NGK's MOD high-performance Ignition Coils are designed and built for enthusiast and performance vehicles and are now available for many popular BMW, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda and Volkswagen vehicles at RockAuto. Packaged in per car quantities, these Ignition Coils feature superior materials and design enhancements to deliver performance far beyond the operational environments a vehicle would actually experience.

• High Performance: Custom primary and secondary windings for increased output and performance
• Engineering: Advanced stress modeling systems preemptively identify and avoid common failure points found in OE and competitor performance coils
• Beyond OE Quality: PET housings, premium vacuum-sealed epoxy resin, and high temperature COP boots provide maximum levels of dielectric strength, voltage insulation and durability

You can find NGK MOD Ignition Coils in the RockAuto catalog in the "Ignition" category under High Performance for your specific vehicle.

While in high school, I was looking for a car. My Dad told me about a '52 Chevy four door he had looked at that had a bad automatic transmission. Having attended a Driver/Mechanic course with the Army Cadets two summers earlier, I was confident in my ability to swap out the non-working automatic with a manual transmission. With the help of a couple of buddies, I rounded up parts and a FoxCraft floor shifter kit. Out came the automatic and in went the new transmission, clutch and floor shifter. Man this was going to be cool!

All seemed to be working fine, so we headed down to our favorite service station to show off our handiwork. We noticed a chattering noise but nothing seemed too bad. When we talked with our friendly mechanic and told him about the chattering, he asked about the pilot bearing. The pilot what? What's a pilot bearing?! Upon receiving the information on the importance of said bearing, what it does, and that automatic transmissions don't have them, we carefully drove back to my garage. Out came the transmission, a newly acquired pilot bearing was cautiously inserted, and finally the transmission was gingerly reinstalled. It worked really well after that! No chatter, a disaster averted, and I drove that car for several years until I traded it for an Austin Healey Sprite Mk II.

Dean in Florida

Some 1960s muscle cars have drum brakes at all four wheels. Junior's Plymouth Roadrunner accelerates great, but it may not stop any faster than Dad's Belvedere station wagon because both cars use the same brake hardware. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Some late-model muscle/sports cars have brake systems that are ready for the racetrack. I think car magazines deserve a lot of the credit. They started measuring new cars' lap times in addition to 0-60 straight-line acceleration. It was embarrassing for the car manufacturer (and the car owners) when a seemingly fast car could not complete all the magazine's testing because its brakes had dramatically overheated.

It is fantastic that some cars can be taken directly from the showroom to the racetrack, but any type of high-performance brakes can benefit the vehicle owner. The heavy-duty ceramic brake pads, four-piston calipers and 14-inch slotted rotors on my 2014 Dodge Challenger SRT may last 100,000 miles because I still cautiously baby the brakes as if they were four wheel drums. (Some youthful habits/concerns I learned from the brake pedal of the 1968 Chrysler 300 that was my daily-driver for many years are hard to break.)

A downside to race-ready, original equipment (OE) brakes can be the cost of replacing two-piece brake rotors. Two-piece brake rotors have a central "hat" that mounts on the wheel hub and an outer ring/rotor that is bolted or riveted to the hat. A two-piece structure can weigh less and dissipate heat better than a one-piece rotor. For example, the hat can be relatively light aluminum and the rotor can be heat-resistant carbon ceramic. The fasteners that hold the hat and ring/rotor together may enable slight movement or "float" that allows safe flexing under extreme wheel hub loading and thermal expansion/contraction. Less weight can mean more responsive steering/suspension and faster acceleration that make a difference on the racetrack where tenths of a second matter.

One and Two-Piece Dodge Challenger, BMW 5 Series Riveted, and Chevrolet Corvette Two-Piece Carbon Ceramic Brake Rotors

On the other hand, a driver who never takes the car to the track may only notice that two-piece rotors are more prone to rattling noises and cost much more to replace. For some cars RockAuto offers a choice of OE type two-piece rotors or switching to less expensive, heavy-duty one-piece rotors. Look under "Brake & Wheel Hub" in the RockAuto.com catalog to see all the brake parts available for your specific vehicle. If you are considering switching from two-piece to one-piece, then watch for wording such as these in a rotor's part description: "Full-Cast Replacement for OE Riveted Aluminum Hat Rotors" or "Full Cast Design Rotors (Replaces OE 2-piece)." Be sure to install new brake pads when replacing a two-piece brake rotor just like you would with any other new rotor.

Tom Taylor,
RockAuto.com

To read more of Tom's articles, click this link and choose from story titles on the Newsletter Archives page.