2018 MXA 350 SHOOTOUT: HUSQVARNA FC350 VERSUS KTM 350SXF | Clutch Master Cylinder

Buck’s ’56 Rat ran great with its 750-cfm double-pumper, but he was also searching for a little added sophistication. The plan focused on finding a 2×4 package that could achieve both goals. What Buck discovered is that FiTech offers just such a 2×4 EFI throttle body kit designed to bolt directly on an Edelbrock 2×4 low-rise manifold with minimal fuss.

Not only this, but the damned rimless Gentex electrochromic inside mirrors with a shape like the facial expression of a demonic, demented clown are smaller than the “normal” ones from a couple years back, and they’re finding their way into everything save for some HyundKia products. If anything, the mirror should be longer on the bottom than the top, or a simple rectangle, kind of like the non-autodimmers in VAG products, also from a few years back.

1. Maps. Take our word for it, the green coupler offers the best ECU map. It is stronger than the black coupler and is less hyperkinetic than the white coupler. If you want to remap the black box, below is are the maps we ran.

The clutch system in a manual transmission is one of those components that doesn’t necessarily see much innovation. Every once in a while a manufacturer will do something big and wild with it, but it’s rare. Last time it was Porsche with the tiny carbon clutch in the Carrera GT – and now it might be General Motors with an electrically actuated slave cylinder, covered in a recently filed patent application.

The hydraulic system that actuates the clutch in your manual-transmission car will not last forever. Just like every wear item in your car, this will fail eventually. Back in the day, a clutch cable was used, but newer cars utilize a hydraulic system. If you are handy with a socket wrench and ratchet, this job is quite easy.

There comes a time when spinning that small-block to 3,500 rpm in an attempt to avoid being run over on the freeway becomes tiresome. This quickly leads to contemplating an upgrade to an overdrive automatic. There are plenty of good reasons to choose either the 700R4 or the 4L60E. Both offer the benefits of an overdrive, and deciding between the two, the choice comes down electronics or no electronics. We won’t make excuses, convenience comes at a price. As Mark Twain once wrote “You pays your money, and you takes your choice.”

He also mentioned that, to prevent airbags deploying off-road, Colorado owners have been pulling fuse No. 18, or installing switches to turn off the airbag system—moves that could result in preventable injuries if the vehicle does roll or crash.

Again: The technology isn’t ready yet. For those who think it’s better than nothing, talk to the parents of young children who were killed in parking lot fender-benders while in vehicles with first-generation airbags. It was one thing to test new technology when I was racing cars. I will not be a beta test dummy as a consumer.

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I like the back up camera in my new GTI, and I have long been a fan of ABS, DSC, & seatbelts. Airbags are slightly net positive for women, slightly net negative for men, and only add about 5% survivability over using good belts. If they were available & legal on new cars, I would choose manually adjusted (non-inertial reel) four point belts instead of airbags. It is what I used in SCCA Pro Rally competition in the 60s and 70s and found them to be superior in every way to other restraint systems.

It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report:

I will add a reason I and many other people find to be equally important. I LOVE driving and take pride in having honed my skills over many decades. I find things like lane departure warnings, blind spot warnings, front and side cameras to be FAR more distracting than helpful. I almost never use cruise control, even on long trips, because I find it makes me lazier in perceiving the traffic flow and what I might need to adjust for in the flow ahead of me – so I surely do not want adaptive cruise control.