Innehållsförteckning för No 267 March 2019 från NZ Performance Car

If you’re in the car game, there is one thing you will have to deal with on a regular basis, and that’s buying or selling cars or second-hand parts. It’s a necessary evil. Buying new is never really that much of an issue, as long as you know what you’re buying, it’s quality gear, and you have a good salesman or source. It’s the second-hand dealings that have a tendency to drive you around the bend and then push you off a cliff edge, especially when you’re the seller. Low-ballers, time-wasters, and — the worst breed of all — window-shoppers all seem to pop out of the woodwork when you list something for sale. While the way that we go about these transactions in 2K19 is vastly different from my…

8-10 FEBRUARY ROTARY REUNION 2019 BRUCE MCLAREN MOTORSPORT PARK, TAUPO No one in the world builds and drives rotangs quite like us Kiwis do! The vicious twang of a spinning Dorito on song and that iconic ‘brap’ on idle has kept us captivated for decades — and there’s no chance of it ever slowing down! When it comes to actually making use of whatever rotary-powered chassis you may pedal, REunion has become the place to be. Now into the fifth year, previous events have consistently drawn the largest gathering of rotaries ever seen on our shores, and, year-on-year, it only continues to grow. REunion is all about the cruisin’, show-and-shining, drifting, and doing on-limiter burnouts — the best part? It’s a purely rotary affair! For more information, search ‘Rotary REunion’…

Ask most people in the scene what they are doing the last weekend of January any year, and, nine times out of 10, the response will be, “that’s Nationals weekend, bro” — or at least it should be! Nats is the institution that we’ve all come up on — it’s the place to flex your automotive muscle to the masses, where we all come together, and where standards are set for the following year. So, as it has been for decades now, anticipation for this year’s event was high, and the buzz around the cars to be unveiled played out with rumours and whispers flying around. Leading up to the weekend, there was much speculation about exactly who had been doing what and what we would see the covers thrown…

When you’re elbows deep into your engine transplant there are a million things to consider and make sure you get right. Turbo placement, water line routes, steering-shaft clearance, and then there is shopping for all those bolt-ons. But, as fun as it is to get carried away with choosing go-fast parts and chasing big power numbers, there’s a practical aspect to driveline swaps that is often overlooked — one that can poorly affect the way your finished build drives, or, in the worst case, cause all manner of damage from extreme vibrations. It’s to do with your driveshaft — but we’re not just talking balancing, although that is often the first scapegoat. Get the universal-joint angles wrong, and you could be running in circles trying to correct a driveline vibration…

NOW ON ITS THIRD MOTOR COMBINATION, THIS DAILY-DRIVEN TYPE R PACKS ALL THE BENEFITS OF VTEC AND BOOST COMBINED INTO ONE 392KW (1.5-BAR LOW-BOOST) PACKAGE THAT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BLOW THE FRONTS OFF WITH A NEW EXHAUST AND THREE-BAR OF HIGH BOOST! Inching forward half a metre every couple of minutes, missing that short-phased set of lights thanks to a slow-to-react driver in front of you, watching the ripples rise off your heat-soaked bonnet, and finally arriving at your destination nearly an hour later than it would take you at any other time of the day — sitting in traffic sucks, big time. It has got to be on the very bottom of our ‘things we enjoy’ list, and then some. And for many in the bigger cities, the…

NAME: TYLER HOLES // AGE: 22 LOCATION: HAMILTON // OCCUPATION: SALES NZ Performance Car : Hey, Tyler. Sweet EJ! Have you always been into cars? I was that kid at school that was not all too interested in cars, but previously working at Supercheap Auto gave me a heap of exposure to cars, and purely from the people that I had met there, was guided to start something of my own! So, is this your first Honda? Does a CRF150 count? No? Well, I have owned a couple of CL Accords, which I found to be an interesting starting point. But I had never been interested in Hondas as such until I wanted this car here. What was it about the EJ that made you change your tune? Because it’s an…

DIRECT TO SOURCE Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one, and when you’re only using your head unit as a connection to your phone to play music, why not cut out the middleman with the Kicker PXIBT100.2 Weatherproof Amplified Controller With Bluetooth. There’s no head unit necessary which makes it a solid option for marine, motorbikes, side-by-sides, ATVs, or cars that simply don’t need an extra piece cluttering up the dash. It packs a 24dB selectable crossover with 24dB subsonic filter, and the illuminated display allows you to change track, volume, and source. The PXA amplifier delivers as much as 100 watts total into two channels. To find your local dealer and all the technical details, jump onto kickernz.co.nz UNRESTRAINED Don’t make the mistake of half-assing your wheel choice,…

If 2018 taught me anything, it’s that, when boiled down to simple terms, we all find enjoyment from different aspects of what owning a modified car has to offer. For some, there’s nothing better than that challenge of piecing together a package that is the culmination of everything you know and tackling tasks that may be slightly outside of your skill set, using trial and error to get a job done, all towards an ultimate goal that can only be envisioned inside your head. For others, it is the thrill of standing back come show day and seeing hoards of people form a barrier around the car as they praise the fruits of your efforts. There’s even a few who simply enjoy having an excuse to blow their weekly pay…

It carries the most notable audio note of all time, one that sounds more Formula 1 than … well, modern Formula 1 engines, and one that, for many, is the ultimate-sounding motor, even if you’re not a fan of rotaries. We’re talking, of course, about the myth, the legend, the holy grail of all Mazda power plants: the Mazda four-rotor, aka ‘quadrotor’, aka ‘26B’, aka ‘13J’—never offered for sale to the public, never released as a production engine in any Mazda, and only ever used in a handful of race cars, including the ’91 Le Mans–winning Group C car. All this only helps to make these engines the holy grail of swaps to many — a swap that is only made possible by some very clever Kiwis who produced their…

What do you get when you mix 1000 tuned cars, trucks, and bikes; hordes of car enthusiasts; and the police? The answer is Hardpark 2019, held annually on Wellington Anniversary weekend at Hutt Riverbank car park. Spearheaded by Falgoon Patel, and the Hardpark Organisational Team — aka HOT — the event has garnered quite the following for all the right reasons. Mixing passion and community, Hardpark looks to inspire the next generation of car lovers to continue the automotive legacy and show everyone what the real New Zealand car scene is, not what is depicted via mass media. Falgoon and the team worked closely with the local city council and the police to ensure that the event went off without a hitch under the bright Wellington sunshine. Everything kicked off…

ROUND ONE RESULTS PRO CLASS 1. DARREN KELLY — Nissan R35 GT-R (RB34) 2. DAYNOM TEMPLEMAN — BMW E46 (2JZ) 3. MATTY HILL — Nissan S15 (2JZ) PRO-SPORT CLASS 1. MICHAEL THORLEY — Laurel C33 (RB25) 2. TAYLOR JAMES — Nissan S14 (RB25) 3. KURT BLACKIE — Nissan R32 (RB25) TRACK PREVIEW ROUND TWO: WELLINGTON FAMILY SPEEDWAY Set to go down over 15–16 February, round two of the D1NZ National Drifting Championship is headed back to the ‘Thunderdome’ (Wellington Family Speedway). This was the first of the custom-built permanent stadium tracks that for the rest of the year lie hidden underneath mounts of dirt. The format of the event will remain the same as last year, with a run-up leading into the giant sweeper, a tight teardrop section, and back…

NAME: DARREN IRVINE // AGE: 26 LOCATION: BLENHEIM // OCCUPATION: AUTO ELECTRICIAN NZ Performance Car : Hi, Darren. Tell us how you found yourself interested in modified cars and what your first was. Darren: Hey, NZ Performance Car. Well, I’d have to say that it’s probably from reading this very magazine, since I was roughly 11 years old. I remember back then reading about all the sex-spec cars of the early 2000s, so I’d say I’ve always had an interest in cars since an early age. My first modified car would have been an R32 Skyline coupe. And what was it about this particular JZX that made you want to buy it? The whole VIP styling mixed with a somewhat-powerful factory engine was a big drawcard for me. At the time…

NAME: BRANDON ROBERTS // AGE: 19 LOCATION: WELLINGTON // OCCUPATION: SPRAY PAINTER NZ Performance Car : Hi, Brandon. Tell us how you got into modifying cars and what your first was. I’ve always been into cars, pretty much my whole life, so it made sense to start modifying them when I could — that’s why I got into spray painting and now do it for work. This is actually my first car, funny enough. I’ve owned it for five years now. Oh wow — what was it about the Integra that made you want to go this far with the build? The older style of Hondas have always stood out to me, and it was cheap at the time, so I grabbed it. The build itself started once I took it…

Despite how it may happen, there can be fortune in misfortune. For Alex Peters and his formerly SR20DET-powered S14, that would mean seeing a brand-new motor last all of five track days before two valves said hello to piston one. Most would throw their tools across the garage in anger and swear to never touch the car again, but Alex simply took the incident in his stride and made a new game plan. Instead of building another SR20, the idea was to go down a different route, and, seeing as he was already in the process of hunting out the right FD RX-7 to purchase, it only made sense to combine the two into one. The deciding factor would be the chance stumbling upon a complete 13B bridgeport turbo set-up…

FIRST A90 SUPRA SELLS FOR US$2.1M Imagine owning the first production Toyota Supra A90 to roll off the factory floor. Now imagine handing over US$2.1M for that honour. Yeah, it is a ridiculous amount of money, but that’s exactly what the ‘20201’ car recently sold for at a Barrett-Jackson charity auction. So, while it’s an eye-watering sum, at least the money is going towards two very worthwhile charities. The car itself was treated to a few exclusive touches for being the first, including the one-off satin grey paintwork with red interior, red mirrors, and matte black wheels. There’s also a small plaque on the inside denoting the car as the first, and Akio Toyoda, current president of Toyota Motor Corporation and great grandson of the company’s founder, autographed the engine…

There was once a time when the stakes in car building were so high that if you wanted to be the pioneer of the next big thing, you were best to have kept any plans tightly under wraps or risk having them stolen from under you. Work was done in the dead of night, locked away behind closed doors to avoid prying eyes learning what was going down. And, if you were the fool that let slip even the slightest hint outside of your inner circle, well, you’d have just earned yourself a boot ride out to the middle of nowhere. It was serious business, literally. Companies rose and fell by the cars they built, and the mad rush to change up a build before the next round of the…

You just can’t beat the character of an engine from years gone by, motors built from ‘real’ iron, from the bottom end to the top of the cylinder head. There’s something alluring about faffing about in the block trying to change a cam, or the gnashing of pushrods, flailing up and down trying to keep a bunch of protesting valves in check, right? Many say that maintaining this is the soul of an old vehicle: retention of old tech beneath a bonnet that was styled by a man with a pen, not a microprocessor; the romanticism of endless fiddling, twirling fasteners with long-obsolete thread pitches, gapping ignition points, and the trial and error of carb jetting for that ‘perfect’ fuelling. Oh yes, boy! The effort’s all worth it when it…

For longer than most readers have been alive (36 years and counting), Tokyo has played host to what was once an underground congregation of a niche community and has since grown into one of the biggest modified automotive events the world has ever seen. Tokyo Auto Salon, or TAS for short, is a modifiers’ spectacle that has eyes from around the globe watching on eagerly for inspiration, embracing fresh styles, or shutting them down before they can hit the streets. And, seeing as we continue to look towards the import motherland for said inspiration on our own shores, it would’ve been a sin not to head along to see what the 2019 incarnation had to offer. Going down near the Japanese capital, TAS 2019 was a three-day-hitter that consumed the…

We Kiwis love a good straight-six of the Nissan or Toyota variety and will shoehorn them into just about anything. The RB and 2JZ have long reigned supreme on our shores, but there is another engine, which is currently flooding into the country in cheap mid-2000s imports, that, in stock trim, blows both the RB and 2JZ well out of the water. We’re talking about BMW’s N54 three-litre straight-six. The predecessor to the new Supra’s power plant, and commonly found in the BMW 335i and 135i, the all-aluminium straight-six twin-turbo has won a slew of awards, including best engine five years running during its production span from 2006 to 2015. So what, exactly, is so great about it? Sure, you can build a super tough RB or JZ, but the…

BMW S 1000 RR It’s led the revolution in the sport superbikes category right from the outset, and ever since the BMW S 1000 RR has continued to be developed. A tried-and-tested design, one constant factor has remained: the RR’s impressive power curve. Packing a liquid-cooled four-cylinder in-line engine that cranks 146kW at 13,500rpm and 113Nm of torque at 10,500rpm — these are impressive stats that even the greenest rider can appreciate. The bike features Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) as standard, three riding modes (Rain, Sport, and Race), and ABS and ASC ensure even greater safety. The RR is the epitome of a superbike, and that applies to its design as well, featuring a distinctive split face and asymmetrical front headlamps that make it instantly recognizable, radiating a love for…

How does one end up cutting out the entire floorpan from their trophy-hauling show car? “It was a classic case of planning on doing something small that quickly snowballed,” explains Chass Wardle, owner of the Mazda 808 wagon known as ‘NOBAIL’. It’s a wagon that most of you will no doubt be familiar with, its bright green hue having been around the traps for over a decade now. But, when the old 12A J-port decided that it had had enough, Chass took the opportunity to upgrade it to a 13B peripheral port (PP), leading him down the rabbit hole we see here. Swapping in the 13B just didn’t give the performance increase that he’d hoped for after a decade of 12A power, so the decision was made to add a…

Wind the clock back to 2011, and the Mazda MX-5 wasn’t quite the popular chassis it has become today. Early adopter Sam Chambers picked up this ’89-spec NA6 that very year and admits that “no one knew what the hell I was up to, but I had followed some steezy Miatas from the American scene and wanted to be one of the first people to do it here.” The build started off simple: a set of BC Gold coilovers and replica TE37V, which was how it stayed for a good two years before the inevitable happened for the uncertified chassis — pink stickered. It was the kick up the arse that Sam needed to get the bigger plans underway — and, while he was at it, why not chuck a…