Free performance upgrades

[obi_waynne]

There are a few free performance upgrades (or near free) we can do, if you can think of any more just post them in here and please comment on the suggestions made, have you done it? Was it effective for you?

Weight reduction
Cleaning out the intake and exhaust manifolds with a wire brush or similar
Drilling out the airbox
Bend the turbo actuator arm a little (on older turbo engines like the Rover Tomcat etc...)
Fill up with super unleaded or high cetane diesel (yes this costs more but the extra MPG you get cancels this out and you have more power.)

 

[Yugguy]

Getting a proper cold air feed to the airbox, even a standard airbox. The missus Yaris had the airbox pulling in air from the top of the engine via a really short intake pipe. I bought a piece of reinforced ducting, attached it to the pipe and fed it to the top of the grille. The pipe does not look out place, I bought a nice subtle black, so it almost looks stock. I know it wont really make any power difference on a 100bhp 1.3, but it's just better for an engine to be getting colder air than what you get in a hot engine bay.

On a bigger engine you'll definitely get a little increase in your bhp. It's not free but it's not massively pricey, 10 to 20 quid for the ducting and some pipe clips.

Some might disagree but I'm not a fan of drilling holes in an airbox - you just suck in hot engine bay air. Get cold air in there!

 

[herb]

How about using tights instead of the panel filter?
It's free if you rob them of the mrs

 

[HDi fun]

Weight reduction. Remove all unnecessary items from the car; passengers, litter etc.
Drivers footwell is especially important as there's is a secondary benefit, namely that you can get the accelerator pedal down a bit further

 

[obi_waynne]

I had a friends who improved his cars acceleration when he removed the thick car mat he'd installed.

I showed him how much further travel there was in the throttle cable with the car mat there! It's surprising how a little thing like that can make such a difference.

 

[HDi fun]

I had a friends who improved his cars acceleration when he removed the thick car mat he'd installed.

I showed him how much further travel there was in the throttle cable with the car mat there! It's surprising how a little thing like that can make such a difference.

I never expected to see a real world example of this
Thanks to Obi for supplying the necessary evidence to support my flippant post