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In the latest ep of the MCM Jimny build (which you can check out HERE), the lads get the full skinny on how to set up a mad trail-bashing, rock-crawling, dune-hucking off-roader, with some help from VW and 4x4ing expert Isaac.  A first aid kit and basic recovery gear, including a set of Maxtrax (or similar boards), plus a winch or recovery straps are among the first things that should be purchased. However, as MOOG discovered, you can go too large when buying a winch... MOOG's 12,000lb-rated winch (the only one he could buy at short notice) was way too much...

If you've seen the NEW EPISODE of Mighty Car Mods you'll have seen the boys have expanded their automotive tastes once more, with a Kei 4x4 joining the fleet. Some people might not realise what a rich history the tiny Japanese 4x4s have, dating back 50 years! Suzuki's small 4x4's roots go all the way back to the late 1960s, starting with the ON360 model from defunct Japanese manufacturer Hope Motor Company. It was after Suzuki purchased HMC that work began on a model coded LJ10, LJ standing for Light Jeep. Anyone who has clapped their peepers on one of these vehicles can...

Those great big whine-boxes you see on top of drag engines and poking through the bonnets of various old muscle cars and hot rods have a few names: supercharger or blower being the most common. Basically they are an air pump that sucks in normal air, uses two rotors to compress it, and then it is jammed into the motor to make beautiful clouds of tyre smoke.    Using compressed air to make things better, as a basic concept, has been around for a couple of centuries, and the concept of a twin-rotor air pump has been around since Francis Marion Roots...

If you saw THE LATEST EPISODE of MCM where MOOG fits a new Harrop supercharger to his Lotus Exige, you might wonder what the deal with these things are and why there are so many different-looking superchargers. There are centrifugal side-mount ones, 6/71 and 8/71s, Eaton-TVS, twin-screw... so what is great and what is junk? Let's focus on the modern style of top-mount supercharger used by car makers like General Motors (Chevrolet, Holden, Cadillac, etc) and Lotus. Side-mount superchargers, old Roots-style blowers (like what you see from our mates at Roadkill, below), and the big PSI or screw-type blowers are also...

You may have seen the episode where Marty's WRX spun a bearing, but what exactly happens when you "spin a bearing" in a motor, and why is it so bad?  We all know traditional four-stroke piston engines rely on a crankshaft spinning in block, which also has connecting rods attaching that crankshaft to the pistons shooting up and down the cylinder bores.  The crank and rods can spin at high-speed without melting together because they sit in specially-measured bearings that have a micron-thin amount of oil lubricating the spinning metal. You might have seen shows where people built engines and they talk about bearing...