So you want to make your car go faster? Whether you’re heading to a road course, the drag strip, or just looking to upgrade your daily driver, you can find the parts you need at eBay Motors. Speed doesn’t come quick or easy, but here we’ve chosen the five best parts to make your car go faster, ranked from affordable and easy to install to more intense performance upgrades for advanced DIYers and professionals.
Intake/Exhaust
Shop for cold air intakes at eBay Motors
The easiest way to make your car go a little faster is simply to help the engine breathe better, and the most cost-effective way to accomplish that is using a cold air intake combined with a cat-back exhaust. As its name suggests, cold air intakes supply the engine with cooler, more dense air to boost performance, while another advantage of these bolt-on kits is they come with less restrictive air filters and larger-diameter air tubes. At the opposite end of your car, adding a cat-back exhaust increases performance in a similar way using larger exhaust tubing and a less restrictive muffler to allow the engine to exhale easier.
ECM Programmer
Shop ECM programmers at eBay Motors
Another super easy DIY upgrade to make your car faster is to purchase an ECM programmer. These helpful tools plug into your car’s OBDII port and optimize the software in the engine control module (ECM) to remap parameters that vary from engine redline to transmission shift points. Even if you’re not looking to add speed, ECM programmers can be helpful in other scenarios such as recalibrating the speedometer when different size tires and wheels are installed.
Forced Induction
Shop for superchargers at eBay Motors
When a cold air intake isn’t enough to supply your engine with the air it needs for max performance, forced air induction will certainly get the job done. Forced induction includes both superchargers and turbochargers, and each operates in a similar way forcing compressed air into the combustion chamber, which adds more oxygen for increased power output. Adding a supercharger or turbocharger to your car is a more complex upgrade, but a common one and the added work definitely pays off in the end.
Shop for turbos at eBay Motors
Nitrous Oxide Injection Kit
Shop for nitrous kits at eBay Motors
Similar to superchargers and turbochargers, nitrous oxide injection is a way to add more oxygen to your engine’s combustion chamber. Only instead of using atmospheric air, nitrous oxide injection sprays nitrous gas into the fuel system to provide a boost of oxygen for the cylinders to burn. Unlike the movies, this is more than just bolting a bottle of nitrous in the trunk of your car, but if you’re taking your car racing, this upgrade adds some serious horsepower and offers various ways to control when NOS kicks in.
LS Engine Swap
Shop for LS V8 engines at eBay Motors
For the most extreme speed freaks, an engine swap is the way to go, and General Motors’ line of LS V8s are easy to find and tend to fit in just about any engine compartments, even a Miata’s. By sheer production volume, the GM V8 engine has always been popular for people to swap into their cars, but following the LS engine’s introduction in the late 1990s, this has become the go-to swap for many vehicle customizers.