Body modification, just as on our bodies, can be a great thing. We modify ourselves with tattoos, jewelry, and even as far as scarring. When trying to create a better looking car, we apply wild paint schemes, wings, and even wider arches. However, just like human body modification, the wrong parts or too many parts can draw away from the car and create something that really shouldn’t be in public.

A popular modification to perform is the wide-body conversion, fender flares, or the “fender blister.” These can be done many ways, from fender rolling and pulling, bolting on widebody panels and adding fiberglass flares. These designs can be great looking, but as you will see not every flare or widebody will look great on every car.

I currently own a 1987 Nissan S12 200SX, which is also known as the Gazelle in other parts of the world. Its pretty beat up, with the left front fender, driver’s door, and hatch are black while the rest of the car is gold, and is stripped down to just the front seats and dashboard. You will also see the damaged right rear quarter panel and the reason for the initial idea for a “wide-body flare” combination.

It’s damaged pretty good, and I’m not the greatest body guy in the world, but I’ve worked with fiberglass before, just not on this scale. I gave it a shot, coming up with a design very similar to Kyle Mohan’s RX-8. The idea was to give air created behind the rear tire a place to escape to reduce drag and widen the fenders to fit the planned 15″X8″ 0 offset wheels for Rally Cross and Gymkhana racing duties.

You can also see the sideskirt I looked at using. It was designed for the S13 chassis and would need to be modified. Since I was going to need to do that, I decided to try and mold the flare into it as well. I then drew out where I needed to cut the flares down to fit like I wanted. (Taped a little crooked, though.) Just as a side note, the flares and skirts are made of fiberglass. At the very least, for the sake of your eyes and lungs, wear goggles and a face mask to keep the dust out of your vitals! Really, you should wear gloves and a long sleeve shirt, but it was hot that day, so I could deal with itchy skin.

Next up was making the rear side panels. To make them work, I would have to graft them into the flares. I used cardboard to create the mold and started cutting using a box cutter. If you go this route, watch where your hands are as getting cut by a sharp knife sucks! I know from experience, I still don’t have feeling on part of the tip of my left middle finger! I traced out an initial design, but kept working at it to try and get it to fit right.

After laying the whole part flat, I added some straight pieced of cardboard to the rear of the panel to keep it not only straight, but gradually lean it upward towards the rear to get the “exhaust port” of the panel out. I also took a portion of the flare I cut off and shaped it to fill in the gap on the rear portion of the flare and panel transition. After getting something I liked I applied my release agent, rather I sprayed some gasket glue on it and used tinfoil to cover it. Why? Fiberglass resin will not stick to it. You could also use packing tape, the resin will not stick to it as well.

I then start laying down the resin and fiberglass mat. Really, as it turns out, the better material would have been fleece, at least as a first layer. I thought that using the mat material would have allowed for better conformation of the mold. The fleece would have worked much better because the mat material really was too loose and would move as I tried to apply the resin for the next layer. Mat is better if you use it in strips instead of one large layer. I went against the strips to keep the piece as smooth as possible.
Normally, this is where the end result is shown. After the fiberglass resin dried, the next day I took the result to the car and placed it on the body. When looking at it, the design really didn’t match the look of the S12. Being a car from the ’80s, it’s a very square car. The mixing of the round flare to flat, but flaring out panel didn’t match the look of the entire car. Really, something closer to the look of the old silhouette cars (minus the GIGANTIC front splitter) or the S12s of the 80’s Japan Super Sport Sedan series would look much better.

So, unfortunately, you see that I am human and make errors. Then again, maybe you’re fortunate and you can learn from my mistake and see that, while it looks cool on that other guy’s car, it may not look cool on yours. Until next time, keep tryin’!

Body kits are certainly designed to be bolted on to your vehicle.  That being said, most body kits are hand-made products.  The original designs were done by hand, the molds were made by hand, and the parts themselves are made by hand.  So you will not have the same installation experience with a hand-made body kit as you would a computer CAD-designed machine made part from Ford.  It takes some extra elbow grease sometimes to make the body kit bumpers fit perfectly flush with your hood, fenders, and trunk.

Every brand comes in a different color. But all body kits come unpainted either way, meaning you have to get them painted after your receive it. Most body kits come in either a white, black, or grey gelcoat though, depending on the brand. Vision Autodynamics for example makes all their body kits with a white gelcoat finish, while Extreme Dimensions is famous for the black Duraflex gelcoat that they put on body kits.

While the gelcoat finish on most body kits is a matte finish and somewhat imperfect, there are some brands that come with a gleaming, shiny, near-flawless gelcoat finish. An example is Bomex. Most Bomex body kits are higher in cost comparatively, but the reason is because you get a product that is very well finished.

We wouldn’t say it’s a huge risk, and many people do not use them. It’s just an extra precaution to avoid a disaster on the road. The latch on the hood interfaces with your factory latch receiver, but it’s not made by the car manufacturer so it’s not necessarily an OE latch. I personally would put the pins on just to be extra sure the hood never flys up while driving, but I’ve seen countless people not use pins and be just fine.

You’re driving down the street when you hear it, a loud and rugged roar of an engine, and then you see it in your rearview, a beautiful pearlescent orange Mazda RX-7 pulling up next to you in the stoplight. You try to guess what he is running under the hood but you just can’t recognize the sound, it’s not a turbo because it doesn’t sound like it’s got some sort of forced induction but the engine yet sounds so mean and powerful. He looks at you and revs his engine, you say, “Why not my car can take him”. You get ready for the light to turn green and as it does you notice the RX-7 roar and lead the way already a car length away. As he finishes running the block and slows down for you to catch up you make the sign for him to pull over. You both pull over and you talk about how that was cool and you ask him if you can see what he has under the hood. You expect him to have some sort of highly modified Mazda rotary engine or maybe a swapped turbocharged RB26DETT, but what you find leaves you stupefied to say the least. The Mazda RX-7 that just beat you is running a GM LS1 V8, a DOMESTIC V8 engine!

This might not happen to every one of you but the truth is GM V8 engines are now making their way into the tuner scene, especially the LS series. GM LS engines have been very popular with Mazda RX-7 owners for years now. Some Nissan owners have started doing the switch too, just look at some of the Formula D cars.

But what about the fact that V8 engines are big, bulky, expensive, gas guzzlers, and heavy?

Well that might have been true for the V8 engines of the 1960’s up to in some cases the 1990’s but the fact is that today’s V8 are much more efficient than their older counterparts. Today’s V8s are made with many of the following materials and components:
* Cast aluminum (or in the case of trucks, cast iron) engine blocks with Siamese bores
* Forged steel crankshafts
* Forged steel (or in the case of the newer LS engines titanium)
* Forged aluminum pistons
* Aluminum heads with titanium or steel valves
* Composite intake manifolds
* Cast iron exhaust manifolds
* Sequential fuel injection
* Coil on plug ignition

As you can see V8s are pretty much made with some very high strength materials and are pretty more modern and efficient than most people think. In this article I’m going to describe in as much detail as possible the positive and negative effects that a V8, specifically a GM LS engine, can have on your car.

First of all many of you are probably saying, “Even if this is a good idea it’s probably so expensive that it’s something better reserved for sponsored teams rather than an average Joe like me”. Well it’s not so expensive as you might think, for example a brand new Honda K series engine costs easily over $4K if I’m not mistaken and makes 230HP at the flywheel right out of the crate while a brand new GM LS1 can cost no more than $3,400 or used from, if you’re lucky like me whole lives in an area with an enormous supply of Z28 Camaros, $290 in good conditions with over 400HP at the flywheel in a stock tune. It doesn’t sound that expensive now does it? Now the cost of a transmission for these engines can run from $800 to $3000 for a high performance version in either automatic, electronic overdrive, paddle shifted clutch less transmission (for those who like rally and autocross), manual, and manual with overdrive.

Something that many drifter and autocross competitors wouldn’t like of a traditional V8 would be the heavy weight concentrated at the nose which would cause lots of under steer, but LS engines are not your traditional V8s. LS engines because of their aluminum construction can be pretty lightweight at approximately 390lbs more or less depending on your configuration. I know it might sound heavy but think about the fact that this 390lb engine can easily produce 500 horses before you start upgrading basic stuff like the fuel, ignition, and intake system. Now depending on your application, LS engines can make great low end torque averaging at about 280ft/lb  and extreme high end horsepower reaching well over the 1,000HP mark and in the case of the now 3 year old LSX  over 3,400 Horsepower.

On the short run the price of installing a LS engine might sound a little pricey and I’m sure some of you are already thinking that it will be even pricier on the long run, but it really isn’t so. LS engines have been mass produced in large quantities since 1997 and have been used from small cars trucks to high performance cars/SUVs to large SUVs and in some cases even airplanes. This has cause the market to be saturated with a large number of high quality replacement and performance parts at really low prices. This makes it extremely quick, easy, and cheap for the average Joe to repair his LS conversion in case of a wear and tear.

If by now your thinking, “Wow I want to do that, but how” here is the solution. The market has started to fill the demand for conversion of LS engines into smaller tuner cars and like in the example of the RX-7s suppliers have started selling conversion kits and conversion engine mounts and cross members. Some of the suppliers of these kits are as follows:
* Boss Frog
* Hinson Supercars
* Improved Racing
* Monster Miata
* Samberg Rod and Custom
* V8 Roadster

These companies offer everything you need to convert your cars from a kitty to a tiger.

Hope this article helps all of you gearheads and racers with your next swap, now remember nothing is too crazy when “Crazy Joe” is involved.

Pulley Kits are what operate your car’s power steering, alternator and air conditioning unit. Belts attach to the rotating pulleys.

Some people like to buy pulley kits where the pulleys are larger than their factory pulleys. This effectively decreases the speed of the alternator, power steering, and air conditioning units, and in turn lower the energy used to power them. This reduction leaves more available energy to push horsepower.

Aftermarket pulley kits also look nice! They often come in a chrome finish, or otherwise in anodized or stainless steel finishes.