Project S2K
Oil starvation is a serious issue and has claimed the life of many high-performance engines. While most production oiling systems are perfectly adequate for around-town use on street tires, oil-supply issues often arise on a racetrack with sticky DOT competition tires or slicks. This is because as lateral acceleration or g-forces increase, the unconstrained engine oil moves to the edges of the oil pan and away from the pickup. It only takes a fraction of a second with a dry oil pickup to cause bearing damage and engine failure.

It's hard to resist the look of an aggressively lowered car with a sexy set of flush-mounted wheels and tires. This is, after all, a styling cue taken directly from the motorsport world. Just look around the paddock at a Touring Car race or Formula D event and you'll notice a conspicuous absence of fender gaps and ground clearance.

Project RX-8 With our no-holds-barred S2000 being built for time attack world domination, including some seriously high-end gear like a sequential gearbox and air jacks, we thought it would be appropriate to also explore the more affordable end of the motorsports spectrum with our newest addition to the project car fleet, this Titanium Gray '05 Mazda RX-8. Solo 2 (otherwise known as autocross) is a discipline that requires tremendous driver skill and the ability to properly set up a car be competitive at the national level. But it's also a far more accessible form of motorsport than most because it doesn't require a big budget or much travel on the local or regional level.

With modern engines becoming more complex with each new generation and model, keeping your OBD-II car in check and in tune can be difficult. A proper air/fuel ratio is a key element to maintaining balance and optimal performance, and using a wideband and various gauges to monitor important engine variables is a good place to start. Unlike the narrowband O2 sensors used by most OEMs, a wideband provides a more detailed and broader view of what's going on in your air/fuel delivery department. By providing more data to work with, a wideband is an invaluable way to aid in the tuning process to extract the most power possible (and keep your motor as safe as possible). Having the proper gauges mounted in your car's cabin is a great way to keep yourself informed on the fly, so don't leave anything up to guesswork.

With more than 100,000 apps and four-billion downloads, Apple's iPhone has taken the world of mobile communication and entertainment by storm. From college humor apps like the Bad Pickup Line Generator and Fart Fone to highly useful apps like Navigon and QuickOffice, the iPhone is an incredibly powerful tool with an app for every occasion. And thanks to its onboard GPS receiver and three-axis accelerometer, your iPhone has the potential to be a very useful tool at the racetrack. And I mean for more than just texting the wife that you're "working late."

Takeda USA
Mitsubishi Lancer
Short Ram Intake
The Takeda Retain short ram air intake replaces the bulky and inefficient factory intake for increased horsepower, torque and improved throttle response. This system also comes with a 1-piece black powdercoated intake housing to keep the intake charge cool. All Takeda air intake systems come complete with polished aluminum tubing, a Pro Dry S performance air filter, couplers, clamps and all the necessary hardware for a simple installation.
afepower.com

The New Era Of Affordable Titanium Exhaust Systems Is Here.
Description
We've all seen (and probably drooled over) titanium exhaust systems found on some of the best time attack machines in Japan. The angled cuts and precise welds are a sight to behold. Unfortunately, the cost of one of these systems is in excess of $2,000 to $3,000 - out of the average consumer's price range.

We Design Water And Oil Cooling Systems To Support A High-Stress Race Environment. In anticipation of the increased power output and consequent increase in heat that comes with turbocharging an engine, we've fitted a slew of cooling upgrades to ensure engine oil and water temperatures are kept in check in our time attack S2000. First off, we started with an all-aluminum Mishimoto radiator. The conventional S2000 radiator is mounted vertically, which is difficult to duct and has a higher center of gravity (CG) than a lay-down radiator setup.

Roar Filter
IS-F Carbon-Fiber Intake
Combining the heat resistance and light weight of carbon fiber with the proven airflow benefits of a velocity-stack-equipped cone filter, Roar Filters' newest bolt-on kit replaces the IS-F's restrictive factory flat-panel intake filter with a serviceable, polyconical element. Its complex plastic factory intake box, with a carbon-fiber heat shield and high-flow tubing, finished in high-gloss, durable epoxy, provides the optimum balance of performance and protection. roarfilter.com

Project SRT-4
I want to start off by providing a little back story here, for the sake of possible confusion amongst our readers. Project SRT-4 might look familiar to some of you, but for the rest of you guys, here's how it went down. Project SRT-4 is a build that was originally taken on by the Sport Compact Car magazine staff several years ago; at the time (early 2000s), the Dodge SRT-4 came onto the market as a powerful platform in the shape of an affordable, well-handling, easily upgradable, four-door, turbocharged four-cylinder sedan. It was the perfect budget brawler that could dish out plenty of beatings to cars much more expensive than itself.

Proving Grounds
Description
Having taken a fairly detailed look at the Rotrex traction drive supercharger and how it lured Oscar Jackson out of retirement (the story is available on modified.com and in the May '09 issue), we couldn't resist the lure of testing out this elegant approach to forced induction on our EG Civic race car.

Project Evolution Gauges have become a must-have in all my vehicles that see track time (especially the forced induction ones). I've learned the hard way that when you don't always know what's going on inside your engine, no matter how well-built, it can come apart rather quickly. Yet, with some simple monitoring devices you can greatly reduce the chances of catastrophic engine failure.

While looking around on modified.com recently, I noticed a post on the site's forum asking what cylinder head porting and polishing is. The person who posted it apologized for asking what he felt was a "newbie" question, but this got me to thinking back to when I first got involved with racing and modifying cars and how I shelled out big bucks to have my Honda B-series cylinder head professionally ported without really even understanding what that meant. I just knew it was supposed to make power, and at the time that's all I really cared about.

Few people outside of Mazda's RE research department know more about rotary-powered Mazdas than Jim Mederer, co-founder and chief engineer at Racing Beat. Founded in 1971 by Mederer and Ryusuke Oku, Racing Beat has been racing rotary-powered Mazdas ever since, having filled shelves with trophies and putting its name in the record books along the way. In 1978 the company's first-generation RX-7 set a Bonneville top-speed record of 184 mph. In 1983, its IMSA RX-7 won the GTO class at the 24 Hours of Daytona. In 1986, its FC RX-7 set a land-speed record at Bonneville of 238 mph. And after a dramatic 225-mph rollover on the salt flats the year before, in 1995 Racing Beat's FD RX-7 bumped that record up to 242 mph. The company has worked closely with Mazda on a number of projects and even developed a single-rotor engine for NASA. Simply put, Racing Beat has learned a thing or two about rotary engines by putting them to the ultimate test in some of the most grueling motorsports events in the world.

Project S2000 After fitting the Quaife 60G sequential gearbox in the last installment, we were in need of a custom prop shaft to mate the output of the 60G (25 tooth spline Ford Type 9) to the S2000 AP2 rear differential (we swapped out the AP1 for an AP2 rear subframe). Fortunately, The Driveshaft Shop was able to produce a perfect solution consisting of a slip yoke to the gearbox, aluminum shaft and AP2 diff flange. On the scales this prop shaft dropped a substantial 5.2 lbs compared to the OE prop shaft (10.4 lbs versus 15.6 lbs). The aluminum shaft is not only lighter but also allows more torsional twist, limiting shock loading at the diff and gearbox and helping to prolong drivetrain life. The Driveshaft Shop had all of the necessary parts in stock to build our custom prop shaft and had it ready to ship out the next day - impressive, to say the least.

Rotary Evolution: Part 1
Most Japanese performance car enthusiasts are familiar with the 13B twin-rotor engine Mazda equipped the RX-7 and RX-8 with. But unless you've owned and modified an RX of some type, chances are you have only a basic understanding of how this unique type of combustion engine differs from a more traditional piston engine. If the name Dr. Felix Wankel means nothing to you, then here's your chance to learn everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about rotary engines. Spend a few minutes reading this story and you may just find yourself falling in love with this strangely ingenious engine design and looking at rotary-powered Mazdas like the RX-7 and RX-8 in a whole new light.

AEM
Inline Wideband Uego
This new offering from AEM gives all the benefits of wideband air/fuel gauges to those who don't want an additional gauge in the car. A perfect solution for data logging, engine management systems or racing applications where another gauge isn't desired. Additionally, the controller is weatherproof and can be mounted anywhere inside or outside the vehicle.
aem.com

K&N
'08-10 Subaru Sti High-Flow Intake
This system adds 17 hp over the stock intake and replaces the original intake assembly, including the airbox, filter and intake tube with an all-new design. Protecting the cone-shaped air filter (and isolating it from engine heat) is a nice-looking powdercoated heat shield. Air travels through a mandrel-bent aluminum tube to drive a more laminar flow of air to the car's engine to create more power and better throttle response.
knfilters.com

If you've ever heard the racket made by a straight-cut dog box transmission, then you know these things produce a high-pitched scream that sounds like a cross between a frightened cat and an electric guitar gone insane. And yet somehow it's also the coolest noise in the world, simply because of what it represents: hardcore motorsports gearbox goodness. If you don't know what I'm talking about, jump on YouTube and search for a video called "Straight Cut Gears" and listen to the insanely awesome sound of the straight-cut dog engagement gearset in Rolf Van Os' Dutch Supercar Challenge BMW 320 STW. Just keep in mind that this is an extreme example and that modern dog box gear tooth profiles result in much quieter operation - so much so that you could use one on the street without drawing any extra attention.

With apologies to Garth Stein and his excellent novel by the same name, the art to racing in the rain isn't just an inherent skill that some drivers have and others do not. The truth is that learning to race in the rain - we're talking driving your car as fast as possible around a wet racing circuit - is part feel (or art, if you prefer) and part science. The feel part is something you have to develop from practice, practice and more practice. The science part, on the other hand, is something you can investigate intellectually, learn on paper and then go about applying in the real world. But to apply the science of racing in the rain skillfully and artfully, you've got to find yourself on a wet racetrack, which goes back to that whole practice, practice, practice thing.

Greddy
Emanage Ultimate
This tried-and-true offering from GReddy is as close to a stand-alone management system as you can get, while maintaining the best and most desirable features of a piggyback EMS. 949-588-8300
greddy.com

Proving Grounds
Description
Having gone down the all-motor, bolt-on, power-adder path with our recently retired '06 Infiniti G35 Coupe project car, we're quite familiar with the limitations of the VQ35 in normally aspirated form. Despite throwing a full complement of bolt-ons at the engine, we only bumped at-the-wheel output from 221 whp to 258 whp on U2Ndyno.com's Dynapack when it was all said and done. That's a decent gain and it helped bring the car to life quite a bit, but we got nowhere near our 300-whp NA goal, which should really be a lot easier to attain with a 3.5-liter V-6.

Project Evolution Last month, with just an intake and a Road Race Engineering tune by Mike Welch, the EVO X picked up a solid 51 whp and 35 ft-lbs of torque over stock. The final peak numbers came in at 312 whp and 318 ft-lbs, but Mike said there's more horsepower to be made by freeing up the exhaust flow and providing adequate and consistent cooling with a better front-mount intercooler. I had my homework assignment and got right down to it.

Drivetrain loss is a common topic of conversation in the tuner world because any time you strap your car to a chassis dyno, the output being measured is at the wheel, not at the crank like the published SAE net horsepower figures used by the auto industry. Strap your 298-bhp RevUp G35 Coupe to the dyno and you may be disappointed to see little more than 220-230 horses measured at the rear wheels. Where did that 60-plus horsepower go missing? It was used up in a variety of ways before it could reach the drive wheels, the primary source being what's broadly described as drivetrain loss.