You shouldn’t be surprised that safety comes first. Though it’s tempting to
dive headlong into the horsepower modifications, it’s essential to increase
the car’s safety as its performance increases.
This part covers the safety upgrades to help ensure that, as the car becomes
leaner, meaner, and a whole lot faster, driver and passenger safety is part of
the plan. This part places equal emphasis on active safety upgrades, such as
handling, and passive safety modifications, such as roll bars.
Rims and Rubber
Changing the wheels and tires is one of the first upgrades most people make
to their otherwise stock cars. Wheels can make or break the look of a car.
Wheel and tire selection also has a profound impact on a car’s performance.
Considerations such as rotating and unsprung mass, as well as grip and break-
away characteristics, all come into play with rims and rubber
Stylin’
This section emphasizes what ensures that your car looks its best. Read this
part before you order a full set of underbody neons or a monster aluminum
wing that could double as a park bench. Fashion is fickle in the car world. A
sense of what is appropriate when improving a car’s looks and aerodynamics
can keep you off the Web sites that mock poorly executed automotive dress-up
attempts. (The Honda with a plywood body kit holds a special place in my
heart.) This part also covers detailing to keep your car looking its best whether
it is your daily driver or weekend cruiser.
Slowing Down
An often-quoted racing adage is that you have to go slow to go fast. This part
discusses the importance of being able to safely, quickly, and predictably scrub
off speed, whether on the track or on the freeway. Races are won and lost in
the braking zones, and beautiful cars are crumpled and lives lost for lack of
attention to brakes. Brakes are actually equal parts performance modification
and active safety. The moral of this part: Never add power to your car without
thinking about the implications to stopping ability.
Corner Carver
Some modifiers live for the corners. This part guides you through making your
car handle with the best. Cornering is where a Subaru WRX station wagon can
be set up to pass a Porsche 911 on a twisty road. In motor sports, corners are
the great equalizers. Whether you have 900 horsepower under the hood or 90,
balancing the car and taking corners at speed is where the gods of G-forces
and adhesion don’t play favorites. This section covers everything from simple
spring and shock upgrades to full racing coilover suspensions and corner
balancing.
Let’s Go!Burn The Road
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The most sought-after goal of automo-
tive performance is extra power with minimum hassle and expense. Whether
you want to eke out a few extra horsepower or triple your car’s original output,
this part walks you through the fundamentals of adding power.
Faster Thinking
This part goes straight to your car’s brain, the ECU (Engine Control Unit). You
can optimize your car’s engine performance, fuel mileage, and even emissions
by hacking your car’s computer with electronic controllers, standalone engine
management systems, and remaps. As cars depend more on ECUs to control
nearly all aspects of performance, extracting additional performance from your
car often becomes less about what you have under your hood and more about
what is going on in your car’s brain.
The Part of Tens
Whether it’s online resources you’re after, or you simply want to avoid
common mistakes, the Part of Tens is here to help. In this part, I show you
were to find resources to debunk common myths about modifying cars, as
well as areas to consider in your car hacking and modding adventures
