11th hour - All the Small Things

The mother earth is turning its back on us. Thank to no one else but ourselves. We use all the resources and never interested of preserving it back. We pollute the same air and water that we drink and breathe. We put a portion from our salary into saving accounts for future use, but fail to give a thought whether is there going to be any 'future' left.

I would like to list just 3 small things we (the car freaks) can do to help ease this global complication.

• Don't kill the cat
  They exist for a reason. To let us breathe the air without poisoning ourselves. Removal of cat-con is undeniably lessen the restriction inside exhaust system which eventually giving extra power. But just how much power were gained after the removal, and is it really worth the risk? On N/A engines, cat removal average about 2-3% gain in hp. If your lovely car produce 100hp from factory, you probably will gain 2-3hp at the expend of creating acid rain which eventually will screw your glossy metallic paint. And how fast is additional 2-3hp? A-tenth of a second faster than before, most of it. You can actually gain that by improving your shifting technique, and it's free. Cat removal is popular choice because it's cheap and not illegal (in this country of course). But removing cat especially from a newer OBD-II car actually will rob your overall performace due to richen fuel mixture. You might need a piggyback to sort that out. Now, plus the piggyback price, is the cost of the cat-removal mod really cheap?
  


• Use better oil
  It's quite confusing how some people willing to spend hundreds (if not thousands) for car accessories such as razor-sharp diffusers or some bad-ass stainless sport muffler or some so-called advanced nano-tech fuel saver, but yet very stingy when it comes to engine oil. Choose a good quality oil, not some unknown brand or some space-shuttle-sound-a-like brand that you found in Tesco or Carrefour. A simple guide, if the brandname is known worldwide then they usually good. A good oil can last longer interval hence, preventing the disposal of additional oil waste. A good oil also meets tough requirement (such as API and ACEA) which not only protect your engine better in long run, but also help us to protect our planet by less wastage.
  

• Extend your filter usage period*
• Changing air filter too often is not good for your engine, and the same can be said about changing oil filter too. Engine air filters are designed to actually increase their efficiency by using this initial layer of dust as an added filter layer. Initial filter efficiency is usually approximately 98% but increases to more than 99% by the end of the service life of the filter. Get a decent filter or stick with OEM's rather than buying those cheaply built filter. Not only we benefit from avoiding dirt gets into our engine, we also can save some trees and let the monkeys live happily.

* content was refered from www.osti.gov/bridge