Illawarra’s Automotive Specialists
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In case you’ve been wondering, the art of car modding is not dead – despite what many people may think. Those days are not gone, and custom cars or custom suspension and auto modifications are still alive and well. But they do have a point. Nowadays, cars are held to so many high standards in terms of emissions, economy and much more. Seems impossible to improve anything.
There are two counterpoints to be made here. First, not every car is brand-new and fresh out of the dealership. And as we know nothing is both invented and perfected at the same time. There are plenty of magnificent beasts made back when capabilities, know-how and technology were not where they are today.
Second, not every mod has to be this big neon-underglow, huge-spoiler, fire-coming-out-of-the-exhaust, street-racer kind of thing. You don’t have to go for the whole look to add performance mods to your car.
With that in the rearview mirror, today we’d like to focus on some of the bolt-on modifications that offer the best value for money. The kind that gets your performance to the next level without completely draining your wallet. We’ve got some good news here; you can get a whole lot – for not a whole lot.
Before we can get to actual recommendations, let’s first take the terminology to the workshop.
What are bolt-on mods? These modifications are any changes that involve replacing the factory component with an aftermarket equivalent. One more thing – these changes can be made without any specialised tools or tuning the engine; they’re just bolted onto the car.
Unfortunately, things are about to get much more complicated, and it’s all because there’s one more big question that sparks a huge debate among car enthusiasts.
What does a full bolt on mean? To keep things simple FBO is once again any modification that can be done to your car to improve it – whether in terms of performance or aesthetics, but this time it’s usually a whole package. It’s more extensive. This mostly refers to external parts like exhaust systems, but some would argue that supercharging can also be considered a full bolt-on.
This doesn’t sound that complicated, does it? The issue is there are many different levels of bolt-ons, and there seems to be a lively discussion on whether it’s a full or partial mod. It’s a sticky subject in the community, so let’s just steer clear of opinions and different interpretations and stick to a general definition so that we can work on specific examples.
Mods are not just ways to customise your cars – you need to know what you’re doing. Have a specific goal in mind. Let’s go over some of the best performance-related options that (hopefully) won’t break the bank.
Investing is immediately associated with possible returns. After all, these parts, as affordable as they may be, still come at a price.
But do mods add value to a car? More often than not – not really. In most cases, especially at dealerships, the resell value actually drops. In some rare instances, you might be able to make some extra money, if they’re well-made. Nothing’s set in stone – it all depends on specific parts and improvements.
But it doesn’t really matter, right? This is not why we’re doing it. What’s the point of creating a unique personalised experience just for you to enjoy, and think about getting rid of it to make money….? Anyway, mods are not just ways to customise your cars – you need to know what you’re doing. Have a specific goal in mind. Let’s go over some of the best performance-related options that (hopefully) won’t break the bank.
This simple trick will take your handling to the next level, making it easier to turn with precision, hold to the road, and brake. It’s also one of the easiest modifications out there, available for most car models.
All you have to do is plus-size your wheels and tires. That’s it. Sounds simple enough, but it involves increasing wheel diameter and width while reducing sidewall height proportionally.
Remember – that extra weight can impair loose-surface tracking ability.
If you’re still on a mission to get more horsepower and torque out of your ride (and who isn’t?), then we’ve got another strong contender for you. It’s cold air intake.
What does the cold air intake do? There’s an air filter inside the engine compartment.
What happens is you move that air filter outside of it, which allows cool air to be fed into your engine for combustion, whereas normally – it’s hot air.
That makes a huge difference because cold air is much denser, which means it also has a higher oxygen content, improving the engine’s performance.
This part, located between the air intake system and the engine’s manifold, has a very important job to do. It controls the flow of air that gets to the engine to later be combusted. As you can probably tell, it’s once again about manipulating the airflow for performance.
You’d normally want to get a custom throttle body with bigger blades and bores, as that’s how your engine is going to get more air and – as a consequence – more horsepower.
One more thing – the modifications itself is a bolt-on, but to make things work the right way, you might want to consider further tuning. Some tweaks will help your engine take full advantage of the extra air in this case.
One of the most popular ways to get more power out of an engine is to manipulate the flow of air, which makes it more efficient. A high-performance cat-back exhaust is a prime example – one mod unlocking next-level horsepower and torque.
You’re basically overhauling the entire piping of the original exhaust system – from the catalytic converter back to the muffler and tip.
It’s all about improving the airflow, so the replacement parts are typically larger in diameter. To minimise the pressure at the exit, your new piping system should also feature mandrel-bent turns.
One more point to be made here – you need to keep an eye on those noise levels because your whip is going to get a whole lot louder. You might want to consider an FSC (Cat-back Reflective Sound Cancellation) system to keep them at bay.
This one’s fairly easy and inexpensive. In fact, it might be hard to find a more budget-friendly performance-based mod. If a car has an electronic fuel injection system it needs a mass air flow sensor – that’s how it calculates the amount of air going into the engine.
It’s good for efficiency, technically speaking. It’s also kind of restricting in terms of horsepower. So, you might consider getting that removed from the original housing and getting a much bigger housing. This way, you get more air – with the uninterrupted flow, which, as we already know, does a lot for performance and power.
An added bonus – sometimes MAF readings are all wrong and fine-tuning those can be quite a challenge. That’s no longer an issue when they’re not there anymore.
To give your engine an extra power boost, performance exhaust headers are an interesting proposition – yet another bolt-on that enhances airflow. There’s this little thing called back pressure. Bad for us, bad for cars.
When the engine expels exhaust, it first goes through the exhaust manifold, where it may build up additional pressure and affect the incoming exhaust gas from another cylinder. We don’t want that to happen – it makes your engine much less efficient.
With performance exhaust headers, each cylinder gets its own pipe, so there’s no risk of pressure build-up. Your engine has a much easier time getting rid of the exhaust, which, in turn, improves its efficiency – and power.
There are many ways to push your engine’s barriers and get it to perform like never before. Some go for reconditioned engines, or full-on tuning, while others choose to go a different, safer route – with bolt-ons.
They offer great value – most of them are far less expensive than other mods, with some truly incredible potential when it comes to performance. On top of that, they can be removed for the most part, so if ever need to get rid of them for any reason, that shouldn’t be an issue. Your dream car might not be as far away as you thought it was!
