Ralph is no stranger to custom cars, we’ve previously supercharged his Aston Martin and you may recall seeing his wild Prowler in a past blog post. For his latest custom he wanted something a bit more exotic, and after a successful day of bidding at the Meccum auction we found ourselves with a Gallardo delivered to our front door. The car was original a deep blue with grey interior and in great shape, the perfect candidate for a tear down buildup custom tailored to the customers specifications.
The car would be inspired by the Gallardo lightweight version the Superleggera, while giving the car a wilder interior and exterior for that wow factor to make it strand out from your “standard” Lamborghini Gallardo.

The exterior was treated to a metallic grey paintjob, complete with a Candy Apple red stripe down the sides. The Superleggera inspiration is followed with the addition of a carbon glass top decklid and SL wing, as well as carbon side skirts. The calipers also received a coat of candy apple red paint to make them standout behind the black Finnspeed SL style forged wheels. The interior was also completely redone, with contrasting black and red quilted stitch napa leather covering every panel. Panels that didn’t receive the leather touch were instead treated to real carbon fiber, keeping with the SL and carbon fiber theme of the build.

Many have followed our Lamborghini work as a result of our custom twin turbo kits which can be seen terrorizing streets around the world. Not everyone is looking for 4 digit horsepower however, and in this case Ralph wanted to take advantage of the cars naturally aspirated V10 but still wanted more power. We developed a Titan Motorsports exhaust with high flow cats to allow the engine to breath easier and give the car an exotic, slightly obnoxious loud tone to match the wild exterior. This exhaust was combined with a carbon fiber high flow air box and custom Titan Motorsports tuning of both the ECU and transmission computer to compensate for the increases in airflow. The engine bay was further enhanced with carbon fiber engine panels and matching candy apple red valve covers and intakes, sure to wow show attendees at the many concourse events Ralph frequents. Expect to see this car taking home many best of show awards in its hometown in Southwest Florida, we look forward to having it on display at Festivals of Speed this fall when they make their way to Orlando.

Our good friend Jim pulled up to the shop a few weeks back in his new Ferrari 458, he’s not your typical Ferrari owner however who lets the car sit and collect dust in an air conditioned garage. Jim makes sure all of his cars get used properly and takes great pride in modifying them to put his own personal touch on them. The car arrived already sporting plenty of carbon Oakley Design parts, but was lacking a front lip. We installed the Vorsteiner carbon fiber lower lip which features a center vent that really sets off the 458 from the front. The part fit great right out of the box and required little modification to bolt on. An Akrapovic full Titanium exhaust with carbon fiber tips was chosen to give the already menacing looking car an entoxicating tone and help the engine breath easy. Evolution Motorsports provided us with an ECU re flash to help make sure the car made use of all the extra exhaust flow provided by the Akrapovic exhaust. The car was also lowered on HRE P45S wheels treated to a one of a kind brush tinted bronze finish. It’s truly a unique looking finish in person and goes quite well with the jet black exterior. I’m sure we’ll be seeing this car again, if the extra dirt in the photos shows anything, it’s that Jim will be sure to enjoy this unique 458 and we’ll be seeing plenty of it around town!

One of the largest complaints about the Nissan GTR from magazines and other reviewers was that the interior was far too bland. The exterior of the car and raw performance put it in the same arena as many vehicles that cost 2-3 times it’s price tag, however once you’re in the car the difference in price becomes much more apparent once you stepped into the interior. Having already completed a number of full leather upgrades in customers cars we knew we had to raise the bar a bit for our in progress demo GTR, and boy have we ever. We chose a high quality black napa leather for the material for this build as its soft smooth finish and a bright sunburst stitching that matched closely to our Titan Copper exterior. Drawing inspiration from modern hyper cars we decided to branch out from the standard diamond stitching that is becoming common place these days and worked to incorporate a swooping diamond pattern that straightens out as the panels get taller on both the front and rear seats. The headliner was recovered in Alcantara with tasteful panel work stitched in to give it some much needed dimension. We weren’t done there, in addition to the seats we also re-vamped the dash panels in the same napa and orange treatment. Our Titan Motorsports bolt in roll bar was custom painted copper as well to round out this interior.

We can handle any interior upholstery job big or small here at Titan Motorsports. While we are physically located located in Orlando, thanks to our daily international shipments, our work can be seen all over the world in various vehicles. Due to the number of available material,stitching and pattern options interiors are quoted on an individual vehicle basis, so call or email to receive a quotation.

Formula Drift invaded Palm Beach International Raceway this weekend as thousands of fans filled every inch of space surrounding the drift circuit. We’ve been closely following drifting for years and enjoy checking out the competition all while visiting with some of our old drag racing competitors. There was plenty of action and controversy throughout the event with the fans questioning many of the judges calls and quite a bit of contact within the runs. In the end Michael Essa took the top spot in his E46 BMW (you may remember his Z4 car from his visit to the shop prior to last years event) flanked by the Achilles Tires entrants of Daigo Saito and Robbie Nishida. The podium was swept by turbocharged 6cylinder entrants,could we possibly be seeing a changing of the guard in FD with turbocharge entrants becoming the norm over the previous V8s? Who knows, but we like what we saw and always have our door open to the possibility of building a wild Formula Drift competitor here at Titan Motorsports, sponsors and manufactures our number is listed on the site. A big thanks to Cheralyn and the Bridges Racing (Achilles Tires) Team for the great hospitality all weekend.

This week we loaned the crew from Apex’i one of our bays to do some pre-event mainteannce and setup on Patrick Mordaunt’s SC430 that he competes in FormulaD with. The car isa purpose build drift car featuring tons of custom fabrication and is powered by a twin turbo TRD V8. We’ll be heading out to Palm Beach International Raceway this afternoon to check the event out for ourselves and look forward to another year of great Formula Drift action here in Florida.

Keeping inlet air temperatures low is a key to making consistent horsepower with any turbocharged application. To combat this problem in the Nissan GTR we have developed our new Titan Motorsports OE replacement Intercooler. The foundation for our intercooler upgrade start with a massive 22”x10”x4.50” core from an industry leading US manufacture. The core is then surrounded by CAD designed end tanks which are laser cut for consistency are TIG welded in custom fixtures to prevent warping.

The Titan Motorsports street intercooler kit features 2.75” diameter inlets and outlets and are bead rolled at our facility to prevent the charge pipes from blowing off at higher boost levels. This intercooler is designed so that the factory Nissan intercooler pipes or any other factory replacement piping system can be utilized. As a result there is no need for additional piping to be supplied with this kit. The plug and play nature of the Titan street intercooler allows the unit to be installed without modifying the factory bumper or any other factory panels, and allows the factory bumper support to remain intact. All necessary hardware and instructions are included with the core.

Available now on our website : Titan Motorsports Nissan R35 GTR Street Intercooler Upgrade

Titan Motorsports will be sponsoring Jon Miller in the World Challenge Touring Car class for the 2013 season. Miller who has been racing professionally since 2006 will be fielding a 2013 Honda Civic Si for the entire season in hopes of securing the touring car championship. Titan Motorsports and Jon Miller have been technical partners in the past on our road course development projects and look forward to extending this relationship in 2013 and beyond. The car will be campaigned by Shea Racing and features additional sponsorship from Lucas Oil,Walter D’Andrea Bodyworks, www.Muhu.mx, and LoudBasstard. A big thank you to Walter D’Andrea Bodyworks for the quick turnaround and great job on wrapping the car in time for it’s debut next week at Circuit of the Americas in Austin.

2013 Schedule :

05/17/2013 Circuit of the Americas
07/04/2013 Lime Rock Park
07/12/2013 Streets of Toronto
08/04/2013 Mid-Ohio
08/23/2013 Sonoma Grand Prix
10/04/2013 Houston Grand Prix

Over 600,000 people have seen the Supra we build featured on YouTube Drive Networks (Link). Since the car was featured the owner chose to do some further updates to the car including the installation of a new built engine to replace the factory 3.0L 2JZ. We have just recently completed our 3.5L Stroker kit and found this balanced street car the perfect home to install such a powerplant. The 62mm turbocharger was a bit small for the 3.5L displacement but was left on the car for a back to back comparison over the 3.0L. The dyno graph below was done with the same boost levels as the car previously had and just minor tuning to compensate for the added displacement. The horsepower increases were great, however the real impressive figures are the torque increase (652hp / 596tq!). Both of these graphs were produced using 93 Octane fuel, the result is one of the most fun all around street builds we’ve done in a while. A slightly larger turbo and higher octane fuel could provide an even deadlier combination with the displacement increase and would prove to be a great option for those using their 2JZs on the road course.

We’ve shipped cars and parts all around the world for over a decade, however occasionally we get a request that is a bit outside our normal radar. This particular GTR was one such case, arriving at our door with nothing but delivery miles on the odometer the owner was looking to upgrade his newly purchased GTR before it was exported to his home country, of South Africa. He was quite happy with the GTR’s performance, but wanted it a bit sportier, and like most was not impressed with the factory interior options. We’re always up for a good challenge, and with a quick turnaround time we were able to delivery upon the owners wishes before handling the logistics of making sure the car arrived to South Africa in the same perfect condition it arrived.

he interior was completely dismantled and all panels wrapped with a high grade italian leather. The owner was happy wanted the interior to look factory just with finer materials. All panels including the rear factory plastics were carefully recovered in the same leather with gray stitching to provide contrast. The headliner was also upgraded with a Alcantara being the material of choice putting this GTR on the same level as its european competition.Anyone who opens the door and gets a quick smell of that fine italian leather knows this GTR interior is like no other.

The exhaust was upgraded to a Speed By Design mid pipe and catback exhaust section, however with strict laws in his home country the Titanium tips were swapped out for factory units to help the car fly under the radar. A Cobb access port tune helps make the most out of the exhaust upgrades and improve shifting with new shift algorithms installed as well.

Due to popular demand Haltech will be holding another Technical Seminar here at Titan Motorsports in Orlando, Florida on May 4th and 5th.

Date: May 4th and 5th
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Location: Titan Motorsports 11370 Boggy Creek Road, Orlando FL 32824
Cost: $250 per person including a catered lunch on the Saturday

Seminar details and topics covered:
During this seminar attendees will be introduced to Haltech’s Platinum Series ECUs and shown how to setup and start an engine from scratch, including crank/cam trigger setup, ignition setup and base fuelling setup. This class will be an intense introduction to Haltech Engine Management targeted at individuals with some tuning experience, a laptop is REQUIRED for all attendees so each student can follow on and learn with the Haltech ECU manager software in a hands on way.

Seminar Topics
· Haltech Platinum ECU product range overview
· EFI system and component overview
· ECU Manager tuning software, setup and shortcuts
· How to setup and start an engine from scratch
· Flex-Fuel setup and tuning
· Advanced features Q & A time with our training staff

Information presented during the Seminar will be accompanied with live demonstrations and simulations as well as a comprehensive take home booklet for all attendees.
Spaces are limited so contact us now to reserve your place!

Please call Haltech USA at 760-598-1941 or e-mail jeremy@haltech.com to reserve your seat.