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Late Model

SWEET SOUNDS

Everyone wants a killer stereo that rocks. You can’t just roll out in your car without something fabulous to listen to. The factory equipment just won’t work for those who demand more, especially if you are trying to show off. You have to be able to turn up the music and be heard—it’s all part of the game. If you’re going to roll, you know the rules: you have to roll hard and that means your entire stereo system has to be up to the task. Nothing is worse than blasting a stereo and hearing everything rattle and shake. That’s a huge no-no. There is a simple solution to this problem, however. To do a proper stereo installation, you must first lay a solid foundation. The first layer of this foundation is called sound damping or sound control.

Driven Racing Oil’s Break-In Oil Kit BR30 5W-30

Driven Racing Oil developed the original high zinc, petroleum and low detergent break-in oil over twenty years ago. Break in oil is a specialty oil that reduces wear and contaminates when breaking in a new high-performance engine. It provides controlled friction for your piston rings and incredible protection that helps your camshafts break in properly.

Two-Hour Tech

Improving your S197 Mustang doesn’t have to be an arduous affair. You’re supposed to enjoy working on your car, RATHER than dreading getting off work because you “have” to wrench on the Ford. With that attitude in mind, we recently spoke with Al Kamhi, of Control Freak suspensions, to get his advice on what enthusiasts could do to further the concept of upgrading a Mustang in just an hour or two. But there’s a catch: the upgrade had to make a real difference in the car’s performance.

I.C.E. : IN-CAR ENTERTAINMENT
THE BEGINNING, WHAT’S CURRENT AND WHAT THE FUTURE MAY HOLD

BACK IN THE early days, having a custom stereo meant that you installed a head unit and a set of mid- and high-range speakers. Then the wonders of subwoofers and amps came along. When these components first came out, they were very large and required huge amounts of space to install. They offered, at best, a distorted sound compared with the standards of today. Ten years ago, most enclosures, when they were used at all, were generally a box or a square made of wood. Today many things have changed and much has evolved along the way…

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HOW WE BUILT A SHOW-STOPPER
(and Why We Built it the Way We Did)

THE QUESTION THAT we always seem to get asked at shows, at work and even when we are at a restaurant or just chilling at a bookstore is this: Everyone wants to know why Neil and Mei Tjin spend big money on their cars.
If you must know, it’s the love of the game and wanting to have the best of the best. Everyone always talks about JDM-this and JDM-that. Well, how about just getting the best parts from anywhere— Japan, Australia, America, wherever—and putting them on the car?

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MAX ENERGY MUSTANG

The Hypertech Max Energy Spectrum flash programmer is a device designed for the performance-minded individual looking to extract the most from their car or truck. This advanced programmer allows for full control of the vehicle’s ECM, enabling the user to adjust a wide range of parameters that influence the vehicle’s performance.

SO CLOSE!

We saw extreme boost levels in our quest for horsepower from the little supercharged V-6 with out ’94 Supercoupe. With the Magnum Powers MPx supercharger clearly capable of more airflow than we could support (boost climbing north of 23 psi), it made sense to work on the heads-and-cam combination to better deal with some of that boost.

THE SMART CHARGER

If you are going to connect anything automatic to your car, especially when dealing with electricity, lead and acid, you owe it to yourself to do a bit more research rather than pulling just any super-discounted, off-the-shelf item and connecting it to something as potentially volatile as a lead-acid battery. But we have, haven’t we?

IN ARM’S WAY

Maximum’s design replaces the upper control arms with a torque arm and a Panhard rod, each of which has only one job rather than two. The Panhard rod centers the axle from side to side, and the torque arm controls pinion angle. Assigning each of these duties to separate components allows each piece to be better at its one job than the stock upper control arms are at either job. The torque arm is essentially a three-link design, and Maximum claims that it improves traction so much that after installation you may have to alter your sway bars to prevent understeer.

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