Innehållsförteckning för No 255 March 2018 från NZ Performance Car

It’d be hard to boil it down to simply one choice, but if I had to choose my favourite aspect of car modification it would be lowering. For me, a car’s aesthetics are extremely important, and so heavily influenced by ride height that this alone can and often does make or break a build. I don’t care if it’s static, bagged, hydro or whatever, there’s not a car on the planet that won’t look better sitting a little closer to terra firma. Exactly where this love of low came from is hard to pinpoint, but I’d have to imagine it’s linked to my early obsession with door slammers, followed closely by ’90s touring cars. So it made sense that as soon as car ownership came into the picture, my first…

Local engine management system wizard Link Engine Management confirmed in mid-December 2017 that it would be joining the D1NZ National Drifting Championship as naming-rights sponsor for the 2018 season. The country’s premier drifting series will now be known as the ‘Link ECU D1NZ National Drifting Championship’ from the recent round one (Wellington) on; a step up for the Christchurch-based company, which sponsored the live stream last season. They also continue as an official supplier for the series’ teams. Link Engine Management CEO Andy Millard said that taking the company’s backing to the next level was a logical step for the organization: “Link ECU has had a long association with D1NZ over the years, and it’s great to be able to shift it up as principal sponsor of the 2018 season.”…

As part of the recent Tokyo Auto Salon, BH Auction Japan put a collection of cars under the hammer that would have even the most staunch anti-JDM reader drooling. Among the lot was a World Sports Prototype Car Championship–winning Nissan R90CK, the 360kph Top Secret JZA80, a Spoon NSX-R GT, and a Toyota 2000GT. But the biggest talk of the auction was a R34 GT-R V-Spec II Nür. It featured all but 10km on the odometer — yes, one-zero — and has never been registered for road use. The BNR34 first appeared at Tokyo Auto Salon back in 1999, and this white QM1 example gives us a taste of being there that day. While you may have thoughts of adding this holy grail of all museum-piece cars to your garage,…

At its Performance Center in South Carolina, BMW has smashed the world record for the greatest distance vehicle drift (in eight hours). The feat saw a crazy eight-hour, continuous, 232.5-mile (374.2km) sideways marathon, with BMW also claiming the record for the longest twin-vehicle drift on the same day. BMW set a Guinness World Record with a 51.3-mile (82.6km) drift back in 2013 but was overtaken by a Toyota GT86 that covered 89.6 miles (144.2km) in 2014. To claim the record back, the automaker invited Danish driver Johan Schwartz to pilot the new BMW M5, which features all-wheel drive and a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 that pumps out 441kW and 750Nm. “We knew going in that if we were going to recapture the world record for longest sustained drift and set the…

He’s no stranger behind the wheel of, well, practically any form of race car, so it only makes sense that the Supercars champion and endurance racing machine that is Shane van Gisbergen would pilot the MCA Suspension VK56-powered 370Z in D1NZ this season. In an announcement on their Facebook page, MCA has said, “After some seriously long days and nights getting the car prepped, locked, and loaded, we are excited to announce that MCA Suspension is coming to D1NZ! “This will be the second time MCA Suspension has competed in D1NZ, with Josh Coote competing back in the 2010/11 season … finishing fifth outright in the championship. However, this time we’re taking our 370Z, with none other than Shane van Gisbergen at the wheel.” Van Gisbergen is no stranger to…

Tokyo Auto Salon (TAS) is the mecca of the Japanese car-tuning world and every year the number of cars and people that cram its halls seems to skyrocket. You know it’s happening, too, even if you live firmly under a rock for the other 362 days a year, as social feeds descend into glorified pits of jealousy from those of us who aren’t there, sitting at home and work drooling over what could possibly have been the best overseas trip we ever made. Set near the Japanese capital, TAS 2018 kicked off a three-day triple hit on Friday, January 12, with 11 halls of all things custom automotive. Occupying the entirety of Chiba’s Makuhari Messe convention centre, this year marked the 36th anniversary of the annual event, which started back…

NAME: CHEVENNE HASSAN AGE: 23 LOCATION: CHRISTCHURCH OCCUPATION: WORKSHOP COORDINATOR ENGINE: Nissan RB25DET, 2500cc, six-cylinder; T3T4 turbo, Sinco top-mount manifold, Turbosmart 45 wastegate, Turbosmart blow-off valve, Turbosmart fuel-pressure regulator, Bosch 440cc injectors, Walbro 500lph fuel pump, Nistune ECU DRIVETRAIN: Nissan RB20DET five-speed, Exedy heavy-duty five-puck clutch, locked diff INTERIOR: Six-point roll cage by Nick at Motorsport Fabrications, Racetech RT1000 bucket seats, Grip Royal steering wheel, custom hydraulic handbrake, Cardwells four-point pink harnesses, Fusion subwoofer EXTERIOR: Origin Labo Type 3 +55mm front and rear widebody guards, Vertex bodykit, resprayed in gunmetal grey by James Martin at S&S Panel and Paint WHEELS/TYRES: (F) 18x10-inch (+0) Work Emotion CR2P, (R) 18x11-inch (+2) Work Emotion CR2P, resprayed glitter pink SUSPENSION: BC Gold coilovers; Hardrace adjustable camber, toe, traction, and caster arms POWER: 212kW FUEL…

NAME: BRYCE WATERS AGE: 27 LOCATION: CHRISTCHURCH OCCUPATION: MECHANIC ENGINE: Volkswagen eight-valve, 1800cc, four-cylinder DRIVETRAIN: Three-speed auto INTERIOR: Stripped, custom steel race seat, low-mount passenger seat, wooden rear seats, coffee-sack door cards, camshaft gear lever, Nardi steering wheel EXTERIOR: Faux patina, rust throughout, twin-headlight grille, external oil cooler, custom steel louvres, custom splitter, twin shotgun exhausts WHEELS/TYRES: (F) 15x8-inch (+10) Work Equip 40, (R) 15x8-inch (-3) Work Equip 40 wheels, 195/45R15 Falken ZE912 tyres SUSPENSION: JOM coilovers POWER: “Sweet f&ck all” NZ Performance Car: Hey, Bryce, tell us how you got into VWs. Bryce: Hi, guys. I blame the old man for that. I have been brought up around them from a very young age, so it was only natural [that] I would have an attraction to them. My first…

You may recall seeing a 13B-powered and bagged B2000 in this very section back in issue No. 242, with an owner by the name of Wiremu. That build was always destined for the street, and while it’s very nearly completed, Wiremu told us he really wanted to build a pure hack. Now, his definition, and our definition of a hack must vary, as what he has built thus far rivals some of the serious show-car builds we’ve seen cropping up. What was once a B2K is now a body-dropped, rear-chassis sectioned, air bagged, three-linked monster that’s powered by a 13B fed by a big ol’ Borgy. He tells us that the majority of the parts, especially in the engine bay, are just pieces he had lying around from previous rotary…

When you’re one of the big names that rule the roost in the automotive manufacturing world, you can pretty much do whatever you damn well please. And whether it stems from lazy marketing ploys, or the desire to pool resources to make more cash, automakers have struck deals to share models/ technology with one another — and rebadge them as if they were their own — for many years. This weird practice has meant that many great cars could be sold in markets they would otherwise have never been seen in. But it didn’t always work out, and just as many were mashed into horrendous parts-bin creations. Some of the better examples were the likes of the 4G63-equipped Mitsubishi Starion, sold as a Conquest under the Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth…

Thought you’d missed your chance to get amongst all-things GT-R at the 2018 Dodson Motorsport GTR Festival NZ? Good news for you, then, as the team has pushed the date back from February 18 to June 16 to give you an extra four months of build time to finish that garage ornament. In a statement put out on its Facebook page, the team explained, “The reason was simple: there weren’t enough entries to make the event possible. You now have an extra four months to get your entries in, so let’s try [to] make this new date work!” “If you’re already entered and paid and the new date doesn’t suit, please reply to your confirmed competitor email.” The event, which is set to take place at Hampton Downs, promises a…

Last year the team behind the biggest automotive event on our calendar teased that there was change coming — the kind of change we haven’t seen in the event’s 22-year lifespan. The 2018 V 4 & Rotary Nationals was shaken up to take place over two weekends, with the drag racers gifted a dedicated date in April to ensure that what has been a mainstay of the event for 22 years doesn’t fade away. “The reason for the swap is simple. Chrome Expression Session has been dominating in popularity over the past few years … and [we wanted to] bring you even more action and entertainment over the event season. We find January is a little too early for all the Pro Import drag racing cars to be hitting the…

HEART ENGINE: Honda F20C, 2000cc, four-cylinder BLOCK: Factory HEAD: BC valve-spring retainers INTAKE: 50mm OBX throttle bodies, OBX port-matched manifold, Pipercross air filter EXHAUST: 2.5-inch stainless, Niteparts four-into-two-into-one equal-length headers, single rear muffler FUEL: 25-litre cell, DeatschWerks pumps, custom surge tank, 480cc Siemens injectors IGNITION: Factory ECU: Link G4+ Monsoon COOLING: Dual-pass alloy radiator EXTRA: 60kW NOS direct-port kit “We lost count at 150,” a good mate of Brendan Duncker exclaims, as the friends do their best to recount the number of cars that Brendan has owned and built over the years. Even if he were nudging 80 years old, that would be a staggering figure, but he hasn’t even reached half that age. However, we aren’t here to recall the cars that have come before it or the ones…

Residents of the Te Marua valley didn’t know what hit them when the Link ECU D1NZ National Drifting Championship and the rest of the NZ-Xtreme Motorsport Series rolled into the capital over January 12 and 13 to kick off its season at the Max Motors Wellington Family Speedway Arena. The week leading up saw near-round-the-clock work carried out to transform the speedway into a venue suitable for not only drifting but also rallycross, utility task vehicles (UTVs), and Super Moto. Fifty truckloads of concrete would end up being pumped into the venue, but not before 55 truckloads of road millings were laid, 700 sheets of ply installed, a bridge got made from three 40-foot containers, and fences and speedway walls got removed. It was no easy feat to pull off,…

It seemed like it was only eight months ago — no, wait, it was only eight months ago — that New Zealand’s best drifters lined up at Hampton Downs for the inaugural Mad Mike’s Summer Bash (MMSB). But, casting your mind back, you may recall a not-so-summery weather vibe. In a move to avoid this the second time around, ‘Mad Mike’ Whiddett shifted the date to December. So, there we were in polar-opposite conditions: roasting under the sun, ready to witness a serious dose of tyre shredding! Mike, like all of the top-tier drivers, takes his drifting seriously, and he felt that he’d lost the side of the sport he loved most: simply getting in a car, hammering it to death, and killing tyres with his mates. It’s this that…

Life is all about finding the right balance. Too much or too little of a good thing is going to cause issues, and it’s no different when modifying a car. We have it pretty damn good here in the grand scheme of things, I mean, sure the Americans can basically slap a deck chair onto a bare chassis, pay their smog tax and insurance, and hey presto you’re rolling the freeway like a maniac — but that ain’t safe and there are many, many documented examples of this pure disregard for safe modification practices going wrong. On the flip side of that it only takes one look at our neighbours across the ditch to see what an overly regulated system looks like, one where you can’t even breathe in the…

One of the toughest decisions when building a car is, without a doubt, making your wheel choice. While we have a greater selection than ever before, at even better price points, working your way through the hundreds of styles, available in confusing amounts of finishes, PCDs, offsets, and disc clearances, can be a real head-scratcher. And then you’re trying to imagine just how they will look on your ride — a conundrum that can leave you staring at the wall of sample mags for hours on end, in a futile attempt to make a decision. One that may have you finding out the hard way that the wheel you eventually choose doesn’t clear your brakes or rubs on your front struts. It’s a process and a predicament that one of…

ROTARY REUNION 2018 BRUCE MCLAREN MOTORSPORT PARK, TAUPO REunion is THE place to be for all things rotary related. The previous events have drawn the largest gathering of rotaries seen on our shores, and year-on-year it continues to grow. The three-day event includes cruisin’, a show and shine, drifting and burnouts, and the best part is it’s a purely rotary affair. For more information, search REunion on Facebook. D1NZ NATIONAL DRIFTING CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND TWO ASB BAYPARK, TAURANGA Back for a repeat of last year’s antics, D1NZ alongside the NZ Xtreme Motorsport Series will invade Mt Maunganui with over 120 drivers taking part in the national drifting championship, NZ Rally X Series, The NZ UTV Series and The NZ Super Moto Series. Upwards of 100 trucks full of concrete will lay…

It seems we’re far from the ceiling, when it comes to how fast the R35 GT-R will go down the quarter-mile, as multiple international outfits vie for dominance over the quickest and fastest records. Until last month, Team Extreme Turbo Systems (ETS) held both records with a 6.88 at 222.93mph (358.76kph) after taking it from AMS Performance, the first to crack into the six-second bracket with a 6.937 at 196.27mph (315.86kph). ETS broke the record on its first serious run, then upped boost to levels previously untested on the car for the attempt to pull out the record time and speed. However, Dubai-based company Alpha Logic has claimed the E.T record for itself after heading to Bahrain International Circuit with the car known as ‘Panda’ driven by Rob Harper. Initial…

HEART ENGINE: Marsh Motorsport–built small block Chevrolet, 7400cc, V8 BLOCK: World Industries Warhawk tall-deck block, Callies billet crank, CP pistons, Oliver I-beam rods, ARP hardware HEADS: GM Performance LSX-CT, Jesel Pro Series roller rockers, Nascar titanium valves INTAKE: Port-matched GM Performance LSX-CT intake manifold, 1000cfm Braswell carburettor, K&N sprint-car filter EXHAUST: 54mm headers, four-into-one Burns collectors, 90mm straight-pipe exhaust (optional mufflers) FUEL: Radium fuel cell, dual 410kW Walbro pressure pumps, low-pressure bypass Quick Fuel regulator, XRP braided crimp lines throughout IGNITION: GM Performance distributor drive kit, Ford distributor, programmable dual MSD 6ALs COOLING: Griffin dual-pass radiator, Fluidyne oil cooler, Setrab power-steering cooler, Meziere dual-bank water pump, XRP braided crimp lines EXTRA: Daily five-stage dry-sump pump, Peterson dry-sump tank, NOS direct-port nitrous kit (unused thus far) Motorsport is a cruel mistress:…

Everyone has their own flavour. Whether you’re a shooter in the streets for shakotan, throw on a hockey mask to patrol the highways with bosozoku outlaws, smirk as sparks shoot out past your –20 degrees of oni-kyan insanity, hit the local loop to relive all those kanjo videos you’ve watched in years gone by, or a combination of all of these, whatever flavour gets you going, when it comes to applying it to one of the most popular chassis in the world — one that has been modified for more than a quarter of a century — and attempting to make it stand out from the thousands of examples on tap, it ain’t an easy task. SHOES WHEELS: (F) 18x9.5-inch (-7) Work Meister M1R, (R) 18x9.5-inch (-26) Work Meister M1R…

Remember back when you were a kid and you’d sketch out those gnarly-looking ‘cars’ in the back of your workbooks instead of actually paying attention in class? Well, someone at Mazda did that when they designed the Mazda RX-500 in 1970. Debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show the same year, the RX-500 was a completely futuristic concept that stood out like a sore thumb from the rest of the year’s offerings. It was a mid-engined aero weapon equipped with a screaming twin-rotor race engine that was capable of revving upwards of 14,000rpm — all wrapped together in a package weighing not a drop over 850kg. Imagine laying eyes on this bad boy back in the ’70s, when most cars looked like bread bins or regulations-ruined disasters. This was something so…

In the world of motorsport there are few liveries as iconic as the blue and teal warpaint of Team Falken, and locally, that very scheme has been the flag flown by Mag & Turbo (M&T) since its inception. Of all the M&T machines that these colours have been splashed down the sides of, none have worn it better than the Rocket Bunny S13 of Bruce Tannock. Eight seasons on from that cold night in a South Auckland gas station, where we first shot the S13 — one of the world’s first Rocket Bunny S-chassis outside of Japan — Bruce has gone and got all nostalgic ahead of the 2018 D1NZ season. As with the two previous seasons, the shell wears a mix of V1 Rocket Bunny bumpers paired with V2…

MECHLESS WONDER Remember the good old days when you used to carry 500 CDs with you in their own special carry case? We don’t either, but why would you when the Philips CE600BT two- DIN Media Player has all the mod cons — like hands-free, reverse camera integration, and streaming from auxiliary and USB input sources. Plus being mechless, it allows for a large 6.8-inch colour touchscreen with built-in steering wheel control integration. This new model from Philips will be available soon, priced at $349. For further information contact DLG International on 09 571 3375, or visit philipscaraudio.co.nz. WITHOUT A DROP When you haven’t got a hose handy, Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax has you covered. You can rid your weapon of dust, dirt and other nasties without using a…

NAME: MICHAEL TOLSMA AGE: 32 LOCATION: CHRISTCHURCH OCCUPATION: ACCOUNT MANAGER ENGINE: Audi VR6, 3200cc V6, forge intake, MkVI Golf-R cat-back exhaust DRIVETRAIN: DSG gearbox, Quattro 4WD based on the Haldex system INTERIOR: 2016 S3 dash vents, 2011 A3 facelift centre console, 2007 TT instrument cluster, 2009 S3 steering wheel retrimmed in suede, MkV R32 Golf Recaros, custom roof liner, alloy interior trim EXTERIOR: 2012 RS3 front, widebody carbon-fibre front guards, S3 side skirts, facelift rear bumper, custom rear diffuser by Total Body Works, rear wiper delete, RS3 rear spoiler, 2011 A3 tail lights, 2011 carbon-fibre mirrors, smoothed door strips, resprayed in Sepang Blue pearl WHEELS/TYRES: 19-inch AMG C63-S wheels, Falken Azenis FK-453 tyres SUSPENSION: Weitec adjustable coilovers NZ Performance Car : Hi, Michael. That doesn’t look like any A3 we’ve…

www.mountshop.co.nz freephone 0508 86 66 86 WHEELS / TYRES MAGS, TYRES, WHEEL ALIGNMENTS, WHEEL BALANCING, AND REPAIRS AUCKLAND MTS PERFORMANCE Lowest price guaranteed on wheels, tyres, and suspension mtsp.co.nz / 021 4 TYRES (021 489 737) / 82 Wairau Road, Glenfield ARROW WHEELS NZ’s leading builder, repairer, refurbisher of alloy wheels for 35 years arrowwheels.co.nz / 09 818 8388 / 6D Westech Place, Kelston, Auckland BRUGAR ENGINEERING Mag wheel repair specialists since 1979 magwheelrepairs.co.nz / 09 486 6832 / 7 Barrys Point Road, Takapuna, Auckland WAIKATO WORLD OF TYRES Hamilton’s leading retailer of tyres, wheels, batteries, and wheel alignment servicing worldoftyres.co.nz / 07 847 0330 / 62 Greenwood Street, Frankton, Hamilton TARANAKI TARANAKI TYRETORQUE LTD Taranaki’s leading tyre/mag specialist, providing automotive services and customization tyretorque.co.nz / 06 757 5988 / 53…