In the pantheon of great automobiles, there is little debate amongst car enthusiasts and historians what is near, if not on, the top: the McLaren F1. Gordon Murray’s masterpiece is still one of the fastest, most exhilarating road cars ever to be produced. Not until the Bugatti Veyron was introduced decades latter were the F1’s numbers matched and surpassed. And by most accounts, those who have driven both still prefer the lither, focused F1 to the more luxurious Veyron.
The F1 was so good and so fast that, as Gordon Murray explains in the first video, the owners demanded a race version. The four part video series after the jump chronicles the F1’s amazing debut at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
There is nothing like taking home a brand new car. No dust on the dashboard, no grass clippings on the floor mats, haze free windows, and that fresh, new car smell. Since I'm not in the market for a new car, the next best thing is to have someone thoroughly "detail" your car. Sure you can spend the weekend doing it yourself-- which I have done many, many times before-- but sometimes the amatuer simply doesn't have acces to the tools and materials required (or skills to use them) to do it perfectly. That's when you hire a professional company, such as AutoLavish.
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2009
Time: 09:00 to 17:00
Cost: $225
Deadline: July 3rd, 2009
More details after the jump
Continue reading "VRPerformance Open Track Day at Grattan Raceway" »
The third installment of our Japanese make-over mini series stars a 2008 STi. All new coils for the struts, sway bars front and rear, complete new exhaust including down pipe, and new trans and engine mounts.
Continue reading "EVO, EVO, STi: Part 3 Subie Pipes & Coils" »
Part 1 of EVO, EVO, STi went through a brake rebuild on an EVO 8. In this installment we go over a sway bar installation on an all new EVO X.
Spring is in the air and the sun is rising on our Japanese performance car customers. The last few weeks we've had a rally of AWD sports sedans come through the shop: a couple of EVOs and a new STi. In part one we describe rebuilding brakes on an EVO 8. Part two goes through a sway bar install on a new EVO X. And part three follows a complete suspension and exhaust upgrade on a new 08 Subaru STi.
Our M3 race car is heading into its second season. The majority of the work was completed last year so this year the plan is to fine tune the car. Having had it on the track competing in several races the owner/driver has a good baseline for us. And one area we need to focus on this season is the aero package-- trying to find a little more speed in the corners. Time to wing it...
One of the ways to improve the performance of your car is to reduce weight-- we've talked about this many times. The stock battery is usually a whopper, often weighing in at over 60 lbs. We now carry a line of lightweight batteries that offer similar cranking power to the stock units, at less than half the weight.
We already talked about issues with the E46 series BMW rear sub-frames in an earlier post, here is some follow-up information. The amount of damage on the vehicle in question was so bad that we decided to have the OEM sheet metal replaced completely instead repairing it by welding. Thankfully BMW stood behind their product and actually warrantied the repair portion of the work.
Continue reading "Cracking up: E46 Sub-frame issues Part 2" »