The Assembly: Tony Angelo's Scion FR-S

By Justin Banner, Photos by TAngelo Racing

When we last left Tony Angelo and the Scion FR-S, it was getting down to the wire. The car was taken apart one last time to be primered and finally painted. Now, the chassis has just come back from the paint shop and the car needs to be put back together and loaded for Formula Drift Round One at Long Beach. Did our intrepid Drift Alliance Ace make it? Guess you'll have to keep reading, eh?

The Slasher: Traxxas Slash 2WD Short Course Racer

By Justin Banner

So, what do nerds do when it's too cold to race pavement or want a new challenge in Motorsports? They go RC Racing! I recently bought a 2WD electric Short Course Racer from Traxxas called the Slash. Follow along as I start to modify this little truck into the ultimate Open Short Course truck!

Quenching and Tempering: Tony Angelo's Scion FR-S - Part 3

By Justin Banner

Coming down to the wire, Tony Angelo's FR-S is starting to look more like a professional Formula Drift car. Just a few weeks ago, this was once a stock FR-S that was a Sandy Salvage car. Now, it is nearly the perfect head for the axe. However, before you can sharpen it, you must first quench the head to harden it, then temper it to keep it from being too brittle. See now, the quenching and tempering of the FR-S!

DIY Tech: A guide for the rest of us: KW Variant 3 Installation

By Tatsu Tsuchida

When Mike Kojima extols the virtues of a particular coil-over kit, or discusses what spring rates it has, how the valving works in the shock body, or what sort of proprietary hydraulic oil makes the shock respond well to undulations in the road, I sometimes feel these concepts require an engineering degree. Much of it is over my head, but I know well enough that when a smart guy raves about some product I'm better off following suit than trying to understand it. We all know Mike and Daijiro's relationship with KW is a strong one, and Mike has put these KW V3s on the MotoIQ FR-S, so that's endorsement enough for me.

Project Supra Part 5: Thermal Coating, Wrapping, and Engine Assembly

by Pablo Mazlumian

A notable tradeoff to turbocharged power is the potential for more heat in the engine bay, leading to less-than-optimal power and increased turbo lag.  Find out how we minimize these fun-killers.  Our cylinder head and built short block also come together, and we show off the variety of MKC-tuned boosted cars.

Making the Fast Car Faster with a Wilwood Big Brake System!

By Mike Kojima

Edik Stepanyan's Integra was already one of the fastest cars in the MPTCC series.  To make matters worse for his competitors Edik has been hard at work during the off season dialing in the car specifically for MPTCC rules.  In the previous year Edik's car was set up for NASA's H2 class which meant his car was not built to the full extent that the MPTCC's rules allow.

2013 Modified StreetCar Shootout - The Rules, The Cars, The Big Tease.

By Wes Dumalski and Sarah Forst 

Like all good stories, this one starts on the airplane while on line for the shitter. I hear a voice come up behind me “my GOD this woman won’t shut the hell up”... I turn to fund the animated Bill Caswell and we begin bantering about this woman on the plane who had been talking about absolutely nothing at all for 2 hours. I am on this plane and talking to Bill Caswell because I could not get a refund on my Expedia package and rather than let the tickets go to waste I figured I could still head to Arizona and cover the UMS tuning time attack event and find some good feature cars. As luck would have it two complete car nuts are on the same plane heading to the same place to do the same damn thing; be geeks. 

Project 370Z - Improving Grip by Tuning a Cusco RS LSD!

By Mike Kojima

So far with our Project 370Z we have been focused on dialing in the chassis.  After some track time, it has become apparent that the rear differential is the next handicap in achieving faster lap times.  Although the Z has a viscous limited slip diff from the factory,  our testing has found it to be highly inadequate.  In fact it is hardly a limited slip diff at all, allowing a lot of inside rear wheel spin, even out of medium speed corners.  In some street tire testing at Buttonwillow our lap time was being limited to the low 2:06 range for configuration 13CW.

Project Gen 3 STi - Impressions of the Turbosmart IWG75 and BPV

By Wes Dumalski   

"Hey Bro, do you want to test some Turbosmart stuff?" The quoted text is from none other than Martin G from MotoIQ headquarters asking me if I would like to play with any Turbosmart products on our GR STi project. With this project still in the early and mild stages I first scratched my head wondering what I would be able to use and test. When I think Turbosmart I envision huge external wastegates on race cars and e-boost setups. Initially I wondered exactly what I could even use on the STi... Not wanting to miss an opportunity I perused their site and used their vehicle specific search feature to see what they had available.

Project Honda Civic EJ:  Building the B18C1 Part IV

By Chuck Johnson

In our last installment of Project Honda Civic EJ, we had just begun the assembly of the bottom end of our B18C1 engine.   With the bottom end complete, we could now shift our attention towards the assembly of our B18C1’s cylinder head and the completion of Project Honda Civic EJ’s engine build.