If you're rebuilding your engine--or get your engine rebuilt--for better performance, improved fuel efficiency, or simply more power, consider the following ideas. First of all, you want to lighten up your engine. Heavy engine parts move more slowly and use up more power. Superior technicians employ advanced superlight metal alloys designed to work at a rapid pace to push air into the pistons.

Another key engineering tactic is to reduce friction throughout the engine-exhaust complex. Every time a mechanical action takes place within an engine--be it a piston pumping a cylinder or air flowing out the muffler--molecules drag along the surface of your components. If you can reduce that drag, either by changing the chemical nature of your air/fuel admixture or by smoothing out the surface of your internal parts, you'll speed up airflow and boost power.

A less technically challenging way to rebuild your engine to improve strength is to install a fuel injection system. This is an advanced metering device which measures the amount of fuel that gets sent into your cylinders. By creating more efficient fuel metering, you can save on fuel costs and gain a bigger mechanical advantage from the fuel you do burn.

Finally, you can create larger displacement within your engine by adding cylinders. V-8 engines are more powerful than V-6 engines, and so forth. Thus far, it seems like the maximum number of cylinders an engine can comfortably store is 12. However, you can increase the volume of existing cylinders and thus improve your engine's pumping power.