1959-1960 Corvette Exhaust System W/headers & Magnaflow Mufflers on 2040-parts.com

Driving the Chevy Volt isn't special, and that's good

We've had our first taste of the drive system under development for General Motors' pioneering Chevrolet Volt, piloting a test mule based on the Chevrolet Cruze at the company's Warren (Mich.) Technical Center, and it left us hungering for more. Yes, it's an electric car, but mostly, it's a car--one you could imagine driving every day without feeling as if you were engaged in a lab experiment. Frank Weber, vehicle line executive for the Volt, gets his nose out of joint if you call the drive system a hybrid.

rusEFI: Open-source homebuilt fuel-injection set to rival Megasquirt

Electronic fuel-delivery and ignition controls have given us a new golden age of engine efficiency and performance. Most of us would never go back to the dark ages—say, before 1990—when you could still buy new vehicles with carburetors and clunky distributors. From the point of view of those of us who like to modify our cars, however, the black-box nature of engine-control computers limits our options for making changes to how our fuel-delivery and ignition systems function.

Lotus Elise Club Racer released for U.K.

Lotus will release a stripped-down version of the Elise, called the 1.6 Lotus Elise Club Racer. However, it will be available only in the United Kingdom. The already scant two-seater loses another 54 pounds with measures such as the use of a lightweight battery, the deletion of sound-deadening material and the removal of the radio speakers.