What was your first high performance automotive modification? The running theme when we ask most guys in the high performance industry tends to involve doing something that had no actual performance gain on the car, but made our speed addled teen brains sure feel like it did.
Flipping the air cleaner lid over is one of the most commonly used answers but there are some other good ones in there. A lot of the first modifications seem to hinge on the era when the person answering the question was a teenager. The more experienced BangShifters were yanking motors and swapping hard parts over a long weekend after blowing the candles out at their 16th birthday party while the younger guys were definitely more heavy with bolt on stuff.
Most every gearhead’s wrenching life started with humble beginnings and evolved from there.
What was the first “performance” modification you made to a car? Share it!
Air shocks! 65 Falcon convertible in 1972
Dual point dist and red wires.
I’m going to consider the PerTronix Ignitor a “I hate messing with points” modification, so the first real performance mod would have been an Addco front sway bar on my ’66 Dart.
Holley 600 cfm carb with vacuum secondaries on my \’69 Chevelle followed by 15 x 10 Cragars on the rear and a set of Lakewood ladder bars. (Yeah…you know you want some of that)
Oh Yeah. Traction Action! I still have my old set on the shelf in the shop.
Slaper bars
dual line—- dual dump—- dual pump
True dual exhaust on my single exhaust 1970 Camaro. Big Daddy glasspack mufflers dumping out at the rear axle.
Accel Super coil, yellow super stock wires, and a Holley open element air cleaner on my smog filled 1976 460 ci Torino . At least it sounded better.
Cherry Bombs!
Computer chip in my 87 T type.
thrush mufflers, on my 390 68 fastback,with no tail pipes, still own the car,it was just as loud in the car as it was outside,an loved every minute of it.
Flipping that air cleaner lid on my mom’s 350 2bbl powered 73 Malibu 4dr. In LeMans Blue!! BAUGHPPPP!!!!! Then I blew the muffler seam open as I decelerated from 60mph in 1st gear. It was good after that.
Continental Mark II mufflers (they were blue) and a used dual exhaust system on my 56 Chevy.
Bored the cigarette lighter .060 over for faster lights……….
“Repairing” the catalytic converter on my Olds 98.
Yeah, my first performance mod was flipping the air cleaner lid over before getting a chrome cleaner on my 1970 Mach 1. Followed very soon afterwards by dual exhaust with volcanic mufflers. This was in1973 and yes, the mufflers actually used volcanic rocks inside!
Backing off the rockers until they rattled then tightening them back until they quit. THEN I read about how sloppy manufacturers were with throttle cables. NO JOKE there was BIG power there.
Air shocks, Ansen 14 x 10 & 14 x 6 slots, headers and duals on the 350, 2bbl, 1970 Cutlass I inherited from my Mom in 1977. Rode rougher and was louder, but no appreciable performance increase…until I dropped the 360 hp 396 BBC in!
I would have to say it was adding dual Thrush mufflers to my 69 Fairlane. That pic of flipping the air cleaner lid does bring back memories, though. My friend Donnie always wanted to race my parent’s Fury with his mom’s Impala. Flipping the lid on the 350 would trim some of the gap the 360 Fury always put on the Chevy. Then I’d flip the lid on the 360, and back to square one.
Something that was a real eye opener was with big block Chevy pick-ups. Lots of guys learned the deal where you left a T400 selector in low, and it shifted into second at 5000 instead of 3500 at WOT. The added rip from the tires was a bonus. Two friends raced their 454’s back-to-back. The first was a dead heat. (1973 1500 vs a 1974 2500). Then, my one friend flipped the lid on the air cleaner, and was a truck length ahead at the shift. Apparently, most of those 70’s GM’s would not even open the secondaries at WOT when breathing through the silencer snorkle.
My first REAL mod was putting headers on a 70 Swinger. With a small set of hand tools. On a 4-speed. That almost broke my spirit, that project.
Used Offy Dual Port 360 intake and used Holley 750 carb. Then shortly later, headers and duals.
As a Dumb Ass 18 year old I’d say Who needs an Air Cleaner on a Hundred Thousand mile 56 Ford Wagon 292 Four Barrel. Then Jack up the back end by FLIPPING THE SHAKLES to get more room for CHEATER SLICKS ON ASTRO WHEELS.Then WEDGE COIL SPRING SPACERS in the front to JACKET UP GASSER STYLE. So you can REV it up DROP THE HAMMER AND PEG LEG the right rear Tire !!! All soooo DUMB !! But HELL it was 1964 WHO KNEW ?
First vehicle was a 1974 Ford Bronco when I was 17. First thing we did was pull the 5.0 and take it to a engine re-builder who said we could turn it into a 347 stroker for $5,000 which for whatever fortunate reason my dad jumped on the opportunity to put me into a rusty death-rocket. We put it behind a 5-speed NV4500 with a granny 1st which made it really easy to pull goofy wheel-stands with that short wheelbase.
Replaced the oil bath on the Rochester “Pig” on my ’50 Chev SD with a tall Coors can stack. Yes, it did help the top end considerably, as it kept the reversion wave in the system.
Sometime later a gearbox, flywheel, clutch, bell, and 4.10 rear from a ’53 PU made quite a difference to the launch.
“Adding lightness” went on throughout the project as well, but the Coors can remains my first. 😀
Used a cut off wheel at the service station I worked at in HS to cut a square hole in the side of the air box on my dads 1995 Toyota T-100 with the 2.4L 4banger. Made it louder….
My buddy had a 1989 GMC 3500 Dually with the 454. He had the headers off for one day while he waited on the new ones to arrive. THAT was louder….sounded like an apache was coming in.
In the sixties,Bought a 55 chev convertible with 270 hp dual quad motor, never looked back, am now 76 driving 60 vette with 355 built my self, pocket ported vortex heads, conical comp springs, comp xtreme 286 cam, m20 rebuilt my self, Holley snyper efi installed my self. Still flashing the shift light in 3 gears, and loving it.
My Dad refused to let me put dual exhaust on our ’71 Chevy K10. It was so restricted it couldn’t open the secondaries on the Rochester Spreadbore, so I’d flip the air cleaner lid & adjust the secondaries more loose. He put some awful Monkey Wards 6.50×16 street tires on it. Could barely more on wet grass, so with the above mod I smoked those wagon wheels every chance I got so he’d have to replace them. They lasted forever despite my “driving” habits.
10+ years later my wife & I got the truck for our 2nd anniversary & I immediately put dual exhaust which worked well w/ the Corvette-style ram’s head exhaust & a better distributor. It was like an entirely different truck.
Most of my money went into my Jeep, not his truck… tires, top, brakes, winch, etc.
moved the 3 in the tree to the floor in my 62 chevy ll it wasn\’t long and
the tired 194 started rapping. and yes the air cleaner lid was flipped