Cars of Technology

Changing the rocker arms in your C5 or C6 Corvette may not deliver the dramatic results that a cam swap can, but it's a lot less work. And the power increases you'll experience make the change a good value for the money. First, take a second to think about what a rocker arm does: It reverses the direction of force. As the camshaft turns, its lobes push up on the lifters, which in turn push up on the pushrods. This is  all well and good, but the valves need to be pushed down. This happens by putting rocker arms on top of the pushrods. Now when a pushrod goes up, it encounters the rocker arm. As it pushes up on one side of the rocker arm, the other side of the arm pushes down on the valve. The rocker arm's pivot point can be modified. Moving the fulcrum point changes how far each end moves in relation to the other. A 1:1 rocker arm ratio, for example, means the valve goes down a half inch for every half inch the pushrod moves up. By moving the fulcrum, you could have a rocker...

W e stop our cars by rubbing some mysterious friction material against a piece of steel called a rotor (or drum). This friction creates heat and our cars slow down. The friction material is a huge factor in determining how our car is going to stop. The problem is that the variety of friction materials are almost unlimited. . If there were such a thing as a best brake pad then Pagid and Hawk wouldn’t have to create dozens of different brake compounds. Even if we had a huge test budget (which most of don’t have) we could never test all of the various brake pad material available to us. The brake pad companies can guide us through their maze of various compounds. We have to be prepared though to answer a few questions. Pagid, Hawk and Carbotech can help you select the best pad for your use but you have to be prepared to help them. They can’t do it without your input. The good news is that you’re buying race pads and shoes. You only care about stopping. You don’t care about how much brake...

Every car on the grid is making more power than it did when it was new. At least you hope your car is. When you create more power not all of that increased energy if going to go to the ground. As fuel is burned in your engine only about one-third of the energy in the fuel is converted into mechanical energy. Another third goes out the exhaust pipe and the remaining third becomes thermal energy and is dispersed to the atmosphere through the radiator. Let’s go back to our high school physics class for a minute. You cannot destroy energy. You can only convert energy. When the air and fuel in your combustion chamber burns it creates thermal energy. Some of that energy is converted into mechanical energy by pushing the piston down into its bore. Some of it is released into the cooling system. The cooling system consists of the engine's water jacket, a thermostat, a water pump, a radiator and radiator cap, a cooling fan, hoses and usually an ...