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.

First, pop the hood, and prop it up.

There are six screws holding the top of your factory grill securing it to the frame. Remove them. Then, slide the grill outwards away from your Ranger.

This is what your factory grill will look like. You will have to use a hacksaw to remove the top panel( you can skip this step if you have a polished steel top panel).

This is how your grill should look like now. The top panel should be detached from the rest of the grill.

You will have to drill holes in order to mount the lower brackets. Line up the lower bracket and determine where you will have to drill. Next, using a drill bit relatively close to the size of the provided bolts, drill straight down and through.

Mount the lower brackets using the holes you just drilled. There will be holes for the upper brackets, so drilling will not be necessary.

Line up the billet grill, there will be four holes (2 upper and 2 lower) line these holes up with the brackets. Using the provided bolts, bolt all four brackets to grill. Don’t forget to screw the top panel of your old grill back on.

This is what your grill will look like after installation. Enjoy!

Most body kits consist of replacement front and rear bumpers and a pair of sideskirts.

Bumper Installation

First unfasten your factory bumper. For most cars, this will require removal of the headlights and tail lights. You will find the factory bumper bolts and clips located in these areas: under the headlights and tail lights, near the hood and trunk latches, inside the fender wells, and in many cases in hard-to-reach places likes on a flange deep on the underside of the bumper on a flange connecting to the fenders. Make sure to keep all the hardware, because it will need to be used to bolt the body kit bumpers back on.

After the bumper is off, then first ‘dry fit’ the body kit bumper. Do this just to be sure you got the right one, to be sure it looks like it’s going to fit ok, and also to mark with a pen all the mounting points on the bumper. This is done because most body kits do not come pre-drilled, meaning you have to drill your own holes in the body kit. With most body kits you are expected to mount the body kit bumpers to the same place the factory bumpers are mounted, so mark the bumper at all locations where a hole will need to be drilled in order to bolt it up to the factory mounting points.

Next drill the holes as marked. Then, using the bolts and clips from your factory bumper that you saved, bolt up the body kit bumpers using all the same mounting points as the factory bumpers. Voila, the body kit bumpers are on.

Sideskirts Installation

First do a ‘dry fit’ of the sideskirts, fitting them up to your car. Most sideskirts are made to fit over the top of your factory rocker panels. Most sideskirts have a ‘lip’ that goes beneath the doors of your car but on top of the rocker panel on the door jam. That is a mounting lip. Do the dry fit in order to ensure that you got the right product, to ensure the product fits appropriately, and to mark your planned mounting points.

Sideskirts should be mounted inside each fender well using pop rivets. They should also, when possible, be mounted in the door jam on the lip of the sideskirt for extra adherance (also using pop rivets). After you pop rivet both sideskirts on, you’re all done with the installation!

Tools:
Philip’s screw driver Needle nose pliers (optional)
Flathead screw driver Glass cleaner (optional)

Step one:
Remove the Philip’s screw from the plastic roof latch cover and remove the cover. Also remove the two rubber stoppers that hold the roof in place. Pry off the four factory push clips out of the rear trunk lining and lay the lining over into the trunk (may need to use a flathead screw driver or pliers to pry the clips off).

Step two:
Remove the four nuts that are holding each tail light in place with an 8 mm wrench from the inside of the trunk. Disconnect the tail light harness clip (a small flathead screw driver may be necessary). Hold the tail light in place while doing this so that it doesn’t fall out.

Step three:
Gently push the tail lights outwards from the inside of the trunk. Make sure the foam guard comes out with the tail light. It is not necessary to keep this foam guard as long as there is a new one included with the aftermarket tail lights.

Step four:
Remove the four bulbs from the tail light housing. Turn them approximately ninety degrees and pull straight back as to not crack the bulbs. Check all bulbs before installing them into the new housings to ensure they are not cracked or burnt out. Replace any bulbs if necessary.

Step five:
Replace the bulbs into the new tail light housings. The location of the bulbs may be slightly different in the new housings so be sure to note which bulb is used for signalling, reversing and braking.

Step six:
Once all the bulbs are securely in place, put the new tail light back onto the car and line up all the threads into the existing holes. Replace the 8 mm nuts and only tighten until they are snug. Over tightening will cause cracking and/or damage of the new tail light. Plug the harness clip back in.

Step seven:
Check all the lights to make sure they are functioning properly. Another person is necessary for this task.

Step seven:
Place the trunk lining back together and replace the factory push clips, the rubber stoppers and the roof latch cover and tighten the Philips screw.

Step eight:
Wipe off any fingerprints on the tail lights and the installation is complete.

The new, silver 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 received a one-of-a-kind paint scheme design by PPG master painter and instructor Paul Stoll and was painted by renowned street rod painter Charley Hutton of Charley Hutton Color Studio. Hutton recently partnered with PPG and is best known for his appearances on the American Hot Rod television show. The paint treatment, a bold combination of blue and Hemi orange, uses PPG’s environmentally-friendly EnvirobaseR High Performance waterborne coatings.

“This is one fabulous car,” said Kurt Busch, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger for Penske Racing. “The design is genuinely spectacular and the finish is absolutely great-looking. I’m delighted with what PPG has done and how they’ve helped the foundation. They’ve done a stand-out job on this car. Someone is going to be very happy driving this amazing Dodge around town.”

“I really enjoyed this project. Knowing that I was painting the car for such a good cause made it all very special and rewarding,” said Hutton. “Plus, Envirobase HP is a phenomenal product. It is easy to spray and lays down perfectly. This car is an award looking car.”

The charity car raffle commences today, and will go through September 29, 2009. The winner will be announced at www.kurtbusch.com on September 30th.

Purchase tickets for $100.00 each.

All proceeds will go to the foundation and will benefit The Kurt Busch Superdome which is an indoor, climate controlled, sports facility located at The Victory Junction Gang Camp in Randleman, NC.

Two of the most common modifications you can add to a car are a high performance intake and upgrades to the exhaust system. It could be headers, high flow catalytic converters or a cat-back exhaust system. There are a couple of different option when it comes to aftermarket intake systems you have cold air and also short ram intakes. Each of them with pros and cons but research is always good before you purchase one, taking on count the look of it and also the performance should be always key components on deciding which brand to go with. There are a variety of reviews and even dyno testing in the most commonly known name brands, it’s always good to check out those dyno results because they provide actual information on performance.

Another very common upgrade to gain a bit more performance out of your engine is a cat back exhaust system; they are less restrictive and also add a nice tone to the car. In purchasing a cat-back personally I have always shopped around based on horsepower gain and also sound. In my opinion sound is essential to either “make” or “break” your car, if your car looks “clean” you probably will want to get an exhaust that will go with the look and also will perform both in power and sound up to quality of the rest of the car.

Tools needed

Screw Drivers

Ratchet and sockets

(FOR CUSTOM INSTALL)

Grinder with metal cutting blade

Drill and metal drill bids

Overall Procedure:

1. Get an idea of what style of seats you are looking for.

When buying new aftermarket seats consider all your options, pricing, looks, purpose, etc. Also decide on the installation procedure you want to follow, if you need brackets or sliders it would be the best to buy it all at the same time.

Personally I chose to go with the NETAMI Carbon Look, it’s a solid black with some carbon texture to it so they do look a bit different than regular leather, this was a great match for my interior. The seats I choose are not full bucket seats they do have reclining and sliding capabilities.

When you first buy the seats they usually ship out disassembled, the assembly is a fairly straight forward. It only requires you to attach a couple of screws and with instructions it’s really easy.

1. Removing old seats and adapting brackets.

As part of my installation I decided I did not want to buy new brackets for my seat and instead I would customize the existing brackets from the original seats. This task would require to take out the old brackets and customizing them in any way or form to make them fit the new set up.

First step was to take out the old seats and evaluate the “game plan” for the new installation. In my car the seats and brackets came out by just unbolting 4 different bolts on the ends of the brackets.

After the seats were out, I had to take apart the bracket from the seat. The brackets were connected with 3 bolts per side. During this procedure I ran into a rusted bolt and it was a pain to take it out, finally with some heat from a torch I was able to melt the rust and just unscrew it.

1. Installing Brackets in new seats

Being this was going to be a custom install for the brackets, I had to plan out how to custom adapt them into the seats. After fitting them and deciding how to mount them with some measurements and drilling the brackets went right on into the new seats. The passenger side bracket did require some cutting of extra metal and also decided to leave the normal seat belt latch so that they could be use as normal. Since it was a custom installation it does take a bit more time than just using aftermarket brackets and sliders but it would depend on you what path you decided to go with. I personally wanted to keep the same height, sliding option and seat belt latch. So a custom fit was the best, if I would have gone the other way I would have to use seat harnesses because my seat belt latch on my car was part of the old seats so by taking those out I would have taken out the latch of the seat belt and I would have to been using seat harnesses. Also the height would have changed a bit usually aftermarket seats raise the seat about 1” more than the regular brackets in some cases. After the cutting and grinding finally the brackets got installed and this allowed for the seats to finally go in the car.

1. Installing new seats in car.

With the seats placed in the car, being the fact that they are wider than the stock seats. Two new holes were required so that they could be bolted to the ground. The new holes were made using a metal drill bid and the seats were secured using bolts. After the seats were bolted down the two previous opening were filled with some clear silicon and of course the carpet covered them. With the seats in place it’s a good idea to just test them out see if they are sliding freely and also add some lube to the sliders. In my installation they felt perfect and secure.

1. Cleaning and enjoying.

The seats got a bit dusty and dirty from all the moving around, after putting them on I just gave the interior of the car a minor detailing and the looks of it were great. The new seats overall made the car look newer and definitely sportier.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
-Underdrive Pulley (of course)
-New Belt that fits (mine came free with the UD pulley)
-Ratchet/Sockets (with extentions)
-Air tools are recommended (can be done without)

Steps:
1. Loosen Bolts on Crank Pulley. Yeah, alot easier said than done.
Okay I first tried this without using air tools and I had trouble keeping the crank from moving. So I suggest leaving the belt on until you loosen the bolts on the crank pulley. The best way to do it without air tools is to have someone help you keep the belt from moving while you loosen the bolts on the crank pulley. There are 4 bolts that hold the crank pulley on and I suggest using WD40 to help loosen them up. Using an air impact wrench it is a tight squeeze but I was able to get bolts loose quickly and easily. Once the bolts are loose then continue to remove the belt and then the pulley.

2. Remove Old Belt.
This is pretty straight forward. I used the tensioner, grab the right socket and go counter-clockwise with it on the tensioner- this allows you to pull the belt right off.

3. Install New Crank Pulley.
Alright, put the new pulley on and make sure you get it straight. If you have a torque wrench, go ahead and torque the bolts up to 28 foot pounds.
If you are having trouble with the crank pulley moving, install the pulley and get the bolts tight as you can then install the belt and then finally go back and tighten up the bolts.

4. Install New Belt.
Do this just like you took off the old belt. Use the tensioner and go counter-clockwise and I had someone to help me put the belt on. Double check it and make sure it is all on straight just as it was. Start up the stang and inspect everything and then enjoy your extra 9HP!

I got the KYB Gas-a-Just model of shocks for my Trans Am because I don’t have the car lowered and I had heard good reviews. I just needed to replace my rear shocks.

My father-in-law helped me identify that I needed new shocks. He pushed down on the trunk really hard and let it go, and we watched how much car ‘bounced’ up and down. With a good set of shocks, the car would rebound upward once and that’s it. The day my father-in-law showed me, the car bounced up and down several times before coming to a stop. So I got the KYB’s and got his help installing them.

The trickiest part was simply finding the top mount for the rear shocks. On the 97 Trans Am, you have to get inside the hatch and lift up the upholstery at the top of the rear seat (including the foam) to access it.

Top mount of rear shock

The bottom mount is easy to see. Once you’ve located the mounts, it’s a simple screw-on procedure. I had always thought that maybe there was pressure on the shocks and that it would require great care to remove them or install them. But that’s not the case at all, as they’re full extended when installed and don’t exhibit pressure unless compressed. We literally just screwed these in and that was it.

Tightening bottom of new rear shock

Both new KYB shocks are in.

It helped to have my father-in-law with me, but wasn’t absolutely necessary. With his help, it really turned out to be a piece of cake to install these. It took 30 minutes, and that’s mainly because he was taking the time to teach me about it. I’ll probably be able to do it in 20 minutes next time.

Known by a few different names “The Ventura Show” has been the premier Porsche event weekend on the West Coast for over a decade. The 2009 Show returns on October 3-4th weekend to the beautiful Ventura County Fairgrounds Seaside Park, Ventura, CA 93001, alongside the Pacific Ocean, about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles off Highway 101. It provides the opportunity for Enthusiasts, Car Clubs, Collectors, Manufacturers and Vendors to get together to socialize, display, sell, and swap and share the passion they have for Porsche and other German car makes.

Featured at the Show are many of America’s leading Porsche Performance Parts, Tuning Companies, Accessory, Literature and Memorabilia Vendors and OEM Parts Replacement Companies. There is also a Porsche Swap Meet area for selling used parts. Spectators and Dealers cars can also display cars for sale “For Sale.”

On Saturday there is a People Choice Car Show for car clubs and regularly driven street cars.
On Sunday there is and a Concours for exotics, special construction, collector and race cars.
Additional activities including celebrity appearances, a car parade through downtown Ventura, live musical entertainment with food and beverages are being added as well to make it a full weekend of activities and excitement.

Interested parties are also invited to contact the Ventura Show Organizers, World Class Motoring, if you have any special exhibits, club activities or sponsorship participation you would like to bring to the event. World Class Motoring phone 818-706-9999.