Archive for June, 2011
Protecting Your Car Audio System
Posted by in Car Audio on June 25, 2011
If you have recently invested in a car audio system, it’s vital that you protect your car and your car audio system from thieves. It’s integral that you take out insurance to cover your car and audio systems, as well as use extra security measures.
Thieves are regularly attracted to cars when they see a new car audio system and an unprotected car. Several awful things can happen if your car is not protected, as a thief may steal the stereo and leave a broken window at least, or could even steal the whole car as well. Moreover, joy riding is another problem car owners have to put up with. Having the right security options as well as taking preventative action will help you to protect your car as much as possible.
There are a variety of security options on the market, which can be used in conjunction with one another, these include:
(1) Car Alarms;
(2) Window Tinting;
(3) And Steering Wheel Locks.
Each has their advantages and will protect your car to a certain extent. A car alarm will obviously tell you when anyone is attempting to fiddle with your car, enabling you to call the police straight away. Most thieves will be scared away by an alarm, making it a good way to prevent a large amount of damage, as well as theft. Window tinting is a preventative measure, often used to prevent thieves from looking in the car. If they don’t believe there is anything to steal, they may walk away, rather than taking the risk of coming out with nothing. These two preventative security options are often used in conjunction with one another to stop car and car audio theft. Besides these two, steering wheel locks are regularly used. Steering wheels locks may protect your car from theft or joy riding; however, it will sadly not protect your car audio system. Read the rest of this entry »
Luxury Car Tuning and Boost Display For Performance and Convenience
Posted by in Car Tuning on June 25, 2011
I love racing at the local drag strip. It’s a wonderful way to see what your car can do or how a new modification works out. It’s also much safer to race on a track than to test performance on the street, and it’s a great place to hang out and shoot the breeze with fellow racing enthusiasts. But if you’d expect just a bunch of old muscle cars and modified imports at the track you’d be surprised. I’ve seen Porsches, BMWs, AMG Mercedes and lots of Audis and Volkswagens. Go to the track and you’re as likely to see a guy in a suit perusing the boost display on his twin-turbo 12-cylinder Benz as you’ll see a guy tweaking the carbs on his 68 Camaro.
It’s interesting to see so many upper level cars at racing events these days, but that’s all part of a luxury car tuning revolution. Be it entry-level luxury vehicles from Volkswagen and Audi or more expensive models from Mercedes Benz, Audi, Porsche or others, it’s become fashionable to tweak those vehicles to get even more performance from their already powerful, high-revving engines. Simple software updates can add 10-35% extra power just by optimizing engine tuning. See, most cars are tuned very conservatively so that they run well under any conditions and with any type of gas. Software tuning can unleash extra power simply and easily and without the help of more traditional performance car parts. If your car has a turbo, performance increases achievable with ECU modification are even larger. This is why catalogs for Audi parts, Volkswagen parts, Mercedes parts, BMW parts, and other luxury car parts include Electronic Control Unit, or ECU, programming, performance chips and other ways to optimize the vehicles’ computers.
But performance is not everything that is available via programming of the car’s Electronic Control Unit, or ECU. Since the ECU monitors several dozen sensors, it can provide much more information than is normally displayed. And unlike in the past where analog gauges could only show one piece of information (like oil pressure or battery voltage), most of today’s cars have screens and consoles that can be used to show all sorts of information. One example is the actual speed of the vehicle. Why would you need that when the car already has a speedometer? Because many speedometers are wildly inaccurate, making you feel like you’re going much faster than your real speed.
Information available via software add-on modules varies from brand to brand and model to model. It may include 0-60 mph and 1/4-mile acceleration times, more elaborate boost pressure display, air-fuel ratio, power and torque, or more technical information such as ignition advance, knock sensor data, cam angle, short and long term fuel trim, injector duty cycle and more. Read the rest of this entry »