Okay, this’ll get a bit technical. But I’ll try to make it a lot easy for you. You see, your engine is one hell of a mobile powerplant. In order for your car to move, the engine lets out small and controlled explosions within its cylinders thus making its pistons pump. These explosions caused by your engine are made by injecting fuel and air inside these cylinders and then ignited by your spark plug. These explosions “pump” those pistons inside the cylinders which then causes energy and so on and so forth.

I know there are a lot of gaps here and there but the main point here is the explosions that your engine makes. For that explosion to happen, a delicate balance of fuel and air must be present within your engine’s cylinders. And so, that means air plays a very vital role when it comes to engine performance.

Yes, it’s true that the quality of gasoline affects your car, but most daily drivers don’t know that their car needs to “breathe” clean air too. If dirt or dust gets inside your engine’s cylinders, there’s a good chance that the explosions that your engine makes would be of inferior detonation. To add to that, your car only uses 30% of that detonation’s power, the other 70% only becomes exhaust. So would you like that 30% of energy be lessened further?

That is why most people enhance their engine’s performance by customizing their car’s air intake systems. This way, you can upgrade the quality of air that comes inside your vehicle. That’s what happens if you add a custom cold air intake filter to your car. You see, air that has a low temperature is denser than warm air. And denser air means better burn. And with that at hand, your engine burns fuel more efficiently.

Changing your cold air intake could boost your car’s horsepower up to 15hp. It’s a significant improvement since your engine would take a lot less effort in pushing your car forward. However, be sure to get street legal air intakes so you wouldn’t get pulled over by your local law enforcement people.

Another way of upgrading your air intake system is by getting better air intake filters. You see, this is more of a maintenance issue, since a new air intake filter will do a better job blocking small granules of dirt from passing into your engine. So always keep that air filter in great shape.

So that’s the low-down on where you could start upgrading your car’s performance. We’ll tackle more on upgrading exhaust mufflers, suspension systems, electronics, and the braking system on the next couple of issues. As for now, go check that air filter of yours!