Tech Feature: Engine Builders Have More Options Than Ever
The foundation of every engine is the cylinder block. Whether you are rebuilding a stock engine or building up a street performance engine, a circle track engine, drag engine, marine engine or whatever, you have to start with a good, solid block that’s machinable and free from cracks and other defects. That’s becoming more and more of a challenge in recent years because good cores for popular domestic engines are getting harder and ….
Tech Feature: Understanding Valve Design and Alloys
To the naked eye, a valve is a valve is a valve. Sure, there may be two, three, four or more of them in the cylinder head, but unless you have x-ray eyes, one alloy looks pretty much the same as another. The importance of coatings to today’s valves should not be overlooked, of course. Coatings on titanium valves or steel valves that have a black nitride coating may give different manufacturers a unique appearance but that beauty, as they say, is only skin deep. Underneath it all, is there any difference between valves ….
Rat Rods – Not as Low Buck as They Might First Appear
While the economy stalls – enthusiasts are building "Rat Rods" in record numbers. Right in the middle of the economic slowdown and our government’s bailout of Wall Street, a little West Coast car event called the Primer Nationals was taking place in Ventura, CA. Did the hard times affect the turnout or enthusiasm for this dominate new hot rod culture? Heck no! In fact the event has grown to more than 500-600 cars, and the spectators swarmed the fairgrounds by the thousands ….
Mitch Schneider: Getting Used to ‘That Mechanic Thing’
With the precision of a crack military unit, my wife and daughter appeared in the shop’s driveway at exactly eleven hundred hours as planned. My wife was there to pick up our daughter, our daughter was there to drop off her vehicle for "regular" service – "regular" in the sense she is regularly late in getting her vehicle in for scheduled maintenance ….
Engine Tuning & Chassis Upgrades
When car manufacturers come out with a new engine design, some car enthusiasts eye the new technology from a perspective of how to squeeze more performance out of it. The smaller displacement engines that are turbocharged or supercharged tend to be the most likely chosen because of their power-to-weight ratio. When Saab introduced a turbocharged
Managing Charges in Times of Great Change
‘That Mechanic Thing’ With the precision of a crack military unit, my wife and daughter appeared in the shop’s driveway at exactly eleven hundred hours as planned. My wife was there to pick up our daughter, our daughter was there to drop off her vehicle for “regular” service — “regular” in the sense she is
Nissan: Head Gasket Replacement Procedures
With the reliability that late-model cars and especially their engines enjoy, we don’t find ourselves doing too much heavy engine work anymore. Many of us miss the feeling of accomplishment we’d get when completing an in-house engine rebuild. I know I always enjoyed the moment when the fresh engine would light right off and run
BMW Engine Repairs
Though six-cylinder, inline engines are not as popular today as they were just 25 years ago, their sound and layout still translates well into high performance, durability and smoothness. The six-cylinder M50 series was originally used in 5 series cars in the early 1990s, and is now the basis for the 3 and 5 series
Complete Brake Jobs
Restore Brake System Integrity For Better Performance And Safer Driving The rate at which the brake linings wear out depends on the frequency of use, how hard the brakes are being applied, the temperature of the linings and the wear characteristics of the friction material itself. Consequently, a set of brake linings on one vehicle
Tech Tip: GM Intake Manifold Inspection and Replacement Pointers
When replacing an engine due to internal damage, extreme care should be taken when transferring the intake manifold to the new Goodwrench service engine long block. Internal damage may result in the potential discharge of internal engine component debris in the intake manifold via bent, broken or missing intake valves.