Ford’s tradition of excellence is evident in every vehicle that carries a Ford nameplate. History of the automotive industry is never complete without the names of Ford autos such as the Model T or the “Tin Lizzie,” the Ford Mustang, the Ford F-Series, the Ford Ranger, the Ford Thunderbird, and the Ford Explorer, which all have created an impact in the auto market. The name “Ford” itself has become synonymous with “automobile” to almost everyone throughout the years.



One of its contemporary and most popular vehicles is the Ford Explorer, the best-selling Sport Utility Vehicle in its class since its introduction in 1991. Ford Parts Online, one of the country’s most trusted auto parts dealers and the most reliable Ford parts source online features this time this one-of-a-kind SUV, a pride of Ford and of the auto industry.



The store is offering great Ford Parts Discount deals on thousands of high quality replacement Ford Explorer parts made by the most reputable auto pars makers in the world. Each of the aftermarket and replacement Ford Explorer parts available at Ford Parts Online is designed to meet to the highest quality standards set by the industry and by meticulous Ford owners. They are perfect-fit to every Ford Explorer model’s specifications, too.



Among the most sought after replacement Ford parts for the Ford Explorer are Ford headlights and other “>http://www.carpartsmax.com/Ford_Lights_Euro_Altezza.htm l”target=_blank”class=”navigation”>Ford lights, Ford wheels, Ford mirrors, and Ford front bumper. All these and more are available at exciting Ford Parts Discount deals. In case you would want to modify your Ford Explorer, or enhance its safety and performance without spending too much, Ford Parts Online’s superior quality and discount-priced Ford parts are your perfect options.



Keeping your Ford explorer in tip-top shape and condition all the time is important for it to maintain its high level of performance. This is especially true if you are often taking this SUV off-road. Driving conditions off-road make things harder for your vehicle parts, especially the engine and the external or body parts. Parts like your Ford wheels and tires may eventually wear out; hence they need replacement.



Accidents are also major factors that contribute to your auto parts’ early deterioration. Parts such as the Ford Explorer bumper, Ford hood and the Ford Explorer fender are the ones that suffer most damages during a collision since they are designed to absorb the force of the collision so as to diminish damages to other parts of the vehicle and of course, to the occupants. When totally wrecked, you have no other option than to replace them.



It is important to get your replacement auto parts from trusted sources to ensure the highest quality of these parts and their long lasting service. In the end they are far more inexpensive compared to extra cheap and low quality auto parts since they lessen chances of another repair or replacement, which would require you again to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars.



When it comes to high quality Ford parts, one name stands out in the replacement auto parts market, the Ford Parts Online. With its longtime experience in the business, you can trust that this store perfectly knows you needs and wants.





About the author:

Jay Stevens works as a consultant for an established auto parts store in the country. He has expertise in automotive technology and has inside knowledge on the auto parts industry.

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Best Buy Used Car Tips: When it pays to be Meticulous

Nowadays, more and more people are enticed to buy used cars. With so many financial choices available and cars “living longer,” many people just opt to buy used cars.

In fact, many smart consumers contend that buying used cars is just the same as buying new ones if the buyer knows how to buy used cars.

So, to help those who wish to buy a car but cannot afford a new one, here are some of the best tips that can be implemented when buying a used car.

1. Research

It is extremely important for an individual to conduct some research when buying used cars. In this way, the buyer will be able to know the ideal make and model to buy, the kind of performance to seeks, and the prices of used cars in the market.

Moreover, the risk of buying used cars is lessened if the buyer knows the important details to consider when buying used cars.

2. Check the cars history

The car’s history will definitely provide the buyer some solid information regarding the performances, repairs, and problems of the car. So if you CAN discover some history it would be to your advantage. In this way, the buyer will be able to compare and differentiate one car from the other. There are instances wherein used cars are being sold because of some past accidents or negative experiences. Buyers might consider more if the car he or she is about to buy has a history like this one.

3. Check the safety features

What more can you expect with a used car but it does not necessarily mean that the buyer will neglect the availability of safety features in the car.

By all means, an ideal car must possess safety features, whether it is old or new. According to some reports, almost 80% of the accidents are heightened because safety features are not available in the car.

4. Buyers should be wary about the documents that are included when buying used cars.

Buyers should be sure that the car is not stolen, there are no liens on the vehicle, and that the one who signed on the “Bill of Sale” is the true vendor and the possessor of the property.

5. Before buying a used car, it is best to meticulously inspect the overall condition of the car first. Buyers should be wary of any rust or damage; the tires should be checked, etc.

Indeed, buying a used car can be very tedious. Nevertheless, it will give the buyer some satisfaction and assurance that what he or she has bought is a good buy.

About the author:



Jay is the web owner of http://www.new-cars-in.com New Cars, a website that provides information and resources on searching for new cars, new car pricing, loans, and dealers. You can visit his website at: http://www.used-cars-in.net Used Cars

Technorati Tags: automotive, autocare, auto care, car care, auto repair

It is really un-nerving for me to think about all the conversations I have with people that think that simply installing a bigger camshaft, a smaller supercharger pulley, a high flow exhaust or a better intake will be “THE” answer to more performance. The over-used statement that the internal combustion engine is a simple ‘air pump’ never seems to get the point across. The Engine is really a complex number of components that MUST work together to produce the power to turn the crankshaft, that turns the transmission that turns the wheels that move the car. It is simplistic to think that simply changing one component without considering the rest will result in the optimum performance increase.



A factory engine design team makes a major effort to make all things work together well, while working within cost, performance, drivability, reliability and emissions design constraints. They establish a target for performance and each component is chosen to optimize towards that point. If they target to have “X” horsepower, they can then adjust each and every component to that point. Everything from boost pressure, throttle body port size, exhaust system, valve sizes, etc. all are established to meet the target. Changing any one of the many options may indeed gain some performance but by no means is optimized.



Going back to the popular ‘air pump’ analogy, let’s consider the single most popular ‘upgrade’ done to the Mini Cooper “S”; increasing the boost pressure. There is no question that there is HP to be gained by simply increasing the amount of air being forced into the combustion chamber. While the factory by design must be conservative in their choice of components and thus will always build-in a margin for error in favor of reliability, there are real engineering limits to what we can expect from a single simple component change. Increasing boost pressure consumes horsepower and generates heat which must be dissipated by the intercooler. The intercooler on the MINI is marginal at best, and its capacity is easily exceeded, negating the potential gains of increased boost pressure. The real question regarding performance enhancements, is how to know when we exceed the point of diminishing returns, where we no longer achieve optimum performance from an upgrade.



The MINI supercharger might be thought of a multiplier. It takes horsepower to make it rotate and in return it forces more air/fuel mixture into the combustion chamber, which in turn results in more HP. The intent is to get more than you give.



But increasing the air out of the pump is only the first step, you then have to get it into the combustion chamber and to do so you have to pass it thought the ports of the cylinder head and then past the valves. As we increase the blower’s output, we can quickly approach or exceed the head porting design limit established by the factory. Getting back to a more optimum balance of components will have many beneficial results. If we make it easier for the supercharger to deliver the desired amount of air it will work less and since the basics tell us the work equals horsepower, we will consume less hp for the better results. And if the pump is not working as hard it also can deliver a cooler air mixture which results in a more dense mixture, which again equals more horsepower.



So what can we do to the cylinder head to regain some of the balance of components? Air flows into the valves by ways of ‘ports’. The shape and size of these ‘ports’ control ‘flow’ and ‘velocity’. These are the 2 critical components of port design. The optimum design will yield the highest flow (volume) of air while maintaining the highest flow (volume). If you think of the port as a straw it is easy to understand that as the diameter is increased the flow will increase but with the same input pressure, the velocity will have to decrease. The result of flow and velocity might also be thought of as low RPM verses high RPM performance. You need the velocity at low engine speeds to produce the HP but if the volume is not there at the high RPM, the engine will not achieve maximum horsepower and torque. This is why we leave porting to the professional with access to the proper flow testing equipment. An amateur with a die grinder will tend to make the ports way too big, drastically dropping the intake charge velocity and ruining power (not to mention ruining the head).



When building a full race motor. it is not uncommon to give up low end performance in favor of total HP at high RPMs that can be maintained on a race track. Since most of us also want to be able to use our cars on the street or least need a wider RPM range- then we MUST balance Flow and Velocity.



This is the real ‘art’ required to get the optimum performance from a ‘port job’. As we have probably already increased the pressure from the blower (15% reduced pulley) we now must modify the cylinder head to again re-establish that optimum balance of flow and velocity. The ‘art’ typically requires not just an understanding of how to do it but also often requires a number of hours of very intensive hand operation with high powered die grinders followed by hand sanding to finish the job.



Why isn’t this level of attention given at the design and manufacturing process? While the factory engineers well understand the benefits of porting cylinder heads, it is one of the engineering/cost compromises that must be made in modern production engines.



The general practice In cylinder head porting is to carefully hand reshape both the intake and exhaust ports to enlarge them slightly while straightening out the airflow path and reducing obstructions that result in any sort of pumping loss. As you reduce the turbulence you increase air flow. This is also a balance as a perfectly smooth mirror finish port wall can result in a negative if the fuel atomization is compromised. Most cylinder head tuners will leave the intake port ‘looking’ rougher than the exhaust for just this reason. It is very common for a good porting facility to test both their progress and their finished product on a flow bench. This device is the best way to quantify the gains, short of putting the head on an engine and engine dyno to prove the results. A good port technician can establish a baseline on a flow bench and then be able to do many ports and heads to the exactly results that can be verified on the flow test bench.



The next step in the process is to get the air past the valves. There are two levels of performance that can be considered. The first hurdle is how to get the best flow from stock valves. The more important hurdle is how to balance increased pressure from the supercharger by increasing the size of the valves. It has been proven that 50% of the gain typically found in cylinder head tuning is achieved by the simple process of doing a high performance ‘valve job’. The factory again accepts compromise for cost and manufacturability and thus you will find single angle valve seat in a production head. These are typically a wide area 45-degree cut on the edge of the valve and corresponding seat area in the head. These are easy to do and as the valve size, etc. has been designed for x-horsepower there is no need for the factory to spend more money.



Just as we reshaped the ports of the cylinder head to improve flow, we can do the same with the seat area of the standard size valves. A ‘multi-angled valve job’, typically 3 or 4 angles will result in smoother transition for the air and greatly enhance flow, while maintaining adequate valve seating area for the necessary dissipation of combustion heat. This precision process is considered standard practice in performance tuning shops.



Multi-angled valve seats are one improvement that does not require the trial and error ‘art’ that is found in cylinder head porting. Requesting a 3-angle valve job should be considered the minimum that you would ask from your machine shop. Typical 3-angle valve jobs include an angle cut on either side of the actual sealing area of the valve seat. The high accuracy required of this technique means that the seat area is kept to a minimum (often less than half of the original seat area). The net result is that the gasses are encouraged, or funneled” through the valve-to-seat opening. The flow increase is dramatic. The intake seat width is typically about .040″ while the exhaust is kept a little wider (.050″0 to allow for better heat dissipation. It is critical that the corresponding cuts in the valve seats be matched and thus it is important to not switch valves between cylinders.



15% pulley reduction increases boost by 10%, from a max pressure of 10lbs to 15lbs. As a positive displacement pump this means you get a higher velocity of air sooner although not much increase in flow or volume. Porting and a good valve job will still leave you short of the needed improvements to reach optimum potential provided by the pulley size reduction. The next logical step is to increase the size and lift of the valves. Again, this must be done with the understanding the need to balance flow and velocity. Remember that we have said the flow is more important at high RPMs while velocity is critical at the lower RPM. Since the blower upgrade mostly produces more velocity, then in order to keep this balance the focus needs to be on flow. This is best accomplished with increased valve sizes. Another compromise that we must keep in mind is the need to keep the correct ratio between intake and exhaust flow. In the ideal cylinder head the exhaust should flow at about 70% of the intake. This balance is maintained both in port design and in valve sizes. For the MINI we have discovered that by increasing the intake valve size by 2% and the exhaust by 6% we not only can regain the ideal balance of intake verses exhaust but the increased flow (combined with a top quality porting job and valve job) allow you to get much closer to reaching the potential benefits of reducing the pulley size.



While all this head work provides great benefit in and of itself, a performance camshaft, with properly engineered duration, overlap and lift, will put the finishing touches on your re-engineered, high performance MINI cylinder head. With other engines, the available space above the head allows for many variations in camshaft design. Discussing these choices and the resulting performance and drivability impacts is a subject for another paper at another time. Suffice it to say that for the MINI, the physical limitations of the camshaft area on top of the head limits the performance gains and potential impact to drivability. These limitations include taller lobes interfering with the metal spark plug tubes, and requirement of maintaining the stock base circle diameter of the lobes because of the integral rocker-arm/hydraulic lifter design. The net result of these physical limitations is that all performance camshafts for the MINI (that we know of) all perform similarly.

Our intent with this paper is to provide you with some guidance as to understanding the considerations pertaining to cylinder head work. We hope we have helped you to decide whether to undertake such a project yourself with the skills of a local “head guru”, to trade in your stock head for ported head in the interest of expediency, or to table the whole matter and leave the pursuit of serious power to more hard core enthusiasts. Whatever your choice, we say to you “Happy Motoring”.

Visit www.Minimania.com for further technical information.



About the author:

Don Racine has been building and racing cars for the last 30+ years. As the owner of Mini Mania Inc. I have had extensive experience in building performance engines for both the original Classic Mini Cooper and recently the BMW MINI Cooper

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