This week the One Lap of America has been weaving its way across the country attacking various race tracks around the country. If you never heard of the One Lap, it’s the modern day Cannonball Run where street cars compete at race tracks each day and then must drive to the next track hundreds of miles away. The cars compete for 7-8 days, over 3500 miles and must use the same set of street tires with a tread ware of 140 or greater. For complete details, rules and this years route, check out http://www.onelapofamerica.com.

After a last minute attempt to run the event this year’s event fell through, we decided to check out the competition first hand at their stop at Daytona International Speedway about an hour away.

With no support vehicles allowed competitors must pack everything they need into their cars. While on track all of the support items, clothing, etc must exit the vehicle so many competitors turn to creative storage methods not limited to roof racks, storage containers, and even support trailers.

Our good friend Leh Keen was the current leader in Daytona and the favorite to win the event overall. Leh is a professional race car driver who competes in both Grand Am and ALMS. Last year he won the competition in a well prepared 996 GT2, this year he chose to up the ante with a Topspeed prepared GTR. Having seen video and data from their test sessions, I am truly impressed with how this GTR performs. At Daytona the car was turning times within 1-2 seconds of the Rolex 24 race times, on a Michelin Pilot Super Sport Street Tire!

Like any race, competitors are looking for anything to give them that additional edge. With tires being a limited factor, brake and aerodynamic upgrades are a popular modification. The Alegra Motorsports Nissan GTR Featured an Aeromotions wing, very similar to the one we use on Joshua Barnes Time Attack Supra. The automated adjustment reduced down force on the straightaways and banking at Daytona, allowing for an additional 6mph top speed over a similar car using a fixed large wing blade.

This CRX used tire warmers to help get the most out of the high tread ware tires required. With no testing and your first 3 laps determining your time, the advantage of going out on warm tires was likely worth hauling around this piece of extra equipment. I must say however that having owned a few gutted Hondas in my younger years, it wouldn’t be my first choice for a vehicle to drive cross country with between events.

Roush decided that the race would be a perfect proving ground to show off what their latest Mustang upgrade packages could do. They brought out 2 Roush Mustangs straight off the Showroom floor, with Jack Roush Jr and Billy Johnson behind the wheel. These cars featured the new Coyote engine with a supercharged bolted to it and looked and sounded great, unfortunately their factory tune included a factory rev limit allowing only 145mph on the high banks.

The One Lap is a grueling race, with rigorous street sessions (sometimes 400-650 miles between stops)driving directly after track sessions, mechanical gremlins and driver exhaustion/error can take their toll. Not all vehicles complete the race as a result, this GT3RS suffered a clutch failure and needed a tow to the local dealer. In the spirit of the journey a clutch was overnighted, installed and the drivers continued after only missing 1 event.

During the lunchtime break competitors were allowed parade laps around the famed tri-oval, we were fortunate enough to get out there in my Z4M and make a few laps, scratching another line off my bucket list. If you’ve never driven on high banking, it’s quite the experience and takes a bit to get used to, I’m looking forward to running Daytona at the end of the year at a higher pace. After seeing the event first hand we’re even more anxious to put together an effort to run the 2012 One Lap.

When you’re an 12 time MLB All star and wear a World Series ring, driving a stock vehicle just isn’t going to cut it. Even when that stock vehicle is Jaguars latest flagship sedan the Supercharged XJL. No stranger to custom vehicles, Barry Larkin dropped this beautiful black XJL at Titan Motorsports for a host of upgrades to ensure it stood out from the crowd.

Barry chose a set of Lexani 22″ LSS-10 in a staggered fitment wrapped in Pirelli rubber for this Jag. With limited fitments available for this brand new make, the original color options weren’t unique enough, so the wheels were sent out for a custom silver and black paint job. To compliment the new wheels, the factory emblems and taillights were also blacked out giving the car a stealthy look. Limo tint was applied to keep the Florida sun from drying out the beautiful extended leather interior and maintain privacy. The end result is a sleek cruiser guaranteed to provide comfort and plenty of looks during I4 rush hour.

We had the pleasure of working on our first 2010 Camaro in the shop last week. Our UPS rep Jon had just taken delivery and was looking to have the windows tinted to protect his investment and keep his trick interior cool.

Prior to taking delivery of the car it was shipped to DSV Customs for a complete interior refresh. All panels where wrapped in black leather with matching blue stitching and a custom SS embroidered logos in the headrest. The end result is a unique interior that looks and feels like it was transplanted from a car 2-3 times the Camaros cost.

We’ve just scratched the surface of what’s to come for this Camaro, Jon has big ambitions for this project and we’re glad to help him throughout the journey.

This weekend, Titan Motorsports will be participating in the ADRL Hardees’ Gateway Drags, at Gateway International Raceway. After laying down a team best of 4.056 @ 181.25 mph, briefly breaking the record at the US Drags II, Team Titan looks to make another finals appearance in St. Louis this coming weekend. The car has been running consistent these last few months, and now that #1 points position is in sight. Look for Titan to be throwing it down with the Big Blocks in XTF, this weekend in St. Louis. We’ll see you at the races!

With our recent move, it’s unfortunately been a few months since we’ve been able to attend Cars and Cafe. The turnout was great as many automotive enthusiasts braved the 90+ degree heat to checkout the many great cars in attendance. Standouts included the new Alfa Romeo 8c brought out by Central Florida Ferrari, as well as a beautiful pro touring 67 Nova that fit right in the sea of exotics surrounding it.

Cars and Cafe takes place the last Saturday of each month from 9am-11am at Colonial TownPark in Lake Mary, FL.

In the eyes of any car enthusiast, there can always be more. No matter how much you modify your car, and no matter how happy it makes you, there’s always that next part, that next set of wheels, or that next paint scheme. This is very much the case with our latest arrival to the Titan Motorsports holding pen. David Price has brought his beautiful green Supra all the way from the United Kingdom to have the crew at Titan give it a complete makeover. The car is being repainted (same color), will be receiving a fresh set of HRE wheels, as well as a fully built Titan motor. If this Supra was mean and green before, it’s going to be Bruce Banner Bad-Ass when we are done with it. We will be posting pictures of the entire build, so stay tuned for frequent updates.

Quite frequently we get emails and calls from potential customers looking to research a car they do not own yet. Matt Powell contacted us about a month back while investigating the purchase of a Porsche turbo to receive our K24/18G upgrade. About a week later Matt called to let me know that he located a car in Tampa and was having it delivered to us to be upgraded prior to him taking delivery. The dealership performed a PPI inspection prior to delivering the car to us, however we took some extra time to check the car out and baseline the car on our dyno, discovering the car already has a ECU flash to optimize the factory turbos. Over the next few days we installed our popular K24/18G kit featuring EPL Tuning with ECU controlled boost control. The car also also received a set of our Standard Issue diverter valves and a Clutch Master Stage 3 clutch upgrade with a new Porsche dual mass flywheel to be sure the driveline was able to handle the extra torque produced by the upgrades.

After finalizing the upgrades we again put the car on our DynoJet and the car spun the rollers to 565whp/556tq picking up an impressive 113whp and 79tq all on 93 octane. Again these numbers where in addition to the factory ECU already having a performance flash optimized for the factory turbos, making the gain even more impressive. Matt now has one screamer of a Porsche, I’m sure the extra power made the 12 hour drive back to Mississippi much easier and quicker!

Titan Motorsports offers a vehicle locating service for those looking to have the sports car of their dreams delivered to their door turnkey with the modifications of their choice already installed, email wes@titanmotorsports.com for more information.

We’re getting much closer to move-in, the warehouse is setup and ready to go, and with a few finishing details and we’ll begin our fun moving process. The biggest updates this week came from the flooring being installed in various departments throughout the building.

The wood flooring was installed in the showroom, we opted for a dark wood to contrast with the walls and match the stainless and black fixtures that will decorate the walls.

The shop side of the warehouse received it’s epoxy coat with polyurethane clear. We’ll be finalizing the layout of equipment

The bathrooms received slate gray tile and their appropriate fixtures.

Our carpets arrived for the call center and offices, rather than go with a neutral color we opted for a high end designer carpet which takes cues from the green in the walls.

Our shipping manager Kris has his own fabricated office in the back of the warehouse to make deliveries much more convenient. The office can easily be moved to different portions of the warehouse should we ever need to reconfigure the shipping and receiving area.

Anyone who has been to our current location at Goldenrod and 50 will be the first to tell you that we outgrew this space many moons ago. The new building was purchased over a year ago, however permitting and construction delays have pushed our anticipated move back many times now. Fortunately our current progress is on track and we should be moving into this beautiful 25,000sq/ft facility in the next 1-2 months. Our entire operation will now be located under one roof with plenty of room for future expansion.

Here are some recent snapshots showing the progress of our build out at the new Boggy Creek location near Orlando International Airport. We’ve finally hit the home stretch and are now in the final finish work stages, if all goes as planned we should be moving in less than 45 days. I will post more picture updates as the date draws near and we hit new construction milestones.

We’ve been working on a Motec PNP solution for the Porsche 996tt since we purchased our car. Starting off with a base jump harness Darin was able to wire the Motec into the jump harness without cutting a wire on the factory harness. If we even wanted to go back to a factory Motronic setup we can unplug the jumper harness and plug the factory ECU back in. I want to be the first to say this is not a replacement for a ECU reflash, and should not be considered as such. While the harness is plug and play, the setup and tuning of a standalone is anything but and should be left to only the most qualified of tuners. It’s not intended for a full daily driver or basic bolt-on turbo car, we’re looking to race the car heavily at both the drag strip and road course, and went with the Motec for on the spot control of the ECU, as well as the additional data that can be recorded and reviewed between runs during testing. We’ve had to do quite a bit to get the factory ECU to continue to control the vehicle while allowing the Motec to take control of the engines functions, but after a few days or troubleshooting we have made huge grounds and have the car running and driving quite smoothly, now it’s just a matter of turning the car up and making the extra power we hope for with the K24/18G setup.

As a result of converting the car to speed density we where able to remove some factory parts that are known to be restrictive. Here you can see the very restrictive plastic intake ducting that connects the airbox to the turbocharger inlet. Anyone who thinks that new shiny airbox or filter is getting them a ton of performance, remember it has to flow through this restriction before it ever meets the turbos.

Since we removed the MAF sensor and went to a speed density setup when installing the Motec we where able to use a standard air filter setup, our Fabricator John did a great job of routing the pipe through the fenderwell to the new filter location.

This image should show you how tight a fit the 2.5″ pipe is inside the wheel well. It took many test fits but John was able to make the pipe work while providing adequate clearance for our R888s to fit. We modified the intake ducting for the intercooler to provide fresh air to the filter as well, providing a true ram air effect that not only provides the filter with fresh air, but still maintains proper intercooling as well.

Since the Motec operates off a MAP sensor rather than a closed loop MAF sensor, we where able to remove the factory diverter valve setup and install a standard blow off valve onto the existing Y Pipe. We opted for a Tial BOV mounted at the front of the y-pipe for easy vacuum line routing and venting to atmosphere.

We’ve got a bit more fabricating and tuning to do, but hope to have the car on the dyno on Friday and if all goes as planned the car on the track that evening.