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Modified Car Of The Month - Lightweight 993

At The Tuners Group we're huge fans of taking weight out of project cars. When you remove weight you instantly improved braking, handling and acceleration.

This gives you a lightweight base to build upon with more torque and power.

It doesn't get much better than this highly modified lightweight 911, which takes the very best of German engineering and combines it with GT2 Evo2 bodywork and aftermarket high quality parts.

The base car is a 1996 Porsche 993 Carrera 2.

This car sports custom 3 piece K28R wheels by Kinesis, measuring 18x10” front and 18x11.5” rear with shot peened and gold anodized centers, running on Michelin Pilot Sport 285/30's and 315/30's.

Other modifications include a a Catz HID headlight conversion, Seine Systems carbon fiber hood, Odessey PC680 battery, Racepak UDX data logging dash, Sparco 5 Point competition camlock harnesses, Recaro SPG racing seats, an Autopower 4 point Roll bar, Speedware blue aluminum seat side brackets, a Brey-Krause seat back brace.

Suspension wise it runs Bilstein Porsche RSR coilovers, Eibach race springs, and from our very good friends at TRG in the US, TRG's front monoball camber plates, upper mounts, spring hats, seats lock rings, with front and rear drop links and adjustable sway bars.

Engine wise it runs a custom dual Garrett GT30R ball bearing turbo, dual Tial blow off valves and individual throttle bodies.

It features ceramic coated equal length headers, up-pipes, down-pipes, wastegate dump tubes and dual Tial 40mm V-band wastegates and special order HKS high flow filters with black filter elements.

The intercoolers are dual Garrett intercooler cores with custom end tanks and the entire engine bay is plumbed with Wiggins flexible tubing connectors.

We really like the placement of the intercoolers - they're down low behind the rear wheels with very short piping runs - this setup reminds us of how the intercollers are placed on the legendary Ruf Yellowbird CTR.

And to keep cool in hot summers, it even still has air-con. That's something lightweight purists might frown upon, but if you live in a hot & humid climate, it makes sense to keep cool in your car.

As reported on the Houston Imports site ...

"All this weight reduction adds up to approximately 400 pounds. That adds up to more than three hot chicks. Or a couple of fat ones."

Most impressive of all though is this quote from the Houston Imports site ...

"Princeton’s ultimate goal was to build a pure drivers car that could be enjoyed occasionally on the street as well as at track events. “You have to understand the only fabrication work I have ever previously done was of the folded paper variety.”"

That is hugely impressive !

You can read the full build up article and view mindblowing photos of this amazing car by clicking here

created on 2008-09-04 by adamr.

Babewatch - Amanda Gift

Cars and hot girls are always a great combination ! This issue's BabeWatch girl is Amanda Gift, who graced the cover of the May Issue of DSPORT magazine.

Amanda was raised in Kansas City, and all we can say is "well done Kansas !".

According to DSPORT Magazine, Amanda is a former Hooters girl and was featured in the Hooters calendar.

She also matches knock out looks and a killer body with a brain ... DSPORT reports she has an associates degree in Medical Assisting and Administration.

Her favourite car ? An R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R.

Click on the image above to view video

You can read her DSPORT interview and see more pics of Amanda by clicking here

Her official site is here

More Amanda Gift YouTube goodness can be found here, here, & here

created on 2008-09-04 by adamr.

An Inconvenient Truth…about JDM - AKA The Death of Innovation

Ben over at The Real JDM has written one of the best articles ever written about automotive parts innovation ...

Kudos to Ben for having the guts to say what he says in this article.

Titled "An Inconvenient Truth… JDM - AKA The Death of Innovation", Ben's article starts ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Let me preface this post by mentioning that what I’m going to say here is something you’re probably not used to reading in magazines or other professional media.

Unlike media which requires advertising money to survive (the same advertisers I’m about to talk about), I don’t have those biases and conflicts of interest which limit my ability to speak the truth.

The cover-up of the damage being done is massive. Everyone (from magazine editors and website forum owners who happily accept their advertising money, to the very retail companies which sell these problematic parts and happily reap the profits) will admit behind closed doors that this is an industry crushing problem and yet everyone says they cant change it or do anything about it.

The fact is nobody wants to stick their neck on the line to do anything about it"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His article goes on to expose the story of why "Voltex just recently announced on their website that they are stopping all production of their wet carbon CT9A Lancer Evolution 8/9 hoods"

An excerpt from Ben's post reads ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"So there you have it. Another product is now dead.

Do people care yet? Probably not…

Will people care the next time Voltex needs to look at the costs to decide if they want to produce an Aero hood for their next car and conclude that its not worth it? Probably still not.

Will people care when there are almost no new products coming out with proper R&D because no company can find a way to make their money back?

Yeah…probably then people will care…but it wont matter because by that point it’ll be too late to say we’re sorry and turn back the clock."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read the whole article at:

http://www.bespokeventures.com/blog/?p=1002

And most importantly, remember that article next time you buy parts for your car.

It's time to choose a side ...

Are you going to be part of the problem or are you going to be part of the solution ?

created on 2008-09-04 by adamr.

When A Stock Bugatti Veyron Just Isn't Enough

The Bugatti Veyron is a mindblowing great car ...

With 736 kilowatts (987 hp) a top speed of 408 km/h (253 mph) and with design work by Hartmut Warkuss & Jozef Kaban, what's not to like ?

But if the stock Bugatti Veyron just isn't enough car for you, a very special even more limited edition of the car has been released ...

Known as the Bugatti Veyron Fbg by Hermes (Hermes the high end leather goods manufacturer), it takes the Veyron one step further.

Wikipedia is reporting ...

"The interior is done in Hermès leather and it comes with a specially designed Hermès suitcase to fit in the trunk ... Bugatti later made 4 new color schemes available for order with the Hermès Veyron, called "Indigo Blue and Vermilion", "Indigo Blue and Lime Green", "Black and Garance Red", and "Prussian Blue and Blue Jean". They will also come with the bespoke luggage, special 8-spoke rims, and H-pattern grill."

The leather coloured paint on the bonnet is a really nice styling touch in a sea of carbon bonnets - not that there's anything wrong with carbon bonnets of course - but a bonnet that looks like leather from a distance is a really new idea.

Check out the slideshow at

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/EDITORIAL/common/slideshows/40821.jsp

Or this page on Bugatti's official site ...

http://www.bugatti.com/en/veyron-16.4/special-models/veyron-par-hermes.html

created on 2008-09-21 by adamr.

It's amazing what you can find being towed behind an old Fiat

This really made us laugh when we stumbled across this post on one of the forums (thanks to Roadster for posting the link) ...

The forum post starts ...

"Greenranger (pictured in the black MONSTER shirt) and I (pictured in the KAWI green shirt) were at the MotoGP in Indianapolis this weekend. On Saturday night in the lobby of our hotel, an Italian guy that spoke broken English asked if he could use my lighter."

The forum post continues ...

"While out there he was trying to tell me (in broken English) that him and his friend knew Valentino Rossi and he had Rossi’s bike was out on a trailer in the hotel parking garage. I immediately thought he was full of $#!* so I started to ask questions. I asked, “you mean a replica bike?” He said, “No … his actual M1 MotoGP race bike”. Again, I thought he was full of $#!. I mean, why would they have his bike? He said he and a friend towed the bike behind a “little car that would only go 45 mph” from New York to Indianapolis for the GP. He told me I could go check it out in the parking garage. I just called bull$#!, got my lighter back, and went back up to my room. When I got back upstairs, I told Greenranger about my conversation and we went out to find it. It wasn’t in the garage, so we figured he was full of $#!*. That evening when we left to go eat, we were leaving the parking garage and saw a tiny ass Fiat with Italian license plates pulling into the lot with a small trailer behind it."

Evidently one thing lead to another and "very early in the morning" the cover of the bike behind the trailer was peeled ...

which revealed ...

Checkout the serial number ...

and the photo of the brakes and suspension ...

As the forum post explains ...

"It turns out, the guy was from Fiat (Rossi’s sponsor) and this was Rossi’s ACTUAL 2007 M1 race bike being used by Fiat for promotional purposes. He was bringing the bike to Indy so that it could be transported back to Italy with Rossi’s current bikes that were at the track."

So next time you see an Italian guy towing a covered bike behind an old Fiat, it might pay to ask him for a peek at the bike under the cover !

You can view more photos and the full forum post by clicking here

created on 2008-09-23 by adamr.

Bugatti Veyron Pink Paint Job

created on 2008-09-25 by adamr.

Works Bell Sponsored Driver Toshiki Yoshioka Claims Incredible Drift Win In Las Vegas - Video Interview Below

Works Bell sponsored drifter Toshiki Yoshioka has completely stunned the American drift fraternity by winning the Las Vegas round of Formula D in his giant slaying Toyota AE86 - in only his second event ever on American soil !

We are one of only two Works Bell authorised national distributors worldwide outside of Japan, so it gives us immense pleasure to see a driver using the products we sell achieving such great success.

Congratulations Yoshioka-san !!

Speedhunters.com reported ...

"Yoshioka is notorious in Japan for speaking softly and carrying a big stick. He is somehow able to drive his 300 horsepower 20 valve 4AG powered AE86 to the limit, and even people with much higher horsepower cars can't keep up with him! Some of the Formula D drivers who tried matching Yoshioka's speed through the course actually ended up slamming into the wall !"

RiceBoy TV did a video interview with Yoshioka about his win and what makes his AE86 so fast.

You can view the video interview by clicking here (watch it right to the end - he's definitely a character !)

Speedhunters.com's report on Yoshioka's Las Vegas win, and additional photos of a completely jubilant Yoshioka at the event can be seen by clicking here

You can purchase exactly the same Works Bell products as used by Yoshioka from our Works Bell products page which you can access by clicking here.

created on 2008-10-07 by adamr.

The Tuners Group At The Sydney International Motor Show

We spent today at the Press & Industry Day at the Sydney International Motorshow.

The lack of crowds was great and we managed to get a lot of good photos of the day.

It was pretty impressive - one of the better Sydney Motor Shows I can remember.

There were quite a few tuner cars there, including the Gemballa Avalanche ...

... some very serious hardware from TRD ...

... the Keonigsegg CCX ...

... the Pagani ...

... Mazda's mindblowing concept car ...

... and of course the new Nissan GT-R ...

Subaru also had a pretty interesting cutaway of their flat 6 engine on display - very Porsche-like ...

One of our favourite cars of the show though was from a Sydney based low volume car building company called Chamonix who had a Subaru flat 4 engine and WRX gearbox in the rear of a Porsche 550 Spyder they built ...

It featured fly by wire throttle, adjustable Bilstein shocks, Eibach springs, a kerb weight of only 720kg, and costs AU$57,800.

It was an absolute breath of fresh air in these days of overweight "performance" cars, that are more like a lounge room on wheels than a sportscar.

Check it out at

http://www.550spyder.com.au/index.php

We just saw photographer Mark Pakula's Motor Show photos, and they put our photos to shame, so if you want to check out Mark's photos, head over to ...

http://www.markpakula.com/blog/images/aims/

created on 2008-10-09 by adamr.

The Tuners Group's Works Bell Australian Launch At Drift Australia Eastern Creek Sydney

A few weeks ago we headed out to Eastern Creek in Sydney for the Eastern Creek round of Drift Australia.

It was a huge weekend for us - our official launch of Works Bell's incredible quality products in Australia, and the official announcement of our appointment as Works Bell's exclusive Australian distributor.

Given Works Bell's unrivalled pedigree in Japanese drifting, a Drift Australia event at Eastern Creek International Raceway proved to be the ideal place to launch Works Bell's products in Australia.

The action was great on track and in the pits, with some extremely impressive machinery and driving on display.

And of course Works Bell's products were extremely well received by the Drift Australia teams, particularly now that Works Bell products can be supplied via The Tuners Group as Works Bell's exclusive authorised Australian distributor.

We brought along with us two Sydney based models who take care of our promotions.

The girls are not only stunning, but hard working and really genuinely nice people, so it's always a pleasure to work with them.

Many thanks to Autosalon Magazine's photographer Mark Pakula for his photos of our models which he has kindly given us permission to publish on our site here.

Mark's website is at

http://www.markpakula.com

We thoroughly recommend his work and he sells prints of many of his motorsport photos, so if you like his photography, contact Mark to purchase his high quality motorsport photos.

And no, we can't give you the models' phone numbers !

created on 2008-10-21 by adamr.

CEC Wheels' Article Titled "AC Schnitzer Destroys Counterfeit Wheels"

CEC Wheels have published an article on their website which reads ...

"No, "wheel tossing" is not the latest sports trend sweeping Germany. It's the management team at AC Schnitzer having a great time disposing of cheap and unsafe copies of AC Schnitzer wheels in their campaign to end piracy dubbed "Stop the Copy"."

Copy, counterfeit, fake and knock off automotive products costs the industry millions of dollars every year.

Worse still, sales of copy, counterfeit, fake and knock off automotive products deprive truly innovative manufacturers of the funds they need to develop new products.

So when we see stories like these of big successes by genuine innovative parts manufacturers, we cheer very loudly indeed.

The article on CEC's website reads ...

"False perceptions of poor image due to low quality, the safety hazard to consumers, and economic losses in the millions, are some of the reasons why AC Schnitzer is taking firm action against product piracy."

"With this first battle won, AC Schnitzer reaffirms their diligence by stating, "We will continue the fight against all product counterfeiters and hence make an active contribution to customer safety. When the customer buys AC Schnitzer products, he or she rightly expects high quality, extensively tested special products, which are guaranteed exclusive AC Schnitzer Original Parts.""

The aluminium from these destroyed wheels was sent to recycling.

A huge congratulations to all the staff at CEC Wheels and AC Schnitzer on this victory.

Please invite us along next time you have a "wheel destruction" party - it looks like a LOT of fun !

Click here to read the full article on the CEC Wheels website

created on 2008-10-21 by adamr.