Tech Archives - MotoIQ

The Discount Tire/Falken S13 that Dai Yoshihara drove to many podiums and a Formula Drift championship now resides with Falken Tire where it does duty as a promotional demo car. …

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Rapid Designing and Testing Suspension With 3D Printing Part 2

Posted on April 21, 2019April 24, 2019
byMike Kojima

In our last story, we were redesigning the steering knuckle/upright for the 2019 season on Dai Yoshihara’s Turn 14 Formula Drift BR-Z. Our design goals were to keep the tires…

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Watch: LiteBlox Ultralightweight Drop In Battery for the Porsche 911

Posted on April 12, 2019
byMike Kojima

Want to get rid of 42 pounds of weight from your Porsche 911? LiteBox makes it easy. We show how easy it is to install and what effects it…

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King Bearings Long Term Extreme Use Torture Test!

Posted on March 20, 2019March 21, 2019
byMike Kojima

We have been using King Bearings almost exclusively in our engine builds for the past several years and have been getting extremely good results with them. So we wanted to…

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Designing Suspension with 3D Printing

Posted on February 17, 2019February 18, 2019
byMike Kojima

Drift cars with their extreme steering angles are pretty difficult to design suspension for. A lot of things must be considered because geometry that works well on a regular car…

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Where are the Best Places to Lighten Your Car For Increased Performance? Read This and Find Out!

Posted on February 11, 2019February 11, 2019
byKhiem Dinh

“A pound of rotating weight is equal to ten pounds of static weight”. Or seven pounds. Or three pounds depending on who you ask. And they’d all be correct and…

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LA Auto Show 2018: Nerd’s Eye View – Engines and EVs

Posted on January 20, 2019January 23, 2019
byKhiem Dinh

In this story, I am going to be looking at some of the latest technology behind the latest powerplants on display at the 2018 LA Autoshow be it internal combustion…

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Quick Spin and Nerd-Out: Jaguar I-PACE

Posted on January 10, 2019January 13, 2019
byKhiem Dinh

As everyone knows, many of the OEMs are adding EVs to their lineups. I worked at an EV startup for almost three years, so I’m always keen to see…

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Drift Car Brake Development

Posted on December 24, 2018
byMike Kojima

Action shots by Valters Boze When we first got started with our technical involvement in Formula Drift’s Pro Series 10 years ago, the state of the art in drift car braking…

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2019 Mazda CX-5 Turbo Winter Test Drive and Tech Dive

Posted on December 19, 2018December 27, 2018
byKhiem Dinh

My wife has a 2016 Mazda CX-5 which we absolutely love. Her only complaint is that it needs more power. Apparently, many Mazda customers said the same thing. So, for…

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How to Make Crappy Cars Handle Well!

Posted on November 7, 2018
byMike Kojima

Handling is a difficult subject for many people to wrap their heads around. Many cars, especially lower end sport compacts have a reputation for awful handling that can’t be fixed or for…

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Ultimate SR20 Rebuild Guide: Part 2 – Selecting Your Engine Management

Posted on October 29, 2018
byNikita Rushmanov

In the last installment we disassembled our SR20 in preparation for machining. Now comes the fun part where we get to pick all the parts for the new build! We’re…

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WATCH: Nerd’s Eye View – CSF Radiators Universal Racing Oil Coolers

Posted on October 25, 2018
byJeff Naeyaert

Ravi Dolwani of CSF Radiators came by our shop to talk about CSF’s oil cooler line. Oil coolers might not seem that exciting but wait to you see all…

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Easy Aero

Posted on October 9, 2018February 25, 2019
byMike Kojima

Nowadays Race Car and dual-purpose Street/Track day aerodynamics are a hot topic with car enthusiasts. The wild aero on time attack car and the time attack style aero kits that are coming on…

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How To Build A Backup Battery System

Posted on September 18, 2018September 18, 2018
byFrank Ewald

Power to go! There are times when all of us want electricity when we are miles from the nearest electrical outlet. Two key components to having power on the go…

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Does Wheel Stiffness Affect Performance? We test Carbon Revolution’s Carbon Fiber Wheels

Posted on September 10, 2018May 20, 2019
byBilly Johnson

10 There is a lot more to Carbon Fiber wheels than just cool looks and lightweight. We met up with Carbon Revolution at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to learn about…

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Tested: DBPOWER 600A 18000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter

Posted on August 29, 2018September 10, 2018
byErik Jacobs

Tested: DBPOWER 600A 18000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter By Erik Jacobs Battery technology has improved dramatically over the last few years. And, with it, a proliferation of new devices has…

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Building the 1.6 liter Ecoboost Engine with mountune Part 1-Project Ford Fiesta ST Race Car

Posted on August 26, 2018August 27, 2018
byMike Kojima

Its been awhile since we did an update on Project Ford Fiesta ST Racecar. Until now we have been working on the chassis but now its time to go through…

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Ignition system upgrade for the Mitsubishi EVO 8 / 9 – 4G63 engine.

Posted on August 7, 2018August 23, 2018
byMike Kojima

We’re upgrading our Project Evo IX 4G63 motor with high-performance Ignition Projects – ignition coil IP-A133201 which features a high-power built-in spark amplifier, producing 4 times the spark energy and…

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Project R35 GT-R, Saving Weight With a Greddy Titanium Exhaust System!

Posted on July 23, 2018July 24, 2018
byMike Kojima

As we have complained about before, the R35 GT-R is a big heavy beast. In our previous segments of Project GT-R, we were able to carve off about 60 lbs…

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Testing Vektor Performance Headers for the 991.2 Porsche 911 Carrera!

Posted on July 15, 2018July 16, 2018
byMike Kojima

The introduction 991.2 version of Porsche’s venerable 911 Carrera was somewhat controversial for the Porsche connoisseur. Previous versions of the Carrera were traditionally naturally aspirated with the 991.1 model having…

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The Secret Turbo in the ‘Ring Slaying Porsche 919 Evo – Honeywell Garrett DualBoost for Gasoline Turbocharger

Posted on July 10, 2018July 10, 2018
byKhiem Dinh

Cover image from Porsche Media Gallery Graphs courtesy of Honeywell Turbo Technologies and from the Honeywell Transportation Systems document, “The Next Generation of Gasoline Turbo Technology”. You may have heard…

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Product Test: Chipex Paint Chip Repair System

Posted on June 29, 2018July 10, 2018
byAinsley Jacobs

Product Test: Chipex Paint Chip Repair System by Ainsley Jacobs When my C-package 1993 Mazda Miata was totaled in a head-on collision (caused by another driver on the wrong side…

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We Check Out AMS Performance’s Turbo Test Rig

Posted on June 29, 2018July 2, 2018
byKhiem Dinh

We Check Out AMS Performance’s Turbo Test Rig By Khiem Dinh A couple years ago, AMS Performance became a Garrett turbo distributor. In order to best serve their customers, they…

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How to Pass The Drift League Pro Am Tech Inspection!

Posted on June 29, 2018July 2, 2018
byMike Kojima

How to Pass Tech Inspection for The Drift League and Other Events! By Mike Kojima As the Technical Director for The Drift League, I was pleased that the quality of…

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Bringing the Heat: Under Control!

Posted on June 29, 2018July 2, 2018
byFrank Ewald

Bringing the Heat: Under Control! by Frank Ewald Cover Photo by Martin’s Action Photography With our first track day and Knox Mountain Hill Climb 2018 now behind us, we can…

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A Proper Primer on Personal Protection

Posted on June 29, 2018July 9, 2018
byErik Jacobs

A Proper Primer on Personal Protection by Erik Jacobs In the time between the SC300 getting dyno tuned and our first track day (complete with transmission soup), I had some…

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Ultimate SR20 Rebuild Guide: Part 1 – The Teardown

Posted on June 29, 2018July 25, 2018
byNikita Rushmanov

Hello and welcome to the Ultimate SR20DET Rebuild Guide! In this series we will be covering the disassembly, blueprinting and reassembly of a S13 SR20DET engine in extreme detail. We…

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Inside the 1000 hp LS, Dai Yoshihara’s Formula Drift Powerplant

Posted on May 14, 2018July 2, 2018
byMike Kojima

Inside the 1000 hp LS, Dai Yoshihara’s Formula Drift Powerplant By Mike Kojima MotoIQ Garage has taken over the development of Dai Yoshihara’s engine program for the last two years…

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Can an Oil Viscosity Affect Power? We Test Idemitsu Zepro Eco Medalist 0W20 to Find Out!

Posted on May 8, 2018August 30, 2018
byMike Kojima

Can you make significant power gains just by changing oil? In the past, we have proven that switching from a lower grade mineral oil to a premium synthetic oil can…

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How to Build a 5.0 Coyote Engine on Any Budget

Posted on April 23, 2018July 9, 2018
byMark Gearhart

How to Build a 5.0 Coyote Engine on Any Budget by Mark Gearheart Many people look at the 2011-current Coyote 5.0 engine platforms as a complex and expensive engine…

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Ryan Passey’s Amazing Miata

Posted on April 23, 2018July 2, 2018
byMike Kojima

Ryan Passey’s Amazing Mazda Hyper Miata By Mike Kojima We have always liked the super-efficient cars of Moti Almagor’s Blackbird Fabworx. His cars have a distinct signature; lightweight, elegant, very fast with…