1 Assignment 2 Kameron Moshier

Terms: Car Modifications: These are basically any intentional or even unintentional change to the stock factory settings of a car. For example replacing you cars stock air intake with a thing called a Cold Air Intake is a simple modification many car enthusiasts do to increase MPG and gain overall horsepower. DIY Mods: This is simply Do It Yourself modifications to a car, in other words it is changing a feature of ones car without the assistance of a professional shop.

Intro/Background Eh, this seems like it will work, Yeah I dont really know what this does to the car but I heard it makes it sound amazing! Believe it or not, these are some very common statements often coming from people when doing modifications to cars. Confidence in ones work is one thing, but ignorance on the other hand, is a whole different thing. Too often people attempt to do car mods without being informed of what the given modification actually does to the car. The following paper will attempt to explore car modifications and how they affect a cars safety, performance, environmental impacts, and re sale values both positively and negatively. This paper will go into details on car modifications which is one of the more important elements of my chosen figured world Top Gear because one of the more entertaining and prominent activities in the show is modifying cars and then doing challenges with the modified cars. Like within the Top Gear community, I myself am a car enthusiast and as one, it is interesting to explore

2 how car modifications actually impact a car, rather than just doing modifications and not caring as many car enthusiasts often do, foolishly. When a car mod is done the proper way with thought behind it, the modification can actually make a very significant positive impact on the car being worked on and the surrounding environment since so often modifying of cars is thought to negatively impact the environment. My following research goes into finding out how the modifications of cars actually does make good and bad impacts when done under certain parameters.

Literature Review Safety and Modifications With Cars Cars have developed significantly in terms of safety over the years and now more and more are expected of car manufacturers when it comes to safety features in the cars they produce. Here I will go into how changes or modifications to cars are made to make them safer whether it is done on a small scale like an individual car owner or if an auto manufacturer does it on a larger scale. Car companies today make changes to the cars they produce both before and after the car even leaves the factory it is built in. These changes before the car even hits the dealership lot are definitely still modifications because the changes made are significant to the particular model car compared to the way it was the model year before. Many companies have always added air bags to cars to make the passengers safe in an accident but we are seeing now that many companies are adding safety features to cars so that accidents can be prevented all together. Many companies like Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and now even American companies like Chrysler, Ford, and GM have added features like blind spot detection systems where a

3 light on the side mirror of your car will light up if there is a car to your side in the vehicles blind spot (Valdes-Dapena 2009.) Another amazing development in automotive safety is where manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and Lexus have developed a system where your car can detect if you are veering off of the road or into another lane or if you are about to hit something head on the car can correct your mistake and can even stop itself (Valdes-Dapena 2009.) Finally of the more significant things todays cars can do, a few companies like Mercedes-Benz and Toyota have even started developing cars that can even park themselves or on a more complicated level, some can even drive themselves. If something needs changing in a car that a car company realizes after the car is released to the public a company will issue a thing called a recall in which the company claims responsibility for a problem with a car that they will modify free of charge to get the vehicle up to date safety wise. An example here is when Toyota issued recalls on millions of cars a couple of years ago due to brakes randomly failing or air bags failing to deploy during an accident (Bae, Yong-Kyun 2011.) When the recall is issued, as long as the actual owner of the car will take the time to get the issue fixed, the defective part will be changed for free to restore top safety to the vehicle. Aside from what the big guys in the car companies do to modify cars for safety, there are also Do It Yourself mods that can be done by any Average Joe car owner to increase the safety of ones car. In an article about DIY Mods, Bill Machrone mentions how adding certain things like a backup camera or even a collision detector to a car can dramatically improve the safety of the vehicle while also being easy enough for most car owners to do on their own (Machrone 2006.) Another very good example of simple and very useful DIY modification that is a necessity for many who live in areas with significantly rough

4 winters is to add snow tires to ones vehicle or add chains to the vehicles current tires, although this may be less effective. Adding these kind of small things to a car is a good example of a modification that actually makes a positive difference to the way ones car is in terms of safety and like mentioned before, often these mini projects are quite easy to accomplish. A final point with modification and its relation to vehicle safety is peoples choice when buying a car and modifying or not modifying it. What is meant here is that the type of car someone chooses to drive and what someone chooses to do to it make a serious impact on how safe one is one the road. For example if there is an accident and one driver is in a SmartCar and the next driver is in a large customized lifted truck, the driver who chose to lift his truck would probably be safer. This goes on to show that when someone does something like lift a truck and then chooses to drive it on the road it does impact safety, not only for the driver, but for others as well (Shanjun 2012.) Modifying Cars and Performance Often when someone thinks or talks about modifying a car one of the more important thing to a bigger car enthusiast is how the mod will impact a cars performance. These mods can be engine mods, body mods, or other types of changes to factory settings of a vehicle like the transmission or suspension. For example, in a study conducted, a group decided to take a normal 1.4 Liter gas powered Volkswagen Polo and change it so that its engine runs on Hydrogen rather than fuel injection (gas.) Once the group did this they noticed that the car had a dramatically different impact on its surrounding environment releasing not nearly as many harmful gases into the atmosphere as when the car had the gas powered engine. This is one of the larger perks to the hydrogen engine, some of the areas where the new engine fall short to the gas engine mostly relate to performance,

5 which is normally a very big deal to car enthusiasts or motor heads. The group noted that the hydrogen powered Polo was able to contend head to head with the gas powered Polo but if the driver really wanted to put their foot down on the gas pedal and get going the engine would take longer to respond and would not accelerate nearly as fast. Aside from this though the group working on this experiment did note that some areas like brake efficiency of the Polo and also costs to fix many potentially expensive issues notorious to a gas engine like spark knock where the fuel to air mixture in the car is thrown off and it creates a bad metallic chatter from the engine, where exceeding the gas powered polo (Sopena, Dieguez, Urroz, Guelbenzu, Gandia 2010.) This complete engine modification does have its positive and negative effects to the performance of this particular car and this is the way it is with almost any car modification done. Another example of how car modifications affect a cars performance comes from NASCAR. In NASCAR to make each race fair for each driver and their team, each car has to undergo a pre race inspection and is expected to meet the certain parameters given to each team by NASCAR. Here explained is that before NASCARs biggest race the Daytona 500 in 2006, many race teams where being fined by NASCAR because their cars failed the pre race inspection normally due to something as simple as a bumper modification. The teams where making the bumpers larger than the NASCAR limit for the bumpers in order to make the car more aerodynamic which makes a huge difference in NASCAR. The big thing to note here is that although these are race cars, the cars still have a factory stock like setting when they are first built by the teams and are given the ok by NASCAR to use the car to race. It is when anything is done to the car after this point to change it to make it faster or more efficient on the track where modification comes into play. This

6 article makes it easy to see that with any car, doing something as simple as changing the bumper of a car can make the car perform better or worse in some cases (Bernstein 2007.) Anything done to a car that changes the car from how it originally is built will change the way the car performs. A lot of times people will try to make exhaust system modifications to cars to make the cars louder but often the people that do certain mods like cut the exhaust or completely take it off dont realize that they are actually ruining the way there car runs and performs by taking away MPG and horsepower (Peters 2002.) On the show Top Gear which is my main topic for the semester it is shown quite often how certain modifications that the hosts do to cars on the show can seriously impact the way the car runs, often making the car a lot worse than it was from stock settings since Top Gear is meant as an entertainment show. A good example here is where the shows main host Jeremy Clarkson adds two rear tires to his Mazda MX-5 to make it more off road ready to drive through a Syrian desert but in turn it makes the car run a lot worse than it did before, and ir eventually stopped running all together (Moshier 2014.) Car Modifications and Environmental Impacts With performance being most peoples top reason to modify a car, environmental impacts are often overlooked. For example as mentioned earlier with affecting performance, when someone messes with the exhaust system of a car to make the car sound louder, they arent only hurting the cars performance, but they are also hurting the environment. When a person modifies or more messes with their cars exhaust system they are messing with the emissions system as well. A stock exhaust system or even a properly modified exhaust system on a car is meant to meet EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) standards given to all car companies so when this system is changed incorrectly like just

7 cutting the whole system off, the car releases a significantly larger amount of harmful gases that you can normally see driving down the road when a really loud annoying car has a lot of blueish gray smoke coming from the rear of the car (Peters 2002.) A lot of times also, on a larger scale there are things that car companies as a whole can do and are currently doing to car engines to make them more environmentally friendly. Started largely by European companies like Audi and Volkswagen, many American companies like Ram Trucks and Ford are giving many of their vehicles mainly smaller trucks more diesel engine options. For example Ford and Dodge both have given their smallest model full size pickups (the Ram 1500 and the F-150) options of a eco-diesel engine. A diesel engine on American trucks has historically just been a larger engine used on the largest models of the companys trucks (often work trucks) and the use of an eco-diesel engine is a relatively new idea to bring to the field. Diesel versions of any engine are known to get significantly better MPG and are often proved to be less harmful to the environment than a regular gas engine (Twigg 2007.) Car Modifications and Re Sale Value One very important aspect of modifying cars that many people tend to overlook is what the particular modification(s) will do to the re sale value of the car. Now given there are some certain high grade modifications that can be done to cars that can possibly actually raise the value of a car, 9 times out of 10 any modification will make the cars re sale value drop because although the person modifying the car may like what is being done, the average car buyer may not want a car that has say a loud exhaust or really dark tinted windows or blue headlights. Any car dealer that is buying a car from a person, because most other people that come to look at the particular car are going to not buy the

8 car just because certain mods are done to the vehicle, takes this into account. Another more obvious fact is that some peoples modifications that they do to a car may actually even hurt the car and this is where being a careful and picky shopper comes in handy when buying a car. Luckily more often now many dealers will thoroughly inspect a car before they put it on the sales lot but one can never be too safe when they dont know what the previous owner of a vehicle actually did to it (Anderson 2010.) An interesting aspect along with re sale value is how this can change among different parts of the world. What this means is a country like the US has it so many potential car buyers are looking for a vehicle to be relatively close to the condition it was stock from the factory, and a car heavily modified in most markets would loos re sale value. Though this is the case here, in some countries like Japan, heavily modified cars are actually desirable by many people. This could be a result of Japans heavy population of street racing and car clubs, so modified cars fit peoples needs here a lot more than in the USA where more cars are just to be driven from point A to B for the overall population. This shows that going to other parts of the world can really impact the re sale value of a modified car. Entering the Conversation We often see displays of how car modifications can affect cars often everyday; a lot of it being through personal experience or even shows about cars. Seeing the effects through these ways is fine and all but what about the Average Joe car drivers or modifiers that arent so educated on cars? It would be very beneficial in my opinion to create a show that goes more into basics of modifying cars along with the effects that come with the modifying because yes we do have shows like Top Gear that often show

9 modifying of different cars and how it affects the cars but this really reaches to an audience with at least decent amount of experience or knowledge on cars. A more basic show to demonstrate car modifications would be set up similar to the way a show like Top Gear is set up because it would still be useful to go over so many different cars while still making the program a little bit entertaining. The show in mind would have different segments such as a segment dedicated strictly to how to actually perform certain modifications, kind of like a step-by-step type of approach. After the basic how to type of segment would be a section of separate following segments that really go into detail on individual effects that are associated with modifications. For example, there would be a segment to the show that specifically goes over how doing certain modifications to cars would affect the cars performance. The show can go into specific mods, like tampering with the exhaust system to make it louder and it can show to the viewers the negative effects that can come from this modification (Peters 2002.) The show can also include real data during each segment about problems or benefits associated with each kind of specific mod to further inform the viewer. Another segment can discuss modifications that came from the factory on some newer cars, like blind spot detection sensors or backup cameras because even though the people on the show most likely wont be the ones installing this feature or modification to a car, the shows audience will most likely predominantly be less experienced car enthusiasts so even demonstrating how the features work would be very informative (Valdes-Dapena 2009.) Developing this type of informative television program would be a very good way to show that modifications to cars can be both beneficial or a pretty bad idea in some cases. It can be very beneficial to many less knowledgeable car enthusiasts to introduce DIY mods to cars involving safety

10 and to show how to perform these modifications like installing tools like backup cameras to a car (Machronne 2006.) Car modifications can definitely be and are good ideas as long as they are done the right way and responsibly. People doing any particular modifications to cars just need to know what they are doing and more importantly they just need to know how to make responsible decisions on what modifications can actually negatively affect their car and surrounding motorists. Conclusion/So what? It is very important for any person performing a modification to a car to have an accurate idea of the effects of their mod to their car and to other motorists on the road around them. Like discussed in this paper, it is very common for many car enthusiasts both with prior knowledge with cars and modifying and also those with less knowledge to perform modifications without truly knowing what the mods can do. For the sake of ones car and even the surrounding environment, it is crucial that one must start to learn about a particular modification before actually going through with performing it. This paper discussed those actual effects of modifications on certain aspects of cars and other things like performance and safety but also the environment when in relation to exhaust type mods that mess with the emissions system of a car. Further areas that can still be investigated on this particular topic of modifying cars can be ways to learn about modifying in general much like my idea mentioned earlier to introduce a show that would explain modifications and how to do them to cars. Another bit of further research that can be very beneficial to car modifiers also can be ways to turn negative effects of certain modifications like making a cars exhaust louder into positive effects, essentially seeing

11 how to properly perform certain modifications. Finally since this paper briefly touched up on alternative ways to power a car, another area of further research which would be endless is the Hybrid car movement though the car industry. Hybrids have been a very hot topic in the industry ever since Toyota released the first Prius Hybrid a couple of years ago and now its an arms race to see who can make the best Hybrid! These further research topic can really help one learn about modifying a car because although this paper goes into how certain modifications can impact certain areas of a car, going into these other research topics can truly finish the puzzle that is properly modifying a car whether it be DIY mods, performance mods, or even mods that allow the car to run on an alternative source rather than oil and gas.

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4. Machrone, Bill. "Quick & Easy Car Upgrades." PC Magazine 25.16 (2006): 83. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. 5. Peters, Eric. "Modifying An Emission-Control Car And Staying 'Legit'." Consumers' Research Magazine 85.3 (2002): 31. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. 6. Moshier, Kameron. Top Gear. Charlotte. February 1-2 2014. Observation.

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"Conversion of a Commercial Spark Ignition Engine to Run on Hydrogen: Performance Comparison Using Hydrogen and Gasoline." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. 35.3 (2010): 1420-1429. Print. 8. Bernstein, Viv. Nascar Continues to Be Strict On Car Mods. LexisNexis Academics. Section D pg 4. June 27 2007. 9. Valdes-Dapena, Peter. "THE FUTURE Of CAR SAFETY ...IS HERE." Money 38.11 (2009): 114. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. 10. Twigg, Martyn V. "Progress and Future Challenges in Controlling Automotive Exhaust Gas
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