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We all like to take pride in our car, whether it is a simple wax and shine once a week or the addition of automobile accessories. Your car can say something about your character and personality and if accessorized will attract attention. The broad selection of interior and exterior car accessories available means you can make the change to your car as subtle or drastic as you like. Whether you are a regular daily driver or drive a track car there are plenty of ways to zing up your car at an affordable price.

Car accessories aren’t only for appearances; they can be functional and can also save you money. For example; car seat covers will prevent the deterioration of the original fabric and are much cheaper to replace when you feel like something else and are much easier to purchase. Covers for Steering wheels offer a better grip, thus saver, for the driver and interior carpets can easily be removed for cleaning, protecting the originals from scratches and stains. Grille guards will protect the bumper from nasty bumps by adding an extra layer between the front of the vehicle and anything coming to close to it. Mud guards on the back of your tires will prevent damage on the paint generated by mud, dirt, stray rocks and all other kinds of debris.

Car accessories can involve anything from wheel spacers to state of the art stereo systems, or a simple window tint to a body kit. Which accessories you choose will depend on the model of car you have and the look you want. The possibilities of changing the look of your car to make it more appealing and stand out from the crowd are endless.

With Body kits you can totally tune your car with remarkable designs and a lowered look that’s racy and smooth. When customizing your car for this sporty look you can find numerous accessories on the market. Unless you are a car enthusiast or mechanic and have the skills for installing larger features, then the extras of exterior accessories such as a body kit will probably have to be built-in by a professional and don’t forget you will need to get the body kit painted to match or compliment the original color of your car.

One of the more popular accessories is a spoiler, as they can really enhance the look of the vehicle and its performance by helping to increase down-force, which improves traction and vehicle stability. Other features available include mirrors, window tints and wheel caps, coil-over springs, shocks,suspensions and fenders.

Customizing your cars shift stick, steering wheel, adding special lighting and padded seat covers for additional comfort or change the standard pedals for quality race pedals are things you can easily install yourself and something you certainly should not save too much money on as the inside of you car is where you will be spending most of your time.

Online you will find some of the latest products and cutting edge technology in the automotive world. This includes custom remaps, tuning and performance components and accessories. The good ones are car enthusiasts themselves and realize how passionate car owners can be about their cars.

Accessories such as suspension kits that will fit every FWD vehicle with high performance shock absorbers that work in accord with the specially-tuned sport springs will definitely enhance the performance of your. A suspension system creates a positive effect on road grip and additionally creates a sporty, coordinated advanced look. When you lower your vehicle, perfect vehicle response is guaranteed, including a wide range of safety, amazing driving dynamics and comfort.

There are plenty of car performance and custom automobile accessories available online. Decide on your budget and soon you’ll have the car you’ve always dreamed of.

Whether you like to race, or just like to drive fast, there are many reasons why you may want to modify your engine. Modifying the engine of your sports car is sometimes necessary to make use of all its horsepower and torque. Modifying other parts of your vehicle such as using body kits, wheels, brakes, and spoilers can help you out as well. But to really milk the power of your car for all it is worth, you will need to modify the engine. The following are just a few of the many things that you can do in order to modify your engine.

The first thing to look at is the cold air intake. OEM, original equipment manufacturer, intakes absorb warm air that surrounds the engine. This can really decrease the performance of your engine. Cold air intakes produce a steady stream of cold air which can really increase the efficiency of your engines combustion. As a result, your sports car will receive more power per stroke, seriously improving your cars speed and performance.

Another after market change you may want to make in your sports car is a custom ignition system. This includes performance sparks plugs and spark plug wires. You will find that by adding these to your engine you can really get some great added horsepower. Another option that you have to increase the power of your engine is advanced timing. The reason why this can increase the power of your engine is because performance spark plugs, as the name implies, produce sparks which ignite the fuel when it reaches your engine. When you add this to the boost you are already getting from the improved cold air intake, you can really get some added power.

The next way to increase the performance of your sports cars engine is to invest in turbos and superchargers. A turbo basically has one purpose, to increase the performance of your engine at greater RPMs. A turbocharger is really unnecessary for regular street driving. The only time it is really used is for track racing. If you want to just increase your cars performance for the street, then a supercharger may be more for you. These superchargers provide a wide range of benefits from all across the spectrum.

Many people do not consider radiators when they are thinking of souping up their rides, but high performance radiators can do a lot to increase power. However, you should take into consideration that high performance engines are going to produce a lot more heat, so an improved radiator may even be mandatory. The last thing you want is to blow your new engine that you have put so much time and money into.

As you can see, these are four simple things that you can do in order to improve the performance of your engine. While installing these yourself will help you to save money, dont attempt to do so unless you have had some experience with engine modification.

At one of the vintage cars websites sites I belong to there was a member who shared an interesting experience to the forum. Below is the Readers Digest version.

The new owner (who we will call John) had seen his dream vintage car advertised on the same website referenced above. John liked what he saw, and it helped that many forum members validated how nice the car was. John set an appointment to test drive the car. When John arrived the car was even better looking than the pictures indicated. The owner decided that John was a serious buyer and wasn’t a “tire kicker”. They decided to take the car out for a test drive. The car started on the first turn of the key, idled smoothly, and ran perfectly. The owner let John drive back on the return trip. And even though John was taking it easy, he was able to get the tires to chirp easily in 2nd and 3rd gear.

John purchased the car, loaded it up on his trailer, and was now the proud owner of a beautiful 1970 Nova Super Sport. Since the car was almost perfect and didn’t need any work, John started driving to a couple of local car cruises and classic car shows to get a feel of the car.

The next car show was about an hour and a half away. After waxing the car, and checking the fluids, John filled the gas tank. A couple of miles down the road John stopped at a red light. When the light turned green, he pulled away, and heard a light knocking/pinging noise on acceleration. The noise grew louder the longer he drove the car. The only time John heard the noise was on acceleration. If he drove the car “easy” like there was an egg under the gas pedal, the pinging was almost non existent and tolerable. If he had to pass another car and was required to accelerate, the noise got worse, and the engine didn’t have the same power as his first test drive. Other than the noise, the car performed flawlessly. John drove the car to and from the show, but he was really anxious and nervous because he thought he had bought a lemon. And he wasn’t a happy camper.

Long story short, some of the people reading John’s story started to ask him questions. A group of them even made a special trip to John’s house to take a test drive with John to see if they could determine what was happening. During the discussion one of the bystanders asked John what changes he made to the car since buying it. John replied “I didn’t touch a thing, except to wash it, wax it, and I filled the gas tank”. The bystander said, “I am going to take a leap here” then he asked “what kind of gas did you put in it”?

Let me jump ahead here in the story, and explain why this is so important.

High performance cars from the 60′s and early 70′s require high performance gasoline. Unless the engine has already been modified, pre-1971 cars require leaded high octane gasoline to run correctly. Because leaded gasoline is no longer sold in the United States, owners of these types of vehicles need to buy lead substitute additives (around $2-$5 per bottle). A bottle is generally good for one tank of gas. Lead is critical because it acts as a lubricant for the internal engine parts and stops them from wearing out prematurely. Engines built in 1971 and later are built to run on unleaded gas so adding lead substitute is not needed. In fact, lead damages Catalytic Converters, which are required on cars built after 1977, and is more harmful to the environment. Adding a lead additive to a pre-1971 engine will literally prevent the engine from beating itself to death.

John’s experience was something that happens to many vintage car owners. The reason the Nova ran great with the previous owner was because he used a 92 octane gasoline and added a bottle of lead substitute with every fill-up. When John filled the gas tank he used the same 87 octane gasoline he uses for his everyday driver. He never gave any thought to what type of gas he was running. Most people don’t buy vintage cars for gas mileage and economy reasons. Therefore it only took a couple of weekends of local driving before John needed to fill up his gas tank again. Now the engine was off of its “design point”, meaning it was never intended to run on low octane, unleaded fuel. The engine started to ping and knock under a load, as soon as the new gas was being burned.

When John shared his story on the forum, there was about a quarter of a tank of economy gas left. He added a bottle of octane booster, a bottle of lead substitute, and filled the rest of the tank with 92 octane premium gas. Since then, John’s car has been running perfectly.

An original pre 70′s engine which has not been modified for unleaded fuel will need a little help in the gas department. Always use the highest octane possible. A bottle of good octane booster and a lead substitute will help maximize performance and the engine’s longevity. You should be purchasing the highest octane gas possible because a high octane rating prevents knocking and pinging. Supreme unleaded (92 octane) is fine and should be used for most engines and everyday driving.

Owners of truly high performance engines, meaning a compression ratio greater than 10.0:1, must use an octane booster to keep their engines running smoothly. Octane boosters will also help if you plan to race your car occasionally or whenever you want a little more power. Remember, racing fuel in the 104 octane category and higher is expensive and sometimes hard to find.

Racing fuel should only be used if you truly have an engine built for racing and is overkill for a street car.