My first car was a Mazda RX-2. It was overdesigned in every way -- which was probably an apology-in-advance for the fact that it never got more than 19.6mpg (though interestingly, seldom less).
One of its features was a 4-barrel Holley carburetor. Four barrels for two rotors is ... well, go figure. Anyway, I had discovered that right around 60mph, I could make the car backfire. This was achieved by accelerating and decelerating right at the point that doing so caused the secondary throttles to open and shut. Opening and closing the secondary throttles would send a pulse of rich exhaust down the pipe. When that hit the open air at the other end, Blammo! It is possible that I could have achieved the same effect using the manual choke (yes, it had one), but I already had one method, and that was good enough.
So there I was. On one of my samurai driving stints between my apartment in Boulder CO and my parent's house in Greensboro NC, I happened to be driving through downtown Knoxville just at dusk in the middle of rush hour. And there had to be some guy in a big hurry, filling up my rear-view mirror with his Cadillac -- as if that would somehow make the people going 60 in front of me move faster. So I let him have it.
I did the trick with the gas pedal, and a great big, blue ball of flame rolled out of my tailpipe. (I saw the reflection in his grille.) It was magical! Thy guy in the Caddy slowed way down, and I traversed the rest of Knoxville, still at 60, but with plenty of space behind me.
