Took a few moments to head to the shop today and spec a few more last minute details. There was quite a bit of progress overall and things are looking to be on track.
This picture was taken from the second floor where we have a double door access allowing heavy equipment and furniture to be easily moved using a forklift. This access will be locked from the outside to prevent anyone from falling from the sky (although I would love to put a BLOB in like the Fantasy Factory, but don’t think management would approve).
We recently got the warehouse side of the floors coated, I spent quite a bit of time making sure the best products where used to ensure that these floors would last. The contractor we hired came out and shot-peened the entire floor, before applying a wet epoxy coat that was later followed up by a polyurethane floor. If you look at the picture above you can see the raw concrete to the left, the raw concrete after being shot-peened, and finally the right is the finished flooring. The shop side will be coated next week after the pallet racking and warehouse shelves are setup and the floor on that side can be cleared.
Now that the floor has a fresh coating to protect the concrete, our shelving systems have begun being installed. The warehouse side will feature both shelving as pictured, and pallet racking for larger shipments, secured behind a safety fence. With more warehouse space we will now be able to expand our current product lines stocked and inventory levels to help better serve our customers.
As a result of ADA guidelines, we had to add an elevator for 2nd floor access for those with disabilities that would prevent them from using the stairs.
Our second floor is where our support staff and book keeping will be located, at this point only the floor and ceiling tiles remain for completion.
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!
For the duration of the 2009 ADRL season, the team from Penske Racing Shocks will be working out of the Titan Motorsports trailer and will be present at all the remaining races. Penske Racing Shocks will have all essential inventory on hand to support the racers and will have representatives present to help with all of your sales and technical inquires. In addition, many race products are in stock at Titan Motorsports as well; just email Bottle at bottle@titanmotorsports.com, for all your racing needs. Titan Motorsports and Penske Racing Shocks are looking forward to helping our fellow racers at the upcoming events. We’ll see you at the races!
The world leader in suspension technology, Penske Racing Shocks has been providing custom-built, high-performance shock absorbers to all forms of racing for over 20 years. Offering only the highest quality suspension products, shocks are available in non, single, double, triple, and four-way adjustable configurations. All Penske Racing Shocks are hand-built, tailored to your driver feel or car set-up, and dyno tested, insuring the highest attention is paid to detail, consistency, and performance. Penske Racing Shocks are available direct from the manufacturer or through www.titanmotorsports.com.
We’ll be Shipping the car to Puerto Rico for a drag race on May 30th and needed to get a good tune-up in the car before she ships off Thursday. Darin has been working hard to get the Motec and factory ECU to co-operate with each other and get the car tuned. After a few hours on the ECU the car was running excellent and manged to make 712rwhp @ 1.48bar in the 97 degree heat we where blessed with today. The car is running on VP C16 fuel, and still has quite a bit left, however with the shipping deadline looming we where simply out of time to do anymore tuning. I want to thank Tony@EPL for helping us remove some fail safes in the factory ECU and his great advice along the way. I’m still impressed that the old girl is running so well with over 66k miles on the odometer and a completly factory engine. If all goes as planned we expect to hit the local test and tune tomorrow before loading the car up.
Setup :
Stock Engine, never been opened up, 66k miles
-K24/18G
-Second Bosch 044 inline in Fuel Filter spot
-Motec M800 / EPL Motronic ECU
-Tial BOV
-AWE Straightpipes
-Injector dynamics 1,000cc Injectors
-USP Intercoolers
-Titan Motorsports Intake Fenderwell intakes
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.
This past weekend Gas Motorsports set an Australian Import Drag record with a blistering 6.52@216mph pass. This Celica is the same car that we campaigned in the NHRA Import drag racing series in 2004 and 2005 before being sold to Gas Motorsports in Australia. We have had the pleasure of helping Gas Motorsports with parts support post purchase, and offered further support by sending crew members Luzinski and Brett White to Sydney this past week to aid with car setup. We look forward to helping Gas pursue further records in the future, if all goes as planned you may see a Titan Motorsports car competing at a future Jamboree as well.
As we continue to expand the scope of our operations, the Porsche marque has been getting quite a bit more attention here at Titan. We’ve had a blast building our camouflage 996tt, and have enjoyed the influx of new customers who trust their Porsches with us for parts install and tuning. One such Porsche owner is SCCA ITS Champ Kip Van Steenburg. Kip runs his 994S in the ITS class and has had great success in doing so. We just got done completing another round of Motec tuning in Kips 944S on our in-ground Dynojet.
Here at Titan Motorsports we stock over 165 brands, yet we’re constantly getting requests to add new product lines. This week a customer requested a set of lightweight Tillett Racing seats for his track car, so we added the Tillett product line, ordered the seats, and had another happy customer as a result. If you’re a hardcore weight weenie or carbon fiber junkie, check out these seats from Tillett Racing. Weighing in at just over 6lbs not including mounting hardware, these seats are as light as they come. If you’ve got to ask your wife for permission before purchasing parts, or have a 2 hour commute these likely aren’t for you. After sitting in them for a few minutes in the office, they’re not as uncomfortable as they look, however I still doubt wouldn’t be my first choice for a cross country road trip. For a 20 minute spirited session on the road course, they offer a great way to drop some quick weight while holding the driver in firmly. We now carry the complete Tillett Racing product line, inquire with our knowledgeable sales staff for more information.
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.
