Chris and the guys at CNSigns really knocked it out the park when it came to this, starting initially when the NSX came to the point of needing an exhaust. Storming through a lot of it on the days leading to its dispatch. A few live amendments have been made from the original design and the odd decal needs to go on here and there, but the biggest portion was definitely out the way then.

You may pick up some subtle design similarities from both the Tegiwa M4 as well as our EP3 rental we use for the Type R Trophy, this is because the livery was once again designed by EightEleven. You may have seen some sneak previews on their own Facebook page a little while back. Whilst we haven’t made an effort to big massively sneaky about this, but we think a little reveal like this is a good change to show it all off.

Our wheel issue has been rectified, we’re now using a fresh set of Rota wheels (which are available on our website!) – specifically Rota Fights. While it wasn’t our initial choice, we think these in white look ace against the livery while complementing the 6 pot Yellow Speed Racing BBK that we run up front too.

Fans of Club Enduro, may have seen our NSX on track this past weekend at the phenomenal Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. This was the first public display of the car as a whole, sans its K24 drivetrain which we’ll get into at a later date.

The NSX competed in Class B and despite some mild mechanical issues, performed brilliantly. In tighter, more corner focused parts of the track it dominated – owning sector 2 until losing because of drivetrain issues. We’ll get into all that, with the way the past few weeks have been a lot has been changed about this car – including its direction for the rest of the year.

Which leaves us on a pretty satisfying cliff-hanger, if you want to call it that, with the next part we’ll get into all that as well as some troubleshooting. Thanks again for reading, Dave’s got some awesome M4 content on the way so keep an eye out on the blog!

Progress is coming along swimmingly with our rental race car and now with the M4’s priority being maintenance we can stay focused on the task at hand. We can’t exactly sideline the rest of the work that needs doing but brakes and suspension is a huge thing to tick off the list.

You may or may not be aware that this NSX was once a race-car in its past life, seeing suspension and brake modification at one point or another. The car originally came on on Tein coilovers, an older style that probably more than suited the car in its past life. As well as this the car came on absolutely no brakes what-so-ever, which isn’t inconvenient as everything was going to be replaced anyway.

Once again the awesome guys at Yellow Speed Racing are dipping their toes in and helping us out with this project. Much like the M4 we’ll be harnessing their big brake kit on all four corners, on top of this we’ll be refreshing the suspension with some tailor made coilovers built to handle the toils of endurance racing.

Needless to say endurance really does test all the capabilities of a car, new or old, it can certainly make or break a build.

This hasn’t been without its issues though, but this is the trials and tribulations of any build. We addressed wheel quite a while back, if you aren’t aware we had a gorgeous set of Enkei RPF1’s. Usually these are great for clearance and in any other instance they would be, but this sadly hasn’t been the case for this car. In terms of fitting the bodywork of the car, clearing suspension and being the correct fitment these were initially fine. The straw that broke the camels back in this instance was the BBK calipers, we weren’t keen on running spacers so wheels has had to return to the to do list. This does mean we can run Pagid Racing RS29 endurance pads, which should make a huge difference on track.

Minor clearance issues have been found in the factory control arms, this is due to the new coilovers being of a piggy back reservoir design. With the M4 the design was pigtailed, meaning we has a line running from the shock to the main reservoir – this let us place the reservoir in the bay as there was little room. The advantage this time around is that each coilover is easily removable as one piece if the need arises, and be it minimal you could also see it as a weight-saving.

So to accommodate the new suspension some mild works been done on the front upper A-arms, then the coilovers when in no problem.

The whole set up is a far cry from what it used to be, but definitely in the right direction for the cars intended purpose. From Tein street suspension to Yellow Speed Racing motorsport suspension, and AP Racing 4 piston calipers to massive Yellow Speed Racing 6 pots.

In time, the car will be refitted with Yellow Speed Racing air-jacks. A very convenient modification that just eases the quality of life for the car in the pits or in the shop. A simple and effective solution to an issue that could cost you the lead, plus jacking cars up are a lot of effort.

While it’s back to the drawing board for now with some parts, we’re very happy with the progress made so far. Having suspension and brakes ticked off is a big portion of the work, we’re quite thankful that the process (minus the wheels) has been this easy. We’ll be showing off a huge step next time, CN Signs are coming down to wrap the NSX and then its off to the exhaust shop for a custom setup for the K-Series.

That wraps it up for the moment, thanks for reading and we’ll be sure to put out another one soon. It’s great that people a being so enthusiastic about the build, seeing an NSX these days is special enough – let alone one on track. A very special thanks to Yellow Speed Racing for their input here, it’s greatly appreciated. Lastly the usual gallery link is just below here if you want to Flickr (get it?) through the whole story.

Now it’s been a long while since we’ve updated you about the NSX, a lot has happened, but I’ll not reveal it in one fell swoop or that’d spoil it all a bit right?

Today we’re addressing the heart and soul of the car, its engine, which has been a mildly controversial to say the least. For those who aren’t aware, the original engine that comes in the NSX is a very peppy Honda C-Series – notably the C30A and C32B. The C-Series has proven to be almost as iconic as the car it calls home, boasting high performance capabilities given the time.

The C30A and C32B were exclusive to the NSX, a decision made by Honda to keep the costs down during production. Why though? Well the motor itself was very advanced regarding materials, harnessing ultra-lightweight materials that also retained the strength needed to contain the non-laughable 290BHP. This is where the costs came in, and where our problem starts.

Being an incredibly limited run engine parts, even for us, are a premium. Ideally what you want from an engine is sustainability, cheap management and great power from the get go. Unfortunately this ruled out the C-Series, which was no love lost to us as the car came as a rolling shell, but does take away from the purity of it all.

This isn’t worth dwelling on, and despite the cars lineage it still has intent – at the end of the day this is a tool with a purpose.

The answer was always going to be K-Series, as they tick those aforementioned boxes. Thanks to Skunk2 the K going in our NSX is a bit more special…

‘Frankenmotor‘ is a pretty commonly used term these days, and an age old art. The K24/20 sits up there with the RB30/26, 1.5JZ’s as well as a slew of Subaru setups. To put it simply, you harness the higher displacement bottom end and mate it to a lower displacement top end – the reason for this is compression and ultimately power. In terms of ‘cheap’ power-adders this is actually a pretty good option for a lot of people if you’re willing to put the work in.

It doesn’t stop there though, this particular setup runs 340HP (on Skunk2’s engine dyno) whilst still being naturally aspirated. It’s pretty clear that this isn’t solely achieved by the K24/20 combo, the bottom end has seen some work – now stroked to 2.45 litres. On top of it retains the stock Honda crank, paired with Skunk2 Ultra Rods as well as Wiseco Pistons, Ring and Pins. Lastly with block itself, on the subject of the crank, has been sorted with King bearings – ensuring it’s all minty fresh.

The heads seen work, not quite as much as the bottom end, but it has been CNC’d. Under the rocker cover you can see some awesome Skunk2 Ultra cams, fetching us a little bit of chop. But largely the rest is either complimentary or stock, really demonstrating the capabilities of the K24/20 setup. Mating the two halves of the engine together are some Skunk2 Racing head studs, with a Cometic head-gasket in between. These also harness a K-Tuned upper coolant housing, letting us have the housing face away from the firewall. Coolant delivery has also been worked with a K-Tuned electric water pump, complete with plate to run lines off.

Oil management is being driven by a Skunk2 oil pump, inside a baffled sump being either S2, Moreso or Genuine Honda depending on what works. The engines been adorned with a lot of K-Tuned goodies too, dress up-wise we’ve got a billet oil cap as well as a billet dip stick and coil pack cover.

K-Tuned are also providing us with a way a getting the ECU to speak to the engine, we’re using a K-swap race harness in conjunction with a tucked engine harness. Fuelling is being handled by a K-Tuned fuel pressure regulator, in line with their high flow fuel filters, leaving fuel issues to be a thing of the past.

We’re also using a Skunk2 Ultra intake manifold, you can see our extensive write up on K-Series intakes here. These feature a huge 90mm throttle body of Ford Coyote origin, which is a bit strange to see on these shores, but logically readily available in the United States.

Motion Motorsport have rebuilt the gearbox, filling it with Mfactory goodies. The K-series set-up allows us to fit a more appropriate for use gear set, making for a far more tailored ratio should the need be to adjust it on track. This has also been coupled with a Version 2 Mfactory plated LSD, reducing any mechanical interruption from putting the power down.

As obscure as this swap is it has been done before, Innovative have sent us some mounts to get this naturally aspirated monster fitted in the case. After this is a case of axles, wiring and its good to go… right? Not a chance! The time needed for this is being spent correctly, with a car like this you do it properly – it deserves it.

Excited doesn’t describe it, we’re incredibly thankful for Skunk2 sorting this engine out for us – allow us to make this NSX more special than it already is. Jesse Halford of J.Cal ECU Calibration will be tuning the car, needless to say we’re very much looking forward to the results of that.

Next up on the blog we’ll be going a step back in time looking at suspension, brakes and something we’ve had to re-evaluative… wheels. As always we’re super thankful that you guys like reading this, it’s a pleasure to write about such awesome cars.

As usual, you can find photos on my own personal Flickr account, and with Dave working on this with me we’ll hopefully get something set up for him to share has awesome photos.

This past Sunday we were up bright and early for Mimms, leaving Tegiwa HQ at 6am to get set up for our first ‘show’ show in a long time. With a van packed full of displays, tents and freebies, we made a b-line for 3 Sisters Race Circuit for Mimms North – kindly hosted by the Mimms Honda Day crew.

If you saw our stand, which was pretty hard to miss, you’ll hopefully be seeing a lot more as we’re planning on hitting up a few more shows this year. Thanks to those that come and said hi, and we hope you enjoyed the prize-wheel that our main man WestLowLife hosted.

It was great to see interest in our upcoming K-series turbo kit we demo’d, these will be ready for pre-order soon. The EP3 felt great on the trip over, we can’t wait to see them fitted on your cars!

There were some absolutely beautiful builds out there, in all sorts of styles, as well as Honda’s through the ages, from our own FK8 to rad little first generation Civic’s and Prelude’s. But all in all it was great seeing what everyone was up too, and loads of you wanted to chat to us about achieving your goal – which we are incredibly humbled by.

We love seeing the work you guys put in, showing off incredible variety  and personality all across the field. Whether you’re looking to fly down the 1/4 mile, beat lap times or make your ride stand out the rest, Mimms is a rad place to meet likewise enthusiasts and get a real insight into the Honda community.

Hopefully you all had as much fun as we did, and for those offs and faults on track we hope you come back bigger and stronger next time, it was a lovely day for all of us. Be sure to look out for us at other shows soon enough, we’re just getting some ideas together at the moment. We’ll keep you up to date with where we’re going to be on our Facebook page.

As per usual there is a Flickr gallery below if you want to have a Flickr (get it?) through, click through to see the whole catalogue and thanks again for having us!

The overall design of the NSX has probably been one of the biggest talking points within Tegiwa for a long time, the look of the car is important to all us and I think its safe to say we’ve all wanted stuff to be different according to our own tastes. Ultimately this car has to do as the rest of the fleet do, represent Tegiwa.

We’ve got a livery in the works, perhaps the biggest point of discussion, and that’s been full of to and fro. It’s got to appeal to our current aesthetic, but at that point you’d be throwing away a ton of history and racing pedigree. So right now that’s a balance, but we’ve got plenty of time to decide.

Wheels however have been chosen, and the logical, and perhaps most aesthetically pleasing racing wheel we’ve gone for is the Enkei RPF1. The RPF1 is synonymous in tuner culture, fabled for its lightweight properties, timeless style and the fact it looks good on just about anything.

We think that this wheel would sit beautifully in the arches of this new race car, especially in its staggered fitment. The sizes have given the car a dead aggressive look, and once the brakes are all sorted there is very little do in terms of geometry.

Naturally these have been wrapped in Nankang AR-1 tyres, our first choice for a racing tyre,  which have proven to work a treat with the rest of the Tegiwa racing fleet. Keeping the RPF1’s affixed to the hubs are some Muteki SR48 lug nuts, keeping to the JDM theme thats graced the car thus far – you can also find these (and a lot more Muteki) here!

This isn’t the only progress thats been made, it has been a little while after all. Ordered parts are now slowly trickling in from different suppliers, getting us ready for an action plan.

We’re due in some driveshafts to arrive with us from the folks at Insane Shafts, then we’ve had our engine mounts come in from Innovative. We’re incredibly excited to see this one come together, it’ll be special for a lot of reasons but particularly in terms of demonstrating our technical ability in house.

Perhaps one of the more obscure findings we have came from Japan, many evenings have been spent scouring Yahoo Auctions JP. A simple rear diffuser to fill the gap in the rear bumper. You can tell that at some point in this cars life it had one, and rather than shoot for an OE bumper we’d like to carry on the race look by having one fitted again.

Like most used items this has some obvious wear and tear, but even now with it being lacquered again its starting to clean up lovely. There are some deeper gouges at the lowest point,  this can be remedied with time – but for now it looks ace, and will suit the car. Thankfully parts like this benefit the performance of the car, as well as the looks. With this fitted, and coupled with a big spoiler, the rear of the NSX will look quite formidable.

The uprights for the aforementioned spoiler have proven to be a little more complex than first anticipated. After offering up a set of M4 mounts we discovered that the OEM blade mounts aren’t quite a direct forward facing design. For lack of a better word the NSX mounts toe out a little bit, no matter, just another design challenge – which given the scope of the build is nothing massively new.

I think as of right now that about wraps it up, you’ll know the engine next time – though we’re pretty sure most of you have sussed it. We’ll be covering the driveshafts and engine mounts too! The NSX is shaping up to be a very special build, and we’re all looking forward to the final result.

As per usual you can follow the build on my own personal Flickr, the images from that all go into these blogs.

A project car is never done, and the same can be said for a race car. Right now, however, she’s sitting pretty with a couple of minor jobs that need doing – otherwise its ready for the track. We’ll get to the future, lets talk about the past first.

This car has certainly come a long way from a long way from the way it was in part one, even further from how it came to us. What was once your every day BMW M4, is now a bespoke endurance racer.

What lies beneath the newly wrapped bodywork is a largely factory S55, though we’ve been able to squeeze some more power out of it with our own decat downpipes. A lot of the mechanical differences have been on the suspension side of things, which this particular car has served as a testing bed for.

Our own parts extend beyond the decats though; camber and toe arms, tow strap, front splitter, spoiler, GRP doors and exhaust tips. As I said we’re still testing some of these parts, but they’ll be available to the public as soon as we’re satisfied with their performance.

It hasn’t been entirely our products exclusively though, you can see the satin black APEX SM-10 wheels adorning the car beautifully – giving the car an aggressive (and still very functional) look. These are wrapped in Nankang AR-1 semi-slicks, we’ve ran these on the rentals as well as the E92 M3, proving themselves to be very versatile tyres.

Looking inside we can see that the comfy cozy OEM interior has been stripped and optimized for weight saving, safety and stability. A custom embroidered Motordrive Race seat will keep Luke and Dave seated comfortably for those long stints on track, as well as a Schroth Endurance harness holding them in place.

You can see on the steering column is the AIM MXS 1.2 digital dash, this also runs a Racelogic lap timer. This whole system also gives us telemetry in the pits, letting us know exactly how the car is performing on track. Decorating the flocked dash are various manual switches, for the manual controls in the car; rain light, fuel, wipers, etc. The carbon centre console also houses the comms, as well as the cut off safety switches required by 750 Motorclub regulations for Club Enduro.

Tucked away in the rear is our Aero Tec Laboratories fuel cell, housing a 120L bladder, obviously fueling is a large part of endurance racing. This will be coupled with ATL‘s refuel rig, together this will make for efficient pit stops.

You can see surrounding the fuel cell, as well as the rest of the interior, is the Safety Devices roll cage. This cage is fully MSA compliant, and will protect each driver massively should it encounter a love tap on track.

Peeking through the spokes are the Yellow Speed Racing BBK that’ll be slowing the car down this season, we’ve used YSR’s brakes for years now on a multitude of different track and race cars. Needless to say they are huge, but the 2-piece design makes them dead lightweight, lowering rotational mass substantially.

One of the first things you’ll spot under the bonnet is a pair of external reservoirs, these are part of the YSR Pro Plus Racing suspension system that replaced the OEM units. You can imagine that whilst the M4 is a sports car, it is still a street car, ergo the suspension that came with it wouldn’t have sufficed.

This Yellow Speed Racing kit allows us to have a massive range of adjustment for the dampening rates, as well as accommodating for high and low speed bump and rebound. Proper suspension is a game changer in any car, on track the importance of this is only heightened.

The wrap was completed by Chris and the guys at CN Signs, the final product looks incredible and certainly strands out from the crowd. Retaining the factory colour underneath the vinyl was a great choice, it complements the blues and makes for a very subtle but still screams race car.

This has been a rather brief introduction to the car itself, we’re now focusing on testing it. We’ll be sure to share the results as well as any updates on the race season, this is going to be an interesting year for sure, we know that much. Thanks to all that have kept up with this, and to those who came and said hello at Autosport International.

As per usual I’ve included a Flickr gallery if you hit the image below, this is my own Flickr account and will have a few Tegiwa goings on throughout the year.

The festive period means all hands on deck for everyone here at Tegiwa, our office is sorting orders and helping customers, the warehouse team is packing an insane amount of parcels and in our workshop the build continues. The M4 has been getting closer and closer to completion day by day, seeing the process has been a real spur to work – convenient especially with the Autosport International deadline looming close.

By now our Aero Tech Laboratories tank is in snug, and on the face of it the car is largely complete. What we’re missing now is primarily parts to button the car up, but prior to that there was a lot of wiring to figure out.

As I mentioned in the last blog, we had the motor out to get some crucial heat deflection material in the bay. Getting the engine itself out isn’t a particularly massive job when you have access to ramps etc, so with it out and the heat shields in we were ready to fit the engine and open the pandoras box of wiring that spans the length of the M4.

Wiring in any car is a hellish task, though these days there is a lot more of it. The task at hand is simple on paper, identify whats needed and whats not, then strip and fit. Simple right.

Some say its important to have a series of small jobs to stop you from burning out on one, regardless of the validity of that, there was still plenty to button up whilst the wiring was being done. To test fit still we had our new GRP doors, windows, as well as our spoiler and M4 style front splitter. With all of this in mind efficient use of time became a very, very big deal.

Wiring the engine back up was as simple as plugging it all back in, there was nothing to really strip front there. Then the cockpit, where it became substantially more complex, was tidied grouped and stripped where it could be. A few mistakes happened here and there, but with everything exposed it could be fixed after some testing. Seeing all of this come together was a real testament to the benefits of good research and organisation, and with wiring tucked away it made fitting fuel and brake lines a lot more manageable.

Speaking of, the brake system is now very much complete and the RPB lines we’re the cherry on top to adorn the Yellow Speed Racing big brake kit. Harnessing a factory hole in the bulkhead, a carbon panel was made to cover this, then the lines themselves went through. Little touches like that really smarten the engine bay as well as the interior, so taking that extra bit of time is always worth it – especially if the material cost is practically nothing.

You can see front the image above that our fuel feed and return lines run through the same hole, again utilising stock locations and minimising drilling/cutting into the car itself. The fuel lines themselves run along the transmission tunnel then back in to the ATL tank – making a simple and bulletproof system.

Returning briefly to wiring, one particular palaver was lighting, in the cars stripped state getting all lights functioning became a bigger hassle than it needed to be. This was swiftly dealt with, bringing a big sigh of relief when the LED’s came to life up front, and eventually the rear followed suit.

On the subject of the rear end, our spoiler mounts had been freshly fitted to the boot hinges. These require a bit more rigidity than your conventional boot mount spoiler, right now these are version 1’s. In time we’ll design a slightly more stylish counterpart but right now practicality is the most important part – form over function if you will.

The design of the wing lets us adjust using the pitch using the bolts on the mounts you can see above, allowing for more or less downforce on the rear. Tiny adjustments can make a huge difference to the handling of your car, as you are regulating how hard the oncoming air is pushing down on the rear wheels… to put it simply.

While we’re on aero, up front we have our new M4 GT4 style splitter (available in both Carbon and GRP/Carbon composite). Those of you with Instagram will have probably seen it fitted to the car already, it’s a great looking product and marries up to the car lovely.

One thing to consider however, we’re adding parts, therefore adding weight. This isn’t an ideal scenario and in some cases its unavoidable, that said there are some preventative measures that can shave a few precious pounds of the car.

One such measure is replacing the heavy metal doors with these new GRP alternatives, saving a massive 44KG. The awesome part of these is that they retain ALL of the OEM fixtures, mirrors and trim. These are available to our customers now, can be found HERE and have the option of fitted lexan windows. The car is now fully fitted with lexan windows, another huge weight saver, but this is the real finishing touch with the car. Obviously with wiring aside, the car on the face of it is complete, now its down to Chris and the team at CN Signs LTD to get it wrapped.

After that its all systems go for Autosport International, the transport truck has been outfitted once again in preparation for the upcoming Club Enduro and Type R Trophy seasons. But its first task this year will be to transport this and one of our rentals to Birmingham for Autosport International 2019. Next time we catch up it’ll be past that though, and we’ll be finishing off with a nice photoshoot.

Until then, I’ll leave you with this… which you can see a bit clearer on the Tegiwa Euro Instagram. Very dramatic yes, but we’re proud of the work thats gone into it – and the final product very much deserves its own plug.

As usual you can find the gallery to the full build down below via my own personal Flickr.

Words by Jesse Halford of J.Cal

This time we are testing 70mm TBs and induction/intake modifications to compliment our previous test winner – the Skunk2 Ultra Street (results found here). The location this time was DMS-Performance in Caldicot, South-Wales. Having recently installed their brand new MAHA dyno, quickly gaining quite the reputation within the Honda community, and being the second home to Jesse @JCAL this was the perfect place for our test.

The test car this time is a Honda Civic EP3 that I have tuned here at DMS previously. Mike, the owner, was very kind to allow us the use of his car for the entire day. After a very long nightshift, he even stayed to help out so a big thanks to him. “You the real MVP”!

Parts list on this car is as follows:

• Gruppe M intake
• Skunk2 Ultra Street
• SolidFab exhaust mani and 3″ cat-back
• RDX410cc Injectors

We knew that results where going to be very close so monitoring the conditions, keeping them as fair as possible was going to be paramount. Now it sounds obvious but take a power run from a car with a cold intake manifold (i.e just warmed the engine up ready for a run), it will make a few HP more than the exact same car after a few runs or left to heat-soak the manifold for a bit. So with this in mind we used a pyrometer to gauge the temp of the intake manifold to try and keep as much consistency as possible, intake air temp was taken from the ECU not the dyno. Other factors like ambient temp we are at the mercy of, but they where recorded anyway to help back up our data and it was really close for the most part.

The contestants are:

• Gruppe M
• Tegiwa Carbon Air-box
• Injen
• Skunk2 Velocity stack filter kit with JCAL custom length intake pipe/s

We did order a K&N Typhoon but an issue with delivery meant it didn’t arrive on time. Previous testing I’ve done with the “heat-soaker” type intakes says it would have lost out to all the above anyway. 

EDITORS NOTE: Jesse has tested these types of intake before, and you can find a brief write up (with example image) HERE.

70mm Throttle Body vs Stock

So before we get into swapping induction systems around, we stabilised the temps and figures from the dyno, then we put a Tegiwa 70mm throttle-body on. As expected at this kind of power the 70mm does very little in the way of improving the performance from the engine, 1HP and 1FT/LB’s was the consistent figure difference between the two.

Gruppe M

So the Gruppe M carbon intake was the first up, its worth noting that this is the only used intake in this test. How much effect that had I couldn’t say, but Mike did say he cleaned it all out prior to us tuning the car a few weeks before hand.

• 249.3HP
• 169.9FT/LB’s
• Intake air temp = 22c
• Ambient temp = 15.6c

Tegiwa M

Next up was the Tegiwa Carbon Air-box, otherwise known as the “Teg M”. Now it’s very similar to the Gruppe M, but with a few very subtle differences that I dont expect make a difference to the power output. Fitment was straight forward, or so I’m told, it always is straight forward when someone else does it. We did a total of 6 runs on this intake, 3 bonnet up and 3 bonnet down, power is the same both ways which is important data for later on in the test. As expected, very similar results between the two intakes – I’d imagine if some form of velocity stack could be incorporated into the Teg M box and a larger filter it would prove a very strong intake… #TegMv2

• 249.8HP
• 171.4FT/LB’s
• Intake air temp = 19c
• Ambient temp = 16.7c

Injen

This is a firm favourite with a lot of people and I’ve seen great results on engines with these before hand, so I was expecting to pick up some power over the two air-box intakes although neither of which have a Velocity stack and both having tiny filters. The Injen has both a larger filter and it has a built in velocity stack tucked in behind the bumper, I was also expecting colder intake air temps to play a roll. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong, our intake temps were a good few degrees higher than the air-boxes despite having the same ambient air conditions thus suggesting we weren’t getting any air to it. We moved the dyno fan towards the passenger side of the car hoping that a more concentrated airflow over the foglight hole would help bring those temps down… fail, all that happened was the engine got hot due to lack of airflow through the radiator. We must have made at least 7-8 runs on this intake, trying different things with the mapping and the airflow around the car but it just wasn’t having it, VTEC crossover was a little perkier.

• 248.4Hp
• 169.1FTLB’s
• Intake Air Temps = 24c
• Ambient Temps = 19.5

Skunk2 Velocity Stack Filter Kit…..with JCAL custom length intake pipe/s.

This was the interesting part of the test for me personally. We nearly didn’t run this arrangement as it was a last minute thing, overnight parts from Tegiwa made it possible. I’d already, rather boldly, told Johnny at Tegiwa that my intake pipe design was going to win this test IF my theory proved correct.

So a very brief background on the theory. Its widely known that tuning the runner length on any intake manifold/ITBs will generally net an improvement, you’re essentially tuning pulses or ‘waves’ of pressure created by the operation of the engine to match up with a specific RPM range and create more torque/power at that specific range of operation. Now intake, or induction, kits should react the same way. If we could match the pulses/waves being created by the engine and intake manifold arrangement with the pulses/waves from the induction system, we’d see a gain at the RPM range we wanted it for making peak power, high rpm.

Armed with the Skunk2 velocity stack filter kit as well as box of spares we got to creating attempt number 1 and as crude as it looked, it was essentially all we needed to get the test under way. We hung the intake out the bonnet purely for ease of testing, this is why we tested each kit with the bonnet up and the bonnet down so as to rule out any gains from having to have the bonnet up with this homemade intake. This part of the test for me was purely about making power at the engine rather than it fitting a specific car, I didn’t know what length intake I was going to need at the time it wasn’t practical to start ripping the car apart to make intakes that may or may not work. Going for a long intake pipe (roughly 81cm from TB exit to tip of velocity stack) I was expecting a gain in peak torque then tapering back down to match the air-boxes at peak power, we made more torque than anything and a touch more power than anything – my theory on point so far.

• 251.3HP
• 175.3FT/LB’s
• Intake Air Temps = 20c
• Ambient Temps = 18.8c

Great start, Now to prove a gain is in the intakes length we cut a length out the intake system and run it again at roughly 48cm… this time I was expecting our peak torque to fall a little over the longer pipe but peak power to carry higher at high rpm. We lost 1FTLB of torque which wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, however the curve did lose out in torque at a few points as it wiggled ever so slightly (barely measurable but they are there), and power carried on strong to make gains over the longer pipe – theory still holds.

• 254.4Hp
• 174.5FT/LB’s
• Intake Air Temp = 21c
• Ambient Temp = 19.9c

Now we went a step shorter again, this time to roughly 28cm, lets see how we got on…

As you can see, we didn’t lose any peak torque this time which is interesting, we did however make more gains up at high rpm as I predicted. Eagle eyed readers will have noticed that the engine is becoming more powerful at 2000-3000rpm the shorter we make the intake. This may be the intake harmonics matching up at 2 points in the rev range as the pipe becomes short enough to catch it at low RPM as well as at higher rpm.

• 257.2HP
• 174.6FT/LB’s
• Intake Air Temps = 22c
• Ambient Temps = 21.3c

Nearly 10HP over the Injen, an already very good intake. Thats nearly 4% power increase on an already modified 2L NA engine with just an induction system swap.

It is worth noting that the lengths and even the diameter we used here may not have been perfect, we tried 3 lengths only due to parts and time restrictions, but I’d have liked to try a size shorter again to be sure no peak power was being wasted. I can’t be sure the perfect length intake for the Skunk2 ultra will be the same for other manifolds either, or even if its manifold specific at all, I need more testing to confirm that.

It started with a phone call, it led to a gold mine.

A little while ago we had a phone call from a new customer called Tom (@t800oms), I picked up the phone and was asked if we can do coilovers for Nissan Silvia S15’s (we do!). Being an S-Chassis owner myself I felt the need to enquire about the car, Tom was more than happy to talk about it and unbeknownst to me I was already down the rabbit hole.

He told me that the car already had some air-jacks fitted, and was keen to run our suspension too – allowing him to stick to the same colour palette and rep the Yellow Speed Racing brand. To make Tom’s new suspension a one off scenario he chose to go with external pigtailed reservoirs, letting him show off not only YSR’s handiwork but also to let his builder incorporate them into the design of the car. At that point we made a deal, I’d drop them off if I could shoot the car when I got there, and what you see here is the result of that.

Nestled in the Lincolnshire countryside was a small slice of JDM heaven, not too dissimilar from the small shops you’d see dotted around japan. Where Steve (@sr_autobodies), the builder works his magic on not only Tom’s S15 – but a selection of wild projects from a multitude of different backgrounds.

Lets just establish that this isn’t a race car, it is just a full on build, top to toe.

As I rocked up to the unit enclosing SR Autobodies, I was greeted with a couple of PS13’s as well as an immaculate R32 GTR – which is feature worthy in itself. As we chatted, more and more JDM niceties came to light, rare Parts Shop Max products, numerous bodykits. It’s safe to say the S-Chassis man in me was in Mecca.

Having previously browsed through both Tom’s and Steve’s respective Instagrams I was well aware of the work going on, but there is a stark difference between photo’s and seeing something like this in the flesh.

The biggest and perhaps most obvious modification to the car is, well the lack of original car. Tubing was always on the cards, but after kink in the chassis was discovered Steve urged Tom to send it from the cabin forward. And send it he did.

The frame overall matches a lot of the dimensions given by the OEM parts, meticulous measurement and careful studying has made fitting parts, like our suspension, a momentary job. However clever nuances have been made to make certain elements of the build a lot easier, access points for components way down the lines. A great example is the top mounts, whilst retaining their OEM bolt pattern, the design now allows for the mounts to be rotated.

Such attention to detail has been continuous, our air-jacks have been mounted impeccably on the frame front and rear. Boxed within gusseted and dimple died mounts, not only providing a good looking display but an incredibly structurally sound platform for the car to be raised with. We all look forward to seeing the suspension reservoirs on show in the same manner! The efforts taken to tie everything in properly has led to some interesting practices in getting the chassis together, people having to put wire through windows to ensure a continuous TIG weld.

However the fruits of their labour can be displayed with ease, even in to the latter stages of the build the car will be able to be stripped down – and show off the handiwork gone into it. Right now the guys are a while off of that, and with all of the tube frame exposed this is probably the best time to see the chassis in its purest form.

The more you look around this car, the more detail you see has gone into it, and its entirely functional. Again gusseted in all the right places, strengthening these key components then dimple dying it further to introduce more strength whilst shaving some weight off – lets not forget a lot of the factory has been binned off. Thus leaving the remaining chassis a tad more fragile then it would have been out of the factory, so this framework has righted that.

Incredibly there is yet more to do on this before prior to getting the engine buttoned up within the car, some parts like the Tomei Expreme manifold fitted to give an idea of the space the Notchtop SR needs. Steve will be doing his trademark Samurai style front end to finish it off, as well as tubs, to give it the full treatment.

Right now this is a great way to show off the Yellow Speed Racing components that will be adorning the car, the custom Dynamic Pro Drift suspension will perform as good as it looks on the car – and the gold accents stand out beautifully on the car as it sits right now.

I can’t thank Tom and Steve enough for letting me snap the build so far, and the brews, I’ll be sure to keep this build updated. It’s rare that you get to document progress such as so when it isn’t in close contact like our own M4 build, but this is the other end of the spectrum and I can’t wait to see the build take shape more.

If you want to have a look at all the pictures, have a scroll through the gallery below. Click to see it all on Flickr.