Increase Horse Power
Date 2006/1/18 9:44:36 | Topic: General Automotive
| Increase Import Horse PowerAs you know, there are many things you can do to make your car faster. There are many different mods for many different budgets. Read his short primer about how your engine work to give you a point of reference. This article is a general guide to improving the aftermarket horsepower of your import car.
Change your car's computer chip: Often you can improve your car's perfomance by changing the ROM chip in the engine control unit (ECU). After you find out if one is available for your car, make SURE that you do a LOT of research. Read INDEPENDENT reviews about the one you are interested in buying. This is an expensive upgrade, so do not rush out and buy the latest hype.Change your cylinder heads and cams: Typically, stock engines have one intake valve and one exhaust valve. You can get cylinder heads that have four valves per cylinder to improve the intake and outflow of your engine. You could also use performance cams.Cool your intake air: As you remember from science class, when air is under pressure, it heats up and expands. So, if the air in your combustion chamber gets too hot and ignites the fuel before your sparkplug does, knocking can occur. Also, if the air expands, this means that less air will fit into the cylinders. The ideal situation would be to have this air to be much cooler than the several hundred degrees that is often created. You also remember from science class that when air is cooled, it contracts, or is more dense. This means that more air will fit in the combustion chamber, thus creating more horsepower.The Fast and Furious method: Use a nitrous setup.Increase your compression ratio: That is, further compress the mixture of air and fuel in the combustion chamber. This, however, could ignite the fuel before your sparkplug does, resulting in knock. You could use a high octane fuel to help alleviate this, though.Increase your engine displacement: Engine displacement is the amount of the air and fuel mixture that your engine can take in during a complete engine cycle: intake stroke, compression stroke, combustion stroke, and exhaust stroke. The more displacement your engine has, the more fuel it can burn. You can get larger cylinder to accomplish this. This is a major modification and you should really take time to decide if it would make more sense to do an engine swap instead.Import engine swap: An engine swap simply means taking your old engine out and replacing it with a more powerful engine from a different type of car or buying a faster Japanese version of your engine. This is usually very expensive and extensive research MUST be done to make sure that the process goes smoothly. You should find out in advance, whether or not the engine comes with all the parts and accessories that you need. You must also factor in the cost of getting someone to install it, let alone the time it will take to complete.Improve your intake airflow: There should be little resistance when pulling air into the combustion chamber. You can use intake manifolds that are polished, shorter intake piping, and a larger filter, in order decrease resistance of your airflow.Improve your exhaust flow: There should be little resistance when pulling air out of the combustioin chamber. Your can modify your exhaust system by using an exhaust header, a free-flowing high performance exhaust muffler, and a larger tail pipe.Make everything lighter: You can use lightweight parts and equipment. Typically, the lighter your car the faster you can go.Put more air/fuel mixture in your combustion chamber: You can turbocharge or supercharge. Turbochargers and superchargers are air pumps that uses the exhaust coming from your engine to work. These engines are often called force-induction engines because they force air into the combustion chamber. O2 Sensors, or oxygen sensors, are needed for theses types of engine modifications.
2003-2006 Import Rival
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