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At Road Atlanta for Global Time Attack, the battle was on to see who could break Rado's 2012 record and come out on top! James broke the record but finished in second behind William Au-Yeung's Civic. Photo Credit: @adi_stanescu
Russ at Trackworx has built several custom diffusers for the K-Tuned Type R. Every component is considered, analyzed, and where possible, improved. Using the design supplied by Professional Awesome, this new diffuser built by Russ absolutely compliments the rest of the underbody. Sorry, there will be no more detailed pics of the underside of the car.The RacePak data also revealed that the downforce was working extremely well, but there was room for improvement. Not content with well enough, James had new specifications from Professional Awesome and so Chris went to work on the front splitter and Russ built a new section of the rear diffuser. Additional power was added with the use of E85 – Ignite Red from Ignite Racing fuel. The car went back to for fine tuning at Evans Tuning where it produced 598 whp. When your competitors have well over 150 whp above you, as is the case with James, then the focus has to be upon extracting the most out of the car and the driver.
With the K-Tuned Type R better than it has ever been, it was hauled down to Road Atlanta for the first meeting of 2017 of Global Time Attack. Gremlins struck on the first day of competition putting him out for the day. The transmission lost third gear. James' back up transmission did not have all of the good stuff that the 'A' transmission did, so both cases were opened and some part swapping took place. They were back in action for day 2 and, as they lost the transmission about noon on day one, they even managed to get some sleep before competition began on day 2.
Road Atlanta is simply becoming one of my bucket list tracks. Photos like this one by Adi Stanescu simply reinforce that wish! Photo Credit: @adi_stanescuJames pulled a fantastic 1:24.341 which was almost THREE seconds faster than his 2016 time of 1:27.292 and over a second faster than Chris Rado's record breaking time of 1:25.555 which stood from 2012 until 2017. It was not to be, however, a record with James name beside it. The Vibrant/PZ Tuning Honda Civic piloted by William Au-Yeung, a fellow Canadian who lives just minutes from James, captured that glory with a flying time of 1:23.358 seconds for the new record.
This new StopTech caliper and rotor combination was a prototype that was tested first on the K-Tuned Type R. At Road Atlanta, James was doing some testing for the first time ever of an amazing, new for the Type R, StopTech Trophy Big Brake Kit. This 4-piston caliper and rotor setup is a phenomenal 3.8 pounds per corner lighter than the StopTech ST-40 kit he has been running. This setup was built for James to test and it consists of the STR-43 4-piston caliper with a 300mm by 32mm rotor. The StopTech Trophy BBK's utilize forged, lightweight StopTech STR calipers. This StopTech is engineered like all of their calipers – as one of the stiffest calipers available – with a patented strengthening bridge for improved pedal feel and modulation. This lightweight StopTech Big Brake Kit is now available from your local StopTech dealer.
