Inside The Borg Warner EFR Turbocharger
Borg Warner fashions the EFR turbine housing out of cast stainless steel, a material that provides the benefits of low weight, excellent crack resistance, and smooth inner surfaces
Borg Warner fashions the EFR turbine housing out of cast stainless steel, a material that provides the benefits of low weight, excellent crack resistance, and smooth inner surfaces
As RSR tells it, nano technology is basically a dispersion of certain elements to a nano scale level by lasers and chemical reaction methods.
When discussing the spool-up and high-end flow characteristics of a given turbocharger, the term “wheel trim” may pop up. If you’re in the market for a turbocharger upgrade, comparing new units, or are planning your own backyard DIY turbo kit, you’re bound to run across wheel trim.
There is a good deal of engineering attention showered on pistons, especially those specifically designed for turbocharged engines. Most turbo pistons provide a lower static compression ratio (about 8.5:1 to 9.0:1) than your OEM piston.
The Holy Grail for SR20DET owners is a true six-speed transmission. The promise of shorter gearing and an overdrive 6th for freeway cruising is sometimes just too good to pass up.
The GT L.S.D. Pro features an externally adjustable initial torque setting. With this capability, the LSD can be set trackside to compensate for power, tires or even the difference between a drift day and a track day.
On race weekends, each driver will have a minimum of three steering wheels available so there is always a spare on hand should there be any issues. That’s more than $120,000 in steering wheels alone.
Like a good set of tires, drivetrain is an often-overlooked area of car tuning. Many obsess over blowers, exhausts and wheels but when it comes time to get that project buttoned up, the cheapest clutch kit is usually shoved in.
After waiting for the temperature sensor to normalize back to 83-degrees F, we completed another 20-second burn cycle at the same distance. Our new ending temperature was now 95-degrees F. That’s a 54% reduction in heat.
Carbon fiber is one of the most popular high-end composites currently used in the automotive industry. Racing series such as Formula One and the American Le Mans Series make generous use of the material for body and chassis construction.
The NT05 is Nitto’s latest maximum performance offering. With a low UTQG rating of 200, it’s matched up against the usual SCCA Street Touring standouts like the Falken RT-615, Yokohama Advan Neova, Toyo R1R, Hankook RS-3 and Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1.
Ask for the tire manufacture date and aim to buy performance tires that are at least less than half a year old. If the shop doesn’t know the manufacture date or how to check, take a look for yourself.
Tires are simple to understand, right? They’re all black, round and made of rubber. As long as they fit around the wheel, they should be good. Not really.
For the average real world driver, the Continental ExtremeContact DW provides a better balance between cost and performance and will provide more than enough grip for the street and, occasionally, the track.
On track, our palms get so sweaty that the steering wheel and shift knob can become slippery. Being too slow to catch a tank-slapper or missing a shift because of grip, well, sucks.
The Yokohama Advan Neova tire displayed high grip and sharp steering feedback on track, especially through the very quick Turn 2 (average 87 mph) and Turn 8 (average 119 mph) areas.
Toyo sells other tires for those purposes that are both quieter and longer lasting. The R1R is an r-compound racing tire disguised as a DOT street tire. But if you’re interested in putting every last bit of power down to the ground or autocross in the SCCA’s Street Touring class, then please read on.
The stiffer a chassis is, the less it will flex when forces are applied to it, i.e. through the suspension. This means that forces from the road surface will be contained and absorbed by the suspension rather than being allowed to beat up the body shell.
The problem with lowering your car excessively is that the roll center is always lower than the center of gravity and will actually fall more than the center of gravity with a decrease in ride height. This is bad for steering response, handling and basically ruins the entire point of buying a lower, stiffer suspension.
At the moment, it seems most tire companies just want to go to war in the performance street tire market. With outright handling records and SCCA Street Touring autocross national championships on the line, numerous tires have been released with 180 or lower UTQG ratings.