The beauty of a high performance car

It amazes me

On the rare occasions when I take a look underneath the hood of a car I am totally amazed at how complicated the thing looks. All those wires and connections, all those parts that are interconnected and work together as a whole with just one purpose: propelling the car forward. There is such a lot that can go wrong when you think about it that it is amazing that most often, things just work!

The classic combustion engine is a machine that runs on controlled explosions. Think about that: tons of controlled explosions are taking place every time you start an engine. They take place in little chambers and they push a valve outward. Timing is of the essense: the valves are interconnected and go back and forth like a seesaw, so you don't want simultaneous explosions in interconnected chambers, right? So something directs the traffic of the impulses to explode, the sparks.

The spark plugs are given the explosion command by the internal computer of the car I suppose. I'm not quite sure on the mechanics of that and because I don't know this is where the magic begins for me.

The magic is also in the performance enhancing that you can do by installing high performance parts for cars in your vehicle. To me it's sheer magic that you could install a beautifull gadget and it will make your car go faster or burn less fuel, whatever it's set out to do.

Polishing and pimping

Polishing all the chromium parts and making all the visible parts shiny is a bit of a hobby for the serious car-buff. When it all looks shiny it even goes faster, or at least, it feels that way. When you've polished everything on the outside you're a bit of a show off, but if you polish everything under the hood, you're my kind of person. I don't like grease stains on my hands and clothes and on anybody I associate with so going for that clean look is really a must for me.

Pimping your car with spoilers and suchlike can also improve the performance of the car, creating less air resistance and as such they are, aside from nice looking extra's, performance parts that can make a real difference in your car's behavior on the road.

Another thing often overlooked in terms of performance are the tires on your car. Esspecially if you live in an area where there's a big difference between summer and winter it's important for the performance of your car to install wintertires in wintertime. The rubber on wintertyres is softer and that way it has more grip on the snow. It's a sin to keep the wintertires on in the summer though, for two reasons. One is that they tyres will deteriorate quickly when you're driving them on hot roads. The other is that there's a minute amount of drag from the tires that will slow you down considerably. It will also keep you from having the optimal miles to the gallon ratio and in these expensive times every little bit you can gain there counts.

Blasting away

Not really a Velocity factor but important for the enjoyment of the vehicle by men and women alike is the car stereo. With state of the art surround sound and big bass boosters the car is one of the few places where you can truly enjoy great music and feel like you're encased, enveloped by the music. The sound inside a car can be just as overwhelming as during a live concert and it really takes you away. It is palpable in your gut, you can sense it with more than just your ears.

Naturally, when you're enjoying great music in your car, it's important to keep your attention on the road as well. You wouldn't want to wind up driving 20 on the highway because you're so engrossed in your mantra's or classical music, nor would you want to get a speeding ticket because you're rocking to the Boss himself. Still, a car stereo is a beautiful addition to an electric high performance vehicle.