Customizing cars is a hobby that has developed more interest over the recent years. Movies such as the Fast and the Furious have helped this hobby grow. Now there are more tuning shops and more products available to help improve your cars performance. This article will help you understand some of the things you can do and what you need to know when tuning your car.

Many of these options can be found online. There's a wide range of quality when looking at these products. Some of the basic kits will promise to add more power, but they're very basic. These kits may only be a cone air filter, which will only increase your supply by approximately 15 horse power. A basic filter can be purchased for $50-$250, depending on the quality.

Then there are turbo kits or compressors. If you're really looking to add power, this is the way to go. A turbo kit can add a whopping 100-600 extra horse power. Unfortunately, there's a hefty price tag and it will cost more than your basic air filters.

In a basic turbo kit, there will normally be an exhaust manifold included. It's usually tailored for a specific car. A turbo kit consists of intercooler with pipes, an air filter, a blow off valve, oil lines, several hoses and gaskets.

Not every car can handle all these changes. If that's the case, you'll need to do more work to compensate for the work you've already done. One of the common problems you may face is with your clutch. Changing from a stock to a sports clutch can really help as a sports clutch can handle the torque. Fuel injectors, pumps, sensors and regulators are other areas to keep an eye on.

I'm sure you're wondering what a turbo kit can cost. Unfortunately, they do range from $4,000 - $8,000, depending on the amount of work. You want to make sure you're getting quality work done, so the tuning and installation is extremely important as well.

The engine can be extremely expensive in the event there are any issues. The gearbox can also be pricey. By increasing the power in your engine, these parts may have issues if the installation isn't done properly. Always use a reputable shop to do the tuning and they should always use a dynostand. To be really safe, you may want to change the engine internals as well.

Improving your car can be a lot of fun, but can get pricey. Take your time shopping around as there are so many add-on's to choose from. Once it's all done, you'll enjoy the improvements!

Read more of this writer's articles regarding items such as the diesel performance exhaust system and truck exhaust systems.

Posted under Cars

Car audio has been a hot topic in electronics for a while now. Learning a little more will allow you to get what you need to replace your factory system.

Some vehicles may have 6 speakers or more. In most cases, you'll only find a total of four. Two speakers may be in the front doors and the other two could be found on the rear deck, or rear doors.

You'll then need to make a decision on whether or not you want 2-way, 3-way or components speakers. Component speakers have separate tweeters.

If you're looking for the ultimate sound, go with component speakers. You be able to position the tweeter directly towards your ears.

Do you want your speakers just to be loud upfront, or both front and rear? If you want all of your speakers to be loud, buy a 4 channel amplifier and power all of them.

Remember, if you usually drive by yourself or only have one passenger in front, a 2 channel amp for the front speakers will be fine. The rear speakers can run off the CD player.

Everyone wants bass and true bass will only come from subwoofers. You need to buy at least one decent subwoofer to gain bass levels in your vehicle.

If you want a lot of bass, you should buy two 10" or 12" subs. Or, one 15" subwoofer that can handle 3-4 hundred watts or so.

No matter what subs you get, they will need an amplifier. If your sub handles 300 watts RMS, make sure to team it up with an amplifier that can deliver it, without going over.

A 2 channel amp is a lot less expensive and can still really pack a punch. You can also bridge a 2 channel amplifier into single channel operation mode and generally create more watts than the two separate channels combined.

It's always a good idea to upgrade your CD player. Your new CD player may add a front panel 3.5mm connection. This will allow you to plug and play your iPod or MP3 player.

Once you feel like you're ready, purchasing cheap car CD players won't take too long at all. Save big on cheap car audio after you decided if you want a better system.

Posted under Cars

There is no question that car driving games are fun to play! Choosing to drive cars of a person's preference on some of the finest tracks throughout the planet, pitted against other sim racers couldn't be anything but fun.

What is not as well acknowledged, is if car driving games in fact make for a good training aid.

According to Dale Earnhardt, Jr, the correct answer is truly a resounding Yes!

During a recent interview, Dale was quoted as saying that when he goes to a brand-new track, its takes him just about an hour to get himself up to speed, and its not until that hour has elapsed that his feedback actually becomes beneficial to the team's engineers. Now, instead of "wasting" that hour, Dale heads out onto the new track on his computer, well before he ever gets to the real track.

So, how is it that a video game might actually make you a significantly better racing driver? Lets take a look...

Above all, the tracks in modern PC racing games are exact replicas of the real thing. Advanced technology, including precise GPS information is used extensively by developers when making a new track. This translates to a seriously realistic virtual racing experience and equipped with this, racers might get to learn not only the entire layout of the track, but also their braking and turn in points for every single corner.

One example is, when you go to turn one at the track of your choice on your computer, you'll find the fact that the trackside objects in the game are exactly the same as the trackside objects in real life. Moreover, their placement around the side of the track, relative to the corner, is precisely the same as their placement in the real-world.

Likely the next most helpful section of the online racing experience is the car setup. The engineers that design today's games put immense effort towards the game's physic model and this leads to a far more "realistic" feeling race car. Ad to this the plethora of adjustments that one can produce in the garage, and the outcome is that the virtual racer has the opportunity to do extensive testing of various race setups; all from his computer. While the exact settings probably will not transfer to his race car, the principles behind the adjustments to transfer over, and that is going to make the driver drastically more valuable to his team when it comes to giving feedback to the race engineers.

And finally, we have the actual head-to-head racing that today's online racing experience provides.

Within the real world, many a race has been lost because of an accident that occurred when the driver made an oversight in judgement. Basically, many races are lost in the first turn due to a crash.

With online racing, the mental component of the competition is precisely the same as it is in the actual sport. The exact value of being able to get all this added competitive seat time is massive, and without going through the PC racing experience, the only way to get all this seat time was to go to the track. Now, without spending a dime, today's budding racer can log literally hundreds of hours of practice against other racers; all from the ease of his PC. Of all the benefits we've just covered, this one is likely the biggest.

Trust me, I know from experience.

Want to get some FREE Car Driving Games?, then visit Raymond Anthony's blog on how to choose the best PC racing game for your needs.

Posted under Cars