Going fast on OE style rotors
This is what happens when you combine a heavy car, race tires, race pads and one piece rotors.
GM to close plants and cut jobs – and people are upset?
With the news of GM to close long-time plants and lay off thousands of workers, many are upset. But this has been a long time coming, why the surprise now?
Flowmaster Pro Series Muffler Review
A while back I received this Flowmaster Pro Series muffler as a promotional item from Autoanything.com. I have been sitting on the muffler for quite some time when after an alignment shop somehow managed to damage my exhaust, I had the perfect excuse to install it. I can now finally report back on this interesting muffler design.
Installed on my 3rd gen Firebird. It fits in the factory location designed for a oval muffler.
The best deal in track-day tires?
Because this sport is so expensive, I’m always looking for the best deals to get me on the track cheaply – and I just might have just stumbled upon the perfect tire for track days.
Is it possible to make modern power with a gen 1 small block chevy?
The small block chevy is the iconic hotrodders engine. Its been around since 1955 and is even still made new today for the aftermarket. Without too much trouble, 400hp out of one of these engines isn’t hard to achieve. But in this modern age where we see 350hp out of NA V6’s and now turbo 4 cylinders with that level of output, 400hp doesn’t really sound or feel all that special. Is it possible for the hotrodders mainstay to compete with modern engines?
My current state of affairs
Setting the correct pinion angle
When you open a shop manual for setting pinion angles or look it up online, generally, they give a specification for what it should be for your car. But, if your car has been modified, which it most likely is because you’re reading this, the pinion angle listed probably wont work.
My car was designed for a T5 transmission which was substantially smaller than the T56 I now run. I might have been able to get the correct driveline angles if I ran my car at the factory ride height, but since my car is lowered, the large size of the T56 limited how high I could raise the transmission to correct the angle at the front U-joint. The solution was to make an extension over the trans tunnel to allow it to be raised.
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Flowmaster Pro Series Muffler
Some time ago, I ran across an interesting muffler design from Flowmaster. The design used two perforated sheet metal cones mounted point to point inside the muffler case. Back then, the muffler was called the “Hush Power” series; but now they are calling it the “Pro Series” line. Strangely, They also have a smaller pipe diameter version called the DBX series; I’m not sure why they name those differently.
