Project DBA R35 Nissan GT-R, Keeping Limp Mode Away With More Cooling
So the Achilles heel of the mighty R35 GT-R is one that plagues most Japanese high performance cars, an inadequate cooling system. We are not sure why this seems to…
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Mike Kojima
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Inside KW Suspensions Solid Piston Shock Technology
We were recently at KW Suspensions North American headquarters for some new product training and we got to take apart some of their latest technology, the innovative solid piston damper.…
Project EVO IX, Getting Lots of Power From the 4G63 With Link Engine Management Part 2
When we last left of, we had tuned our Project Evo IX to run on a Link Plug and Play stand alone ECU and had done some preliminary dyno work…
Project IS-F, Restoring the Factory Brembo Calipers with West Coast Calipers
Project IS-F is a daily driver. It is garaged and well taken care of but it is subjected to daily use and is parked outside during the day. One day…
Project DBA R35 Nissan GT-R, Bolt On Power Mods Part 1
Our last work on our project R35 GT-R was to do the suspension and brakes to bring them up to a high level and address some of the R35’s shortcomings…
Inside Michael Essa’s 1000hp Formula Drift BMW E46 M3!
Renaissance man noun The definition of a Renaissance man or woman is a person who is well educated and sophisticated and who has talent and knowledge in many different fields…
Testing SDHQ Offroads Heavy Duty Battery Terminals
So who would have thought that battery terminals are a critical off-road performance part! It did not occur to us and we almost got stranded in the middle of nowhere…
Inside KW Suspensions New EXR valve system!
hys·ter·e·sis /ˌhistəˈrēsis/ noun The phenomenon in which the value of a physical property lags behind changes in the effect causing it. Reducing hysteresis is something that shock designers have worked…
Building the Nissan VQ37VHR part 4, Making the Big Power!
You have probably been following our build of an NA VQ37VHR engine and are probably dying to to see how much power we can get out of it and frankly…
Bulletproof Your Rear End!
Nowadays as technology has enabled us to extract previously unheard of power levels out of our engines, the once rare failure of the ring and pinion gear in the differential…
XE20 Lexus IS-F, IS Adjustable Front Sway Bar Hack
Our Project Lexus IS-F has never gotten a performance front swaybar even though it has a larger adjustable Sikky Manufacturing rear anti swaybar. The main reason is no one makes…
Building the Nissan VQ37VHR part 3
In our last segment of building the ultimate NA VQ37VHR, we assembled the long block of our engine. Now its ready to drop into the 370Z chassis. We had a…
What is WPC Treatment and Why Do We Use it?
Wonder why we use this mysterious WPC Treatment on so many of our engine builds? Let us explain what WPC is and how it works. It’s an inexpensive…
Building the Nissan VQ37VHR part 2
In our last story, we gave you a sneak peek and a technical overview of the parts we were going to use on our naturally aspirated VQ37VHR engine with some…
Project Tundra, Installing the Ultimate Bolt On Off Road Suspension From Icon Vehicle Dynamics Part 2
In our last article we explained how the different components of our Icon Vehicle Dynamics suspension system that we would be installing on Project Tundra worked. In this weeks story,…
Garrett Advancing Motion Honda Civic Si Intercooler Test!
Getting something for nothing is always a good thing. When modding a car, usually every modification has drawbacks. Get more power? Usually more power means more stress on things, more…
Project Tundra, Fix the Battery Hold Down!
So we were out doing some offroad suspension tuning on Project Tundra’s Icon Vehicle Dynamics suspension for an upcoming article when we discovered something that is overlooked but an important…
Project Tundra, Installing the Ultimate Bolt On Off Road Suspension From Icon Vehicle Dynamics Part 1
It’s been a long time in between updates for Project Tundra. Most of the time Project Tundra is the garage’s muscle. Moving big parts and towing cars is what it’s…
Project C7 Corvette Stingray, Fitting the Widest Posible Titan 7 Wheels and Toyo R888R Tires
As we have gotten the suspension of our C7 together we noticed that although it felt better with better balance and the car was easier to drive at speed, our…
The Performance Industry in the Face of the Pandemic, Turn 14 Distribution Doing it Right!
The ongoing Covid 19 Pandemic is impacting the performance industry in a very bad extreme way. Some companies have completely shut down and are not even taking calls or answering…
Building the Nissan VQ37VHR!
The Nissan VQ37VHR is a notoriously difficult engine to modify in naturally aspirated form. This is due to its VVEL continual variable cam timing system on the intake side of…
The Car Lovers Guide To Japan, Nismo Omori Factory
While we were in Yokohama we dropped by Nismo’s Omori Factory located just outside Nissan’s Oppama assembly plant. The Nismo Facility is a relatively new one. I worked FOR a…
The CSF Evo X, Building a Time Attack Worthy 4B11 Engine Part 1
We are tackling the building of a 4B11 engine for the Time Attack Evo X built by CSF Cooling. The car was previously a big hit on the SEMA/Show circuit…
The Car Lovers Guide to Japan, Tomei
As a treat, we got to visit Tomei’s facility located in Machida City, a suburb in Western Tokyo. Most of you know of Tomei as the supplier of top quality…
Project Acura RSX Sleeper, Buttoning Up the Project With Suspension!
We left off in our last edition of Project DC5 RSX with some killer brakes by Stoptech that brought our cars stopping power in line with our fantastic 300 whp…
How Does the Ohlins DFV Valve Work?
A few weeks ago we were visiting the North American facilities of Ohlins Advanced Suspension Technology, Ohlins USA for a special look inside Ohlins’ operations and to be able to…
Building a 650 hp Naturally Aspirated Drift Spec LS3 Part 2
In the first installment of our drift spec LS3 build, we discussed our parts selection and listed the part numbers for building a 650 whp NA monster with parts from…
What is an Inverted Shaft Strut?
As a suspension guy, lately, I have been asked what is an inverted MacPherson strut a whole bunch of times. So I concluded that I had better write something about…
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, BBi Autosport’s Pikes Peak Porsche 911 Turbo
If you are a MotoIQ fan you probably have read about our adventures at Pikes Peak with the Evasive Motorsports/Eneos Oil Toyota 86. So what better car to feature than…
The Car Lovers Guide To Japan, JDM Treasure Hunting at Up Garage!
While we were in Yokohama, we decided to visit Up Garage’s main store. Up Garage is Japan’s largest retailer of used car and bike parts and has several stores in…
Goodbye Robi
Robert Fuller was an artist and a genius. He was also really good at setting up cars. It’s been several weeks since he has left us and I am just…
The Car Lovers Guide To Japan, The Nissan Gallery, Nishi Yokohama
Nissan’s headquarters used to be in Toyko’s prestigious baller Ginza district. As the company started to have financial trouble in the early 2000s, Nissan was forced to sell there Ginza…