One of our good local customers brought in some Red Bull from Thailand today. I’m not sure it’s legal to sell in the US, and after drinking it I can understand why. I’m a caffeine junky (2 Red Bulls a day), and this stuff had everyone in the office wired and then some. Definitely much more potent than US Red Bull, and rather than being carbonated in a can, it comes in a more syrup like form in a glass container. The extra energy is always great, but I think we’re all in trouble once the caffeine crash happen though…..
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.
We are always looking for fun new ways to keep our customers,fans and friends up to date on what’s happening at Titan. I’ve been reading tons online about twitter and decided to give it a shot. Twitter is a free social networking tool that posts and tracks short one liners on what ur doing or thinking.
I should also note this is my first post using my phone. If all goes well both twitter and the blog will be up to date from anywhere we go, the beauty of technology.
While we were at PRI, our Stoptech Big Brake kit arrived for Project
996TT. The factory brakes on the car felt very tired and needed an overhaul
and some new pads, so we opted for an upgrade. We’ve used Stoptech kits on many
project cars in the past as well as other brake manufactures and they offer a great
overall product. The Kits include 2 piece floating rotors,ST-60 and ST-40 calipers,
stainless brake lines, mounting brackets, and street performance pads. The front rotors
are 380mm, the rears 332mm. They should look great behind the HRE monoblocks, and offer
great braking when we shake down the project soon at the road course.
We also will have the pleasure of testing Tiltons newly released brake fluid, TSR-1 Supreme. This race tested and proven fluid has an extremely high boiling point of 622 degrees Fahrenheit, meets all DOT4 specifications, and maintains very low compressibility at high temperatures. This fluid should be released to the public in February of 2009 at which point we will receive our first shipment as well. Tilton will also be Offering TBR-1 Brake fluid and an all new TCR-1 clutch specific fluid.
With the PRI show in Orlando this past week, we had the pleasure of hosting an open house for the great vendors who serve Titan Motorsports. The open house was hosted at our new location which is currently under construction on Boggy Creek Road, and displayed a handful of street and race cars. This state of the art 25,000sq/ft facility is being designed and built from the ground up with extensive planning to ensure growth for each of Titans divisions for many years to come.
The exterior shell has been complete for some time, however permitting for the interior buildup has held up construction progress. As these conflicts are now resolved, we are getting much closer to moving to our new home, and look forward to posting many more updates as construction continues. Our current expectations anticipate a smooth transition towards the end of quarter 1 in 2009.
We reached a major milestone in construction this week with the hanging of our massive new sign. The sign features 42” tall brushed aluminum letters which are backlit by thousands of amber LEDs. A big thank you to Nick and the crew at Diamond Electric for creating such a master piece and having it hung in time for our open house.
It’s finally time to begin installing parts on the camouflage Porsche. Our original plan was to install the complete K24/18G kit this week along with the clutch, however scheduling conflicts made us decide to hold off another week. Instead we sent the factory ECU off to Tony @ EPL to reflash with his modified K16 Map which includes both a brake boost feature and 2 Step. We expect to have the ECU back on Friday in time for another trip to Bithlo for some additional passes down the 1320.
Since we had to wait on the ECU to be flashed (in the coming months we will have in house programing available for all EPL products), we decided to remove some more weight. We removed the factory tank of an exhaust which weighed 57lbs. We opted for AWE straight pipes weighing in around 7lbs for the pair, an overall savings of 50lbs off the back of the car!!!
While we where at it we removed the factory battery (stock is 52lbs, the one removed was aftermarket and weighed 41lbs). In place of the factory battery we installed a Deka / East Penn ETX-30 battery and made a custom bracket out of aluminum to hold it in place. The new battery was 21lbs total, saving us another 20lbs off the front of the car. We will be using a trickle charger when the car will be without use for an extended time period, however we opted for the ETX-30 rather than the ETX-14. The 30 is about 10lbs heavier, but should offer a bit of security should the car not get driven for an extended period of time.
Total savings for the day was 70lbs. We’ll be off to the track on Friday with less weight, extra power, and hopes to get kicked out for going 11.5X without a cage. After that it’s more power, less weight, the perfect combination for a better overall car.
This weekend the Titan gang headed out to Classic Audi for the annual Challenge Rally. This rally benefits the Russell Home for Children and pits some of the local car clubs against one another to see who can bring the most participants. The route took us over 100 miles of Central Florida’s best driving roads, some even including elevation changes, a rare sight in a nearly flat state. Bottle took his 335i, Nero took the Camouflage 996tt, and I was in my yellow 996tt. Many of us got lost, all of us where driving at speeds that likely exceeded the posted limits, and overall we had a great time. We look forward to participating in other great charity events throughout the year. BMW took the participation trophy with 30 cars to Porsches 29 cars. Over $4,000 was raised to benefit the charity, making the rally a great success.
After a few crazy weeks of traveling, we finally got the Porsche paintjob completed. 4-5 hours in the paintbooth behind our shop, probably 15-20 cans of Krylon camouflage and enough fumes going to my brain that I’ll be high for weeks. Overall I am very happy with the end results, and the opinions of those who have seen the car have been 50/50. It’s a love hate relationship but that’s exactly what I wanted to achieve and either way it draws 100 times more attention than the factory silver.
This weekend the Titan crew was invited to attend Le Belle Macchine d’Italia at Daytona International Speedway. Lamborghini of Orlando invited us to the event which included both an instructed driving session, and individual ride-arounds in the latest offers by Lamborghini. Bottle, Nero and Eric made the trek out to the track, arriving a bit late they missed the scheduled rides around the 2.5-mile trioval with 31 degree banks. They did however get plenty of great photos of the track day, including a very expensive mistake in one of the few Maserati MC-12s here in the states. The pictures do the talking, enjoy.
This weekend I had the pleasure of heading to Long Beach, California for the Red Bull Drifting Finals. I’ve been attending import events for over 10 years now, and as hard as it is to believe, this was my first drifting event. That being said I could not have picked a better event to attend, Red Bull and FormulaD truly outdid themselves in the planning and execution of this event, and it ran flawlessly.
We flew in Thursday Night and headed to downtown Long Beach for the pre-party. FormulaD organized a pre-party upstairs at Smooths, and also arranged for the streets to be closed off so the cars could line up through downtown. It was a great time with plenty of beers and Red Bulls being consumed from friends of new and old, along with some of the best drifters from around the world. The drivers picked straws to determine their qualifying order and then proceeded to parade back to the pier for the following days testing.
Here is a quick video of the cars lined up in front of Smooths in Long Beach during the straw pull / pre-party.
On Friday a Pro-Am event was held on the course. Without access to the event we spend the day enjoying some of the fun things to do around Long Beach. I was highly impressed with how clean Long Beach as a city was. The air quality and Smog left a lot to be desired, but I can’t count how many people where picking up trash, washing sidewalks and windows, etc on the cities dime.
Saturday we walked from the host hotel, Westin of Long Beach, down to the convention center to catch our bus to the venue. I was a little hesitant of how this was going to work out as I read about the event, however parking and the bus schedule seemed to work perfectly, and I can’t remember waiting more than 15 to catch a bus. As we drove into the port of Long Beach, the scenery went from a plush cityscape to an industrial yard complete with oil tankers, cranes and container ships. FormulaD had built a small city within this landscape and in the middle was the track where the event would be held. Bleachers, VIP stands, catch fences vendor tents, everything needed to hold a proper event where brought into this shipyard. It was truly a work of art and one of the best places you could possible hold a drifting event. Qualifying took place and the competitors where scored on their runs, combined with entry speeds from 85-104mph. There was plenty of smoke coming from the competitors tires, and blowing in from the brush fires in nearby Sylmar fires being pushed with Santa Ana winds. Combined with the already thick Long Beach smog it made breathing a bit more difficult, however it added to the industrial environment the track was constructed in. There were some great solo runs to be seen but the real event was still to come on Sunday.
Sunday morning we again boarded the bus and headed out to the venue for the main event. A big thanks to Steve @ Scion for providing us with great hospitality in the Scion VIP stand. The event kicked off with the Red Bull air team sky diving in at 80+mph, then followed by tandem sessions with 32 of the world’s best drifters. The event format was a bit different at this event, drivers were not given advantages, just a win/loss/omt (one more time) at the end of 2 sessions. The first session a driver would lead the run, then follow the section run. If the 2 runs are 2 close to determine a winner an OMT is granted so that the 2 competitors can run again until a concrete victor is determined. There were plenty of great cars participating however those that stood out where an E36 Wagon, Quad-Rotor RX7 (one of the best sounding engines I’ve heard in a while), and the ever popular Mopar Viper. The day had plenty of great drifts, crashes, but in the end Red Bulls very own Rhys Millen wont the event with his consistent drifts, 3 digit entry speeds and great transitions. We boarded the bus after a great event and flew back to Florida to get things started for 2009. I truly hope Red Bull / FormulaD is able to make this event an annual event, as I had a blast and would love to see some other east coasters fly out and enjoy the event. Will you see a Titan Supra drifting in 2009? I can’t guarantee it, but it sure would be cool.
Some other fun things we did while in Long Beach
Aquarium of the Pacific – If you make it to Long Beach definitely check out this aquarium. The exhibits range from 5,000 gallons to 3,500 gallons allowing you to view the animals in a realistic environment.
Inn-N-Out Burger – The first place we went after exiting the plane was Inn N Out Burger. Inn-N-Out burger has some of the best burgers and fries I’ve ever had at a fast food joint. They currently only have locations in California, Nevada, and Arizona. If you make it out west it’s definitely worth the trip.
PinkBerry – Everyone is raving about PinkBerry frozen yogurt on the internet and in those gossip mags my fiancé is constantly reading. Currently only open in New York and California this chain serves some of the best yogurt I’ve ever had. Basically it’s all natural non-fat yogurts in Green Tea, Pomegranate, and Original Flavors, combined with some of the freshest toppings. I’ve got to admit I’m hooked, I can only hope they bring the concept to Orlando soon to kill my sweet tooth and stay healthy at the same time.
Yard House – 215 beers available on tap. Need I say anything more. Located in Shoreline Village this restaurant has just about any beer you could want and then some, most available in their half yard sized glasses.
