Car Tuning,Car Finance,Auto Loans

Archive for October, 2009

MOMO has long held the title of the worlds best interior auto accessories, but there is some competition coming from SHUTT. MOMO shift knobs are very popular worldwide and can be found in all types of rides. SHUTT is very popular in South America and has outsold MOMO, SPARCO, and GRANT for many years, there business started in 1993 and has recently come to the US market in the last two years. Both MOMO and SHUTT are of the highest quality auto accessories only using the best materials in their designs. It seems that the only area the two companies don’t agree is price, with SHUTT consistently coming in around 20% less.

SHUTT was at SEMA 2008 and had a variety of gear shift knobs available for viewing. Made from such materials as leather, carbon fiber, aluminum, chromed details and quality laser imprinted logos. The shifter knobs were very attractive and had a great feel to them…very comfortable. The leather was thick and durable, as it was in all the products. The shift knobs attach to your current shifter lever by way of set screws set around the base usually hidden behind a screw on base…function incorporated into the fashion. SHUTT has several leather shifter boots to go along with your new shift knob, that way you can complete the look.

You may have seen SHUTT ads in some auto mags like import tuner, car stereo tuning, full power and more. And I am sure you will see more in the future, SHUTT will only grow as word gets out that there is another top quality brand out there. SHUTT added a car audio line that will rock your world, 12 inch subwoofers that come in various watts and ohms, a component set and two different lines of amps, one of which is digital.

Overall both companies have very high quality parts, very unique designs, new models coming out every season…so why choose SHUTT over the well known MOMO? Well for one Shutt has a lifetime warranty, I could not gather any info online about the MOMO warranty. SHUTT prices were 20% less overall and in this economy everyone wants to get a quality product at a lower price. MOMO products are the established company and that alone can sway some buyers. Although there is something to be said about a company that will jump up and give serious competition to MOMO, that might sway younger car enthusiast to give SHUTT a try.

After much research I found that Shutt was not that easily located here in the US yet, I called several accessory shops nearby and most had not even heard of the brand yet. The only place that looks reputable is www.shuttusa.com, other than that a few other online sites and that’s it right now. Of course the manufacturers sites are nice but they do not allow any purchases. So you can call and check your local shops but you will probably be back online so remember that site name.

Anyways I can’t wait to go to next years SEMA show, the only thing that would have been better is if this economy wasn’t in a funk so I could have had more money to blow in Vegas. Until next time “tune it in” and have fun.

Tuning the exhaust for a car can make a big difference on how your car performs. The normal exhaust fitted by the car manufactures are normally a compromise between performance and production costs. The standard exhaust system is made to a budget and to keep the exhaust quiet which also makes the exhaust fairly restrictive.

By changing the system for a less restrictive type of exhaust should give you some gain in your cars performance. One of the first things to look at is the the manifold section of the exhaust. These are normally made of cast iron or even if they are made of steel will tend to have quite sharp bends in them. This can restrict the gas flow quite a lot. Checking that the ports of the exhaust match up with the cylinder head ports can make quite a difference to performance. If you are intending to keep the original manifold, then the simple use of a small grinding stone on a drill to match the two ports up can make a big advantage.

The design of the manifold already fitted to your car also makes a difference as well. The four-into-one or four-into-two-into-one makes, are generally a better design than the other types. So if your car is fitted with one of the first two types you might not have to change them.

The next stage is to look at the silencers on the car. The normal silencers will tend to be pretty restrictive as they tend to push the gases through a U-turn to get more silencing from the silencer baffles to make the car quiet.

Fitting a straight through silencer instead with maybe a slightly larger bore, can help eliminate some of these restrictions. Beware about going too large though, as some back pressure is needed to help with the performance. If you loose all of the back pressure, you could actually loose power rather than gain it. The exhaust has to be tuned for the car and having some back pressure going back towards the engine actually helps to pull the rest of the exhaust gases from the engine. That is why you will find cars with no exhausts do not perform well at all. You may have been in a position in the past where your exhaust has broken when you have been driving and you can tell how much power is suddenly lost.

You will also have to check that the new silencer is road legal as these silencers tend to make more noise than the standard boxes. Expect to loose some cabin comfort because of the increased noise as well. Some people like to look at this noise as just a sporting or throaty sound but on long journeys this sound can get a little tiresome.

For greater improvement still you may want to change the manifold to a free flow tubular type. For normal road use it is best to try and aim for a system that will improve the cars’ mid range power for better acceleration and overtaking capacity rather than the top end power.