ENGINE MODIFICATIONS

Everyone who's interested in performance driving will feel the craving for some
more power at some point, and there are a million ways of fitting more horses
under the bonnet. Here we're going to cover some methods of achieving a quick
gain with the minimal amount of investment or specialist tinkering.

It's worth noting at this point that it becomes exponentially more difficult and
expensive to increase performance through engine mods, and although you
might find it easy to add an extra five, ten maybe even fifteen percent, after that
a huge amount of cash will only yield modest gains in power. Motorsport has
always been a hobby for the privileged, so if you're competing against
millionaires it might be better to get into karting if you want to keep your house!

An engine is actually a pretty simple beast, and achieving more power is a

matter of increasing the volume of the raw materials, ensuring the bang is as
efficient as possible and delivered at the right time, and ensuring waste gas is
removes a quickly and efficiently as possible.

AIR IN (INDUCTION):

All cars are fundamentally compromised as they come out of the factory. Even
performance car manufacturers are constrained by various emissions laws, cost
saving measures, and warranty concerns which means engines almost never
achieve their full potential at the dealership. Fitting a cheap air filter in the
factory probably won't affect sales, but this could save a car manufacturer huge
amounts. As a result, helping the engine breathe better is one of the easiest
ways of increasing performance, it's cheap and you can do most things yourself
with a bit of mechanical knowledge*.
*Don't modify any engine if you want to keep your warranty!

AIR FILTER:
Air filters come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and are there to prevent
potentially damaging particles entering the engine. Smaller holes in the filter
protect the engine better, but also restrict air flow. Clever design can improve
the passage of air without compromising the engine, so at the very least you
should replace the standard air filter with a higher performance version. Many
filter upgrades are disposable so you'll need to stock up on a few for when you
next service your car, some are reusable but will need cleaning periodically -
make sure you follow the instructions to get the most out of your purchase.

PIPES:
Fluid dynamics is an fascinating science, but also fairly inaccessible to most
people. To sum up in a sentence, gas flows better in specially designed pipes.
Think of the transition when pouring a bottle of water from the glug glug action
to the nice fast flowing stream, this is what you need to achieve with the air
going into the engine. Even with your nice new air filter fitted, you'll still be
limited by the inlet pipe design. In a Porsche you can be certain they've fitted the
best possible turbulence free solution, but in bargain racers you can probably
improve on the stock pipes. The major air filter companies such as K&N and
Pipercross do a variety of 'induction kits' and if you dig around you can probably
find one which is suitable for your car. These will consist of an air filter, and all
the necessary pipes and fittings to get the air into the engine as fast and
smoothly as possible.

EXHAUST:
Now that the air is entering the engine in a nice smooth stream you'll need to
make sure it comes out the other end just as fast. Fitting the biggest exhaust
pipe you can find may make your car sound great, but this can actually
compromise the performance. Engines require a certain amount of back-pressure
to function well, so it's a matter of getting the balance right.

EXHAUST MANIFOLD:
Exhaust exits each cylinder via small pipes, and depending on the configuration
of your engine these combine into one, two or more larger versions. The resulting
tangle of metal pipes can make it difficult for the gas to flow smoothly and
freely, and a replacing this with performance exhaust manifold will aid the flow.

EXHAUST PIPES:
An exhaust pipe needs to be matched to an equally decent manifold for it to yield
the largest gains in performance. This final part of the exhaust system is
designed to reduce sound and pollution (if a catalytic converter is fitted) and
have a variety of filters and chambers to help achieve this. 'Cats' remove
poisonous chemicals such as nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide, mufflers deaden
the noise but both sap precious power. If your conscience allows it, removing
both of these elements can provide a few additional horsepower. A good 'straight
through' stainless steel pipe combined with an optimised manifold can be an
easy and worthwhile investment.

ELECTRONICS:

ECU UPGRADE / REMAPPING

One of the beautiful things about modern engines is the computerised control of
almost every function, and even 20 year old engines will have some level of
computer control over. 'Computer' is also a slightly misleading term, the hard
work is done by relatively simple computer chips or Electronic Control Units
(ECUs). ECUs have their preset parameters (or maps) hard wired into them by the
factory and this is one of the ways that car manufacturers can change the
character of an engine which is shared between many cars. Again, the mapping
is the result of a compromise between emissions, economy, and performance
and an ECU upgrade / remapping an existing ECU can be an easy performance
gain. An ECU upgrade in a modern car can affect the following parameters:

 Spark timing relative to the piston position

 Electronic injection mixture

 Rev limit

 Valve timing

 Throttle progression

 Idle speed

FORCED INDUCTION
HOW DOES A TURBO WORK?
A turbocharger is essentially a high pressure pump which forces air into the
engine, more air means a bigger bang and more power, simple! The pump is
essentially a rotating fan, which is powered by the pressure of exhaust gas. This
is a beautifully simple setup but has one major disadvantage - you need exhaust
pressure before the turbo will spin up to a useful operating speed, and need to
get the engine revs up before you see the increase in performance. This
phenomenon is known as turbo-lag and means the power delivery can be much
less linear that normally aspirated engines.

CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE FITTING OR

TWEAKING A TURBO
Turbochargers are an easy method of dramatically increasing the power of an
engine, and if you already have a turbo fitted you may be able to extract even
more power from it. Be warned though, many engines are built strong but some
not so - getting turbo settings wrong will compromise your speed by way of a
small explosion. A quick Google search will reveal whether your engine is
suitable for a turbo, and if you're lucky there may already be some after-market
kits which have been tailored to your car.

INTERCOOLER
Turbochargers produce a huge amount of heat due to the high speed of operation
added to the fact they are powered by hot exhaust gas. The air which leaves the
turbo will be at high pressure but also very hot and herein is the problem. Hot air
expands which means there is less oxygen in any volume of hot air than the
equivalent volume of cold air, less oxygen equals less bang which is lost power.
An intercooler takes the hot air from the turbo and cools it in the same way as a
car radiator, the air then contracts and you have more efficient combustion.

TURBO MODIFICATIONS
If you're lucky enough to have a turbo already fitted to your car, there are several
things you can do to improve the performance. Most factory fitted turbos are set
at a conservative level of boost by the manufacturer to reduce stress on the
engine and provide increased durability. However, there are many engines which
can withstand additional boost and operative reliably. Consult an expert to know
if your engine is suitable for modification.

The secret of increasing power via the turbo is to ensure the correct fuel to air
ratios are maintained while increasing boost pressure - if you're pumping in more
air you need more fuel too. At first, it's usually safest to increase the pressure by
only a few PSI. The software on most modern vehicles will be able to adapt to
this level of increase and deliver increased fuel to compensate. The methods
involved with increasing boost pressure are varied, and you'll almost certainly
need a professional to do this for you, but the technique is outlined below.

The basic boost pressure is maintained by the waste gate which is designed to
open at set pressures. Adjusting the waste gate to open at higher pressures is
probably the easiest method of increasing boost. If you're looking for more
power, you'll need a specialist to tweak the injection settings.