When the owner of this stunning Corolla wanted to build a light and agile street/track car, he spared no expense in backing up the whole effort. After all, it was supposed to deliver a high level of performance in a car show-worthy package. Quite difficult and very costly, but based on the outcome and the mods that it currently boasts of and the numerous car show awards which it has already garnered. This show worthy and track ready Corolla has perfectly accomplished what the owner wanted.

The fun starts once you pop the hood where a very detailed, 20-valve, 4AGE, “blacktop” engine resides between its fender wells. Prepped and rebuilt by well-known Toyota specialist engine builder Fil Gulfin of Gulfspeed, he utilized stouter aftermarket parts like forged pistons, cams, cam gears, valve springs, and a metal head gasket to keep the engine bullet-proof at sustained high rpm’s. Just like most normally aspirated engine set ups that are squeezed for every ounce of performance, they have resorted to oversized forged pistons and the 20-valve cylinder head has been fully massaged. These are just some of the important mods to undertake when building a high performance N/A engine. Forged pistons offer durability and increased displacement, while proper cylinder head work optimizes the flow of the intake and exhaust charge. Together these are vital steps in making the engine put out more power. The factory ECU was then replaced in favor of an aftermarket unit from MINE’s and a Greddy E-manage piggyback ECU. Doing so enables the engine to be dialed in with a custom setting that lets it operate under a more aggressive fuel and ignition signal as compared with the conservatively programmed stock ECU. In addition, this lets the engine make full use of the different engine mods to make even more power.

Since this is a dedicated track/street car, suspending this lightweight runner is a set of TEIN Mono-Flex coil-over dampers along with an Electronic Damping Force Controller (EDFC). What’s great about Tein’s EDFC is that it permits on-board damper setting changes to suit varying road/track conditions. Excess body roll is further limited by thicker TRD anti-roll bars and strut bars at the fore and aft. In keeping with the show theme, it rolls on a multi-spoked ARD Monoblock 17-inch wheels shod with the requisite and super sticky Advan AD08 tires. Apart from the unique Euro-2 front fascia, the Corolla’s exterior lines remains stock with the exception of a subtle body skirt and a front chin spoiler. This is quite a refreshing sight among the hordes of builds that have numerous custom body panels.

Inside, the JDM-themed interior is further stressed with the best aftermarket performance parts that Japan has to offer, like the Bride bucket seats, Defi gauges, Nardi steering wheel and lots more, leaving enough space for a complete audio/video system to boot. Overall, this is one well-built Corolla that’s a done deal for it has literally everything you could want or think of putting in, plus so much more.

Engine Mods
TODA cams, cam gears, valve springs, head gasket, and timing belt. Forged pistons, Exedy lightened flywheel, ACT 6 pack clutch, Greddy oil cooler, TRD plug wires,
Cold air intake, Cusco oil catch can, Fuel pressure regulator, MINE’s ECU, Greddy E-Manage (ultimate) 140 wHP (dyno’d)

Suspension/Brake Mods
TEIN Mono-Flex coil-over dampers with EDFC, TRD anti-roll bars, TRD strut bar, DBA (slotted/cross-drilled) big brake upgrade,

Interior Mods
BRIDE bucket seats and custom door panel upholstery, Defi gauges, Nardi steering wheel,

Wheels/Tires
17-inch ARD Monoblock Wheels
Advan Neova AD08

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Under the hood the 370Z is powered by an all-aluminum, 3.7-liter, V6 engine (VQ37VHR). The N/A engine comes with Nissan’s Variable Valve and Lift Control and produces 332 bhp. Closer inspection on this particular engine will reveal an aftermarket intake system from HKS. Taking advantage of the VQ engine’s twin intake system, HKS developed their own dual open element HKS racing suction kit. The kit comes with lightweight dual aluminum suction pipes that allow more air to flow more smoothly. More importantly it comes with HKS’ high-flowing wet 2-layer dual density polyurethane filter element and Super Funnel for the absolute in performance. Next up on the mods list is a Powerhouse Amuse titanium exhaust. I’m sure most of you know who this company is and what they’re capable of making. Just think of them as Japanese exotica and you get the idea. Being made from titanium means its very, very light. How light? Well, the stock unit roughly weighs 46lbs while the Amuse unit weighs a scant 13.6lbs! As for the bling factor, the burnt blue color on the ends of the muffler housing and on the exhaust tips really look cool. Performance-wise the intake and the exhaust mod should probably add more than fifteen or even more horses at the wheel and plus ten or more clicks on the torque.

On the outside, this 370Z looks unlike any other out there as it has an Amuse Vestito body kit to boast of. Aside from performance products, Amuse has also been known to produce well-designed body kits and this one stands as one of their best work so far. From the subtle splitters that ride on the edges of the front bumper to the flowing side skirts as well as the rear bumper treatment, it really screams JDM Tuner. Finishing off the exterior mods is a rear wing that’s also made by Powerhouse Amuse. Those particular about stance should probably take notice of how this 370Z sits as it has been equipped with lowering springs from Tanabe that lower it by an inch or two. This brought even closer the massive black finished CE28 wheels from Volk racing that’s wearing Bridgestone Potenza rubber for a neat stance. Overall, with all its subtle yet costly and effective mods this 370Z is righteously far from stock and should also be aptly named Vestito for in Italian it means ‘well dressed’ or suit and this is definitely one well-dressed 370Z!

Engine Mods:
HKS Racing Suction Air Filters
Powerhouse Amuse Titanium Exhaust

Suspension Mods
Tanabe lowering springs

Exterior Mods
Amuse Vestito Body Kit
Amuse Rear Wing

Wheels
RAYS Volk Racing CE28N

Tires
Bridgestone Potenza

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For some people plain good is not enough. This Honda Civic EG hatchback started out as a clean fully restored car spec’d to resemble a JDM EG6 SiR. However, Rex Tan wasn’t satisfied with just a clean looking car, he wanted it be different. So began his EG project, the shell was sent to FM Garage for a showcar finish using PPG paint tinted to the color of Vanilla White.

With its minimalist color, the car isn’t a total screamer from the outside. The parts were more for lightening the car and adding a bit of a color contrast. Spoon Sports carbon fiber racing mirrors replaced the heavy stock side mirrors. A lightweight carbon fiber hood and rear bumper diffuser was especially custom made by Stage21, and the CF details were finished off with the Backyard Special front lip and rear wing.

Under the hood, this car is a totally different monster; the B16A engine that originally resided here was evicted in favor of a fully built K20/K24 Frankenstein engine complete with a plethora of go-fast parts put together by engine builder Bong Hilario of H3 Autoworks. The longblock is mated to an Xcessive intake manifold mated with an 80mm throttle body and BPI velocity stack, which breathes out to an SSR header with a 3-inch custom exhaust. It was mapped with a Hondata K-Pro ECU to the tune of 276 wheel horsepower and 190 lbs-ft of torque with a rev limit of 9,500 rpm with E85 fuel on the Autoplus Dynojet. All this is mated to a 5.1-final ratio DC5 Type-R 6-speed transmission with an Exedy Hyper-Single Clutch. The engine and transmission is lubricated exclusive with Motul 300V, Motul Gear FF and cooled with Motul MoCool in the Dynamics aluminum radiator.

Keeping the car on the ground are race-spec Dynamics coilovers, Skunk2 rear lower control arms, ASR rear subframe, and a Fullrace traction bar. To make suspension tweaking easier, Skunk2 front and rear camber kits were installed for adjusting from race to show set-ups. The car rolls on 16″x7″ Rays Engineering Volk Racing TE-37 with 205/45R16 Yokohama Advan Neova AD-08 tires.

Inside the car are leftovers of the former EG6 restoration which include full JDM sidings and flat folding rear seats, and more functional styling parts, which start off with a pair Bride Stradia carbon-kevlar seats mounted on Bride super-low seat rails; a rare Mugen FG360 steering wheel, Mugen sports pedals, and Mugen aluminum shift knob paired with the K-Tuned billet shifter. Monitoring is done via a standalone Innovate wideband O2 sensor, and Defi Link Black-Face oil temperature, oil pressure, fuel pressure meters.

Vanilla may be the most common ice cream flavor, this Vanilla-colored EG hatchback may look normal to the untrained eye, but is far beyond the common examples you’ll see on the road. This car has the show and packs a lot of go.

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Hey folks, let me introduce myself before I begin! My name is Toni Tsuyoshi Arakaki or “Half Breeds” as people may know me by! I am half Japanese and half Filipino, I am currently based at Okinawa, Japan! I am the lone half Jap half Pinoy drifter I have yet to see here at the drift scene in Japan. There are several Fil Ams who competes in their own respective regions in Japan that I know of, I have much respect for all of them since Japan is one tough country to break into regarding Drifting!

I recently competed at the new drifting series in Japan called, “The Drift Muscle” series, created and run by none other than Keichi Tsuchiya and Daijiro Inada, the father’s of drifting as you may say!

There were 5 rounds on its first season, 2011! I entered two rounds, Round 3 at Nikko Circuit (retired due to logistics problems) and Round 4 at Suzuka Twin Circuit (finished 27th).

2011 was a year of trials and learning for me,  it was a very difficult year since trying to progress to the top is not an easy task after all! I don’t have a pit crew or any crew that would help me during events, I am a simple person just trying to achieve his dream who started from the very bottom!

2012 season will be starting in a couple of months Nationally, and in a few weeks locally! I’ll be competing again at the Drift Muscle series and at the local divisional series as well!

I would like to thank my sponsors and friends for helping me all throughout and funding the car’s upgrades for season 2012: ROTA Wheels, 99k-Corp, FederationD, CustomPinoyRides, Pyrotect Helmets, Speed Factory, B&M Okinawa, Team Suicidal, Team Hinga, Michiya Koboribata, and of course AutoIndustriya!

That concludes my first blog post for now, please stay tune as season 2012 is just around the corner, and I promise everyone 2012 will be an exciting year!

Here is a video we finished up for this season.  I would like to make a big thank you to all the support and hopefully we can keep attending all the drift events around the world.

THANK YOU
Cyrus Martinez

Apple isn’t the only big news with a major update this month; Polyphony Digital, the developers of Gran Turismo 5 for the Playstation 3, released the version 2.0 update to the cult racing simulator game.

After a year from its long-awaited release, the Gran Turismo 5 racing simulator gets a major overhaul, being upgraded to version 2.0. The upgrades include an interior/cabin view (previously only available for premium vehicles in the game), shortened game load times (GT5 has a really long load time for its racetracks) and menu response times.

GT5 spec 2.0 also gets the capability to save progress for its many endurance races, as in the original version you had to restart the race if you had to turn off your PS3. Developers also announced an upgrade to the cars’ physics and computer A.I. for even better realism. The player also gets better control of the weather, as well as added support for the newer Logitech G27 and backward compatibility for the G25 racing wheels.
The upgrade also features a cool new opening movie.

In addition to the free upgrade, GT5 developers also announced new content for the game with several packages. The Course Pack dowloads includes Circuit Spa-Francorchamps while a Racing Car Pack includes 12 new cars from various manufacturers, and even gets Red Bull X2011 Prototype.

A new Downloadable Content (DLC) Compatibility has also been implemented as part of the update. Additional content for the game will be made available for purchase on the Playstation Store. The DLC will be made available beginning October 18, 2011.

The update will cost you about 1GB of download time. But it is very much worth the wait. In addition, the new opening movie is available for download under Gran Turismo TV and is a great addition to the new update.

A recent trip to the United States allowed me to explore and experience some of the car culture scene in the west coast.  Most notable was the “Cars and Coffee” meet every Saturday mornings at the Mazda headquarters in Irvine, California.  The informal meet started a few years back when hot rodders would meet for early morning coffee talk at Newport beach.  Slowly, the meets would be invaded by European exotics and Japanese supercars.

Residents of Newport complained of the loud noises that the cars would generate every Saturday and the group had to transfer venues.  Mazda generously offered their big outdoor parking lot next to their headquarters in Irvine.

One early Saturday, I went to check out what the buzz was all about.  I was treated to automobile overload.  All sorts of marquees and classes were represented.  Cars that I would only read up on old Road & Track magazines as I was growing up.  The meet became an informal venue of car launches as well especially for the likes of RUF, McLaren, etc…  even the likes of Ken Block have brought their racecars to the venue.  Enjoy the photos from that special morning of better yet, check out the meets when you get a chance to go to the United States.

Photos by JP Cariño

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During the seventies, Hiroyuki Hasegawa, and his partner Mr. Kitagawa decided to start an aftermarket tuning company. Together with a capital infusion from Sigma Automotive Co. they started tuning engines and producing high performance parts. (Hence the name “HKS”). Aside from their popular turbocharger kits, mufflers and high end coilover’s, HKS is also well known for their electronic products like standalone ECU’s turbo timers and electronic boost controllers.

In today’s tuning scene its no secret that performance plus electronics equals more power. Case in point here is this tuned EVO-X that showcases how much additional horses can be attained by simply using electronic products from HKS. More particularly the HKS F-Con V-Pro, which is a stand-alone, fully programmable ECU. While this can be considered as a major mod due to its hefty cost and the fact that it has to be dyno-tuned. Keep in mind that this is still a bolt-on part with no internal mods required. According to HKS, “the HKS F-CON V Pro is a feature-loaded standalone engine management system that connects as easily as a “piggy-back” fuel and timing controller”. While it may sound simple enough, but what it really does is introduce a whole new ignition and fueling map based on the mods made. As such, the engine will be more responsive to throttle inputs and raise torque curves at the bottom to mid-rpm levels.

So just how much additional horses did it come up with? Thanks to Tommy Teng of DTM/Autotechnika who did the ECU tweaking on his Dynapack dyno, this EVO-X now pumps out an impressive 344whp (250whp stock baseline) and a gut-pulling 339 ft/lbs of torque. Another advantage to having a stand-alone ECU like this HKS unit is that it allows the tuner to dial-in a whole new set of parameters should additional engine mods are to be done in the future like aftermarket performance cams, injectors, pistons and stuff.

On the outside, its hard not to notice the aggressive looking, time-attack inspired body kit. This is from the popular bespoke body kit maker in Japan called Varis.

To be used for their own time attack EVO-X, Varis developed a special lightweight series of carbon body parts to help not only give a more purposeful look to the exterior but also generate higher levels of front and rear down force. The end result is a multi-piece body kit, which consists of the hood, front fenders, front & rear bumpers and side skirts. Aside from serving its aesthetic purpose, it also enables the car to shed a lot of unwanted weight. Now no tuned car would be complete without bits of carbon fiber and this one has it in the form of canards and the requisite rear wing. The 19-inch black colored CE28 wheels from Volk Racing also lends a lot of character to the overall look and stance of the car. Sticky Yokohama Advan sport tires keep it firmly planted on the road. Footwork is achieved through a set of TEIN Flex coil over with EDFC while Brembo calipers and discs provide stopping power. Combining attainable high horsepower levels with serious tuner aesthetic stuff is quite the norm for today’s tuner car. Thanks to companies like HKS and Varis, EVO owners can get the best Japanese technology straight onto their cars.

Engine: HKS racing Suction Filter Reloaded, HKS blow off valve, HKS Hi-Power Twin Exhaust, HKS F-Con V-Pro Electronic Management System, HKS CAMP 2 HKS EVC 6 Boost Controller
Suspension: Tein Flex Coilovers with EDFC
Interior: Recaro SR bucket seats, Momo steering wheel
Exterior: Varis '09 Version body kit, Varis carbon fiber rear wing
Wheels: Volk Racing CE28N Wheels (19-inch), Advan Sport tires (275/30ZR19)

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Right off the bat, the current Nissan GT-R makes no pretensions regarding what it can do on the track. In fact it has proven itself to be one of the fastest production cars around any racetrack. This actually comes as no surprise for Nissan engineers loaded it with state of the art technology. With over four hundred plus horses from a twin turbo V-6 engine and a “Nurburgring-tuned” suspension, it’s no slouch. Why they loaded it to the hilt stems from Nissan’s mantra that they should do everything they can to make it extremely fast and handle exceptionally.

Just like previous GT-R models that have been modified by various Japanese high performance tuners, it didn’t take long for the current GT-R to enter the aftermarket-tuning scene. As we all know this is a realm where the possibilities, as they say are endless. As such, we have Dolf Santiago’s tuned GT-R from Emperor Motorsports. His shop needs no intro at all as it specializes in selling hardcore aftermarket performance parts and accessories from Japan. In addition, it also offers periodic maintenance services on high performance cars. But what makes it even greater now is the fact that it’s the authorized dealer of HKS parts and lubricants in the Philippines.

Going back to Dolf’s highly tuned GT-R, occupying the top spot on its list of mods is the HKS GT800 kit. Aside from its very hefty price tag, this advanced turbo kit is not a simple bolt-on kit. For starters, the whole engine must be removed to facilitate the mods. Before advancing to the GT800 kit, it needs the components found on the GT600 kit. It’s really so advanced that HKS does not offer any warranty as to what can happen to the engine. The said kit comes with a comprehensive list of equipment that includes, Special GTII Turbines, Heat Resistant Cast Exhaust Manifolds, GTII (50mm) Wastegates and aluminum piping’s. According to HKS, the GT800 Turbo Kit with “Symmetrical Twin Turbo Layout” combined with other HKS performance products has the potential to increase the R-35′s engine performance to 800+ horsepower”. Local tuning guru Tommy Teng of DTM/Autotechnika was responsible for pulling out the motor while Dolf flew in Lester Wong of HKS Singapore who dialed-in the HKS F-Con V-Pro ECU. Another notable and very audible mod is the HKS Superior R-Spec exhaust system. Being the high-end model of the HKS exhaust systems, it’s made of full titanium and very, very lightweight. Hearing it howl through the titanium tips during high rpm throttle bursts as the GT-R goes through the gears is nothing short of spectacular and addicting.

After more ECU tweaking on the DTM/Autotechnika Dynapack Dyno, Tommy Teng was able to extract over 700 plus horses at the wheel and 600+ lb-ft of torque. Despite not being able to reach the 800+ target, this is just due to the lack of internal mods such as forged pistons and heavy-duty con rods. Overall, this is certainly a considerable figure and feat, given that a stock GT-R is already rated at 480 horses. As compared to the explosive power burst of let’s say a tuned EVO or an STi, Dolf comments that the GT-R’s power delivery is more consistent whether in the low, mid or high rpm levels. While I can truly attest to that, but what really got my attention was the linear and neck-pulling acceleration of this beast that really pushes your back hard on the bucket seat. Despite its hefty weight, the addition of stiffer aftermarket lowering springs from Mine’s limits the amount of body roll together with wide Bridgestone rubber. With a well-designed silhouette, Dolf simply added slight exterior touches. A Zele front lip spoiler and a carbon fiber hood is all that’s needed to assert its performance factor. With all the mods done to it, Dolf’s R-35 certainly lives up to its predecessors in all aspects of tuning.

Engine: HKS GT800 kit (Special GTII Turbines, Heat Resistant Cast Exhaust Manifolds, GTII (50mm) Wastegates, Aluminum pipes, HKS racing suction air filter, HKS Superior Spec R Exhaust system, HKS F-Con V-Pro, HKS EVC Electronic Boost Controller
Suspension: Mine's lowering coil springs
Interior: Bride limited edition Cuga seats
Exterior: Zele front lip spoiler, Varis carbon fiber hood
Wheels: Prodrive GC05K 20-inch wheels, Bridgestone Potenza RE070R tires F- 255/40ZRF R-285/35ZRF20

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