As many of you know, last weekend was the Miami Festival of Speed. One of the cars we drove down there was Nero’s M3.

The car really fit right in with the Miami skyline.

It even looks great “Right near the beach…..”

“…BOYEE!”

The M3 is a great performer, as well as a great highway cruiser. We look forward to some more road trips, hopefully ones that land us at the track.

We just got finished installing our StopTech Big Brake kit on our project Porsche. We like going fast just as much as anyone, but when you’re adding hundreds of horsepower to a vehicle, it’s always good to plan on upgrading your brakes. Our car had over 60k miles when we purchased it, so the brakes needed some added attention right off the bat. We went with Stoptechs 380mm/6piston kit on the front and their 332mm/4 piston in the rear. We will be using the car for DE events and the Texas Mile so I wanted to make sure that the brakes where properly bedded and will be up the heavy braking the car will experience.

Just as important as upgrading the brakes themselves, is carefully following the bed-in procedure for the pads and rotors. This is a very important step and it should be preformed right after installation to ensure a consistent friction surface and prevent warping of rotors from pad deposits. Before you begin the process you want to make sure the rotors are clean and free of and oil or debris. For non-plated rotors a bath in soap and water, then brake clean should do the trick. For our application we had the rotors zinc coated to prevent rusting of the fins. If you opt to have the rotors zinc plated, drive a few miles with light braking until the plating is worn off. Do not use the brakes aggressively or begin bed-in procedure until this has been completed.

To begin the bedding procedure find a long stretch of level roadway or a skid pad. It is best to perform the exercise at a time when traffic is at its lightest to make sure you can complete the procedure without compromising safety. I was fortunate to have a long 4-5 mile access road for the airport near our new location to perform the bed-in. To properly seat the pads and rotors evenly you will perform 2 series of 10 consecutive decelerations from 60mph to 10pmh. You want to be sure that accelerate back up to 60 after reaching the 10mph decelerating point. You should be using consistent 80-90% braking force and expect some smoke and brake smell from the brakes. Be sure that you do not come to a complete stop during the series of 10.

For this procedure in the 996tt I found 2nd gear to work quite well as it allowed me to reach the designed RPM and still be able to accelerate from the lower RPMS. Complete the first 10 series in sequence, when you are finished be sure not to come to a stop as you want to let the rotors cool completely without leaving hot deposit. Once the brakes have cooled to a near ambient temperature (usually after 10-15 miles of driving at 50MPH or more without using the brakes) repeat the series of 10 stops and let the system cool again to ambient temperature. For higher performance track pads, Stoptech recommends you add 4 80-10mph decelerations to the end of each series. Full race pads should always be bed-in on the track.

Once you have completed the 2 series the rotor faces should have a faint blue appearance covered by a polished, light gray film. The blue tint indicates the proper brake in temperature has been reached and the pad material is evenly transferring onto the rotor face. Perform this procedure at your own risk, don’t necessarily be concerned that you are reaching the speeds exactly, but you want to make sure you are using consistent brake force throughout. Check out the Gallery Below to see before and after pictures of the rotors for comparison.

Many people know Titan Motorsports from our history of drag racing and modifying Toyota Supras for straight line performance. While the Supra and quarter mile does play a significant role in our day to day operation, outside of work we are always looking to have additional fun driving or improving on our personal cars. Recently we have begun tuning European cars for our personal enjoyment and have been bit by the road course bug. As a result we have been enjoying DE or Drivers education events on our weekend, looking to improve on the most important aspect of a modified vehicle, the driver.

This weekend I had the pleasure of driving to Savannah, GA for a Driver’s Education event with the Porsche Club of America Citrus Region. Roebling Road is a 2.02 mile road course in Bloomingdale, Georgia. It is a great track to learn on as it has plenty of runoff and only 1 wall should a mistake occur. The PCA offers instructed driving sessions in a lead follow format that allows you to push the limits of your car, while minimizing risk of damage. It’s a great learning experience mixed with classroom education and on track driving with a qualified instructor sitting riding with you at all times, allowing you to learn the track lines and your cars limits. Once you have been signed off after a few events, Solo driving is available in a number of groups from intermediate solo to advanced solo.

I attended the event in my fiancés SMG BMW M3 (e46), which I had tracked once before in Sebring. This was my first time at Roebling and I was fortunate enough to have a great customer of ours Joshua Barnes as my instructor. Joshua has been driving Roebling for years in his Supra which we have modified to compete with Porsches. He is a great driver, and an even better instructor. From the first lap to the last lap I saw constant improvement, and by the end of the weekend I was maintaining great speed and had a great idea of the race line. I also had the pleasure of taking a few laps in the passenger seat of Joshua’s Supra. The car performs unbelievable and outperformed most of the Porsches and other prepped race cars on the track (with the exception of a Zotz prepped older RSR style race car with 14” slicks on the rear). Anyone who does not believe a Supra can handle the twisties needs to take a good look at Joshua’s car, and if you’re at the same event maybe even a ride. It’ll change the way you think about a race prepped Supra, and when you’re ready we can even build one for you.

A special thanks to Barbara for the great hospitality all weekend, Lauren and John for the great pictures and company. We are hoping to do another event at Roebling early in February, and I would love to see more of our friends and customers get involved and experience how much enjoyment and personal satisfaction a great day at the road course can bring.

Today our good friend Rob dropped his 08 M3 off to be lowered, the car arrived with the AutoArt wheel and tire packaged installed and we opted to install a set of H&R Sport Springs. This Alpine White beauty not only has the red interior option, but Rob was fortunate enough to be one of the first coupes in the states to have the M DCT transmision option. This option is a 7speed transmision with dual clutch control. Coming from a E46 SMG I can say that this tranny is lightyears ahead of BMWs previous effort. The springs make for a nice smooth ride, while giving it a sporty look and went on with ease.

The 2008 BMW Poker Run presented by CFBMW.org and Angel Flight Southeast should be judged as a huge success. Well over 90 BMW’s and a few other odd make cars made their way to the Orlando Executive airport to partake in a worthwhile charity event and to have some fun causing havoc on the streets of Central Florida.

Of course a poker run isn’t a race. Instead it is a point to point drive picking up cards at each stop to put together the best poker hand. That is what decides the winner of the event. Someone forgot to tell Bottle “like you drink out of” Deliwala and Nero “Danger Zone” Deliwala. Testosterone, competition and the battle for title of fastest Indian took charge.

As soon as we got our directions to the first start it was go time. The 335i quickly made its way to 90 mph on the short access road from the parking lot. This stop was Lollicup (I think) by University and 436. Luckily for us, we weren’t the only ones flying at mach speeds through the roads of Orlando. The competition was fierce as evidenced by one competitor going over the center median in his E46 M3 and dragging some of his car while making the U-turn to get to the stop.

We noticed on the way that there was some sort of heavy object knocking around in the trunk. The plan was for me to jump out, get our first card and for Bottle to get what turned out to be a case of water out of the trunk and plan our exit strategy. He was still in the trunk as I got the card and came running out screaming at him to get his ass back in the car. First card down, next stop…Fields BMW.

Since Bottle knew the area quite well, we were sure that we could find some sort of shortcut to one up the competition but we just didn’t know where to do it. The route took us through downtown Winter Park with some agonizingly slow traffic lights and an accoutrement of traffic. We did manage to find a shortcut and get in front of a couple cars by the time we made it to Fields BMW. Although a short leg, we did almost catch some air at an intersection on 17-92 by the Winter Park Village. Second card down; on to the third stop…some random parking garage downtown.

This was the normal leg consisting of a short jaunt on I-4 and some 120+ mph speeds. Whoever was on the road probably didn’t have enough time to even see the black blur go whizzing past them. Once downtown their were cops crawling everywhere so we had to slow to normal speeds for safety and to not get a damn ticket. Someone was even unlucky enough to get popped by the cops, I think it was the same dude who hopped the center median. Oh well.

Once we got our third card it was go time. This stop would take us out in to the sticks to a vineyard and some highway driving on 408 and the turnpike. We still haven’t really seen Nero yet on our trip. We got on 408 and the pedal was mashed as we did some reasonably fast speeds on the 408. It was here that I was treated to a quote from Bottle. It started to rain, so I said I wish I had put rain-x on the windshield, then I looked up and saw that the rain was already removing itself from the windshield.

Me: “Oh you already have rain-x on there, sweet…” Bottle: “We don’t have rain-x, that’s just how fast we’re going“

Since I travel the road often I warned Bottle that the cops are pricks and often drive unmarked cars. So he took it relatively easy and I use the term relatively loosely. In hindsight he probably shouldn’t have because by the time we made it to our exit, Nero and Brian went flying past us at speed with their fingers flying out the window. (wish I had my camera out, but I was too busy white knuckling the “oh shit” handle) Turns out our plan call and “warn” them about cops was foiled because they didn’t buy it. Hey, there was no rule about playing dirty!

Now off the highway, and catching up to some of the “slow” group, we were about fourth in line on the county routes of central Florida. Since we had our destination programmed into the GPS we had a decision to make. The directions we received and the GPS we conflicting on the best way to get there. We opted to follow the GPS and it turned out to be a good decision. By the time we got to the vineyard we were easily 10-15 minutes ahead of everybody. However, we had no clue of that fact.

The last leg of the trip was pretty uneventful. We didn’t see another BMW from the group once. However I was treated to some more white knuckle moments as we picked our way through some rural twisty roads. I had to remind Bottle a couple times that I had kids and our second passenger Boost Bear even took a water bottle or two to the head in the back seat. We also passed a Porsche club out on a leisurely drive. From what I hear they weren’t too impressed with the speeds they were witnessing from the BMW drivers. Piss on them, at least the cars were being driven to their potential (the BMW’s that is).

This is where the second memorable quote from the day came.

Me: “So Bottle, IS this the ultimate driving machine?” Bottle: “ANY car I’m behind the wheel of is an ultimate driving machine…” Nice…

The only other moment we had was on 441 on the way to the finish. A pickup truck pulled out in front of us causing us to have to slow considerably. Baadal and I were cussing up a storm because the driver of the truck obviously didn’t pay attention to our closure rate on him (do any drivers?). It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because there was a cop just on the other side of the road. Had that truck not turned out in front of us, I might have had to finish the run and then go bail Baadal out of jail.

It was clear sailing from that point, we pulled up to the finish. We got there so quickly that they were still setting up the scoring table to see what hand we had. We almost got an Ace high strait. A, K, Q, J and the last card that I personally picked from the deck…a 4 of spades…W.T.F!!

Nero and Brian would arrive about 10 minutes later and as soon as they stepped out of the car the shit talking began and the excuses were flying. “We had to get gas!”, “We stopped and got water!”, “you started before us!” etc etc. Hey, whatever they need to say to sleep at night. Wasn’t our fault they started the event with only ¾ of a tank of gas and used it all (the route was 96 miles). They ended up beating us in the poker hand with a pair of 4’s. Pricks. At least Wes Bourne stepped up and beat them with a pair of 10’s so we didn’t have to hear about how they are king.

All in all it was a very fun event that went towards a worthwhile charity. Hopefully Titan Motorsports will take part again next year, provided we weren’t banned after this years display. JMO