We had a nice long week with a number of very gratifying jobs. Thursday was spent finishing the install on and then tuning Dan’s Evo 8.  We installed an AMS 750R turbo kit as well as an ACT uprated clutch.  We had to make a few modifications to the intercooler piping and exhaust but besides that the kit was top notch.  The fabrication was excellent (which has become rare for production pieces) and the kit was very complete.  The car ended up making a little under 400 horsepower at the wheels and should be awesome to drive!

AMS robotic welded exhaust manifold

Modified lower intercooler piping

While Nick and Alex were working on other projects, I got to work on the GC8 rallycar.  Before we send the lightpods out for painting by paintmaster Modestas, I got the Hella beams mounted up with the proper hardware. 

Ready for Action!!!

On Friday, Nick and I were running solo as Alex and his wife went to visit relatives in Chicago.  We had an STi suspension install which consisted of Race Comp Engineering Springs, Ohlins dampers, Group N STi Top Hats and some rear camber bolts.  Its nice installing all new parts in a strut assembly, especially in New England where the salt eats away at everything exposed.  The Ohlins are a great option for someone looking to keep a very road worthy (in both winter and summer) strut assembly, yet be able to take the same setup to the track. 

Ohlins Inverted Adjustable Dampers

A customer brought his Integra Type-R in for some head work. Nick is in his element taking the head off any Honda and had it out before I even knew what was going on.

When the work was done, I went ahead and commenced work on the Maxi.  After ordering a new chain and tensioner for the SR20 from CIP Motorsports, I talked to Tomo at Tomei and ordered a set of adjustable cam pulleys.  He talked to one of the camshaft engineers in Japan and they sent over the camshaft specifications which I needed for degreeing the cams.  My cylinder head and block have been decked before (the head more than once) and with 280 degree, 12.5 lift cams, the position of each cam is essential in relation to the crankshaft. 

Tomei Adjustable Cam Pulleys

New Timing Chain!!

Finding Proper Piston Top Dead Center

The last couple of weeks have been a little slower than we’d like but we’ve made the most of it, keeping busy with cleaning, taxes, organizing and corporate report filing. Damn the man.  We’re entering our 6th year of business! That seems strange and awesome at the same time.  In light of this I’d like to ask those interested in contributing to please email or post some suggestions for us below. What would you like us to be doing? What should we offer to stay fresh and current?

In car news:

Matt can now tune Nissan VQ motors and other OBDII Nissan motors using a program similar to that which he uses for Evos and Subarus. This means we can tune the car for whatever modifications you have and keep the car clean and legal. No piggybacks!!  Email Matt if you’re interested. It’s a license based program meaning we have to pay for a license per tune so it’s a little more than Evo and Subaru tuning. Just compare it to the cost of a stand-alone unit or an Emanage plus a tune and you’ll see that it’s a bargain. Matt’s email is mattk@dentsport.com if you want to ask him about it.

This week we’re starting Dan’s 2005 Evolution RS. This White CT9A is getting an AMS 750r Turbo kit. The car already has a nice HKS intercooler, cams and a fuel pump.  It’s ready for more. We did a compression test last week to make sure that the car is healthy, changed the spark plugs and did some other maintenance; fluid changes and checkover to try our best at securing a good outcome. The car is a street car so Matt won’t have to push the 4g63 too hard to make 400whp on this kit.

Talking to Dan has been a pleasure. It turns out that we both went to the same high school at the same time. We also share a love for the Mercedes C63 so he’s got to be a good guy!  To get started tonight I took off his DC tubular manifold and sprayed everything with penetrant so it doesn’t fight me tomorrow. We’re also doing a clutch on the car while the turbo goes in.

This is the kit if the reader chooses to check it out.

AMS Turbo Kit on their Site (we are an AMS dealer!!

AMS 750R turbo kit, manifold has a cast collector! PTE turbocharger

We’ll put some photos up soon of the installation process.

Nick has been working on Scot’s Red Integra, building a custom wiring harness for his Autronic ECU. We’re going to try for over 200whp from his 1.8 liter naturally aspirated car. Nick’s also been working on an S14 K24 powered 240sx (that’s a lot of numbers) and soon a really clean and rare Yellow Integra Type R which is in for headwork as of this afternoon.  I’m liking the cars at the shop right now. Two rally cars, a hillclimb Evo, a big power Evo street car and several track cars… Life is good!

Other recent arrivals have been Bill’s GC8 Rally car which we picked up on Monday in CT. Bill is in Iraq at the moment and when he comes home he’ll be doing some racing. We’re going to get the car ready for competition over the next couple of weeks. The gallery has been updated. Bill worked today at installing the Hella driving and spot lights into the pods. We’re going to order carbon door cards and Coralba door panel for it from Motordrive in the UK. It already has a lot of very nice carbon parts that Bill chose when we built the car. It also has RS+SP suspension.  We’re excited to see this car run.

Gallery of the Build 2.5 years ago.

I will update this post with more photos tomorrow.

The last couple of days went pretty well at DSG.  We had an STi in for an upgraded engine after the original suffered a spun rod bearing.  The new engine consisted of a new factory shortblock with upgraded CP forged pistons.  In our opinion, this is the best option for upgrading either a 2.0 or 2.5 liter street engine up to 400 hp.  In addition to the shortblock upgrade, we installed equal length headers and deleted the factory Tumble Generation Valves (TGVs).  Matt retuned the engine with the new setup and the car runs awesome.

The early part of this week was spent working on an 09 Nissan Skyline GTR. 

We have done work in the past on this car but not to this extent.  As far as modifications go, the car has intakes, downpipes, midpipe, wastegate actuators and an HKS EVC-R.  This time it was brought in for a Tanabe cat-back exhaust install and flame throwers installed in the exhaust.  This customer has brought all his cars in for flame throwers, but the electronics on the GTR are an unknown quantity to us and the only knowledge we had of them was that they were extremely complicated.  There isn’t much information available publicly so after failing to find any detailed wiring diagrams we were forced to go through a good amount of the engine and chassis harness. 

Factory engine harness pulled out

Being an avid Nissan finatic, it was great to see the GTR engine somewhat exposed. There are many details on this car that are amazing.

The harness and electronics ended up being very similar to most other modern Nissans.  The intake manifold had to be removed to access parts of the harness.  Our goal in doing this was to minimize the modification to the factory harness which ended up working out very well. 

The GTR features a full flat bottom underside mostly made out of carbon reinforced plastic with a diffuser that is made of carbon fiber. The new Tanabe Exhaust looks great as well.

After installing 7 sets of flames on various cars, I have to say the GTR Flames with supplied kit from Hotlicks Exhaust are the best yet.  They actually look and sound like a B1 Lancer taking off on full afterburners.  They also look and sound like the original Godzilla and his blue fire lazer beam.