by Dave Coleman
After a few timid part-throttle passes listening for detonation, we finally buried the pedal and watched in horror as our little creation ripped off 170 hp on 7 psi of boost, pegging the 100-psi fuel pressure gauge in the process. Shock, horror, giddy satisfaction and abject terror had a bus fight on the way to our heads. Abject terror won the fight. There was no way the car would survive 14 hours of racing at this power level. It would overheat, throw a rod, melt a piston, ping its ring lands into oblivion, and overheat some more. Then the fuel lines would explode and we'd all burn to death. We immediately started trying to figure out how to make less boost.
By Mike Kojima
This is a story of teamwork and determination that began with a Bang. During the morning practice before the top 32 elimination at the 5th Seattle Round of the Formula D Professional Drift Series, Dai Yoshihara had a serious accident that destroyed the Falken/Discount Tire Lexus IS350 that was featured by us just a few weeks ago. The accident struck a serious blow to Team Falken as the Lexus had just come to a point in its development where it was a force to be reckoned with in Dai’s hands. With high qualifications in Las Vegas and Seattle, it seemed just a matter of time before Dai and the Lexus would sit on the podium.
A Look Inside, Technosquare's Ultimate Street Car Turbo Nissan VQ35DE
Cheston Chiu’s turbo Nissan 350Z is well known in the Nissan Z community as being a fast well rounded machine. Cheston’s car is more than just good looking, its been the runner up in Sport Compact Car’s Ultimate Street Car Challenge, placing just 10 skinny points out of first place.
What does the guy that has the Ultimate Streetcar do for a daily driver? Cheston Chiu is no stranger to building some really sick iron. His super clean, built to the hilt twin turbo 350Z is no show car. The Z placed second, missing first place by less than a point in Sport Compact Car Magazine’s Ultimate Street Car Contest and repeated the performance when the USCC torch was handed to Modified Magazine after SCC’s demise. Since the Z is a bit extreme to be a daily driver, Cheston wanted something nice but not as boring as his Maxima beater. The car still had to have some potential for some nice modifications but nothing that would render the car impractical as a daily driver. After considering several different options, Cheston settled on a 2010 Mitsubishi EVO X. The biggest reason was the twin clutch TC-SST transmission
A comment from one of my road racing friends prompted me to write this article. He said as a snide remark "I heard you are now involved with drifting, too bad those are not real race cars". No amount of arguing could convince him that a typical pro drift car is a sophisticated machine, one several times more massaged and engineered than his own race car. So lets take a look inside Dai Yoshihara'sLexus IS350 that he drives for Team Falken and Discount Tire on the Formula D Circuit
By Mike Kojima and Billy Johnson
By nature a differential wants to put all of the engines power to the wheel with the least amount of traction, the path of least resistance. The side effect of this is unwanted inside wheel-spin out of corners, and even single wheel spin on straight-aways (aka: peg-legging, one-tire-fire, etc…). This greatly affects acceleration since the power is not able to be put to the ground efficiently and is lost through the inside unloaded tire
By Mike Kojima and Aaron Guardado
After we prepared two cars as seen in part one of this series. We proceeded to enter them in a destruction derby, the infamous Orange Crush event at the Orange County fair. We faired ok, making it through most of the event with only minor injuries despite the car’s taking some enormous punishment
When we last left project EVO IX we had just tried out the most basic bolt on mods and ended up being pretty pleased with the results, picking up nearly 30 whp from stock with just a few hours of work including dyno time. Drivability was improved as well making our experience a win win situation
Inside the 800-hp X-Games Fiestas - Update 1
By Dave Coleman
An American rallycross is an autocross in the dirt. A European rallycross is an explosion of rally bundled up and barely confined within the grounds of a racetrack. Roughly speaking, take every european rally car that has ever been banned for being too fast, turn up the boost, and then run 6 of them, wheel-to-wheel, in a sprint race that alternates between pavement and dirt. When a team of Swedish rallycross fiestas crossed the pond to run Pikes Peak and the X-Games I wanted to know more. How exactly do they get these Miata engines (the Ford Duratec is also known as a Mazda MZR) to 800-hp, and how do they harness that power and make it usable? This story is everything I know, updated frequently as I learn more...
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