From “Electronic Fuel Injection, MAF and MAP Sensors – EFI Basics Tech”:

Imagine a turbocharger trying to pressurize a carburetor with its small venturis and finicky floats and you can get some idea why electronic fuel injection opened the door to big boost, big power, big reliability, big fuel economy and a cleaner burn.

Toyota EFI Fuel Injector & Fuel Rail

And an article on wheel alignment which is a must-read for all drifters & racers plus anyone concerned with safety or mileage: Wheel Alignment – Camber, Caster, and Toe

Having the straightest wheel alignment will give your tires the largest contact patch as well as the most even treadwear. But when it comes down to having low offsets, big lips and wide wheels, you can’t always find wheels that will meet your fenders perfectly. Adjusting your camber is one method to adjusting your stance. But before you do that, you should know some of the basics to suspension and wheel tuning.

Get more @ the Super Street Online archive of Tech articles.

Ford says the 6.7-liter Power Stroke V-8 for its 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty will “pound out 390 horsepower and 735 pounds-feet of torque” while GM says its 6.6-liter Duramax V-8 diesel for the 2011 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra HD pickups will make 397 hp and 765 pounds-feet of torque…

Sounds like GM is ahead by a few nosehairs, right?  What I didn’t know until today is this little, yet significant, gem:

The 6.7-liter PSD is a clean-sheet design with lots of headroom for higher power settings, while the 6.6-liter Duramax is based on a legacy architecture that’s right at the limit of its performance envelope.

Oh really? This pushes Ford way out in front in my book. I’ve worked on enuff engines at the “limit of their performance envelope” to know, that no matter how great they once were, they’re a pale shadow of what comes next.

Read the full story @ Ford Plans Power Increase for Power Stroke V-8 Diesel on PickupTrucks.com

Ford's cleanest diesel engine

But what’s this about a cleaner diesel engine by Ford? Ford doesn’t even design its own engines anymore, right? I was curious, so I dug deeper and this is what I found – hold tight!

According to another article on PickupTrucks.com, Adam Gryglak (the lead engineer of the new Power Stroke diesel engine) says, “This is the most advanced Power Stroke yet with the cleanest emissions,” lower noise, vibration, harshness “and substantially improved power and fuel economy.”

The article continues:

Codenamed “Scorpion,” the 6.7-liter PSD is Ford’s first-ever designed-in-house pickup truck diesel engine since the first oil burner (International’s 6.9-liter V-8) was offered under the hood of a Ford pickup in 1982.

Now that is a big deal! One more really interesting factoid – this engine is manufactured in Ford’s plant in Mexico. Presumably the same factory in Mexico that built the legendary Ford 302 BOSS engines – some would say Ford’s finest performance engine ever built. Of course, the trucks are available now. I’ll keep my eye out for one and do a follow up with pix if I find one…

The rest of the article spells out all the super cool features of how the engine is designed including reversed flow of intake and exhaust, new Single Sequential Turbocharger, two separate cooling systems, each with its own radiator and water pump and loads more juicy details!!! There’s like 3 weeks of vocational school education packed in, so it’s a must read:

Get the all the specific technical details about the engine @ First Look: Ford’s All-New 6.7-Liter V-8 Power Stroke Diesel Engine on PickupTrucks.com

I’ve always been a tomboy, always will be. In high school, while most gals my age were obsessing over Seventeen Mag and picking out prom dresses, I was drooling over my neighbor’s GTO Judge and pulling parts out of my boyfriend’s Trans Am for rebuilding. My environmental awareness took root in college and I switched to diesels that I could modify to run on veggie oil and became a DIY tour bus mechanic. A decade later, I’m finally living out my teen fantasies of owning and restoring my very own muscle car – a 1973 Mercury Comet with Ford’s 5.0L 302 c.i. V8 engine. Everyone has different opinions on what makes one muscle car better than the other and everyone has their 1st loves as well as their daily drivers. I don’t think many people would place the Comet in their top 3 fave muscle cars, but I’m not most people. All I know is I LOVE this car!!! For me, personally, it’s perfect. Small enough for just me, big enough for double dating. Fast enough to get me in trouble, fast enough to get me out of trouble. And it may not look like a pageant queen right now, but someday it will be CANDY! With that in mind, I intend to enjoy/punish the body and engine until it dies. Then rebuild it from the frame up.

My friend Twelver came over on the 1st day I had the car at home and snapped some sweet “Before” pix:

From Title To Tune Up In 6 Days

When I bought my 1st 4Runner (already 20+ years old and poorly maintained by previous owners), it was leaking coolant and overheating. Within a week I removed the entire cooling system, all the belts and everything else in front of the block. Now, I’m a mechanical person by nature – I love to take things apart and see how they work. But I had never worked on a Toyota engine before in my life. Everything I needed to learn was available online, for free. The 2 most useful resources, beyond a doubt, have been the YotaTech Forums and the Factory Service Manual (FSM). Another vital resource is the local flea market – a treasure trove of quality tools at bargain prices. Every time I got stuck on a part I couldn’t budge, I went to the flea market in search of tools I didn’t know existed until I saw them. This is how I finally loosened the 181 ft/lb of torque holding the crankshaft pulley bolt on plus countless nuts & bolts in hard-to-reach spaces.

Here’s pix from before and after my 1st Toyota Tune Up:

(BIG) High Quality Photos Of 3VZE Engine