Six Stand Out New Street Rod/Street Performance Parts at SEMA 2018
Mike Aguilar
Click Here to Begin Slideshow
There were literally hundreds of companies with thousands of new products at the 2018 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Five of those companies came away with awards in the Performance-Street Products and Street Rod/Custom Car categories. Turbosmart showed a universal blow-off valve. Flaming River came in with another outstanding steering product for restos and resto-mods. Dakota Digital showed two instrument panels which took home awards. Wilwood came to town with an awesome new tandem master cylinder that looks and works great. Finally, a company called Livernois Motorsports & Engineering received a runner-up award for their complete DOD delete kit.
Turbosmart Introduces the World’s First Ever Universal Blow-Off Valve
The Turbosmart Kompact-EM series blow-off valve was awarded the best new product in the Performance-Street Product category at the 2018 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Blow-off valves are usually application-specific and hard to install and tune properly. Turbosmart’s –EM Series blow-off valves are advertised as the world’s first truly universal blow-off valves. The BOV design minimizes leakage, which increases turbo performance.
Turbosmart also says that the design of the Kompact-EM Series BOV’s design and engineering also give them superior thermal performance. Testing by the company shows them to have superior flow performance over the units against which they were tested. The complete OE integration of the Turbosmart Compact-EM Series Blow-Off Valve is another reason that it is one of the best new Street Performance products of the year.
This steering gearbox from Flaming River fits just about any rod or kustom application - Cab-Overs, T-Buckets, and other builds with limited clearances. Inside the aluminum housing, the unit is completely gear-driven, with zero chains and sprockets that can slip easier and give sloppy steering input and control.
The gearbox has a 90 degree design and the shaft has a 35 degree variable angle. Tight clearances can be overcome by mounting the gearbox horizontally or vertically. The output shaft on the VDOG is compatible with universal joints at ¾ inch diameter and 36 splines. Maximum adjustability is achieved with the articulating ball design, helping to lift this to the Best New Product in the Street Rod/Custom Car category.
Wilwood is always bringing great new products to SEMA, and this year their Compact Tandem Master Cylinder is one of the runner-ups in the Street Rod/Custom Car category. This tandem master cylinder will fit just about anything, with four different bore sizes available - 7/8 inch, 15/16 inch, 1 inch, and 1.12 (1 1/8) inch diameters.
Adding to their functionality, they can be used for either manual or power brake applications. They also look great, with black anodized caps on bodies that are either e-coated or ball burnished and polished.
The Dakota Digital HDX-2100 Universal Competition Analog HDX instrument panel looks sleek and sexy, but that’s not why it is one of the runner-ups in the Performance-Street Product category. Vital information that you need quickly is presented in a way which lets you can take it all in at a glance. Dakota Digital calls it “a race-oriented instrument system that really works.”
The HDX-2100 is available with either black or silver alloy gauge faces. Under the analog gauges are two TFT displays that can be configured to display the info you want and need most. There’s a wide variety of colors and patterns available to make looking at them more enjoyable and to make certain readings jump out at you. They’re equipped with indicator lights for the parking brake, turn signals and high beams. They also have two indicators that you define for your needs.
Livernois Motorsports & Engineering comes in with the second of the two new products in the Performance-Street Category to earn the runner-up position. GM came up with a Displacement-On-Demand/Active Fuel Management (DOD/AFM) system for the Fourth Gen LS engine that was, in theory, a great idea. However, in practice, the displacement-on-demand system can fail and cause serious engine damage if not caught in time.
SEMA calls the second of two runner-ups in the Performance-Street Product category the “Livernois Motorsports & Engineering DOD/AFM system failure prevention kit for Gen4 GM LS engines.” When RacingJunk spoke with him, Cody Long of Livernois just called it a “DOD Delete Kit.” He also said that the reason this kit has generated such a buzz at the 2018 SEMA Show is “our kits come with a camshaft and even cylinder heads…..all the work pays off with those kits because they help the car pickup (sic) power as well as remaining very reliable!”
Dakota Digital’s RTX Instruments for 55-57 Chevy cars were awarded the second of two runner-up positions in the Street Rod/Custom Car Product category for a number of reasons. What sticks out at first glance is that it looks stock. Then you look deeper and find it’s filled with goodies that definitely aren’t stock.
