Unique Motorsports

In Part two of the series we do a little more advanced modifications.

Race Cat: Having a CAT right after the exhaust manifold is great to help your car warm up and fight cold start emissions. It’s not so great for good exhaust flow. Here are some pictures and results of replacing the Cat with a straight pipe.  I also did some light porting of the exhaust manifold, most of which was on the outside to remove casting marks.

Anyone can purchase a bunch of bolt on MODS and make their car faster. What if you don’t have that much money to spend on the car or the car is like a Daewoo Lanos and doesn’t have much aftermarket support? Also, how do you know what MODS will give you the most bang for the buck? This article will focus on the MODS most people can do, without spending lots of hard earned cash and still get some great results.

Since the motor is basically a big air pump, the first thing I will work on is the breathing. Increasing the volumetric efficiency on a newer car does not have the results it would on say an 80′s car, but it’s still the best place to start. The goal is by allowing the engine to breath more easily, it will breath more and hence, more power.

Notes regarding performance testing: For a baseline run, all I have is the 0-60 times I took soon after buying the car. For a more accurate 0-60, I should have a space of road that I can go both directions and take the average, but that’s not available. All the 0-60 times are taken from a specific stop sign where I’m not breaking the speed limit. Also, since the car is an automatic and doesn’t have enough power for wheelspin, the times are very consistent. Future MODS should have the other information as well.

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No one is going to mistake a Daewoo Lanos for a Race car. Race cars are fast and very responsive. This article is about making the Daewoo more responsive while keeping cash in my pocket. First off, a personal definition of responsive. To me a car needs to feel responsive in a few areas. Throttle response, braking, and handling. This article will focus mostly on the handling aspect. Keeping in mind this is a Daewoo, so keeping the budget to a minimum while not harming fuel economy will limit some of the results, but can also make for more interesting reading.

The most basic approach to improving a cars handling is lowering springs and large wheels with low profile tires. Below is a list of the things that can be done and how I will approach it.

Lowering Springs: Lowering the center of gravity is a great way to reduce body roll and keep the car on track. This is by far the most popular method and looks good too. The key is to match the lowering springs with a good set of struts to avoid a bouncy ride. Springs also run about $200 so unless I get a screaming deal on E-Bay, it’s unlikely the car will be lowered.

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