging an engine versus a wet shot with upwards of 200-400 hp gain would. Leave wet systems for larger engines.
  • Nitrous also is the best application for HP gain in terms of cost for parts and labor. You can get a Dry shot system with purge kit for under $1,000.00 depending on the shop.
  • Turbo is much more expensive than nitrous, with the average being 3,000.00 non intercooled and 4,000.00 with an intercooler. Installation is also expensive with the average time of 22 or more hours for install. So spending over 1,500.00 for install alone might be too much for someone with budget needs.
  • Contrary to common belief torque steer in an FF is not an example of horsepower, but a badly aligned vehicle, uneven length drive axles and a discrepancy in the road's surface. Of course increasing horsepower WILL increase the effects.
  • Installing nitrous into a stock engine is a bad idea, you could melt a piston or shoot one through the block. Plan your build out accordingly.
  • If you plan on racing the car than build up a big engine for huge amounts of power.
  • Speed costs money. If you want to get an idea of how fast you can make your car go, look at how thick your wallet is
  • There is FAR more to performance than engine/exhaust mods. All performance cars (even dragsters) need good tires and properly tuned suspension. And sometimes the best performance parts are not the coolest-looking; five-inch mufflers, overweight 19" rims, and underlighting do nothing good for your lap times.

Warnings

  • Racing on the street is illegal in almost all places.
  • A lot of insurance companies consider performance mods as a liability. Expect more expensive charges or them dropping you.
  • Turbo charging a vehicle isn't as simple as bolting on a kit. Along with the complexity of installing it there's the risk factor in damaging valves, heads, pistons, manifolds or even totally blowing your motor and cracking the block.
  • All work should be done under the supervision of a professional or if possible, by a professional.
  • Buy a Radar detector if legal. This is illegal in the Netherlands, many European countries, parts of Canada and elsewhere.
  • Do not treat one item as more important than the other. In other words, do not go out and buy every tool in the shop and then realize you needed metric instead of SAE or vice versa.
  • Adding Nitrous to your vehicle is dangerous. You can destroy your motor running large shots. Start conservatively, reinforce your motor, and slowly dial up the shot until your running the amount you want. This will prevent you from blowing your pistons 10 feet under.
  • Be Careful-too much torque can twist your frame and cost 3 times more than trying to "fix up" your car

Things You'll Need

  • Tools
  • Knowledge
  • Patience
  • action

Related wikiHows

Sources and Citations

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Modify Your Car for Better Performance. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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