It's been a few years now, but the Enginuitive Project (EP) DSM's last track day before going under the knife again... and again... and again was one for the record books. This daily commuter made the trip to Lebanon Valley from the Enginuitive Garage in Torrington, Connecticut, and laid down twelve consecutive test and tune runs on street tires, with street gas, and and in the high twelves. Of course, Earle is never satisfied and as we packed up the tools, the chase truck, and the trailor (we always plan to litter the track with gear oil soaked tranny parts and smoldering transfer cases) he threw his helmet back on and rolled back into the staging lanes for a final, ill advised run.Of course, all of us ran up to the driver's side window in an attempt to convince Earle to quit while he was ahead, with the 12 second time slip and his ACT 2600 intact, but good decisions never make for good stories. 12.3 seconds later, he crossed the 1/4 mile marker and somehow, from 1,320 feet away, forced our collective feet into our collective mouths.
Then he made all of us try to keep up as he drove the EP DSM all the way home.
Now you can all check out the video of that fabled day, right here! Enjoy!
-A
Alternate Thinking, Performance Mindset
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Going the Distance
As enthusiasts and gear-heads almost all of us have modified our cars in ways never intended by the OEM manufacturer. More-often then not we don’t really contemplate how these modifications are going to directly affect our beloved’s reliability; for example Mitsubishi’s 4G63t motor tuned to 400hp+ may well be able to handle it’s daily flogging on my way to work, however the gearbox was definitely not intended to see 7k+ shifts on a routine basis. - I can feel the angry emails already! Before you jump to a conclusion, I’m not in any way insinuating there is anything wrong with the need for performance from your vehicle or that you have forgotten anything in your brilliant equation for automotive perfection. However, it’s been my experience that I don’t always foresee the next weakest link until it inhospitably presents itself.
A good example of this would be our catastrophe earlier this year with Project DSM. After spending the winter and spring building, or rather re-building our Project DSM, we conveniently didn’t worry about the added stress to such components as the rear differential housing, to be more accurate the cast aluminum mounting tabs on the rear diff.
After letting the gf put a good 500 easy miles on the car before we started testing for gains, I callously took the car to work with out any worry. Well to my dismay I was soon limping the car into some poor saps front yard. I had literally ripped the rear end out of the car by simply launching it as I had done countless times before.
This was a pretty hefty blow to our self esteem as this car was to be our feature for the upcoming summer. In fact we had quite a few plans for it including anodizing the intercooler and re-installing the stock exhaust (with an electric cut out just after the 3.5” downpipe in order to obtain a very sleeper-esque quality. Not to mention, unlike most of the magazines, this car is a part of my family. It’s not another trophy car built by throwing dollars at it(though it seems like it sees it share of that, and I live in the shabby apartment to prove it). I, like you eat, sleep, and work for my hobby.
So with the DSM down, and an uncertainty of how to remedy the problem, not just shore it up, we pushed her in the garage to sleep for a while as we started to tinker with our new toy; the Z. At this point however, I had to stop and think about how I was going to get to work in the northeast with my two decidedly poor choices for winter transportation.
Thank god for friends, as without them I’m sure it would be a long commute in the snow by foot. My advice to you, is to enjoy your car, but don’t be as blind as I to the impending domino affect of catastrophic failures that loom around the corner of all those with highly stressed vehicles. I vow to return the DSM to duty this winter, and follow that up with numbers and the what, where, and why that you read this publication for.
-E
A good example of this would be our catastrophe earlier this year with Project DSM. After spending the winter and spring building, or rather re-building our Project DSM, we conveniently didn’t worry about the added stress to such components as the rear differential housing, to be more accurate the cast aluminum mounting tabs on the rear diff.
After letting the gf put a good 500 easy miles on the car before we started testing for gains, I callously took the car to work with out any worry. Well to my dismay I was soon limping the car into some poor saps front yard. I had literally ripped the rear end out of the car by simply launching it as I had done countless times before.
This was a pretty hefty blow to our self esteem as this car was to be our feature for the upcoming summer. In fact we had quite a few plans for it including anodizing the intercooler and re-installing the stock exhaust (with an electric cut out just after the 3.5” downpipe in order to obtain a very sleeper-esque quality. Not to mention, unlike most of the magazines, this car is a part of my family. It’s not another trophy car built by throwing dollars at it(though it seems like it sees it share of that, and I live in the shabby apartment to prove it). I, like you eat, sleep, and work for my hobby.
So with the DSM down, and an uncertainty of how to remedy the problem, not just shore it up, we pushed her in the garage to sleep for a while as we started to tinker with our new toy; the Z. At this point however, I had to stop and think about how I was going to get to work in the northeast with my two decidedly poor choices for winter transportation.
Thank god for friends, as without them I’m sure it would be a long commute in the snow by foot. My advice to you, is to enjoy your car, but don’t be as blind as I to the impending domino affect of catastrophic failures that loom around the corner of all those with highly stressed vehicles. I vow to return the DSM to duty this winter, and follow that up with numbers and the what, where, and why that you read this publication for.
-E
Distant Dream Gets Some New Shoes
Distant Dream. We’ve been taking our time, and attempting to put together the most cost affective, track capable set up for our Z. We’ve chosen the Tein brand for Coil-Overs, Nismo for Sway Bars, and (Stop-tech for Brakes soon to come!)
Where:
Factory Weak Points
The stock dampers, springs, and brakes.
Why:
Stock Components
The factory struts and springs on our 03 350Z were great for a leisurely drive in the hills of New England, but not exactly what you would want when it came to living on that edge of proper racing line and 4 off excursions into one of the unfriendly walls of Lime Rock Park. So we set out to improve the handling characteristics of the car by lowering the ride height, stiffening up the dampers and reducing body roll.
Upgrades
Tein makes a great line of dampers. In fact it may be hard for you to decide which fits your application due to the extensive line up they offer. We decided to go with the Flex set up as it gave us a great ride when cruising and razor sharp handling when called for. By adding the EDFC system(too much work to try to adjust the struts w/o it on this car) you can adjust it from a supper firm race car feel to a nice smooth daily commuter with the touch of a button.
Nismo came through in the clutch and supplied us with a killer set of sway bars. The stock units allowed too much body roll for our taste giving the car the dreaded push mid-corner that is intentionally built into today’s cars. (OEM’s do this as is much easier to correct for most amateur drivers then an oversteer situation)
The combination of these sway bars with the Tein CO made this car a world away from just about anything we’ve ever driven. Turn is amazing, and the car is completely predictable even when steering and pedal inputs are more abrupt then they should be. As great and as this set up is it may not be for you. If you aren’t comfortable with managing weight transfer, or have limited experience with oversteer you probably want to wait a bit before installing these with a similar set of OC. The car will bite you if you have low eyes or don’t have quick hands. However if you have smooth quick hands and good feel for your car already this set up can’t be beat. It repeatedly got “WOW”’s at it’s mid corner g’s, and many of those who jumped in the right seat continuously tensed and grabbed the seat in the braking zones of our test course as the entry speeds were no where near where we were on our stock runs. All in all this car will keep up with anything I’ve driven in the twisties, including Vipers and Porsches (maybe not in the straights yet, but we’re working on it stay tuned!).
Where:
Factory Weak Points
The stock dampers, springs, and brakes.
Why:
Stock Components
The factory struts and springs on our 03 350Z were great for a leisurely drive in the hills of New England, but not exactly what you would want when it came to living on that edge of proper racing line and 4 off excursions into one of the unfriendly walls of Lime Rock Park. So we set out to improve the handling characteristics of the car by lowering the ride height, stiffening up the dampers and reducing body roll.
Upgrades
Tein makes a great line of dampers. In fact it may be hard for you to decide which fits your application due to the extensive line up they offer. We decided to go with the Flex set up as it gave us a great ride when cruising and razor sharp handling when called for. By adding the EDFC system(too much work to try to adjust the struts w/o it on this car) you can adjust it from a supper firm race car feel to a nice smooth daily commuter with the touch of a button.
Nismo came through in the clutch and supplied us with a killer set of sway bars. The stock units allowed too much body roll for our taste giving the car the dreaded push mid-corner that is intentionally built into today’s cars. (OEM’s do this as is much easier to correct for most amateur drivers then an oversteer situation)
The combination of these sway bars with the Tein CO made this car a world away from just about anything we’ve ever driven. Turn is amazing, and the car is completely predictable even when steering and pedal inputs are more abrupt then they should be. As great and as this set up is it may not be for you. If you aren’t comfortable with managing weight transfer, or have limited experience with oversteer you probably want to wait a bit before installing these with a similar set of OC. The car will bite you if you have low eyes or don’t have quick hands. However if you have smooth quick hands and good feel for your car already this set up can’t be beat. It repeatedly got “WOW”’s at it’s mid corner g’s, and many of those who jumped in the right seat continuously tensed and grabbed the seat in the braking zones of our test course as the entry speeds were no where near where we were on our stock runs. All in all this car will keep up with anything I’ve driven in the twisties, including Vipers and Porsches (maybe not in the straights yet, but we’re working on it stay tuned!).
- E
My car has a chip on it's shoulder...
There are several inherent issues my 1996 Mustang GT faces: the first being that it was made right here in the good ol’ US of A. In today’s tuner world, the fact that I own a domestic often lumps me into a different social stereotype than I, or most other twenty-something domestic owners, really belong.
The 4.6 mod motor under the hood of my red Vert has as much in common with the big displacement pushrod motors of yesteryear (and tomorrow in GM’s neck of the woods) as it does with the technology powered, Star Trek paneled compacts from Europe and Asia. In fact, my poor 281 has too few cubic inches to be cool with the domestic meatheads and its 4.6 liters of displacement make it about 2.6 liters too big for me to hang out with the rice burning, fart can population either. I guess my bastard car and I are just left out in the cold...
Not anymore. Welcome to the premiere post of Enginuitive Motorsports; a blog intent on taking on the social stigma of being a garage monkey, as well as the industrial norms of the tuner industry.
We’ve all seen the rich tuning shops in magazines where the speed equation is always car + money = fast, and even with the best of intentions, we can’t alter that reality, but we can offer a glimpse into the reality of tuning - where some of us are scraping by to throw parts at our rides while working nine to five’s and paying for burgers with the quarters we keep in our ashtrays.
This blog is about more than a selective tuning genre or a particular brand of car - this magazine is about the lifestyle, and as such, you can expect to see some posts spanning every facet of your life - clothes, cars, girls, video games and even those two wheeled things I can never seem to keep up with, motorcycles.
Tuning isn’t about isolating yourself from those weird VW guys that are always throwing parts at their Jettas or the wing clad Honda guys sporting V-Tech stickers. The scene is no one tuner, it’s all of us - and there’s finally a page that reflects it.
Enjoy!
-A
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