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These sneaky mods work wonders, making your car faster while remaining hidden in plain sight!

It's safe to say that there's no such thing as a faultless car. Regardless of whether it's an econobox or a sports car, there is always plenty of room for improvement, and that's where car modifications come into play. We all have different interpretations of a perfect car, and there are endless possibilities when it comes to car modification. Some people like to modify their cars to gain street cred, while some are built to serve a particular purpose, like racecars, for example.

Oftentimes, you'll hear things such as an exhaust upgrade, ride height drop, and bolting on a cold-air intake system as some of the most commonly used mods performance-hungry enthusiasts do to their cars. But the truth is, there's no wax on, wax off when it comes to adding performance. Some mods actually fly under the radar and give more specific gains. These things on our list might be some mods you've never heard of, but they'll definitely work wonders on your car.

Coilovers are a great addition for both street and track cars, as their ride heights and damping abilities could be easily altered to suit driving demands. However, setting the ride height too low could actually pose a negative gain in performance, as the suspension geometry gets compromised when the lower control arms bend awkwardly upwards.

Here's where roll center adjusters work their magic, as it basically restores an almost stock suspension geometry while allowing you to run a lower ride height. And what does that mean? Cars get a sharper turn-in, and improves the all-important tire contact patch with the road while cornering, improving lateral grip in the process.

RELATED : 10 Essential Things To Bring To A Track Day

Take a quick peek underneath your car, and you'll see that only long bolts connect the chassis and subframes to suspension components. Over time, these things tend to misalign and cause unnecessary rattles, which also throws the car's geometry out the window, especially when tackling road imperfections.

Rigid collars basically act as guides for these chassis and subframe bolts to ensure perfect alignment, restoring, and even enhancing the car's overall rigidity, and maximizing the suspension's ability to absorb bumps by preventing the energy from reaching the chassis.

Door stabilizers act in the same way as rigid collars do, providing a better fit and finish between the doors and the body shell itself, and eliminating unnecessary chassis rattles that could alter the car's behavior on rough roads.

It's fascinating how this small piece can make a big difference in chassis stiffness, and TRD even claims that door stabilizers "could give a quicker steering response by reducing the delay from when the steering wheel is turned".

We've tackled suspension and chassis bits already, and now here's a clever idea to improve your radiator's ability to cool the engine down. These are called cooling plates, and these are placed typically above the front grille of a front-engined car, just before the radiator itself.

What it does is it basically directs air to flow more efficiently to the radiator's core by closing the gap between the bumper and the beam, lessening the chances of the engine overheating.

Most people turn to using cold air intakes due to the concept that when the engine sucks colder air, the more power it produces. But what they don't know is, during hard driving, these cold air intake systems could actually suck in the heat generated by the engine itself, leading to greater power loss.

One way to prevent this from happening is by installing an intake heat shield, or a shroud. This blocks hot air from reaching the intake, maximizing the gains of increasing airflow and allow denser air to aid better combustion, and in effect, produce more power.

If you're not a fan of huge wings, but want to increase your car's high-speed stability during cornering, there's a clever solution developed by American racing legend Dan Gurney to boost downforce without the downside of drag.

It's called the Gurney flap, which is typically placed at the edge of a wing. It sharpens the exit angle of the airflow upwards to create more downforce and push the car down further at high speeds.

RELATED : 10 American Racecar Drivers Who Made It To Formula One

It's common practice for tuners to replace the clutch disc with a stiffer one that could handle more torque to handle the increased power outputs. However, the downside of this is a harder clutch pedal that could prove to be quite a leg workout when you get stuck in stop-and-go traffic.

To remedy this problem, upgrading the secondary clutch master for an aftermarket one with a larger piston would lessen the pedal effort needed to engage racing clutch plates.

Most modern cars come with drive-by-wire systems for the throttle, using a pedal position sensor to electronically attach the throttle to the gas pedal and eliminating the use of throttle cables. However, there's a common downside for this, as some experience a delay in throttle response which effectively affects the car's performance.

Aftermarket throttle controllers optimize the accelerator characteristics of a vehicle by speeding up the reaction coming from the signals from the gas pedal and could be suited depending on the driver's style.

Oil catch cans prevent oil and other contaminants to cause gunk buildup on your engine's intake manifold. It basically acts as a filter of the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) valve's gases before routing it back to the engine's combustion chambers.

Gunk buildup on the intake manifold can hurt fuel economy and cause power loss in the long run. So the longer the intake manifold remains clean with the help of oil catch cans mean the longer you could enjoy a consistent performance from your engine.

This is actually an old-school trick that's usually done in carbureted motors of the past eras. In theory, colder air means denser oxygen, which improves engine combustion, and thus, produces more power.

RELATED : Gearheads Add Cold Air Intake Using Dry Ice

Enthusiasts essentially put dry ice in the intake runners to effectively cool down the ambient air stream going into the engine to increase power output. However, feeding pure dry ice into the engine actually does more harm than good because dry ice is carbon dioxide. This means there are fewer combustion gases present than putting in air, so it's best to simply use dry ice to cool the air intake temps rather than relying purely on it.

Jan Lacuna is an engineer, car enthusiast, sim racing and real life racing driver from the Philippines now working as a writer for HotCars.com. He likes to write about the world of racing, and his experiences about Japanese cars and its culture.