I'm new to modding my car. My first car was a Jetta, and I never had the money (or thought it was worth it) to mod it. But that all changed when I started reading these forums and ordered my TSX.

So what I'd like to know is, where should I go to learn more about modding? I want to know why things work. Why/How does a cold air intake work? What do headers do? I really want to know why the parts work (and what the new ones do) before I start spending money changing them. Reading these forums are great, but a lot of stuff is over my head and there's not a lot of "why this works better" here.

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks,

 

try out www.howstuffworks.com

you will find some good stuff there.

 

The principle of the cold air intake setup is simple...the iar getting into the engine is "colder" (the inlet is the front bumper) and tubing to the throttle body is less restrictive, and the cotton filter is better than the paper filter located int big black box behind the battery.

In my book, if you want to install a CAI, it's probably more for the sound of it. it's sounds great...the highest engine revs...the highest it sounds !...I really doubt the CAI itself would give more then 2-3 hp, but I think this is a good mod to do. Be aware of the problems related to sucking in water...if those scare you...you better go with a simple short ram....same characteristics as the CAI, except the inlet is in the engine bay.

The headers is the basic outlet of the engine....the less restrictive it is, the better it is...It's as simple as that, a header less restrictive could use a diferent tubbing design, a different finishing (polished) or a different material (stainles steel).

I hope I didn't lost you in the explanations, I really not wanted to dig deep into the subject, but feel free to pm me if you want more details !