Auto Bravado's Ideas on the Truck’s or Car’s Miles Per Gallon

Fuel Mileage (Totally Awesome!)

2011-04-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

Fuel Mileage; realize that fuel mileage studies require at least a basic understanding of physics.
"Fuel mileage is just a matter of superior engineering based on sound principles of physics. Fuel mileage has many names, like, miles per gallon (MPG), or gas efficiency gas which will turn into extra torque and horsepower, mostly horsepower.

Solutions to poor fuel mileage is no simple matter unless you break it down. In physics, most of the math is based upon simple particles. Complex systems like comprehending a car’s or truck’s miles per gallon are so complex that if you are to cause an improvement to the entire system you have to work with one system at a time hoping that it won’t throw off another system as well. There are so many ways for vehicles to lose power and decrease fuel mileage from the way that the gasoline is used. Typically, you can’t expect to obtain more than 25 percent of the capacity of the medium gasoline to be turned into a vehicle moving forward.

Fuel mileage and the costs of heat
The most basic conversion of gasoline into motion loses much to the creation of heat, among many other forms of energy: kinetic, friction, wasted motions like the up and down of traditional versus rotary engines. These are all losses to engine power, but I give exception to energy for a comfortable passenger cabin. A comfortable driver drives better and waists less gas. Heat is the number one factor in weakening metal to the point that it will wear down, which causes metal particles to be suspended in motor oil, transmission oil, radiator coolant, and power steering fluid. Each particle in turn will wear more components further. This list counts down from the most often maintained to the least, yet they are all important to a vehicle‘s fuel mileage.

Heat may cost your vehicle's fuel mileage, but there are solutions.
Why change all of these fluids often? Fresh, quality fluids can reduce friction in an engine and lesson the overall wear and tear to the 4 systems mentioned in the last paragraph. It is best for your fuel mileage to flush the motor, the transmission, the radiator, and the most ignored system of all: the power steering. If these fluids are changed often enough, just changing these fluids is enough so you save money on not flushing the system.

Do something about your fuel mileage and take control.
Most of us know to change the oil, but do we take the time to use what is rated the best by an independent lab test like Mobile 1, a synthetic motor oil, which is #1, or the inexpensive Wal-Mart brand of oil that is rated #2 (Sept. 2011, note: they're now the worse rated out there. I was wondering if that was a paid for "study". I have had good experiences with Castrol Syntec - I buy it if it's on sale, or I go Mobile 1.)? Do we install the best motor oil filter on the market by Mobile (2nd to it is K&N's Oil Filter), which filters at a higher rate of efficiency on the double pass test than any other standard oil filter? Or, do we buy the cheapest one? Filtering out more of the bad particles will definitely help the engine last longer, reduce friction and therefore decrease that wearing heat. Most people say no, we’d rather save money on each system by not taking care of it or by using the **cheapest fluids and oil filters possible. The cost in lost efficiency and how long your vehicle will last makes the extra expense pay for itself. Damage from ignoring these systems is permanent; being better next time for a fluid change helps, but the damage is already done. Do it right, and find the feel of your vehicle improved and longer lasting.

** Regular changing of a vehicle’s fluid with the cheap stuff is far better than waiting to change the fluid beyond its recommended expiration. Sept 2011 update: a study was done proving that long-term low grade temperatures to not have a negative effect on oil. Therefore, how many miles you drive determines the changing of fluid, and never the time.

* It wasn't an official study that Wal-Mart's oil was the worst, but when I wise looking man said that to me recently, I couldn't NOT believe him since it confirmed suspicions since I wrote this article that kept me from ever trying their cheap brands.

Antifreeze, Coolant, Green or Orange for the Ol' Radiator

2010-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

I've been asked many times, "Isn't the orange or the long-lasting antifreeze better?" Trust me, you never want to avoid changing your coolant for as long as those antifreeze products prescribe. First off, the radiator, water pump, and various lines aren't sealed very well, and they sludge just like your motor oil and they become less effective the more you drive. Though, I must say your radiator coolant doesn't go bad for the exact same reasons as your motor oil; the metaphor suffices.

Antifreeze, coolant, or water as people call it gets darker with rust and lighter with water. You see, the water and not antifreeze will boil off or evaporate. These two events can make your coolant appear to look nicer, longer than it really should. They make tester strips for antifreeze, but you might as well just change coolant by a schedule (the test strips are better if you can't afford the flush yet, then you know what to budget for). Just like your motor oil, the more you change the antifreeze the better, but once a year or every 12,000 miles should be more than enough to keep this system in tip-top shape with fewer break downs, The cooler the engine the longer it'll last. Saves money!

I'll admit to not writing this knowledge about antifreeze for a time because I don't think my advertiser's can ship coolant, but since this topic affects your truck's or car's miles per gallon this website would be incomplete without an article about this vital system.

Recently my truck's miles per gallon was down and it kept threatening to or actually over-heating. I kept thinking of complex solutions, but I realized that I should just check my coolant level and it was down one or two quarts (I usually buy antifreeze in 5 quart jugs, it's about the same cost as when you by it in the 4 quart jugs). My miles per gallon was down about a mile per gallon and with that being a 5 percent decrease in cost for gas or petrol as our British friends call it, it was time for me to check things out. In a couple weeks, I'll see if the antifreeze being low was the cause, but regardless, my engine won't last as long if it keeps running hot. A breaking down engine will definitely hurt my truck's miles per gallon!

My car's coolant was changed, or rather flushed a couple years ago, so it's over due, but it really made my engine smoother just like any change of oil, transmission fluid, or even a change from conventional to synthetic will. All of these changes boost the truck's or car's miles per gallon, not to mention how a tune up increases performance too.

Now remember, when checking that your antifreeze fluid is up, don't just look in your radiator coolant reservoir, but look in the radiator itself as well. Don't do this if your car is hot! You could get toxic coolant all over the ground and get it into our environment -- not good.

You can also check out my other article on how I solved another car from overheating that had just fine coolant levels: The K&N Performance Filter.

Transmission Oil Cooler

2009-03-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

Transmission Oil Cooler: What the manufacturers are leaving out, what your transmission will get by cooler oil. Missing this makes your transmission look like it was designed to wear out faster.

The Transmission Oil Cooler and the manufacturer:

Many vehicles don’t have transmission oil coolers. When they do they are often under sized for the job for today’s design of vehicles. With how cramped everything is under the hood these days, most of us mechanics find it hard to work, but it is harder still for the heat from heavy equipment to escape. Many trucks, like mine, come with a fabulous transmission oil cooler, which is just enough to make the truck look better on the specs, giving you confidence in the machine. There are two mistakes that manufacturers make on coolers for the oil in the transmission. First, the transmission oil cooler should be larger, allowing for more heat to escape, and second the placement can be less than ideal.

Your Transmission Oil Cooler and the best placement:

We can knock both of the problems out right in a row. Be sure that the transmission oil cooler you’ll be installing goes where the air circulation from the vehicle is best; ideally you will be placing the transmission oil cooler in front of and not behind the radiator. When the air passes through the transmission oil cooler first, you’ll be allowing your engine be hotter than the trans axle. That’s okay; engines actually need enough heat to run efficiently, while extra heat in a tranny just helps the metal get that much softer and closer to breaking down over time. The more of those filings are moving around, the more of a chance of causing further degradation of all the moving parts.

Your New Mishimoto Universal Transmission Cooler and the best idea:

If you set up your new transmission oil cooler right, you’ll be able to turn off the extra flow from the transmission to the oil cooler during the winter months if your engine actually needs the extra heat to be efficient. Remember how it was mentioned above that too much heat will make the moving parts break down faster? Well, during the winter months you might say to yourself, "I don’t need the extra fuel efficiency of heating up my engine faster" then you may be right. If you have truck and a heavy and long haul in front of you may need it in the winter too. Most of us are just commuting with our cars and trucks and should shut the valve to the transmission oil cooler during the winter. You see there are metal parts that can be so cold they’ll be brittle enough to outright snap. It's not a bad idea to warm your car up in the winter.

Need a tougher, larger one? Or, do you just need exactly the right size? The Transmission Oil Cooler that is available in the link below has already been tested under pressure so you know it'll make it through any tough demand placed upon it. It is is available in many sizes: Transmission Oil Cooler

A side note: As much in my time in European countries has taught me to not run an engine for more than thirty seconds unless the car is moving during the winter there is an important exception. You heard it right; AutoBravado turns off the engine even at intersections. When you know the light will take a minute, it saves gas, despite popular myths to the contrary. Starters don’t wear out like people think they do.

See another article about: Transmission Coolers Return to Home: Car or Truck Miles Per Gallon

Acetone in Gasoline

2008-10-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

Why it works to improve your gas mileage, and why in some cases it won't. If you already know you need it, click here:
Get Acetone in Gasoline now to improve your car's or truck's miles per gallon.
Note: you mix acetone and gasoline in your gas tank, so you buy each separately.

How does Acetone in Gasoline work?
Acetone in gasoline changes the suspension of your gas. Some believe that since acetone will burn, whether it is in your gasoline or not, therefore it helps your mileage. I do not believe this to be the case. A more plausible theory to me is the change in surface tension. You see, your fuel injectors have to break the surface tension of your gas, mix it with air and turn it into as fine a spray as possible. The old carbureted fuel guzzling car's would pour and not spray the gas in. The easier it is to break the surface tension, the easier it is to cause the air/fuel mixture to go into a spray. This is what acetone in gasoline accomplishes.

Why does acetone in gasoline sometimes not work?
Some fuel injectors are already calibrated too perfectly to the suspension state that gas is naturally in, to function any more efficiently. I've not personally seen an average 4 cylinder car get an increase off of acetone in gasoline yet, but a friend who drives a Honda Accord, the 4 cylinder version, said he saw the best increase at 2 ounces of acetone in 10 gallons of gasoline. 1 ounce took me down to ten miles per gallon; it took 3 tanks of gasoline just to almost get 30 miles per gallon again in Auto Bravado's experimental car, the Chevrolet Prizm with Lsi Engine.

In what way should you use acetone in gasoline?
First off, Auto Bravado's experience has been that whenever acetone was mixed into gasoline at an appropriate level in V6 engines and V8 engines, for larger cars, trucks, vans or SUV's, it created a significant increase in the fuel economy of that vehicle. It depends on the design of the motor that will change what you can expect, so some experimentation is required. Try 1 ounce of acetone in gasoline to every 10 gallons of gas at the time of fuel up. When you discover whether it has helped or hurt your mileage, you'll want to increase it by an ounce of acetone in gasoline at a time, up to 4 ounces, that is if you keep getting improvements. Auto Bravado has noticed that the harder you are pushing your vehicle the more acetone in gasoline can be used and still see a boost in performance, power and efficiency, or mileage.

Return to the original Home: Truck or Car Miles Per Gallon. Or, if you'd like to learn a little more about Auto Bravado, the author of AutoBravado.com, or how synthetics can help your fuel mileage, click here.

Synthetic Motor Oil

2008-10-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

Synthetic Motor Oil - Remember, that to keep your truck or car miles per gallon at it's best, it requires many details to be just right, so feel free to read the Synthetic Motor Oil article, but remember that these other articles are here for you too:

Car's Miles Per Gallon and Fuel Mileage with About Me

Spark Plug Gap: The Controversial Side - an advanced concept article, written as simple as possible
NGK Spark Plug - get spark plug recommendations, Bosch spark plugs are discussed too
Jalopy - The Great American Vehicle: learn about grounding wires and how it effects a cars miles per gallon
12 Gauge Speaker Wire - a secondary article that covers more specifics about grounding wires than The Great American Jalopy
Transmission Cooler - easy to install and helpful for any vehicle albeit car, truck, or SUV
Magnaflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler - check out the story, which introduces the new blog: virileauto.blogspot.com
Flowmaster Muffler
Magnaflow Exhaust
Synthetic Motor Oil on Valentine's Day - an entertaining article at any time of the year!

Synthetic Motor Oil

Synthetic motor oil is the only way Auto Bravado will go with engine lubricant. I've personally collected too much data on it being smoother, and if the engine runs more smoothly then it runs more efficient. If it runs more efficiently based on being smoother, the engine will last longer by the use of synthetic motor oil over conventional mineral based lubricants.

Mineral based lubricants have a disadvantage to synthetic motor oils:

Mineral based, or conventional oil lubricants have in them inherently more sludge to start off with, which will slowly create a journal on your engine. A journal being grooves showing evidence of some grinding. This happens very quickly on an engine that is eating itself alive and about to blow, while mineral based lubricants will be doing this on a slight and gradual basis. Synthetic motor oils, not being based off ancient chemical reactions in the earth are purer and they should create a longer life for the engine.

Support your superior lubricant, the synthetic motor oil, with the right filter:

No matter how good your synthetic motor oil is over the conventional, and no matter how much better the additives that come with it, you will build up sludge and you need to choose the right filter. You can find out how much gets filtered on a single pass test pretty easily, but that isn't even the important one, because most filters will look good at this level. The double-pass test will show you some durability of how a filter will hold up when it's already held back sludge from your synthetic motor oil and is expected to still be filtering. The standard filter in any shop around town won't have a good rating on this, but Mobile's oil filter, has the highest double-pass rating I've seen. Bosch, a mid grade filter in comparison to the Mobile, but much better than your standard cheap filter, used to be incredibly below Mobile's standard, but recently they have increased their double pass efficiency to being closer. Having run Bosch's new filters against Mobile's, it is still worth the bump in price and quality to use Mobile to keep your synthetic motor oil running long and clean, but you may want a filter for half, rather than double the cost.

For other basic advice on getting good fuel mileage while learning about AutoBravado, click here.

Return to original Home: Car or Truck Miles per Gallon

K&N Air Filter

2008-09-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

The K&N Air Filter is cheapest and easiest upgrade you can do and still expect incredible or, at least, reasonable results. Would you like a general Truck or Car Miles Per Gallon article, or a more basic article but still about a K&N Performance Filter?

First lets discuss the numbers of the K&N Air Filter:

K&N: CFM’s (Cubic Feet per Minute of air moved through a K&N filter): 881, for the round type and 441 for the sandwich type (this being the long and flat filtration)
typical disposable paper filtration CFM’s: 548 for the round and 319 for the sandwich type
STP: CFM’s

Having an air filter that allows more a CFM’s of air is only the beginning. Based on the conditions of which you drive, it’s typical to be able to drive 60,000 miles before you even have to clean your K&N Air Filter. What makes a K&N Air Filter different is that it has a metal screen strengthening a thin, precision made cotton wall against dust and grime. In laboratory tests this doesn't just allow more filtration with less obstruction than standard filtration by companies like Fram or STP, but the K&N Air Filter actually allowed a straighter flow past the filtration medium, which increases the delivered volume, which in turn makes the engine run cooler. Some vehicles get 8 more horse power, which if you're not too lead footed, will directly turn into less fuel consumption and better trucks or cars miles per gallon.

How does a K&N Air Filter really work?

For the most performance it is important for every surface that air passes over to be polished to allow for the straightest, least ruffled flow, which allows for a higher volume of CFM’s to get through the filtration medium. This is the reason cold atmospheric intakes are popular, it isn't just that colder atmosphere mixes with gas better, it's the fact that they're smooth and polished, which is just like a polished vehicle having less friction or tug against moving forward.

The smaller the engine the higher the demand on air because of the frequently lower compression ration of 8:1 instead of the standard V6 12:1. Typically, due to this basic engineering principle it’d make sense that a K&N Air Filter would do even more for a 4 cylinder, but the reality is that at least on one V6 sedan I’ve seen the gas mileage, miles per gallon, or fuel mileage, which ever you want to call it, go up just as much as that of a four cylinder’s engine, depending on your numbers perspective.

Consider this perspective while reading results from K&N Air Filters that AutoBravado has personally seen by comparing a V6 Ford Taurus versus a 4 cylinder Ford Escort and Chevrolet Prizm:
Notice a percentage versus a number increase in your truck’s or car’s miles per gallon. If you’ve gone from 20 to 24 in your truck's or car's miles per gallon you’ve increased the number by 4 but your increase in fuel mileage is 20 percent. In the mean time, if you see the same number of miles per gallon going up on a four cylinder, like from 33 to 37 then you may be seeing the increase by 4 but you’re actually seeing a 12.1 percent increase on the 4 cylinder versus a better 20 percent increase on the 6 cylinder. Auto Bravado has promised that the physics or math would be taken care of for you, but I think this concept is important if you’re going to understand what the better results mean when you’ve received better fuel mileage by installing your K&N Air Filter.

If you monitor your car’s or truck’s miles per gallon carefully it’s is highly unlikely, in Auto Bravado’s experience, that you’ll find yourself disappointed with this upgrade. For a personal experience on the K&N Performance Filter, read Auto Bravado’s other article by clicking on this link.

Research what K&N Air Filter's availability is for your vehicle here.

This safety message is brought to you by AutoBravado because safe driving starts with not being distracted. Using a hands free device has made me have a lot less close calls while talking and driving:

It's the Law - Go Handsfree! Bluetooth Specials and Free Shipping Offers! Note: in some states you can get pulled over by just being on your cell-phone while driving, unless it's handsfree. In most states you now can get a ticket for being on the phone too if you're getting pulled over for some other violation.

Remember AutoBravado's goal: The Cars or Trucks Miles per Gallon: We all want better numbers, but do we really know how to get them? Let us learn that to get results is to have fun! There are tricks that it took many mechanics decades of experience to figure out and perfect. The truck’s or car’s miles per gallon of the vehicle you own relies on more factors than most mechanics even know about. It is AutoBravado's commitment to stay ahead of the discoveries and keep you well informed. It is a basic concept of physics. If the engine is singing the sweet song of being tuned and other factors are in place, it will, by the laws of physics, require less fuel to get the same results. Contact Auto Bravado: autobravado.com@gmail.com.

The K&N Performance Filter

2008-09-24T14:15:00.001-07:00

I’ve had an engine that didn’t just want it, but needed it. AutoBravado's favorite and most accessible way to get the air you need to make your car be at it's best is to make use of K&N filtration technology, an incredible high performance filter for the air going into your car. I had been doing upgrades on one car years gone by and it tended to run a little hotter. I thought that that was okay, I mean I was getting more performance right? Well, wrong. One day, merrily driving up a violently angled hill on the way to a religious service, the engine's heat kept getting hotter and hotter still until I realized that if I shut my motor off and the radiator fluid stopped going through the engine that I'd be looking at some engine damage. I decided to leave the transmission in gear and go down the hill letting the tachometer read at a higher RPM, which would allow for a maximized radiator fluid amount to get through the block. The gauge kept reading hotter!

At this point I realized the engine was so hot that the radiator temperature was only catching up with the actual temperature that you see by the gauge. The thought popped in my head that when a week ago I was considering better air filtration and I should have bought that K&N Performance Filter, more air, less heat.

So, wishing I knew then what I know now (You can leave an engine in gear and drive going down hill in a manual transmission with the engine off so that no more combustion occurs, causing no more extra heat, and allow the radiator and motion of the vehicle to cool the engine.), I in exasperation gave up and shut down cut of the ignition and waited until it was cool enough to drive again. I checked this by putting my hands over the engine compartment and waiting until the motor was touchable. I couldn't help but wonder if something in the radiator system/cooling system had broken or my the installed upgrades were just too much. That particular day I had a tougher load: my heaviest friend at the time, 350 lbs. or more and his light wife coming with us.

Within a week I had installed my K&N High Performance Filter for better air filtration. In one more week - having noticed my coolant gauges running much cooler and the engine was running much smoother since it was getting it's air intake needs met - I set off up the same hill seeking the same religious experience for me and a challenge for my upgraded car. For a K&N Performance Filter really is an upgrade, people don’t realize that it isn’t just the super chargers or modified transmission’s that are upgrades, it’s the little stuff. I wasn't able to get the overweight friend or his wife to come to tax the small engine as I had before - they were too afraid to come! So I did the best I could to test my K&N performance filter by throwing all of my tools into the back and taking my beautiful wife with me, which caused her upset when she realized she was being a part of an experiment! So, still being 100 to 200 lbs. short of my last experience, I decided to do my best with the little motor to race up the hill and not take it easy. The car not only dug in with its K&N performance filter but it ran cooler going up that hill than it did in every day life! That filtration technology upgrade made the car desire a higher RPM . . . okay, okay it was probably just me that craved the higher RPM’s, but I was able to get away with the higher RPM without as many consequences!

The K&N performance filter is not available in all shapes and sizes for every vehicle unless you are willing to upgrade to a cold air intake. For example: my new car won’t let me go to town on this one like my old one did. That is why a cold air intake is necessary for people who happen to have cars like the both of us, which have limited K&N performance filter availability. Auto Bravado has a wonderful link for cold air and polished intakes on the Dodge Hemi Spark Plug Wire's page. Don't just want a personal experience and you want techinical details too? See Auto Bravado's other article: K&N Air Filter.

(Note, after months of searching, I now have a custom K&N performance filter for that newer car, which no one else had and I included the link below.)

Have you ever had your engine over heat after an upgrade? The K&N Performance Filter will get more of that cooling air to get into and help your engines needs. This also allows for more stronger, straighter air flow at any RPM. Click on this link, put in your vehicle specifics and find your way to better filtration technology.

This safety message is brought to you by AutoBravado because safe driving starts with not being distracted. Using a hands free device has made me have a lot less close calls while talking and driving:

It's the Law - Go Handsfree! Note: in some states you can get pulled over by just being on your cellphone while driving, unless it's handsfree. In most states you now can get a ticket for being on the phone too if you're getting pulled over for some other violation.

Return to the article that started it all: Truck Miles Per Gallon
Or find my new article about getting your car cooler, and this time, it's actually about the radiator system! :) Antifreeze or Coolant.

Truck's or Car's Miles Per Gallon

2008-09-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

We all want better numbers, but do we really know how to get them? Did you know that when the engine is more efficient that it delivers more power?

Let us learn that to get results is to have fun! There are tricks that it took many mechanics decades of experience to figure out and perfect.

The truck's or car’s miles per gallon and the tuning of an engine:

The first, simplest, and most economical place you can start with to improve the car’s miles per gallon is in the spark plug wires pages, but keep digging further! That means that when more gas is put into the engine, large or small, the engine will take advantage of that fuel better and translate into more power. Look for the simple ideas article: it explains the jalopy as "The Great American Jalopy" that have been forgotten by most since the 70’s. You’d be amazed, whatever your vehicle may be, how new or old, how these simple ideas will improve your vehicle into having that achievable, great car’s miles per gallon!

Don’t quit now there is even more valuable information coming!:

The car's or truck's miles per gallon and the transmission cooler:

A car’s miles per gallon is also dependent on transmission coolers to keep wear and tear away from the transmission. If you don’t let the transmission loose its power in age, then the transmission won’t be dragging down the vehicle’s mileage, which would rob power and efficiency from the vehicle. Speaking of which, when was the last time you changed your transmission fluid and filter? It’s like the nectar of the God’s when it’s new, and when it’s old it smells burnt and worn out. It’s simple and it improves the car’s miles per gallon!

The car’s or truck's miles per gallon and the common misunderstanding: Efficiency is power, and power is efficiency, as long as it’s not based on forcing more fuel into the engine.
Do you now see the relationship between the car’s miles per gallon to power and efficiency? It can‘t be emphasized enough that when there’s more efficiency, there’s more power. If you came to this website for power, you‘ll still learn here; if you came to take control of your pocket book at the pump, you also came to the right place. Your car’s miles per gallon is in good hands with the knowledge based off of many great men’s and women’s collected wisdom.

The car’s or truck's miles per gallon and its major robber or advocate:
It is amazing how many vehicles can be found missing something so basic as a proper spark plug gap, or good spark plug wires. Is your truck‘s or cars miles per gallon missing out? Don’t forget that along with the adrenaline rush of extra power there is an undeniable feeling of driving excitement? It is basic and simple, but these and other concepts will either be the major robbers the truck’s or car’s miles per gallon, or you’ll make them your advocate! How smooth your engine is running will not only make you feel better when you drive, but will keep years of stress and strain off your motor.

Please send your comments to autobravado.com@gmail.com. Good comments will reflect in articles, great comments will be owned by AutoBravado, but only for the sake of publishing them on this blog. If you want your comments published they must not be on the web any where else, but only for the sake of publishing while, if possible, proper credit will be given and perhaps, in reward, a link to your website will be offered.

Curious about the author of Auto Bravado? Check out who he is from the focus of fuel mileage.

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Spark Plug Gap

2008-09-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

The spark plug gap: When you read on, you can do more with the knowing the correct spark plug gap than you’d think!

Who doesn’t enjoy the performance of an automobile hugging the road; not just hearing, but also feeling the sound, the purr, of a well-tuned engine? With all the experts out there contending that the computer takes care of all that, I have encouragement for the guy (Don‘t worry I know gals are into this too!) who likes to buy their own parts, apply them and get that feeling of accomplishment that my putter has become a purr, that my thready roar has become solid and reliable. Now before I loose you and make you think that you’ll have to be knowledgeable and have many tools to make the spark plug gap be at your advantage, I’ll give you the steps you need too, don’t you worry.

Most people’s spark plug gap settings on their engine are pretty close to right, when the car is newer or when they’re first installed. My spark plug gap details will cover the scenarios where that isn’t the case. The problem is that the spark plug gap doesn’t stay right all by itself. Years ago, I was working on a dilapidated vehicle - you know most of us have had one of those - and I had enough new spark plugs for only one of my two very similar vehicles. After finishing the spark plug gaps for the newer car, it occurred to me that the older car wasn’t sounding tuned either. I checked my watch and it was too late to go to the auto store to buy more. Then it occurred to me, what if the spark plug gaps were off by a bit, or a lot. Some were 20 microns off, plus or minus, off of what they should be! Maybe I could just change the spark plug gap on the old plugs and put them back in! Those spark plug gaps, which weren’t staying gapped because of two reasons, they were a little old, and they were not made out of platinum. Most newer cars use platinum (Many ‘90 models and newer will like them). It’s tough to say which car’s engines won‘t run well off platinum, but it’s worth a try with fuel prices these days. Even back to the seventies there can be improvements made.

Maybe ½ hour of running the engine later and some rechecking of the spark plug gaps, I realized that I needed two new spark plugs for at least two of the cylinders. They weren’t staying gapped.

I’ve since learned that platinum spark plug gaps actually last longer and are slower to get off by as much. With out an official study it seems to me that about a quarter to one eighth of platinum’s will significantly lose their gapping within a few days of driving, depending on the manufacturer, while it looks likes 1 out of 2 or 2 out of 3 standard plugs will loose their spark plug gap in days. When the platinums are changed back at this point - when they're done being treated by being heated and cooled in the engine - they'll keep their shape much more reliably than the old standard. When checking your spark plug gaps, if the prong has kept its position accurately, there isn’t reason to change it unless there of signs of discoloration, the appearance of being burnt, or the metal is pitted.

Believe it or not, the best way to know if you’re firing evenly on all cylinders is to listen to each cylinder with a heavy metal tool. Remember to listen to your engine right after installation and once again a few days of driving later to be sure the tuning stuck! If one area sounds slower or faster, or higher or lower pitched, you’ll know that your spark plug gap is off, or your spark plug wires may need help.

My friend, click on the picture to our left, and you can find your quality, German Bosch Platinums here for less, even with shipping, then I can buy it from the local store! Jan. '09: I've just finished installing my 6 Bosch Platinums and the engine's power is restored. I'm going to order 6 more here just to use the receipt to the local store and get my over priced charge for these back! (remember to do get that spark plug gap right!)

Who does not enjoy the feel of a well tuned engine. Oh, feel the performance, the sound, the purr of a well tuned Engine! If sparks and wires aren't enough to get that engine running smooth then you need to check out this next article telling what I learned from the Great American Jalopy, which applies to almost every car.

Need tuning because your car is old? Your car may be a jalopy. The jalopy is technically a dilapidated vehicle, but this article shows that it’s really the old great achievements and engineering marvels, isn’t it? Some of you really know what I’m talking about. Go now: The Great American Jalopy.

Jalopy: The Great American

2008-08-25T22:13:00.001-07:00

The GREAT AMERICAN Jalopy:

The jalopy is technically a dilapidated vehicle, but this article shows that it’s really the old great achievements and engineering marvels, isn’t it? Some of you really know what I’m talking about. You lived through it all; I just have marveled after the fact.

The Jalopy Definition:

Some of you may already know what a jalopy is, and others may be scratching their heads waiting for this explanation. Either way, I’m sure you’ll know what a beater, a hoopti, or a dilapidated vehicle is. Most of us have owned one, but those old jalopys tell a tale that we all need to hear. We can learn from forgotten engineering ideas, which are hidden gems of our past. One of these forgotten truths will help you restore new life to your truck’s or car’s miles per gallon.

The Jalopy Treasure:

Sometimes we think that the newest is the greatest. Consumerism certainly teaches that to us, but the reality is that the knowledge that we can learn from the engineering feats gone by in The Great American Jalopy. Take a 70’s ford truck for instance. The engineering was so simple that the amount of design required isn’t even obvious. How could it be? There is hardly a thing under the hood. Well, one of the things that we learn from that old jalopy is that mechanic schools slowly breed the wrong information into the car industry on at least one count.

What was forgotten?

They had had a ground wire directly from the engine to the negative terminal on the battery, but new cars don’t have it! Sounds simple right? What value could that have? Well, one article from the Dessert News interviewing a major executive of Ford said that there has been very little advance since the 60’s and some would argue, that little true innovation has occurred since the 30’s. Excepting for The Great American Jalopy, and they could even use a new direct grounding wire, we need to get back to the basics with our modern car’s and we’ll have better success.

Why it works:

With the advent of more modern metal smithy, or metallurgy it was believed that the body of a vehicle could be the ground, that since electricity travels at the speed of lightning there is no requirement for energy to go straight back to the negative battery terminal. Those engineers should have known better than to teach this to the repair industry. The engineers should have known from their required science education is: resistance increases over distance excepting the use of super conductors. And who ever heard of a super conductor being in a car? Okay, okay, I read too many science magazines, but the point is that the old idea makes a tremendous difference on the jalopy with a direct grounding wire because even if it currently had a direct grounding wire it probably is worn down and has extra resistance, just like the newer car that may not even have the direct ground.

Now, honestly, to truly have your jalopy, new car, or truck balanced with an extra grounding wire new car you’ll want to listen to your engine as is indicated by middle of my 12 gauge speaker wire article, or if you'd like to understand from a scientific but controversial view read my spark plug gap article, but that information about listening to your engine is only a start. You'll do this if you really care about your truck's or car's miles per gallon. Feel free to click around to read your complete balancing guide to have your engine powerful like the muscle car’s of old; to make that jalopy have the power, smoothness and efficiency like it was young again (Or, wildly effect the performance of your newer ride!); maybe even to make you consider taking that jalopy title away from your car and return it to the feeling, the power of a well tuned engine. And understand this: spend less in gas! Also, there are a few more tips about this available through an unlikely source. Check out the 12 gauge speaker wire article! Return to home: Truck's or Car's Miles Per Gallon

For a series of products, 12 gauge speaker, or otherwise, click on the picture link below. Run a search for 12 gauge speaker wire, which is a convenient way to run multiple grounding wires to get that engine more powerful and smooth. Or, after clicking on the picture link run a search for a Wire Sniper to make installation of any wire easier. Under the tools menu there is a variety of automotive tools, especially dealing with car batteries and wiring:

The Transmission Cooler Upgrade

2008-08-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

The Transmission Cooler Upgrade

When you know something in theory it is one thing, but when you've upgraded your own car with a transmission cooler, it changes everything.

The feeling you can expect after installing a transmission cooler:

Last Saturday (now summer last year, and I still see benefits!), an automotive mentor and I installed a transmission cooler. The car was always smooth in it's shifting from one gear to the next, but after the transmission cooler, it was so smooth that you could hear the engine change pitch, but the feel of the gear shift was swallowed on all but the 1st to 2nd gear shift, unless the vehicle was accelerating quickly, then it was smoother.

Have you ever upgraded your tranny's oil from regular to fully synthetic and felt that incredible performance boost? The power of the vehicle goes way up because of the smoother oil, and the shifts are just a dream? Well, imagine making that difference twice and you'll know what a transmission cooler feels like.

A couple of tips that my mentor gave me:

You need to know which line from the tranny is going into the radiator as the high pressure versus the return. You always place the high pressure line to the higher side of the transmission cooler. That way gravity will help take the low side, with the now cooler oil back to the transmission. If you didn't know already know this: transmissions cool themselves via lines that go into a partitioned portion of the radiator. Initially, when the thermostat in the engine first opens up and the radiator fluid starts going through the radiator for the first time it'll actually heat up the transmission keeping the engine from heating up as quickly. In colder environments this is ideal as the tranny's friction will help the engine heat up sooner, but for short trips in a normal environment a transmission oil cooler will actually allow an engine to get up to the peak operating temperature sooner and the sooner an engine is at its peak temperature the better your mileage whether we’re talking about a car’s or truck's miles per gallon. Extremely cooler environments however can damage a transmission suggesting warming up a vehicle before driving or having a plug device to keep the engine warm. In most areas, as long as it isn't the dead of winter, a transmission cooler is an upgrade.

Most kits miss a little of what you need for a transmission oil cooler upgrade. It may be necessary to have a few extra clamps and metal tubes that can be used to splice two lines together, but this kit looks better than most I've presented at AutoBravado over the years, not to mention that it's less expensive by half then what I paid for mine: Mishimoto Universal Transmission Cooler

Likely efficiency effects and other positive side effects from your new transmission cooler:

The engine actually gets up to the optimal running temperature more quickly now that part of the heat isn't just getting removed from the radiator’s coolant side and transferred to the transmission fluid side of the radiator. Once warmed up, the engine actually runs a little cooler, which puts it at the exact temperature necessary that has attained my record highs in getting good car's miles per gallon. When I haven't driven for a couple hours the engine also starts warmer than in the past so it retains the right temperature longer and strains less because of a smoother shift between gears. A smoother shift in gears means less of a beating is put on the engine and a longer lasting gear box means savings down the road.

Try another article on Transmission Coolers by Auto Bravado at my new blog!

Remember AutoBravado's goal: The Car's or Truck's Miles per Gallon: We all want better numbers, but do we really know how to get them? Let us learn that to get results is to have fun! There are tricks that it took many mechanics decades of experience to figure out and perfect. The car’s or truck’s miles per gallon of the vehicle you own relies on more factors than most mechanics even know about. There are always new factors that are discovered on this amazing subject of your car’s miles per gallon. It is this website’s commitment to stay ahead of the discoveries and keep you well informed. Whether you’re after a little more power or you’re after better efficiency did you know that some solutions will do both for you? It is a basic concept of physics. If the engine is singing the sweet song of being tuned and other factors are in place, it will, by the laws of physics, require less fuel to get the same results. Don‘t worry you don‘t need to know physics, it has been already been figured out for you by AutoBravado.com! Click here for the most recent article.

NGK Spark Plug Advantage

2008-08-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

The NGK Spark Plug Advantage,
as compared to Bosch, another leading competitor.
Both have their advantages, be educated as to which is best.

The moment I got my hands on these NGK spark plugs I knew there was something different. Not having looked at Champion’s recently, the stud that has electricity to prong that goes through the core of the spark plug is large, which allowing for imperfections or impurities in the design of the iridium or platinum plug makes for a less reliably perfect arc of electricity of the appropriately distanced gap. You see, if the stud is wide, and if electricity will always follow the path of least resistance you can’t prove that the arc will actually be the .044 gap that most car’s and truck’s engines require. Note: it is necessary to look up the gap specifications for each vehicle. The shortest electrical path therefore, is not guaranteed as it could go to one part of the stud or another.

Additionally, lightning, or a controlled spark in your NGK plug, is the means for delivering that all important catalyst, which allows for combustion. So, part of the NGK spark plug advantage is that it has a small stud. Having had lightning as part of AutoBravado’s study and education. Lightning appears to want, for a lack of a better verb, to want to strike objects that are either pointy, or gradually rounded to a ball. Sorry, folks, that means our heads our shaped just right to get hit by lightning, but don’t you fear, electricity likes the shortest path with the least resistance and we are hardly like metal being low resistance and we being of high electrical resistance.

The NGK Spark plug, if looked at with careful attention is ideally shaped. Auto Bravado has observed this in his studies with the Hansen planetarium. From the beginning, my promise has been that the collected experience here will tell you what is best and keep the physics out of it, but knowing a bit can really help you make the right choice wether it’s best to buy NGK Spark Plug’s or one’s made by Bosch.

The NGK Spark Plug and the Bosch each have their own advantages. For example, the Bosch is a bit more rounded with its point being protected made of some durable material, while the NGK spark plug is more pointed. The NGK spark plug has more resistance, a believed component for best operation of Japanese made engines by many in the industry. The NGK spark plug advantage over the Bosch is durability. As time goes on the prongs will slowly wear away. In Bosch’s protective sheath the platinum end goes deeper and deeper as it wears allowing for no reliable way to maintain the original gap. As discussed on the spark plug gap page, occasionally going through your engine and having everything re-gapped, makes replacing your NGK spark plugs have the advantage over Bosch’s design. You see, lacking a protective sheath, which gave Bosch the rounded shape and also takes away from your ability re-gap the Bosch as the electrode wears down. A gapping tool can’t measure below the surface of the protective sheath. This is the chief durability advantage of the NGK spark plug. No protective sheath means that as it wears down you can just re-gap it.

My friend, you can find your quality, German Bosch Platinums here for less (and NGK too! I tend to buy those more often for my own cars), even with shipping, then I can buy it from the local store! Happened to me in Jan. of '09: I've just finished being glad that I bought 10 for a 6 cylinder. Confused? I'll explain. I lost 1 under the hood somewhere and I measured the ohms of resistance on all of them to find 3 pairs of equal ohms resistance plugs, which I set on opposite sides of the V engine so that the lowest resistance plugs matched with the longest wire, which makes more resistance. And vice versa, the highest resistance met up with the lowest resistance, or shorter wires. I found this new new technique to have quicker results than tinkering with the spark plug gap in every plug off of the manufacturer specifications, but sometimes on tougher jobs you'll still need what your learned here on the controversial side of gapping to obtain the smoothest engine you did ever hear or feel. I know many mechanics that tell me I do too much when I do a tune up, but maybe they just need to realize that's why I'll make an identical car beat theirs off the line!

Much of AutoBravado's most efficient marketing time for this website and my other website projects was made possible by Mozilla Firefox. I suggest them to you in thanks for the free help to Auto Bravado.

Dodge Hemi Spark Plug Wires

2008-08-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

We want the best for our spark plug wires for our Dodge Hemi’s, right? This is where to find your Dodge Hemi spark plug wire’s depending on which type of electrical system you are after.

We all would like to have the best, but some of us need to be cost effective, durable parts, which still perform. Some of you came here for the best of best despite any financial cost. If that’s the case you can simply take AutoBravado.com’s top pick for the best Dodge Hemi spark plug wire, which is Bosch's Dodge Hemi spark plug wire or you read on and make the informed decision that some of you are after.

The practiced age old advice I’d give to the money conscience, but well-informed consumer is to replace any vehicle’s, including the Dodge Hemi’s, spark plug wires with what Bosch makes for their ignition set. Lifetime warranties, a fairly low ohms of resistance, with Opti-Layer Mag technology which provides the following: stainless steel Mag winding (allows for longer and stronger electrical burst), a Kevlar reinforced core (protects the electricity carrying component from breaking with all of the heating in cooling in today’s engines), a layer of insulation for electronic interference protection, and the age-old goody of being sealed in silicon to keep the elements of the world out.

The Dodge Hemi Spark Plug Wires from Bosch bottom line:

What I'm about to say is necessary to the bottom line even if it's tough to understand. Think about it, they have technology to not allow other electrical or magnetic forces from getting in the way to a free flow of electricity for best combustion. This technology critical and proven by AutoBravado's experience, ohms of resistance, and interference tests.

Why the Dodge Hemi Spark Plug Wires from Bosch are better than some more expensive sets, which are custom:

If you’d like to understand why having electronic shielding, which is often not as nice in a custom set, for the best results in the Dodge Hemi spark plug wires it is actually pretty simple. A professor of science in a university one day noticed that his compass for another show of science earlier in the day changed its alignment every time electricity flowed through an electrical circuit that the compass happened to be above. Electrical components like your Dodge Hemi spark plug wires put out electromagnetic energy, which not only will create a small magnetic pulse, but converts back into interfering electrical energy in another wire. Despite this interference it is best to not just remember to replace one of your Dodge Hemi’s spark plug wires at a time, but to keep them from crossing and have them aligned one after another, which prevents, to put in another way, electrical bleed over, versus reinforcing electro-magnetic energy from one Dodge Hemi spark plug wire to the next. To learn more about how to test your Dodge Hemi spark plug wire’s click on the text link, or to learn how you can adjust the overall truck’s electrical resistance lower by reading up on the Jalopy and 12 gauge speaker wire pages.

Note: I used to have this totally amazing affiliate that sold the the best cold air intakes (for your Dodge Hemi too) by K&N on this article, because they're the only company that'll produce cold air intakes that have ready to go plug-ins for all your sensors and what you need to have your vehicle running legal. Also, I recommend K&N cold air intakes because from the industry experts, they are the only company that tests their design to be sure it'll actually help the car have more horsepower. AutoBravado's public statement is a commitment to better truck or car miles per gallon, but many of those things make our cars have more power and more fun too!

Email me at AutoBravado.com@gmail.com if you find a great place to get K&N cold air intakes or leave a comment on my blog about any of your experiences that fit with the article on that page, for example tell me about your Dodge Hemi spark plug wire experience, I appreciate all of your input!

12 Gauge Speaker Wire

2008-08-07T18:06:00.001-07:00

An alternate use you wouldn’t expect for high grade 12 gauge speaker wire:

To those of you who don’t just want to buy what you’re after and you want to see how this relates to theme of this site - your truck’s and car’s miles per gallon - the 12 gauge speaker has more uses then you would ever think of. Sure, it will help you with the sound of your stereo over what comes with the common theatre style stereo in your home. Sure, most car’s sound will be much improved especially of you use a sound specific type of 12 gauge speaker wire like gold, which excepts less interference then the standard material from other electronic sources, but there is still one more use, which won’t be obvious to most of you.

The reality is, is that most 12 gauge speaker wire increase your truck’s or car’s miles per gallon too. Splitting the two sides of the 12 gauge speaker wire apart near the engine you can bolt it down to a close proximity of to of the engines cylinders. Once this is accomplished run the more conveniently conjoined wires to the negative terminal of your battery. This additional ground will increase power and reduce the electrical resistance for your spark plugs/timing systems to work a top performance. It even will get some fuel injectors to run stronger. Some of you may want to be more careful with the gas pedal after this upgrade! Repeat this until all of cylinders have a 12 gauge speaker wire connected to bolts near each cylinder. When running your engine after this upgrade it is a good idea to listen to each cylinder with a heavy metal tool to listen for each pitch being the same uniformly. If it sounds duller one that means it’s weaker; conversely if it’s a brighter sound it’s running stronger or faster. You may have to look into replacing those specific cylinder’s spark plug wires to get them running at peak efficiency, or you may need to look into the spark plug gap measurements. One or the other is off.

Please note: If this was the case before the upgrade get your engine running right and learn more about how on the previous two links before finalizing this upgrade. Whenever you upgrade your grounding system remember two rules: connect it to the negative power terminal of your battery and if that added ground throws off the balance of the engine, you need to install more 12 gauge speaker wires to where the engine is sounding duller.

Here is the regular use of 12 gauge speaker wire and the advantages of different materials, clarity versus power:

Gold is the obvious first choice for the best 12 gauge speaker wire, but that isn’t the whole story. Some wire let’s more power get through to the speakers for more sound, while others, like gold provide clarity. If you’ve ever had a cousin, brother, sister, or anyone else in your life who’s spent a lot of time listening to loud music, then they probably want the 12 gauge speaker wire for the loudest sound possible rather than the clarity. They may think they can hear the improved quality of sound via their gold 12 gauge speaker wires, but the reality is they spent more money than their going tone deaf ears need. Let’s talk about the better cheaper materials for them. It makes a great gift and saves you money!

To see the newest Auto Bravado article, or see a list of all articles available on the right, either way, simply click on highlighted words above, or consider the history behind behind this article: Jalopy: The Great American.

Find wire snippers and strippers below or for a series of products, 12 gauge speaker wire, or otherwise, click on the picture link below and run a search. Or, look under the tools menu where there is a variety of automotive tools, which especially deal with car batteries and wiring:

AutoBravado's Spark Plug Wire's Perspective

2008-08-07T17:35:00.001-07:00

Spark Plug Wires:

Do you want the gateway to efficiency, or poor gas mileage?
Do you want to know the electrical path to cooler running engines? Who wants a hot engine, which leads to engine damage?

Many go for the cheapest wires, if that’s what they can afford. If you don't cheap skate your electrical paths, the engine won't cheap skate you.. Others will spend the money on whatever is more expensive hoping that it’ll work better. Cost can have a reflection on quality, but wouldn’t you want to know for yourself what makes a spark plug wire good?

Spark plug wires and their several points of quality or considerations:

How good is the warranty? Is it limited or lifetime? If they’re sturdy enough limited is good enough, but sometimes there are very nice spark plug wires, which are less sturdy that could use the lifetime warranty.
How many ohms of resistance? This is the best way to know if a spark plug wire is good, but sometimes you just have to buy the more expensive components and it’ll get you less electrical resistance. As a rule you'll get less ohms of resistance in your spark plug wires if they're installed as much as possible in parallel to the other wires coming to the distributor cap. (Have them join together as they make their way through the engine compartment to the distributor cap.)
Is it of sturdy construction? When you pull the boot off, will the wire be torn asunder? This is more likely to be the danger if the spark plug wire is unnaturally thin. Now you wish you had a lifetime warranty didn’t you?
Know by the performance if you've made an improvement:

This might sound incredibly goofy, but there are uncountable times the people have bought the better spark plug only to have a down grade in performance and not notice. A critical component to knowing if it’s right to your car is have a feel for the car before the work is done and test whether you notice the difference. We’ve all known the people who just don’t have the sensitivity to know whether their new spark plug wires have even made a difference. That’s why countless stores across the nation will sell lower end spark plug wires and totally get away with killing the nation’s gas mileage, and murdering your car’s performance.

If you are one of those people who don’t have the sensitivity to know whether the car is any better or not after your work is complete. You may either rely on more observant friends, or you may do a couple simple tests. Before the work is completed test how fast your car accelerates over a short period. For safety, it may be wise to invite a friend to work the stop watch. Some might say, test the 0-60, but that’s a sure fire way to catch a cops attention.

The Test:
It is a whole lot easier to just drive a little slow on the freeway, say 55 miles per hour, and at a designated point and accelerate in a manual transmissions 4th gear (2nd to highest), or turn off an automatic transaxle‘s overdrive. If your car doesn‘t have an overdrive, just punch it.

Conditions for your test:
Have the outside temperature equal for both test (affects the gasoline/air mixture).
Have the engine temp. approximately the same
Use the same section of road both times.

Test those new spark plug wires! Please, remember to install them one at a time to keep you from mixing up the order.
You’re ready to find out your 55 to 65 time!

I've heard some mechanics say that they don't even bother with the spark plug gap, Read this article and learn how important this is really is. Or, read up on Auto Bravado's review on Bosch's Spark Plug Wire line in the Dodge Hemi Spark Plug Wire page.
Return to Home: Truck's or Car's Miles Per Gallon

Much of AutoBravado's most efficient marketing time for this website and my other website projects was made possible by Mozilla Firefox. I suggest them to you in thanks for the free help to Auto Bravado.

Spark Plug Gap: The Controversial Side

2008-02-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

Auto Bravado, author of http://autobravado.blogspot.com/ has been told time and time again by auto store attendants, shop teachers, and others with the performance and efficiency hobbyists, such as me, that you look up the spark plug gap recommended by the manufacturer and you unerringly stick to it.

This is usually correct, but I'm going to offer you the the other perspective, even the controversial side of spark plug gaps. If you'd prefer an article which covers the basics first, see spark plug gap. I bring up to you case A, a 1999 Mercury Sable. Recommended material? Platinum. I bring up platinum as some mid 1990's and earlier Fords, Mercury is manufactured by the same company, don't work well with platinum. This station wagon, with every spark plug at exactly 0.044 inches went from running weak but smooth on its old not gapped spark plugs, to running rough and shaky on its newly gapped spark plugs! In order to balance this engine out, because anything but perfection is insufficient to please me in such a matter as the smoothness of an engine, which leads into its longevity, I had to balance the different amount of electrical resistance from each spark plug wire with the resistance in each spark plug. You see, the longer the wire, the more resistance, just as the bigger the gap in the spark plug gap, the more resistance. The 3 wires that went to the far side of the V6, which had longer wires, each required a spark plug gap of 0.042, while on the short side, the spark plug gaps had to vary between 0.046 to 0.048.

In case B, I was testing whether a weaker sparking plug, like an NGK spark plug could function at the same level as a Bosch spark plug. You see, though NGK makes a longer lasting spark plug, Bosch makes a stronger one, but they have a higher fail rate in the manufacturing (complete article: The NGK Spark Plug Advantage). In every balancing case in a 2004 Nissan Frontier, V6, not turbo, a spark plug gap of 0.042, made the platinum NGK run as strong as the Bosch, proven by it running smoothly side by side with its counterpart under the same hood! Please note that the manufacture recommends a spark plug gap of 0.044 inches in the 2004 Nissan Frontier, V6, not turbo, and this should also be true of most other Nissan Frontiers.

My friend, you can find your quality, German Bosch Platinums here for less, even with shipping, then I can buy it from the local store! Happened to me in Jan. of '09: I've just finished being glad that I bought 10 for a 6 cylinder. Confused? I'll explain. I lost 1 under the hood somewhere and I measured the ohms of resistance on all of them to find 3 pairs of equal ohms resistance plugs, which I set on opposite sides of the V engine so that the lowest resistance plugs matched with the longest wire, which makes more resistance. And vice versa, the highest resistance met up with the lowest resistance, or shorter wires. I found this new new technique to have quicker results than tinkering with the spark plug gap in every plug off of the manufacturer specifications, but sometimes on tougher jobs you'll still need what your learned here on the controversial side of gapping to obtain the smoothest engine you did ever hear or feel. I know many mechanics that tell me I do too much when I do a tune up, but maybe they just need to realize that's why I'll make an identical car beat theirs off the line!

This rounds out my discussion on the controversial side of spark plug gaps, but feel free to check out related articles on wires on: spark plug wires and dodge hemi spark plug wires, or stay a while and make some comments on pages of my blog, whether you disagree on some point or have something to add, I'm all ears. Do you want to comment to me directly? Email me at autobravado.com@gmail.com.

Synthetic Motor Oil on Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

I just bought a rose for my Valentine today. The poetic words that came to mind were, "One rose for a singular passion, YOU!" Unfortunately, as Auto Bravado, author of http://autobravado.blogspot.com/, I also have a passion for cars. And before tonight's well wishes and truly meant words, "I love you," will come the all important fully synthetic oil change, none of that blended stuff, because I won't drive my love (my girlfriend) in my other passion, the car, one more mile without a synthetic motor oil change! You can soon check out my full article on the subject at my website on this page: (Coming soon! Hey, now it is here! Synthetic Motor Oil).Go ahead click here now, unless you'd like to hear more about my passions on this lovely Valentine's Day!

~To those of you who think of today as Single's Awareness Day, I've been there, don't give up hope!

This may be from a man's point of view, but one of the most fun experiences I have in my car is when my Flowmaster muffler, and Magnaflow exhaust rumble when I speed off and my date says, "Wow! That was fun!" You see, you really can be passionate about both. To read this full articles check out: Magnaflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler for more details. As much as I enjoy this experience, my Flowmaster exhaust may still be loud, but the acceleration just won't be as fast without my synthetic motor oil being changed.

Haven't you ever wondered why that is? Why does your car or truck spend more gas when it needs the ol' lube job? No matter how good my synthetic motor oil by Mobile 1 is, it'll still get sludge in it over time. Sludge increases the friction of numerous important parts in your engine. Also, given too much time, that filter will actually slowly decrease the flow speed of any great synthetic motor oil, because its metaphorical arteries will be too clogged while the Mobile 1 filter will be trying too hold that sludge back out of your engine. And when you're clogged, where's the passion?

Why synthetic motor oil? Some people can't feel their car run smoother using synthetic motor oil, but trust Auto Bravado's experience, it's making it smoother and for the better whether you can feel it or not, and that means longer engine life, less fuel consumed, and less frequent oil changes than the usual every 3000 miles rule. Some cars can go safely as much as 7000 miles with Mobile 1 synthetic motor oil and a Mobile 1 filter, but I usually recommend 5000 miles to be on the safe side because there are engines out there like mine that sludge up a little faster.

Why Mobile 1? I've tried Valvoline, Coastal, and other big names in the synthetic motor oil varieties, and even more brands in the mineral based variety, and nothing prevents sludge build up and causes longer lasting performance than Mobile 1. Now, I realize there are even more brands out there, and if you'd like to tell me about them I'll even post a quote from one of you to make the reader's of this and Auto Bravado more broadened, email me at autobravado.com@gmail.com.

Remember; check out my website for an article on this subject and more: (coming soon!) now here! Synthetic Motor Oil. Or, check out what's newest to AutoBravado, learn more about synthetic motor oil, and how other fluids effect fuel mileage.

Happy Valentine's Day!
Oh, and check out 2009's Valentine's Day work: Nostalgia about long ago love is in the comments, and reflections on old work in The High Performance Air Filter because of recent work with K&N Performance Filtration.

Magnaflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler Advantages, Perks, and one temporary "draw back"

2007-11-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

1st off, I've always wanted a Magnaflow exhaust or a Flowmaster muffler upgrade for my vehicles, especially in regards to the Flowmaster muffler. I, as the web master of Auto Bravado feel compelled to say that I feel less an expert in this area because it is one of the few things that I'm not trained and qualified to install myself. However, I've done a lot of reading and carefully picked my own Magnaflow exhaust upgrades based on what I learned, between Magnaflow exhaust tubes from the catalytic converter to the Flowmaster muffler and nice chrome tip, I feel the difference from my 2 and a 1/4 inches versus the standard 1 3/4" every time I start my car. Before my Flowmaster muffler and Magnaflow exhaust had been installed for a while and calmed down by having a nice carbon particles leave the engine and fill in all the cracks on a molecular level and deaden the sound, any of my neighbors or friends that were waiting for me to come home would hear me come into the neighborhood too. Relax though, they didn’t notice me if they were in their homes, usually.

The Magnflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler gave me the incredible feel, the power, and the joy of a lot more acceleration off the line and better acceleration at all the lower speeds. The Magnaflow exhaust and Flowmaster muffler were installed by a great mechanic who was an incredible welding artist if you ask me. I knew that the main difference that’d depend on brand a lot was the catalytic converter, so he left that up to me at a later time. Later, when I realized I didn’t have a fancy Magnaflow catalytic converter or even a Flowmaster for that matter I was angry. It’s amazing how we’ll unfairly blame mechanics for things. He did for me exactly as we had discussed. Anyway, back the beginning: he asked if I was willing to sacrifice on sound. I said how much, and he said some to a lot. Until all the parts settled over a year I sometimes wore hearing protection, but realize my hearing is more acute than most. It wasn't a small upgrade. I asked for the highest flow reasonably possible and I had it.

I told him I wanted a cat and back system, meaning I wanted the catalytic converter to be a high flow and everything behind it to be 2 1/4 inches, that 1/2 inch difference is wonderful! I told him I was willing to sacrifice on the sound, but what would I get power wise? He said I'd have a lot more low end power - you know street driving, but that I'd only do a little better on the freeway. He further explained that instead of dropping from 75 to 57 going up a local mountain on the freeway, that I'd drop to like 67. His prediction was exactly true for my LSI 2.0 liter Toyota Celica engine that they also put in all Chevy Prisms and Toyota Corollas, but only a few get the LSI engine. Well, he was exactly right unless I punched it in a lower gear while on the freeway! So fun, and so bad for the car! I finally agreed to go for it. Between the Magnaflow behind the catalytic converter that wasn't upgraded like I'd originally thought I’d asked, but they hadn't charged me for a catalytic converter either. So, I later remembered I didn’t know what I’d wanted for the catalytic converter, but between the Flowmaster muffler, which has an incredible anti-resonance chamber, and the Magnaflow exhaust tubes I felt like a Pontiac commercial: Driving Excitement!

That anti-resonance chamber for the Flowmaster muffler is designed to both get the most flow possible while still cutting back on sound. That isn't enough when you're opening up your throttle on the high way with your car filled with people (at times like these I definitely put in hearing protection and offered it to any one in the back, especially the man or woman above the Flowmaster muffler - ouch), but for normal every-day stuff the sound was alright. You're only choice is to suffer a little as it breaks in or wear hearing protection. Depending on your perspective, if you have less sensitive hearing than I you may just love your Magnaflow exhaust and Flowmaster upgrade. I'm looking forward to learning how to add sound deadening material to my trunk before I upgrade to a tuned exhaust and a very much higher flow catalytic converter. 600 CFM's of air going through versus 200 or so, that's an upgrade. My friend Spencer taught me about how to deaden the sound by putting a layer of something or other beneath the carpet of the trunk the night he let me drive the highest end Pontiac Firebird, an enjoyable roar, but it could use some deadening of sound. To all who have read from me before and look forward to more, I have more learning to do, but when I do, I’ll write more.

This has been an article on:

Magnaflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler Advantages, Perks,
and one temporary "draw back"

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Auto Bravado's Transmission Oil Cooler Story

2007-10-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

The gear shifter twanged and the words in my head spoke volumes of fear, “The transmission and the oil it’s soaked in is just cooler than it should be, right?”

The ice had been so bad on the streets that I hoped between all of the traffic on the freeway and the heat of the all the engines barreling along the road would have cleared off the ice here. The lightly darkened cement appeared mostly clear of not just ice but cars. There was just that certain feeling of expectation in the air, like something was going to go wrong. Fearing a mistake like something was about to happen, I merged with the almost non-existent traffic. Oh, was it cold. It was like death had fallen on to this freeway like a Ghost town that’s haunted. The ice was mostly clear, but I figured there was black ice where the road merely appeared wet. So, I thought I’d take it slow on these highway lanes, which were so cold they were more reminiscent of Chicago, then Salt Lake.

I was going from 3rd to 4th gear as I got up to what I thought was a safe speed when I, and my 89 Nissan Pulsar had not only merged on the freeway, but it had merged with the deathly cold and still freeway. The shifter made a sound like a twanging southern instrument. It felt like a rubber band snapping. A sound that was all too familiar from the twang of snapping rubber bands as I delivered the cities news on the biggest paper days. Except this cold transmission’s twang reverberated in your bones on such a larger scale than I could have expected in those long cold newspaper mornings. I am brought back to memories where the cooler mornings would randomly snap one rubber band, and sometimes a quick second and third rubber band that was stretched too taut around a Sunday paper.

I feared that the metal itself in my transmission had snapped in the cold, if only I’d known, I would have installed a transmission oil cooler too prevent all of it! Wait, it is winter, which makes no sense. Maybe if I’d protected my transmission with an oil cooler in the summer and shut if off in the winter I would have protected it! My mind was racing, thinking the right thought, thinking the opposite thought; I wasn’t being sure of what was right. It had been just last week that a used truck customer was looking for the Chevy truck with the biggest transmission oil cooler package available. “What if I’d had that tonight? It would have kept it from breaking!” I thought. I knew this thought was entirely contrary to reality, and that my some inane thoughts were on repeat; it was sub zero temperature and a transmission oil cooler wouldn’t have helped at all! But, what if I had installed it in the summer to prevent wear and tear and what if I had warmed up my engine this late winter, freezing night! What if. . . what if, terrible words I had just used. What if. I leaves the mind hanging and had left me nearly bereft of what to do.

Well, with or without a transmission oil cooler to help me I had to snap to, as the military says, and focus on what was at hand. I knew a lot about conserving inertia from wild maneuvers in my Indy Car computer games. I took the shortest path possible to keep moving in a straighter line, using my blinker and hoping the road stayed clear to just get to the off ramp. 55, 45, 37 miles per hour and I’d made it to the off ramp. I wondered for a moment, if I had to stop on this ramp where would it be best, then the best solution occurred to me. If the light is green I could make it to a big hill and coast miles closer to home! Could I have had any worse car trouble? I really should warm up my car, not just for the engine but for the transmission when it was cooler? Sub-zero temperatures!

With these useless thoughts of how the transmission oil overtaking me could have helped me, I coasted down the ramp, where I found my light green! Luckily, I was making it thru a six way intersection of Salt Lake’s spaghetti bowl freeway area, looked at the odometer and thought, “Despite this cooler night, and gummed up transmission oil, how far can I coast towards home before I’m stopped!” With thoughts of momentum or police stopping if I drove too wildly, I kept the engine running for optimal power steering and brake control. The transmission and it’s oil being in such a cooler and broken state, I had to keep the clutch depressed or the engine would trundle to a stop. I was still hoping against logic, that maybe if my transmission just warmed up enough it would work again!

6.2 miles later, a long hill, and car honking its horn and passing me for going 25 mph in a 40 mph zone, the car had stopped for doing its best up a long, but gentle hill. A cell phone call that pride made me take 15 minutes longer than necessary to call and 20 minutes later, I was home, my car was abandoned and I was safely warming up, wanting some nice hot chocolate.

Later, after a local Police Warning
And my car had been towed by my other car, a 4 cylinder car
– scary -
. . .

The mechanic said he had never seen the type of metallic breaks in the relationship between a gear box, the transmission, and the shifter happen like that. He really wanted to know what I’d done to it! I explained the cold and not warming up my car, and said, “Ooooohhhhh, you don’t want to do that!” in his sing-song Korean accent – wow he was good with import cars! I asked about a transmission cooler being installed along with everything else and he said that with my manual transaxle and how little fluid there was in there that it was just important to warm up the car and then, no worries.

Despite this vehicle not being designed for it, I’ve ever since wondered about transmission oil coolers, and what kind of cars or trucks should have them. The answer? Any larger vehicle whether it is a manual or an automatic could use one, but for it to work on smaller vehicles it tends to require it to be an automatic for the design to be compatible with a transmission oil cooler. I had an amazing mentor for finding these and other solutions for the best car’s miles-per-gallon possible. He was a nut like myself for this stuff. For an analysis, benefits, and some how to see the: Transmission Cooler Upgrade.

Between those Indy Car games and being I self proclaimed athletic driver I had learned a lot about conserving my forward momentum. This experience taught me how to have a few more wild adventures on purpose with the car off taking my 1994 Ford Escort to a record of 39.97 miles per gallon, which required me to turn off my car whenever I was waiting at an intersection, *stopping the engine in stop and go traffic where there was truly no flow of traffic, and mostly driving on the highway for the whole take of gas. These days, with just a little application of the knowledge above and many more modifications and a superior Toyota Celica engine design to work off of, I’ve in September only, gotten 55 miles per gallon in 2006 and 56 in 2007. In 2007 my little 1999 Chevy Prism even had a heavy load to transport unlike the light load in 2006, meaning I may have been able to do even better with my further modifications.

I still look forward to a high flow catalytic converter, I’m just waiting for just the right one, that and a transmission oil cooler are the next modifications for my little car, which comes standard with a Toyota Corolla Engine, but since it’s the LSI model, it is the same engine with such advances as having no spark plug wires, having a coil on every plug, just like the Toyota Celica

* Starters don’t wear out like people think they do if they take care of all of their electrical equipment with extra grounds, as explained in my website on the history of The Great American Jalopy page, and the specifics on the 12 gauge speaker wire page. You can also assist your ignition, and prevent your starter from working as long or as hard by looking into the best Spark Plug Wires page, or by looking out for the most endurable spark plug: the NGK spark plug, or an alternatively great spark plug, the Bosch spark plug page that is still coming, and install them with the lessons of the spark plug gap page in mind. All of these pages and more can be found on AutoBravado.com

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If you found me in a search engine it is partly in thanks to Search Engines, but also to directories who helped me be higher in the Search Engines. If you need a directory for your site, this is two of the places that helped me: Directory Plus; Web Directory.