We are heading to Michigan! After being rained out at the ADRL Memphis Drags II, Team Titan will be continuing where we left off at the upcoming ADRL Summer Drags V. We will be going into third round eliminations against our long time rival Billy Glidden. Come out and enjoy the 2 for 1 battle as we look to finish the Memphis Drags II, as well as compete in the Summer Drags V in Martin Michigan. We still have a few tickets available, so if you need any, feel free to email JonS@titanmotorsports.com, and we’ll be sure to send you some tickets on the house. We’ll see you at the races.

Titan Motorsports will be participating in the ADRL Memphis Drags II, at Memphis Motorsports Park, in Millington TN, on May 22-23. We have a few complimentary tickets for our fans, so if you would like tickets to the race, send an email to JonS@titanmotorsports.com with your contact info, and we will send you the tickets. Come out and support your favorite team. We’ll see you at the races!

If you’ve never had the pleasure of having In-N-Out, it’s fast food at its finest, the unfortunate fact is it’s currently only available out west in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. They use fresh ingredients, and never freeze the meat. It sounds a bit extreme for fast food, however if you’ve ever had the pleasure of eating it you won’t complain at the effort behind the meal.

Sean’s wife was having a craving after a recent trip out West, which he jokingly mentioned Garrett at Phil Wood Company. Garrett went to his local In-N-Out in California and had them prepare the food and package it separately to preserve it during shipping. A small cooler, Tupperware sandwich packs, and $20.00 in dry ice and the package was ready to ship.

A little over $100 and 24 hours later the fast food arrived safe and read to be re-heated and enjoyed. The only bad part is that no one in the office got a taste, I guess it’s a small price to pay for a happy wife! We’ll likely do this again in the future, rumor has it Garrett’s arranged a deal to have the uncooked fries sent as well, sounds like we’ll need to have a deep fryer installed at the new office.

Another couple weeks has passed and our contestants are beginning to look like members of an NHL hockey team during the playoffs. Things may heat up soon as a couple of the contestants have weddings to attend and word around the campfire is that their significant others are none to happy about their “growths”. (get your mind out of the gutter…but, “that’s what she said”)

Apparently our idea has caught fire as there is another company doing a similar contest to ours. They’re only doing mustaches though, weak. We aren’t bitter, quite the opposite in fact. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

We headed to Colonial TownPark for the 5th annual Cars for the Cure show. The show is an annual event held in Lake Mary that benefits the American Lung Association. It is their largest local fundraiser for the year, and Nero and myself are both on the committee for the past few years. The show features a great variety of cars with the majority being customs or exotics. It’s free to the public and normally fills the outdoor shopping complex to capacity. The event has become a staple in our event calendar and usually marks the start of a busy few months of regional shows and testing for the upcoming race season.

This year we where blessed with temperatures in the mid 70s and blue skies throughout the day, a far cry from the morning showers that have plagued this event in years pasts. We had the pleasure of showing Greg Aukscunas 4 digit horsepower Supra in our booth this year. Greg had flown down from Pittsburgh to pickup his car after yet another round of modifications and decided to stay and extra day to take part in the show. We also brought my yellow 996tt and our Camouflage 996tt which had a fresh round of upgrades done just in time. The response to the camouflage car was phenomenal and it had plenty of fans and haters throughout the day. Overall the show was a great success, even though we didn’t win any awards as a group, we all had a great time and got to see plenty of cars we don’t see every day, all while raising money for the ALA.

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I just recieved an email from Matt Tarleton @ Central Florida Road Course

In appreciation for Titan Motorsport’s interest in the track, we would like to extend to your customers and friends a special Titan discounted rate for the Jan. 31st racing school of $150. They need to sign-up quickly so we can get their spots reserved.

This is a great opportunity to gain experience on Orlandos only road course, and become eligible for future track days as well.   This is a great price for an instructed road course session, and will offer plenty of track time.   You’ll also be eligible to drive during our BBQ’s open sessions allowing even more free track time.

For More Information or to Pre-Register visit  http://cfroadcourse.com/schools.aspx   Be sure to Mark Titan Motorsports friends and family with your event registration.

On our recent trip to Birmingham UK, we did visit a few places that stood out. The Café Rouge was one of them. Café Rouge is a cozy little French restaurant located on New Street, in Birmingham’s downtown district. The atmosphere was nice, and the staff was pleasant. What I liked the best, of course, was the food. They offered a large selection to choose from, but once I saw the Moules (mussels) du Café Rouge, I was sold. Coming from a French family (and working 6 years as a sous chef in a French restaurant), I have had the pleasure of enjoying many different French dishes, and properly prepared mussels is one of my favorite. The Moules du Café Rouge consisted of mussels cooked in a white wine, garlic, herb and cream, and came with a basket of baguette (French bread). Let me tell you, they were every bit as good as they sounded. The portion was very generous and even though I was pleasantly full afterward, I still continued sopping up the broth with my baguette. It was good stuff all around. Even the price was fair, with the whole meal just under $20. It was a good stop, with good food and atmosphere, and sure beat the hell out of fish and chips.

Wow, I normally don’t repost videos on the blog, but this one had everyone in the office dying today (sorry John Reese!).

Now for the shameless plug for the PPG GTR Gearset which should be released late spring for those who are feeling the GTR tranny pains.

When you’re pushing over 1,500hp on gasoline and 1,900hp on methanol with a inline 6 engine, you need to make sure every part of the rotating assembly is up to par for the course. In the past few years we’ve seen 2JZ development go to a level beyond what many would have imagined when many of the parts we use where originally developed. Through years of racing and pushing our engines to their limits we have found what once was considered “indestructible” now needs to be improved to hold up to the rigors of racing. We are fortunate to have great sponsors and technology partners who help us in our quest to create the best 2JZ engines available. One such partner is Sean Crawford and the gang at JE Pistons, whom I had the pleasure of visiting a few months ago on a trip to California for the Red Bull Drifting Championship. After a few discussions with Sean over dinner about advances in technology initially found through their partnership with many Nextel cup teams, we began talking about improvements to our current 2JZ pistons. We’ve made small improvements for the application along the way, but Sean felt it might be best to go back to the drawing board and see what we could come up with using the latest CNC and forging technology available at JE.

We’ve spent the past few weeks working closely with JE’s engineering department to create a pistons that is both strong, reliable and lightweight. The new JE Pistons are being custom engineered and manufactured specifically for our Titan 2JZ engine program, and include the following features and improvements :

• Custom Design: After receiving several years feedback and data from our drag engines, JE has been able to custom tailor our pistons designs to perform flawlessly in high horsepower 2JZ engines. Small changes such as top ring location, skirt shape, bottom band design, crown thickness and more have been adjusted to improve performance and durability. The wrist pin has also be moved up to be compatible with the longer stroke crankshaft.
• Lateral Gas Ports: These are the small holes that are drilled into the top of the top ring groove. Lateral gas ports allow combustion pressure to get behind the top ring and push it outward. This helps the top ring seal during the compression and power stroke, while does not significantly increasing drag during the intake and exhaust stroke.
• 3D Undercrown milling: Our new pistons feature a 3D CNC milling on the undercrown of the piston to remove any extra weight and make the piston crown a consistent thickness.
• Accumulator groove: When combustion pressure passes by the top ring, it can build pressure between the top and second ring. If this pressure gets too high, it can cause the top ring to loose seal. To help prevent this problem, our new pistons feature a accumulator groove below the top ring to provide more volume between the top and second rings.
• Scalloped valve reliefs: When the valve reliefs intersect the outside of the pistons, a thin spot can be created on the piston crown. JE removed these thin spots to prevent pre-ignition.
• Premium Wrist Pin: Our new pistons feature a .210″ thick wrist pin manufactured from premium 9310 steel. The extra thickness will reduce bending,flexing, and cracking in our high boost engine