How to Improve Your Truck’s Performance at Home
Trucks have steadily grown in popularity over the past decade. Between better economical features and customizable upgrades, trucks are leading the industry. Getting your first truck is a liberating experience. That feeling stays with you as you start to customize it.
Whether you want to increase your truck’s performance or appearance, there’s plenty of opportunities. Deciding on which upgrade is going to give you the biggest value is hard, so we’ve gathered a few popular picks. Use this as a reference for prioritizing your next purchase.
Bed Liners
This purchase improves your truck’s performance, appearance, and longevity. A good bed liner will defend your bed from dents, scratches, rust, and thick grime. This makes your life easier and keeps your truck’s bed looking nice.
If you’re looking for an example of how bed liners improve functionality, view here. Different textures and hydrophobic materials make moving contents around much easier.
Paint and Wax
The standard paint job that comes with a new vehicle is usually prone to lots of fading and scratches. It won’t take long for your truck to look dated, even if you do take it to get washed regularly.
If you want to do a funny experiment take a look at the paint inside the door frame. Compare that shade of color with the hood of your car. This is also the best way to restore your car to the original color it was when you bought it.
Better Headlights
Plastic headlights often get stained and fade faster than your paint job. You can either upgrade to better ones or attempt to restore the clarity of your current ones. With that said, if you don’t have fog lights, they are a great upgrade for your truck’s performance.
Fog lights combined with the increased height on a truck make for maximum visibility. These lights could save your life in a dangerous storm, avoiding crashes in the fog, brush fires, and etc.
LED headlights are great upgrades, too. Get brighter, more efficient lights that increase your truck’s value.
New Wheels
When shopping for new wheels for a truck, it’s easy to go big. Go big or go home, right? Well, not actually. Remember, the bigger the rim, the heavier they are.
Big rims and big tires look great, but you’ll need to be careful going over bumps and with losing grip. High-profile tires are going to give the best value for overall performance. Do you want your truck to look trendy and cool or do you want no-fuss performance?
For performance, shoot for light OEM wheels. Aftermarket wheels may cost you less, but you may run into problems. Some aftermarket rims, for example, are heavy aluminum, which bends easier. If you need to replace one, you might have trouble finding its replacement.
Exhaust Headers & Manifolds
Getting more out of your truck isn’t just about bigger and better parts. Efficiency is an often overlooked aspect of truck performance. By investing in better exhaust manifolds and headers, you’ll increase your horses and torque power.
A bonus to upgrading headers is a decrease in emissions. Aftermarket headers can move air at a greater volume and achieve the same power with less fuel spent. Long tube headers aren’t just for Mustangs, they’re some of the best truck accessories.
Get those revs in with a new exhaust header and manifold and let your truck roar.
Performance Chip
All modern truck owners looking to increase their top speeds will inevitably look at the customizing its performance chip. Bypassing factory settings can sound intimidating, but not with a power programmer.
Factory settings get the job done, but they intentionally limit your truck’s potential. Automobile manufacturers do this to pass regulations with flying colors. Take your truck to a reputable mechanic and you can increase your performance without sacrificing efficiency.
Custom Exhaust
Numerous vehicles nowadays are intended to be remarkably silent for luxury and leisurely rides. Well, that is simply not the sort of experience that everybody’s searching for. Truck owners like to hear and feel the power of their vehicles.
So, do you like your ride to sound as big as it looks? Get a custom exhaust for your truck. For under two or three hundred bucks, you can have that oomf for stopping people in their tracks as you move by.
What’s more, the exhaust of your truck isn’t just about getting a dose of testosterone. A custom exhaust will likewise build the torque you need to do work with; hauling and pushing various loads.
Better Brakes
Brakes are the most basic security functionality of a vehicle. If there is ever a chance that you can’t stop when you have to, your life could be in jeopardy. Over time, if you’re doing a lot of hauling, your brakes get weaker. You should be proactive in maintaining them.
Opting for higher performance brakes will increase stopping power and decrease rate of wear. Look for carbon fiber brakes; they provide smooth and noise-free performance for heavy-duty trucking and towing.
Going Turbo or Super-charged
Last, but not least we save the biggest performance spike for the speed demons. Forced induction systems in the form of a supercharger or turbocharger can provide huge gains. It’s possible to get over 50% more hp and torque if the rest of your truck is up to snuff.
Only consider this type of upgrade when you have a quality fuel injector, exhaust manifold, and headers.
Serious About Your Truck’s Performance
Take this guide, make a list, and rank each upgrade in order of importance. Outdoor truck owners may prioritize brakes, bed liners, and hauling equipment, for example. Urban road warriors may want to beef up their exhaust header and performance chip.
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