Archive for December, 2010
How To Buy Super Sized Rims For Your Car
In some parts of car culture the size of automotive rims has gotten out of control. Over the last few years rims 24inches or greater have become more and more common on high end street machines and some SUVs sport gargantuan wheels and tires. This has caused a ripple effect throughout the entire automotive community particularly when it comes to import tuners. While in the 1990s it used to be considered excessive to have rims above 17inches in size nowadays 18s are the norm from the factory and 19 and 20inch rims are common.
You might have felt the pressure to upsize your imports wheels and tires whether as a result of this rim size arms race or simply because you want a different look for your car. While in general it is not a bad thing to fit your car with bigger rims there are some guidelines that you should keep in mind while doing so in order to make sure that your car rides as well as it looks.
The first thing to consider is your cars suspension. The engineers who designed your vehicle had very specific wheel sizes in mind when they chose the components that underpin its suspension. Larger wheels are usually heavier than stock and this extra weight can slow down the car as well as increase suspension wear. If you want to spend the extra bucks you can get forged wheels which are much lighter than standard cast rims.
Larger wheels usually also have a wider tire with a thinner sidewall. This can really help your improve your vehicles grip on the street although at the drag strip the thinner sidewall will not flex nearly as much as a taller one decreasing traction on launch. The other thing to watch out for with a thinner sidewall are things like potholes and curbs as there is less rubber to protect your rim from getting bent. Finally make sure that the offset of the wheels is sufficient to prevent any rubbing when you turn the steering wheel all the way over to one side.
Even keeping all of this in mind there are some sizes of wheel that cannot be run without modification to your cars suspension and sometimes its bodywork. Anything larger than 22 inches brings serious weight and size into the picture and must be dealt with accordingly. However there is a really easy way to figure out how to mount a wheel that will look great handle well and fit perfectly. Its called plus sizing and the idea is to preserve the original overall diameter of the wheel and tire combination that came with your car. For example if you move from a 17 inch wheel to a 19 inch wheel by choosing a tire with a wider contact patch and a narrower sidewall you can keep the same diameter as your stock combo yet enjoy the benefits of greatlooking rims.
There are plenty of online wheelsize calculators that will let you see a representation of your stock tire superimposed on the wheel size you are thinking of upgrading to. These can be a big help when it comes time to decide how big you want to go.
About the writer: Justina Mathews writes issues that currently affect the performance car enthusiast. She also writes about issues that affect the street tuner industry as well as import scene lifestyle. She’s a staff writer for fuel systems.
How To Achieve The Best Sound From The Bmw E36 Audio System
Several people are the proud owners of BMW’s compact luxury car the E36 or the E46. The E46 came out in coupe convertible hatchback sedan and even station wagon body styles. Although no longer in production the E36 and E46 are superior automobiles that are a pleasure to drive. While you are driving you will want to listen to something interesting such as music. Your BMW’s sound system makes that possible. When it comes to your E36 audio system including the E36 speakers or the E46 speakers you will want to understand a bit about how speakers work such as knowing the difference between passive and active crossover in speakers in order to ensure that you will achieve the best sound from your BMW’s audio system.
Sound is produced by waves that occur due to changes in air pressure. Fast wave vibrations produce highpitched sounds while slower vibrations create lowpitched sounds. Within your BMW’s speaker system are different kinds of drivers which are built to best accommodate certain types of sound frequencies. Woofers pick up lowpitched sounds well while tweeters are crafted to easily produce highpitched sounds well. Midrange drivers are there to capture all of the best of the sounds in the middle of the frequency range. For each driver to do its specialized job first the frequency signal has to be broken down into low high and mid ranges. E36 speakers use crossover to perform this vital function.
There are two types of crossover: passive and active. Passive crossover uses inductors and capacitors to break up the sound frequencies into units that the drivers can handle. Crossover capacitors are attached to tweeters and crossover inductors are connected to woofers. Both capacitors and inductors are attached to midrange drivers. Capacitors do a great job of conducting sound frequencies that are above a certain range and not such a great job conducting lowerfrequencies. Because the tweeter is designed to deal with high frequencies the capacitor feeds it frequencies it is best designed to handle. The opposite is true of the inductor. An inductor can best accommodate frequencies lower than a certain preset level and those low frequencies are what the woofer is waiting for in order to produce those deep bass lines in your music that you hear. Because the midrange signals will produce frequencies in between what the inductor or capacitor could handle alone both are connected to a midrange driver in order to send it the signals for which it is designed.
For those desiring a bit more ease of use and precision of exactly which frequencies will be sent to the components active crossovers might be for you. Each driver comes with an amplifier and these active devices break up the signals before they get to the amplifier. This allows you to personally adjust the range of frequency you want to send to a particular driver. They are however more expensive than passive systems.
Quality speaker components makes your car’s music beautiful.
About the writer: Wayne Hemrick is an audio technician and BMW owner who truly appreciates audio excellence. In this article Wayne explores how to get the most pleasure from your E46 speakers and E36 speakers. His clear explanation on how speakers work will help you get the most from your E36 audio system.
How The Prices Of Tires Can Have Such A Broad Range
Tires are the legs of the vehicle which can walk and run in the road. This has also become in fashion by the introduction of the alloy wheels which adds beauty and sporty appearance to the vehicles. The price of the Michelin tires is found to be the costliest and next to it are the tires of Bridgestone. Let us have a brief discussion in the range of tires and their prices which would help the readers and car owners to get a point from it.
The Bridgestone tires start from the range of 75 dollars. The model that is available in this cost is the Potenza G019 Grid. It is a high performance tire that is used mostly in cars. The Turanza model tires start from the price range of 103. This type of tire is used in sporty coupes vans and 4 x 4 vehicles. There have the advantage of high durability in the terrains and are known as the touring tires in bridge stone manufacturing units. The Bridgestone Potenza RE 960 AS is the high end model of tires for cars. It is an ultra high performance tire that starts at a price of 268.
Michelin LTX is the lower end tire model for cars in this company. It costs around 132. Michelin Latitude tires that are used in 4 x 4 vehicles and touring vehicles like vans starts at a range of 208. Michelin pilot Alpin model tire is most famous in sporting and cold weather conditions. It costs less when compared with the latitude model tires. Michelin has a package of tire kit which costs 2260. It is a pilot sport model that has alloy wheels in different models and colors to choose from.
Alloy wheels are costlier when compared with other model of standard tires. This is because for lighter weight higher performance and style. The normal alloy wheels starts at a price of 250. It extends the price of the model to over 1000. The tube less tires that do not get punctured easily also comes under the similar price range. Both the alloy wheels and tube less tires are worth in different ways. All have the same performance compared to what they cost. Generally speaking the higher the cost the higher the performance of the tires.
You really have to consider the fact that your tires are a very important part of your vehicle and you shouldn’t really skimp on them. The safety and fuel economy depend in large part on your tires.
About the writer: Gregg Hall is an author living on the Treasure Coast of Florida. Now that you know more about tires be sure that you have quality tires for your car by going to http://www.Nsearch.com