R32 Skyline Shows The Way For A Daily-driven Supercar

Before the Nissan Skyline R35 GT-R was marketed in the U.S. and before Nissan famously bested Porsche’s time at the Nurburgring, enthusiasts around the world were already playing with the R35’s predecessors. Even before the appearance of Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evolutions and Subarus WRX Imprezas, the few car nuts who knew about the Skyline already appreciated the giant-slaying capabilities of these twin-turbo AWD cars. This R32 GT-R from Australia has been in the care of a car enthusiast from Australia, who has had different cars in his stable, but has always kept this R32 in his hands.

Over the years, this car has been continuously improved and cared for, to the point that practically no performance aspect of the car has not been upgraded, down to the carbon fiber radiator stays. In its current form, the RB26DETT DOHC inline-6 was rebuilt by IS Motor Racing with HKS pistons and rods, a pair of HKS GT-SS turbos, Tomei Poncam Type-B camshafts, Tomei metal head gasket and adjustable cam gears. An HKS fuel pump, Nismo FPR and Nismo 555cc injectors handle fueling duties while a Power FC is used to control the engine. Horsepower calculations show 408hp going to the wheels, courtesy of the AWD drivetrain. There are GT-R engines with thousand horsepower outputs but the owner of this car wisely opted for a tamer setup so that the car could used without fuss on the street.

18-inch RAYS CE28Ns and Toyo R888 semi-slicks are used for the rolling stock, while AP Racing 6-pot fronts and 4-pot rears handle the braking duties, which are needed when the Ikeya Formula adjustable arms, Section tension rods, Tein RA coilovers, Cusco swaybars and HKS Kansai braces are used at the track. An ACPT carbon fiber propshaft has replaced the original steel unit.

See the source article here.

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Outrageous Z3 M Hopes To Top 1Lap Race

The 1 Lap race is an 8-day race featuring cars where the main qualifying requirement is that they be street legal. Otherwise, it’s basically a run what you brung affair. But lest you think that a thousand-horsepower beast will do the trick, the mix of events (time trials, drag racing, autocrossing and skid pad challenges) ensure that the most well-rounded car wins. To this end, a lot of interpretations have been entered since the race’s inception and for this year, one of the entries is a Z3 M Coupe that the owner hopes will have what it takes to take top honors.

The body features a carbon fiber hood (55 lbs saving), roof (saving 40 lbs), front bumper cover with splitter and cooling ducts, Grand-Am spec CF rear wing and carbon fiber front and rear quarter panels. Underneath, CCW 18x9.5 and 18x 11 wheels, Michelin PS2 tires, Rotora 6 piston 355mm front and 4 piston 330mm rear brakes, TC Kline Double adjustable shocks and camber plates, H&R swaybars, Ireland Engineering subframe bushings and rear toe adjusters and RRT subframe reinforcements make up the upgraded components.

The engine is a Dinan-built race spec BMW S62 V8 with custom 3-ring composite Mahle pistons, race cams, billet steel crank, solid lifters, Carillo rods, valve springs and valve retainers. A dry sump system side mounted on the oil pan lubes the internal works and engine management and traction control are handled by a Pectel SQ6 ECU. Horsepower calculations put the engine’s output in the 600 hp range and an OS Giken clutch and LSD were installed to handle that power.

The one lap starts on April 30 and ends on May 7.

Engine startup video.

Revving the S62.

Source article is here.

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1966 Datsun Pickup Benefits From Miata Drivetrain

Although everyone loves a car with a fire-breathing engine, huge amounts of horsepower are not a strict necessity for a fun and unique ride, as demonstrated by this 1966 Datsun pickup. By his admission a Datsun pickup nut, the builder of this pickup is also a road racer. As a project, he decided to marry the body and chassis of a 1966 L520 Datsun with the drivetrain and suspension of a 1990 MX5 Miata.

The original frame on the pickup, as well as the Mazda subframe, were modified to allow the Miata subframe to fit, thus ensuring that this pickup would have independent suspension, front and rear, as well as disc brakes at all four corners. Since this road racer runs a Miata racer, he was very familiar with the proper suspension angles and settings that would work, and this knowledge was put to use in fitting the Miata suspension to the pickup. With the project vehicle being lighter than their Mazda race car, at around 2300 pounds, the owner intends the pickup to have a 50/50 weight distribution through the use of ballast where it is needed. Where the previous engine was a carburated 1300cc engine, the pickup now runs the Miata DOHC fuel-injected engine, slightly massaged to deliver 135 rear wheel horsepower. If you think that’s not enough, ask the thousands of Miata owners who drive their cars around with grins on their faces.

Gearheads know that light cars don’t need much power to have good power-to-weight ratios. Horsepower calculations predict that this car would do 0-60 mph in under 7 seconds. Admittedly, today’s modified cars would do that number in 3 seconds less but the fun here is not in straightline speed but the driving dynamics that a nimble car offers.

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Bowler Nemesis EXR Shames "Sport" SUVs

The Porsche Cayenne and BMW X5/X6M are powerful AWD SAVs that have proven to be popular to the point that they have become vehicles that pander to the luxury aspect of looking rugged, instead of being rugged. The offroader featured here puts these “sport” SAVs to shame with its radical styling and performance capabilities. The Nemesis EXR from Bowler Offroad Ltd. is a roadgoing offshoot of the company’s Dakar-spec racers. The Nemesis takes styling elements such as grille, headlights and rear lights from the Range Rover Sport but the similarities stop there.

The Nemesis is constructed from tubular steel in a spaceframe design that incorporates the roll cage as an integrated structure of the frame, which is compliant with motorsport safety regulations. Body panels are made from a composite called Twin-tex and in the areas where high strength is needed with light weight, carbon fiber is used to give a vehicle weight of 3850 pounds. The roadgoing Nemesis EXR is fitted with a 5.0 liter supercharged V8 from the Jaguar XKR and horsepower calculations predict up to 600 horsepower on tap, but test versions were limited to 500 horsepower. Although race versions of the Nemesis are fitted with a manual ZF 6-speed, the EXR has a 6-speed automatic. Fully independent suspension offers 300 mm of ground clearance front and rear. The EXR uses standard Range Rover Sport brakes, but weighs almost 1500 pounds less so braking power is more than sufficient for this offroader. The driveline is composed of a 60/40 torque split limited slip center differential with over-lock and limited slip front and rear differentials. A 415 litre capacity racing fuel cell to allows the vehicle to run the longest Dakar Rally stages.

On tarmac, the Nemesis hits 62 mph in 3.9 seconds, on to an estimated top speed of 140 mph. At an estimated cost of $190,000, the Nemesis EXR is certainly not cheap but compared to the Cayenne and X5/X6 M-variant BMWs, the Bowler Nemesis is the king of the hill.

Source article is here.

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Trial Celica Still A Cool Car After Several Years

Trial is a Japanese tuner whose experience goes back decades. In 2003, they came out with a demo car for the 7th generation Toyota Celica. This demo car generated so much interest and respect that it became one of the tuner cars featured in Gran Turismo 4 and 5. As befitting a demo car, no part of the car was left untouched.

Starting with the body, a functional aero kit was designed inspired by Japan’s GT300 series. Parts developed for this kit and installed on the car were the front bumper, side skirts, rear bumper and rear wing. Typically, a big brake kit and fully adjustable coilover suspension were also installed. A rollcage and fuel cell conform to international motorsport standards.

Toyota gifted this Celica with a high-revving 2ZZ-GE 4-cylinder 1800 cc motor which produced around 190 horsepower driving a 6-speed manual transmission. Obviously not enough for the Japanese tuner, Trial proceeded to install a 3ZZ engine conversion kit to bump displacement to 2 liters, using a stroker kit which includes a custom crank, Carrillo rods, and Wiseco 8.8 compression pistons. This rotating assembly was fully balanced and blueprinted, including the sleeves, clutch, flywheel, and crank pulley. A TRIAL/Blitz supercharger was also installed, as well as a custom exhaust manifold, titanium muffler, HKS oil cooler and custom oil pump and fuel system. Although no official figures have been released, horsepower calculations estimate an output of more than 280 horsepower driving the car’s weight of 1140 kilos.

These mods resulted in a Tsukuba Circuit Time of 1:06.8 which when compared to one of the fastest S2000s in Japan at that time, could only manage a 1.10 on the same track. In its heyday, it held the distinction of being one of the fastest roadgoing front-drive cars anywhere. Drag Hondas could accelerate faster but were good only in a straight line.

See the source article here. 

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Singer 911 Offers Vintage Looks With Uncompromising Performance

The car you see here is a brand-new 911, of the type produced from 1969-1989. However, this car is not manufactured by Porsche but by Singer Vehicle Design. It’s not a restoration, or a replica for that matter. Singer in fact calls it a reincarnation, and it starts with a Porsche 911 long-wheelbase floorpan, retaining the original wheelbase, the A-pillar position, the roofline, suspension and transaxle mounting points. Additionally, the unibody is stitch-welded to improve rigidity and strength. Every other component that has been installed is from the best refinements of over 40 years of Porsche 911 modifications.

The resulting Singer 911, as it is called, is a carbon fiber-bodied masterpiece, with the suspension converted from torsion bars to the Macpherson strut and Carrera SC rear trailing arm with coilover set-up used on vintage racing 911’s. Moton dampers with remote oil reservoirs and Eibach springs are installed on all four corners. Brembo calipers and 930-series rotors make up the brake system while Fuchs-inspired lightweight wheels are shod with modern Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires.

The engine used in the Singer 911 is from the 993, the last iteration of the air-cooled series. Its 3.6 liters are increased to 3.8, using titanium connecting rods and the crankshaft from the 997 GT3. Custom-engineered billet aluminum heads play a major part in producing the engine’s 425 horsepower and 8000 rpm redline. AMotec M800 ECU also adds launch control, traction control and data logging, very welcome features that were never even envisioned in the original 911s. A 6-speed Getrag transmission transfers the power to the rear wheels.

Performance is 3.9 seconds to 60 mph, with a top speed in excess of 170 mph. With a claimed weight of 2400 pounds, determining the other statistics of this car is possible with a performance calculator.

The Singer 911 costs $200,000 but to those who can afford it, the car is a truly iconic automobile that everybody recognizes and that has been rebuilt to the best specifications that money and today’s technology can get.

Source article here.

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KTM X-Bow Offers Race Car Performance In Street-Legal Guise

KTM is a renowned and respected motorbike builder and its race team has won the prestigious Dakar Rally several times. Its bikes are synonymous with uncompromising performance. In 2007, KTM introduced a concept car to the public, naming it the X-Bow.The X-Bow weighs only 790 kilos, thanks to its carbon fiber monocoque. In terms of weight reduction and safety, carbon fiber is the material of choice for Formula 1 teams. To this carbon fiber tub were attached a dual-wishbone suspension. Audi provided the 4-cylinder turbocharged powerplant, which provides 240 horsepower from its mid-engine location. A 6-speed gearbox transfers power to the wheels. In terms of outright horsepower, 240 is laughable, compared to the other thousand-horsepower mills featured previously on this blog. However, be reminded that the engine has only 790 kilos to push around so the power to weight ratio of 308 hp/ton compares very favorably with that of well-known sports cars.

Proof of this is its 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds with a top speed of 140 mph. Using a performance calculator, the car should do less than 12 seconds in the quarter mile. It’s been called a street-legal race car and this description is no hyperbole. In fact, there are videos of the KTM X-Bow out-accelerating cars like an Aston Martin and similar sports cars.

The next video will show an X-Bow chasing a Porsche Turbo.

See source article here.

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turbo + nitrous

Hello Haitham, here's a question on adding nitrous to a turbo setup.

http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5831802

Hennessey Venom GT Shows American Tuning Prowess To The World

This car looks like just like the Lotus Exige, and it is. But some major work by Texas-based Hennessey has transformed this street-legal track car into a weapon that even the mighty Veyron should fear. John Hennessey is famous for his thousand-horsepower Vipers and after an event a few years ago, Hennessey wondered what a good project car would be. According to him, "One day I joked about putting the Venom 1000 Twin Turbo engine in the back of a Lotus Exige. Then I thought, let's do a sketch and see what that might look like.”

The design brief was to produce the maximum power to weight ratio in a road-going car. And with the help of an engineering firm in England, Hennessey was able to achieve this goal, by having a car with 1G of acceleration in the lower gears. To achieve this performance, the tuner used a 6.2-liter Chevy V8 with twin Garrett turbos to produce 1200 horsepower and 1155 pounds-feet of torque. Locating this engine and a 6-speed transmission in an engine bay designed for a naturally-aspirated 4-cylinder took refabrication of the aluminum monocoque and the addition of a chromoly structure. Carbon-ceramic brakes from Brembo and KW adjustable suspension complete the major changes to the car. CFD enabled Hennessey to design and manage airflow for the engine and the car in the computer even before the first custom parts were built. Even with the Ricardo 6-speed and twin turbo V8, weight distribution is 44/56, so the car shouldn’t be as tail-happy as you would think. This makes the car live up to the handling prowess that Lotus is famous for.

The Venom GT weighs in at 2685 pounds, which is equivalent to a 2005 Ford Focus. Superlatives are not enough anymore to describe the performance of this car. Just content yourselves with the car’s performance, which is 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 9.9 seconds. Sprinting to 200 mph (which a lot of cars can’t even manage) can be done in a fraction under 16 seconds. A Bugatti Veyron needs about 24 seconds to do this. For now, only 10 or less cars will be built annually, at a price tag in today’s currency of $1 million per copy.

On the dyno

Preview video

Source article is here.

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4-Cyl Honda Integra Made History By Running 8-sec Quarter Mile

Honda turned the motorsports world on its ear when it introduced its VTEC engine technology. With specific outputs in the 100 hp per liter range, it rivaled the output of even forced-induction engines of the time.

This Integra combines a K-series engine (the original Integra Type R motor is a B18) with a Garrett turbo running a 72 mm inducer. This is a class limitation, with minimum vehicle weights of 2500 lbs. Needless to say, all the internals of the K-series motor used top-shelf parts to withstand the boost. Very little information on the engine can be found but with an 8.9 best, a 166 mph trap speed, and assuming a weight of 2600 lbs., engine output can be calculated to be over 1,000 horsepower.

But the tuning of this car was not limited to the engine. You can make a ton of power but it has to be usable. The owner, Tony Palo, says, “The most overlooked things I see are good engine management systems, good boost controllers, and suspension. There are a lot of cars out there that make the power on the dyno, but only a small portion of them that run what the dyno numbers say they should.”

When the team is at the track, Palo always looks at the data from the logger after a run and goes over the time slip. After looking at the plugs, the datalog, and the time slip, the team makes whatever changes they feel will make the car go quicker. The goal is to go faster every time the car goes down the strip.

See the source article here.

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D1-prepped CT9 Evo Lancer Engineered To Win

With Mitsubishi hemming and hawing about the Lancer Evolution’s future, it’s only fitting that a feature on this legendary affordable supercar makes it to this blog. Although the Evo X is the most commonly known Lancer Evolution in the U.S. nowadays, the winning ways of the Evo, as it is known to the legions of its fans all over the world, actually began its winning ways with the Evo 3, when it was entered in the World Rally Championship to demonstrate its all-wheel drive capabilities. Since then, Evos have seen competition and success in dirt and paved surfaces. Even on the street, the sight of an Evo makes enthusiasts sit up and take notice because it is not a car to be trifled with, even it its stock 280 horsepower form.

One of the most unusual, and best engineered, competition Evos was the CT9 Evo of Team Orange, built for drifting by Jun Engineering of Japan. Despite its unassuming name, Jun is a very well-known and respected outfit and its products and workmanship are among the very best. For this build, the team decided to discard the AWD and transverse engine/transmission layout and instead convert the Evo 9 to a longitudinal front-engine/transmission layout.

Jun Engineering rebuilt the Mitsubishi 4G63 engine with a 2.2-liter stroker kit, specially developed for this application. Put together with other Jun internals, the engine is force-fed with a Trust TD06-25G turbo blowing 1.7 kg/cm of boost to produce an output of 540 reliable horsepower. In this cost-no-object build, a Hollinger 6-speed sequential transmission was fitted behind the engine, driving a Cusco limited-slip differential. DG-5 coilovers and the requisite competition brakes round out the other major components of the car. As befitting a proper competition car, the body was stripped and clad with lightweight panels to bring the car’s weight down to 1,250 kilos.

After various shakedowns and tuning, the car won the prestigious D1 drifting championship in the year it was entered in. Validation of such fine engineering work cannot have been done without a head for proper performance calculations and in this regard, Jun head Susumu Koyama is among the best.

Shakedown video:

With its Evo X teammate:

Source article here.

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HKS Drag Skyline Showed V8s Not The Only Way To Big HP

One of the most famous cars of the the early 2000’s was the HKS R33 Drag Skyline. It was a time when the Skyline GT-R was not really that known outside of Japan and AWD was a technology that was best suited to rally cars.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, HKS started a program to develop an RB26 into a drag car engine that would produce more than 4 times its original horsepower. This development program resulted in an engine that would eventually produce 1,300 horsepower reliably. To get to this power level, HKS started with a custom billet crankshaft, H-beam conrods and 87mm forged pistons. Next the head was ported, larger HKS valves fitted and high-lift cams replaced the stock units. Twin Garrett GT turbos feed a 95 mm throttle body. Exhaust was handled by 4-inch pipes. Adjustable fuels rails feed 550cc injectors to give the engine the fuel needed to run 35 psi of boost. An air shifting mechanism controlled by a button on the steering wheel enabled quick power transmission through a 4-plate clutch to the front and rear differentials.

The HKS R33 Drag Skyline captivated audiences all over the world with its 4-wheel burnouts and incredible performance and was only suddenly retired because engineers at HKS discovered that the chassis had weakened to the point that the car was unsafe to run anymore. Even today, a decade later, the 7.67 best time of this car stands as a testament to the kind of performance engineering the Japanese tuner was able to accomplish.

Source article here.

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CNG SL600 Shows The Green Way To High Performance

Put an engineer with the vision to go fast without dirtying the environment, has the cash to make it happen, and a shop with the skills to do it and you get the Speedriven SL600. Owned by Bernie Towns, an engineer working for a natural-gas company in Texas, this heavy luxury car’s 5.5 liter twin-turbo V12 has been given a fuel and induction system makeover to make it produce 800 horsepower. The 1,000 pounds-feet of torque allows this clean-burning car to tackle the quarter mile in under 10 seconds. Top speed already exceeds 320 kilometers per hour but engineer Towns wants the car to hit 380 km/h.

The mechanical aspects of upgrading the car has been assigned to Speedriven and the project has reportedly received support from Mercedes-Benz USA in the form of an aero kit that will stabilize the car at the speeds it is projected to go. According to Speedriven, Bernie Towns the engineer can talk about things like CNG giving off 80% fewer harmful emissions than gasoline and other properties of the alternative fuel. The engineer and enthusiast also  has the resources to calculate flame-front speeds, burr temperatures and other technical things necessary for the tuner to understand in order to properly convert and tune the car for CNG. Speedriven installed billet-wheel turbo upgrades, top-mounted intercoolers, full free-flow exhaust, and Speedriven’s ECU/TCU upgrade. The brakes have also been upgraded to deal with the triple-digit speeds the car is expected to hit.

Bernie Towns the enthusiast says of his inspiration, “So there I am, sitting at lunch one day and the people are talking about natural gas cars, and it suddenly hits me: we should convert the SL to run on natural gas!” So, with that thought in his mind Towns the engineer contacted Speedriven and the vehicle that has turned out is now a part of automotive history.

Original article here.

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Judd-powered Hillclimb BMW Is A 5-Year Class Champion

Hillclimbing is one of the older forms of motorsport that is not as popular in North America as it is in Europe. There, the FIA-sanctioned European Hillclimb Championship is a popular championship which attracts its own share of specialized machines. One such machine is this E36-series BMW that was modified by Georg Plasa to win a string of championships in the classes it was entered in at the European Hillclimb Championship. In fact, this same car was champion in its class for 5 years running, being defeated only in 2010.

This car is powered by a V8 engine, but not one from BMW. If is in fact powered by a Judd Formula 3000 engine that features a flat plane crank which is a design trait it has in common with Ferrari engines. 580 horsepower is produced at 10,200 rpm. Yup, 10,200 rpm, which is sport bike territory. That power is fed to a Hewland SGT-S sequential transmission shifted by a Mega-Line shift system.

Other features of the car that made it unbeatable for 5 years are its CTG carbon propshaft, aluminum diff with Drexler LSD, KW 3-way dampers, magnesium uprights, titanium driveshafts, 6/4 piston brake calipers with 355/285 discs, the front being carbon/ceramic discs, Tevis MK20 ABS, 10 and 10.5x18 forged magnesium rims, exclusive use of Poggipolini titanium bolts, carbon body kit including a carbon roof, wind tunnel tested aerodynamics with documentation and Motec display with data aquisition.

The carbon fiber and lightweight components give the car a dry weight of 895 kilos or 1970 pounds. If you calculate the power-to-weight ratio of this car, it comes out to 658 hp per ton. Further use of a performance calculator predicts that it should do 0-60 mph in 2.87 seconds and the quarter mile in 10 seconds. No wonder that the car became, and still is, a sensation.

See the source article here.

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