Horsepower-boosting tips
IF your car is starting to feel sluggish, then it’s probably time to do something about its horsepower. There are myriad ways to boost it. Here are some of them.
One of the most frequent recommendations for increasing a vehicle’s horsepower has to do with cold air. “Have you ever noticed that your engine seems to run better in the cool night air than it does on a hot summer day? That’s because cool air is denser, so your engine is inhaling a denser, more oxygen- rich charge of air with every gulp. More oxygen means more fuel can be added to the mix, and that means more power,” Bud Scannavino says in a piece for AxleAddict, a site for car lovers and mechanics.
It could get very hot under the hood — Mr. Scannavino says temperatures there can reach as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 93 degrees Celsius. “Hot air blows in from the radiator, the engine radiates heat, and the blazing hot exhaust manifolds exude enough BTUs to cook food, literally,” he says. “You want a way to deliver cooler air to your engine.” And a cold air intake kit can do that, by ducting in air to the engine from the grill area at the very front of the car.
Consider using a nitrous oxide kit. The gas can be used to create additional oxygen for an engine during combustion, according to Carponents, an automotive information and social networking website. “It has the added benefit of cooling the intake air, which causes the air to be denser. Unlike other mods, a nitrous oxide system is not run continuously on a vehicle but instead, applied in short busts when needed,” it adds.
Car owners will do well to use the gas sparingly. “Too much nitrous oxide in your engine will blow it apart. You have to be very careful with how much you inject, depending on your car and type of engine,” the site says.
To allow the engine to breathe better, look at the exhaust and free it up. Mr. Scannavino says that factory exhaust manifolds are quite restrictive in that they don’t let the engine exhale very well. In fact, he adds, “They don’t have to, because most people drive their cars in sensible ways, and don’t feel compelled to leave black tire streaks in front of their neighbor’s house.”
A cheaper modification is to replace the stock exhaust manifolds with some bolt- in, short tube headers, or, even better, long tube headers (though these are more expensive). The short tube headers, Mr. Scannanivo says, bolt in place without modifications to the rest of the exhaust system, and can work with stock catalytic converters; their larger counterparts require their own matching exhaust system to attach to.
A software- based solution would be the tuning and reflashing of the car’s engine control unit or ECU. “This is essentially a software update that releases factory restrictions on your car and improves performance,” Carponents says. It is, he adds, “one of the easiest ways to add speed to your ride, especially if your engine is turbocharged.”
Reflashing changes the programming regarding the timing, fuel- air mixture and other horsepower-upping inputs, and works for both turbocharged and supercharged engines. But, the site notes, naturally aspirated engines may not see any improvements at all.