Do-It-Yourself High Performance Car Mods

Spotting a Bogus Mod

Mods come with many different levels of quality, but some are outright rip-offs. The first way to avoid such bogus mods is to have a good understanding of how your car works. For example, knowing that removing restrictions from your intake usually frees up more power should make you suspicious of any device that claims to make more power by placing a restriction in your intake. Some of the bogus mods will make claims that go even further and completely defy the laws of physics.

Another tip-off is that bogus mods frequently cost absurdly less than real ones that are described with the same terms. For example, if a performance chip typically costs $200 for a certain car, and you see someone advertising a “chip mod” for only ...