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What is brake fade and what causes brake fade?

This phenomenon known as brake fade can be quite unexpected and lethal and I would hazard a guess that 1 in 4 cars are likely to experience brake fade to some degree. Brake fade manifests itself by a spongy feel on the pedal and little or no braking force. Do not confuse brake fade with bad brakes or a mechanical fault as it applies to brake systems in relatively good condition.

Superchargers – A guide to supercharger kits benefits vs disadvantages

Superchargers offer the promise of substantial power gains with very few drawbacks. So lets look at the growing popularity of supercharger kits and see what its all about.

A supercharger is quite simply an air compressor which helps push more air into an engine. These are driven by a belt from the engine effectively creating pull on the engine sapping up to 30% of the engines power.

Principles of porting an engine and big valve conversions

The inlet and outlet ports on the engine block are usually larger than those of the manifolds that connect to them.

This allows for scope in the manufacturing process to allow for mismatched alignment.

Generally the engine ports are larger in the upstream flow direction avoiding turbulance but power gains can be made by matching these up.

Particulate filters and FAP Performance gains.

The particulate filter is a stand alone unit. It is located upstream of the cat in the exhaust system and its purpose is to remove soot particles from the gas stream. The cat the proceeds to do its usual job of converting CO to CO2 and is in no way dependent or relied upon by the particulate filter.

In diesels the cats are two way devices and run in unregulated mode (ie. no O2 sensor like a petrol car).

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