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NAWS

/thread.

But seriously, the easiest way to make a car faster is to make it weigh less. This won't do a whole lot your top speed, but if you're hitting that on the street, you need another gear. Removing crap from your car is free. Decide if you need it, if not, it's just slowing you down, pitch it.

Why not make the car reliable first? Are there any problems with it? Does it make any noises? I would fix the car first before modding it.

Whats with you guys This kind of question is a perfectly fine question to ask. Everyones got to start somewhere- and its hard to ask the "right" questions, when you dont know what the right questions are.

ummm

BAR & CARB approved motor swaps? xD
iirc, the motor has to be newer and all emissions equipment intact..

Kay, fine.

First, is the car reliable? If not, make it reliable.

Then suspension, wheels and tires. You'd be surprised how much faster you can be when your car is stable and predictable.

Heh i did mine totaly ass backwards from that..

Takes too long, and it's a PITA.

All it takes is another dickhead cop to give you a REF ticket and you are back to paying the fine or putting it back to stock.

I like fire and forget solutions for the most part.

Honestly, the exhaust issue can be solved by a cutout. That way you can appear and sound relatively stock until you get to the track or event, and let loose, hoping they don't have noise restrictions.

ya, depending on what you have it can take a weekend. But hey. Its free. And it may be a pita, but if youre in california- You only need to do it once every 2 years. Small price to pay if you want to go fast.

or, move to Arizona or Nevada, where a half-million dollar house is not a 2 bedroom ranch, but a 2 story badass pad.



Also, not sure of Cali laws, but here in Ohio when we had to do emission checks I did this. I would get 30-day tags for the car, take it to e-check, it failed. Found out that you didn't need to do the check for 30-day tags. You could only get one 30-day tag, couldn't renew it. So, I signed the title over to my dad (sold it to him for $1 on the title), had a relative notarize it for free, then he transferred it for a tax fee of $0.07, then got 30-day tags. We kept selling the car back and forth for a couple months until they ended the emissions testing around here.

It's hard to do much while flying under the radar when it comes to passing smog in California, assuming you're not altering your registration to make it look like your car is from out of state.

Catback exhausts will free up a few ponies without altering your car's ability to pass smog, though the louder your car gets, the higher your likelihood of getting pulled over gets.

Intakes add some ponies and are a lot less easier to notice than exhausts (at least aurally), so you might be able to fly by police a bit easier unless your car is obviously modded with all of the accompanying visual aids. You'll need a CARB-certified intake to pass smog and also to get a cop to not write you up (assuming he's not a jerk). Headers also help, but very few are actually CARB-certified, though if you keep your stock headshield on, most cops won't think to look out for headers, and the same may apply to a regular smog station. Also, ECU reflashes really help wake up a car while being almost completely undetectable, as you can't really "hear" or "see" a reflash.

Though again you have a Z31; there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure how the aftermarket is for that particular car with CARB-legal parts.

There's no point modifying the intake too much if the car's otherwise factory. In a lot of cases, removing the factory airbox and throwing on pod filters doesn't actually help very much because it just ends up sucking in hot air.

Easy way to do it, and avoid unwanted attention, is to replace the OEM panel filter with a performance replacement like A'PEXi or K&N. Drops right in the factory airbox.

On some cars, that doesn't free up much, because of the design of the factory airbox. On a Contique for example, a drop in perf. filter does nothing, because the restriction is somewhere else.

That is quite true. One thing that should be remembered too is that many cars with airflow meters will find that to be a restriction, with prime examples being the SR and CA engines.

buy a faster car from the start. or get a better driver.

This post has been edited by BlackSubaru on Jun 30 2009, 03:23 PM

Nothing to contribute? GTFO

You know, the man's right.

A good driver can make a slow car fast. I'm guessing you've never seen a Yaris beat a GT-R at an autox.

Nope, don't care to.

A good driver can only do so much.

Autox can only do so much. Hit up a nice course like VIR.

I didn't say he's wrong, just that it's not useful to the discussion. Being a better driver is obvious to make your driving faster, as it would itself imply. What the OP was asking however is how to make their car faster.

well, you could start by releasing the parking brake, as a car doesn't move without a driver.

just simple things like telling us it's not a race car and therefor a driver change is not possible/needed would have been nice.

if he wants to go faster, change the final drive ratios. "differential gears"
this'll make the car accelerate quicker, ie go faster,

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Yeah, but you get the wrong exhaust and happen to get pulled over by the right cop, you'll be sent to a ref, and from what I've generally heard, those guys don't take "pay to play" like smog testers.

My buddy got pulled in an EVOX for exhaust being too loud.

I seriously don't know how. 'Cause my FD is louder at idle than his car is at high RPMs.

And learning to be a better driver doesnt make the car faster. It makes you faster.

You could come to Massachusetts...

Any car 96 or older doesn't need to go through emissions.... straight pipe em.