Joon Maeng – PAS Magazine Feature Article
Joon Maeng’s LS-13 got a nice feature article in PAS Magazine this month. Nice story and background on the car with all the tech specs. Read the full article here: Like Car, Like Driver
WRITTEN BY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW JENNINGS | PAS Mag August 2013
There’s two sides of every coin for a reason
Joon “Gentle” Maeng may look like just another young driver on the Formula Drift circuit, but don’t let his appearance fool you. He has been through many ups and downs, and a number of cars too. This year brings a new beginning and a fresh start for the South Korean. His personal Lucas Oil / Mav TV sponsorships were renewed, and he is now joined by Nexen Tires to take on the competition, managing his own program with the help of Road Race Engineering. Reliability is key to success in the unforgiving world of drifting, and his latest Nissan S13 chassis has been conceived from the ground up with that in mind.
To play with the big boys, a basic four-cylinder engine wouldn’t cut it. Maeng’s team knew this and went a different direction, swapping a Brodix 8.2-liter LSX V8 into the front of the sport coupe and tuning it to put out a whopping 800 horsepower and 750 lb-ft of torque. The power is managed through a dog box transmission and ACT clutch and flywheel, transferring into a brand new Weir Performance rear end.
Read the Full Article Here on pasmag.com
JTP Stops by to use the RRE Dynapack
Justin Pawlak had an Eclipse back in the day and we have always watched his rise through the ranks in Formula D to the top. He now has a full ride with team Falken driving the signature teal/blue Falken Mustang. John Mueller of Muellerized.com is now his spotter and is in charge of his suspension program too.
Justin just got his personal turbo FC RX7 together and stopped by RRE to tune it on the dyno. AMDrift.com’s Dave Karey came by to shoot it and do a little write up on the day. Check it out here.
MotoIQ and the RRE Toy Drive
MotoIQ just did a nice writeup about the RRE City Of Hope Toy Drive that we did back in December. Here is the article about this event and other charity in the automotive aftermarket industry.
Joon Maeng – American Real
Joon’s Sponsor MAV TV shot a promo video of Joon here at the shop, they have it up now!
Joon Maeng was born in Seoul, Korea and moved to the United States at the age of nine. His passion for speed and cars began early in his childhood. Since then, he has remained loyal to his passion through the sport of drifting. When he’s not racing Joon manages Daily Udon & Sushi restaurant and builds drift cars.
MotoIQ – Dyno Detectives
We are the official dyno for the MotoIQ Pacific Tuner Car Championship. We got called on to confirm the legality of one of the competitors. While at the shop they also wrote up a little bit if a shop tour article. Read here for the full article and pics.
RRE Project RalliArt – March 2012 DSport Track Shot
We picked up the March 2012 issue of DSport with Tim Smith’s EVO X on the cover over the weekend. The magazine also comes with a DSport 2012 Motorsports Guide in the package. Flipping through it and “Hey! I know that car!” They have a nice track action shot of the RRE Project RalliArt sliding around the Streets of Willow Springs. Nice article too about how to get started tracking your car from autocross to open track days and getting into Time Attack.
Jack Gets a Magazine Cover (Sort of)
I picked up the newest issue of Modified Magazine last week and I was looking at the cover. Checking out the CBRD EVO they had there and wait, what? Hey! RRE’s favorite up and coming drifter Jack Reynolds got his 240 (with a Dart V8) pictured at the bottom! We have been helping Jack as much as we can. He is a great kid and he slides that beast with no fear. Modified Mag has a nice series of articles this month about how to get into drifting and time trials. Congratulations Jack!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMWwbNSp8J4[/youtube]
Show Time – Tim’s EVO X
Nothing beats watching artists do their craft up close and in person. The work these guys do getting the lighting and angles all lined up never ceases to amaze me. Look for this to be a cover car early next year.
Tim Smith – Spa Time for his EVO X
Tim is in Afghanistan right now but his EVO X is here getting the royal treatment. Got a photoshoot coming up so it is time to scrub it up and lay on the cute. From dirty track ‘ho to beauty queen in 48 hours!
Modified Magazine – November 2011 – RRE RalliArt
The November issue of Modified Magazine just hit the news stands. It is a skinny little magazine this month but well worth checking out. Some sweet old school cars and my favorite, an article on our project RRE Ralliart and the BBX Lite turbo install from CBRD! You also get a little article on the 2011 Mitsubishi Owner’s Day with a little pic of the RRE Battle Bot.
The car is currently tuned at 411 whp on our AWD Dynapack dyno and runs 375 whp on GReddy’s Mustang Dyno. It ran 12.2 @109 mph in the 1.4 mile at that hp. A bit more on this car is also in the October DSport. The full Modified Mag article is here.
November DSport – AEM Meth/Water Injection Flow Gauge Testing
OK, one more November DSport mention and then I’ll leave it alone, I promise. Last month we hosted the DSport video crew for some dyno testing here at RRE. They were testing and demonstrating the various scenarios that a water/meth injection setup could go bad and how the AEM Flow Gauge would be able to save your butt. Well I just came across the print article that resulted from the testing that day. I imagine the video will be out next month or so on the DSport DVD 22 or 23.
All the more reason to look for the November issue of DSport!
DSport DVD #21 – MOD 2011
The DSport DVD that comes in the new November issue of DSport Magazine has a feature on the 2011 Mitsubishi Owner’s Day this past summer. The beginning sequence has RRE tuner Scot Gray walking all HARD in front of the dyno :-) Check it out when you pick up the magazine. Also nice shots of Michelle and Michelle the official RRE models and cars running on the RRE AWD Dynapack dyno!!
Ben’s EVO RS Hits the Cover of DSport
The full feature of the car isn’t on line, you gotta get yourself to the store and buy the November issue of DSPort when it hits the newstand! In the meantime, the RRE RalliArt is in the current October Issue. This is the EVO we tuned with the new Borg Warner turbo with the crazy spoolup.
More pics and partial article in DSport’s website.
AEM Meth/Water Injection Flow Gauge Testing
Michael Ferrara and Stephan Papadakis were here at the shop today shooting some video for DSport while we were testing The Boz’s meth fail safe setup. You might remember Keith from a couple dyno shootouts with his white 700whp GVR4 last year. The GVR4 was getting a bit scetchy with that kind of whp and he went to the dark side and picked up a clean used EVO 8.
The Boz had just installed the AEM meth/water injection kit along with the AEM flow gauge and so it was a good car to do some fail safe testing on. The car has an EVO 9 turbo and stock cams. Boz had an AEM EMS on his GVR4 so he went with it again on the EVO.
We tested the fail safe with an overflow condition (simulating a hole in a hose), underflow (clogged nozzle) and also with no power to the pump. Look for the article and video from DSport Magazine in a month or two.
JOON “Gentle” MAENG
MotoIQ just posted a great interview with JOON MAENG.
http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles/articletype/articleview/articleid/2085/driver-profiles-joon-maeng.aspx
Before getting in to that however, I have to say, all that stuff you hear about Joon is true. I got the chance recently to hang out with Joon over the weekend at Redline Time Attack when RRE was out supporting his S13 for the event July 2-3 at Big Willow. Joon and I shared a hotel room, so we hung out a bit on and off the track. After careful study of Mr. Maeng, I have to say, he is just as cool as the media describes him as. The guy has a magnetic personality and he is just golden to be around even when his car was overheating in the 112 degree heat (that translates to something like 10000000 degrees on the track). Joon took the whole weekend in stride, the ups the downs and even me, snoring while he was trying to get some sleep. It was a great weekend and I hope to get the chance to hang out with the RRE crew and Joon again soon!!
Also, The fact that Joon is the first Korean American pro drifter is no joke in the Korean community. Koreans take stuff like that seriously and the community is behind this guy with their love and support!! There is a minidoc on this here:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/TAalvOrqnLY[/youtube]
….enough said… Here is the interview. Don’t forget to check out MotoIQ!! Their site is worth at least a day wasted in the office at your cubicle monitor!! ALSO, I changed ALL the pictures on here, so the MotoIQ story will have pics. of Joon in his beastly RX-8.
RRE Project RalliArt @ AAA Dragway
We took the RRE Project RalliArt to Fontana to do some further testing for DSport Magazine and their car buyer guide they publish every year. This year they wanted to include some lightly modified cars to test against stock cars.
Enter the RRE RalliArt. The suspension/chassis is a basic street setup. RRE Lowering springs, Whiteline rear sway bar and Stoptech front brake pads. For power it is a full stock longblock with stock cams. It has an RRE FMIC and pipes, BBX-Lite turbo from CBRD, Tomioka tubular exhaust manifold and widemouth down pipe and HKS cat back exhaust. It runs on E-85 fuel with Deatschwerks 800cc injectors and a Blaqops fuel pump kit.
Steph Papadakis did the 1/4 mile testing along with Michael Ferrara. It was fun hanging with two import drag legends from the 90’s for the day. Once Steph got the RalliArt launch sequence down he and Mike ran several low 12 second passes at over 100 mph. The car just rolled over to 29k miles and still got my clutch!
Modified Magazine – AEM Intake & MagnaFlow Cat-back – Nissan 370 Z
AEM ETI Air Intakes & MagnaFlow Cat-back Exhaust System
Pretty much everything has been said about intake and exhaust systems by now. By replacing the factory-equipped units, one hopes to increase airflow and decrease exhaust backpressure, allowing the engine to churn out some extra ponies for your enjoyment.
Sounds simple enough, and it usually is. However, some cars, such as the Nissan 370Z, are extremely finicky when airflow is altered, especially around the MAF sensor area. The ECU doesn’t like different readings, and the usual result is less horsepower than you started with.
The Nismo Z already comes with a great flowing exhaust system, but MagnaFlow set out to add more power and sound with its stainless steel dual 2.5-inch exhaust system. Using all mandrel-bent piping and a high-flow muffler, MagnaFlow’s exhaust system will wake up your Z from its sedate-sounding stock exhaust sound to a much more lively note.
With our Nismo Z in stock form, it belted out a solid 303 whp and 249 ft-lbs of torque on Road Race Engineering’s dynapack dyno. On went the MagnaFlow exhaust system, which is a very straightforward and simple install.
Read more: http://www.modified.com/tech/modp-1105-aem-intake-mangnaflow-exhaust-system/index.html#ixzz1aKwiEbvy
Art’s Turbo S2000 in Modified Magazine
2002 Honda S2K – Home Brew Done Right
Everyone has hobbies when they’re growing up. For some, it’s playing sports like baseball or football. Other people collect cards or play video games, while another group prefers putting things together with their own two hands. Most car guys (and gals) are in that faction and are introduced to building models or seeing cool cars that family or friends have built at a fairly young age. Art Thavilyati is one of these people, and he first became enamored with motors when his cousin picked up a Honda Prelude and began tinkering around trying to make it faster. “I’ve been into cars since I was a kid,” Art says. “I was introduced to it by my older cousin, who had a nicely fixed-up Prelude. From then on, I met a friend who always worked on his own cars. Since I was about 15 years old, we worked together on his cars in his backyard — he would teach me as we went.” If only we could all be so lucky, right? Having so much hands-on experience through his teen years has taught Art a lot, and he has put it to good use on his AP1 S2000.
“We were always into Hondas,” Art says. “So when the ‘ultimate Honda’ came out in ’99–00, the S2000, I knew I had to own one some day.” We remember this feeling and can completely relate to Art’s desire to own one of the most well-rounded sports cars of the modern era. The S2000 has been widely accepted by the tuning community because of its amazingly well-balanced chassis and nearly perfect NA motor. The engineers over at Honda really did something right when they designed the F20C. After more than a decade of trial and error, the general consensus is that if you want to make more power out of this motor, there’s really only one option: forced induction.
For Art, this is no problem, seeing as he works as a tech at Road Race Engineering, a Southern California speed shop that specializes in Mitsubishi and Nissan cars. The turbo kit Art has pieced together for his S2K is a bit of a unique setup. Opting to use a top-mounted GT3076 and a log-type manifold, this interesting setup feeds boost into a built and fortified bottom end. A custom catch can and intercooler piping add a nice touch to the homemade feel, and the resulting 403 hp means Art’s car can certainly scoot its way around town or the track. A set of JIC adjustable coilovers keep the S2K planted, with the help of sticky Nitto NT05 tires. The rolling stock of choice is a big set of Work XD-9 wheels, sized at 18×9 inches up front and 18×10 inches in the rear.
Read the full article @ Modified Magazine
Modified Magazine – Snow Performance Water/Methanol Injection
Snow Performance Stage 3 Boost Cooler Water/Methanol Injection – Proving Grounds – Tech
Turbocharged engines love cold, dense and detonation-free intake charges, but providing those optimal conditions can be a bit of a challenge in the real world – especially when race gas can cost upward of $10 a gallon. Therefore, for most of us, pump gas has to suffice. Problem is, the lower octane levels prevent us from extracting every last ounce of power from our motors, so we go about our business making due with what power we extract from pump gas. There is, however, a much less costly solution to extracting race gas-like numbers from your turbocharged engine, and it comes in the form of methanol injection.
Methanol is rated at about 116 octane, so injecting it into your intake tract will raise the effective octane level and increase detonation resistance in your fuel. (Not to mention the added benefit of cooling your pressurized charge.) Methanol is usually distilled with water (50/50) to reduce flammability (methanol has a flash point of 140 degrees Fahrenheit – when mixed with water, it increases to approximately 650 degrees). It also makes it easier to tune because the air/fuel ratio won’t be affected as much, and it’s much more cost effective – on average, a gallon of meth/water injection would cost you $1.50, yet the mixture still retains the same knock-resistant, high-octane cooling properties that your engine so badly longs for.
Super Street Magazine – Project Ralliart Sportback Upgrades
Flow And Low, That Is Our Tempo
In our last update for our Ralliart Sportback project, we did a simple upgrade of swapping out our engine valve cover with that of Modified’s Evo X project – not exactly hardcore tech. So to make up for this, we are going to give you a massive update, ranging from power-adders to the suspension and wheel package we’ve been dying to install. First up, it’s a relief to see that all the products that have been long under R&D have finally reached their final production units and we’re grabbing the first ones off the line. And probably like most of you, these are some of the first few mods that people do first to their cars, so we’re following right in line with the masses. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
DC Sports Exhaust, Upper Intercooler Hard Pipe and K&N Drop-In Filter
In our quest to hit stock Evo X power figures, we had to start somewhere. We learned quickly from Mike Welch at RRE that intake systems don’t affect power on the Ralliart quite like it does on the Evo X (due to the variance in intake design and the way air hits the air flow sensor), but an exhaust does wonders. To keep a close-to-stock appearance, we chose DC Sports’ DTS (Dual Tip System) after-cat exhaust, which is a three-piece kit made from mandrel-bent, 3” T304 stainless steel. Compared to the stock exhaust, this shiny happy replacement eliminates all the restrictions and improves flow roughly 40%, according to DC Sports. With a couple of friends, installing this exhaust is a breeze with only a few hand tools; just give yourself 20 minutes and a willingness to work out your arms.
Next, we went back to RRE and put it up on their Dynapacks to see what kind of power improvements we’d see from the DC DTS exhaust. For those of you who are new to this project, in purely stock form, our initial runs resulted in 210hp (200.13hp corrected) and 192lb-ft (164.31lb-ft corrected). Not bad and lots of room for improvement. With just an exhaust modification alone, we saw a surprising total of 228hp (213.60hp corrected) and significant torque increases of 236lb-ft (175.37lb-ft), which gave all of us a reason to smile as it brings us that much closer to hitting our stock Evo X goal. For kicks, we also decided to install a K&N drop-in filter anyway, just to see what it would do. Even with Mike’s doubts as to whether a drop-in would perform based on previous experiences, we actually came out surprised once again as we picked up an additional 2hp and saw a more smoothing effect of the power curve in higher rpm. While a K&N drop-in filter may not work wonders on all Ralliart engines, we were sold and would recommend this as an affordable modification.
KW Variant 2 Coilovers/SSR Type F Wheels/Toyo T1R Tires
Though there are quite a few excellent choices when it comes to selecting a coilover manufacturer, it was actually more difficult to find a coilover kit for the Ralliart Sportback at all, simply because this isn’t an Evo X, due mostly to differences in subframe design. But there was one company who was willing to take on the Pepsi Challenge. KW Suspension, big in the European market and gaining big ground in the US, are huge car and motorsport enthusiasts, recognized the Ralliart’s tuning potential based off their Evo research on chassis stiffness, and decided to offer the Variant 2 kit solely for Ralliart buyers. Why only the Variant 2? The car isn’t cheap enough to warrant Variant 1s and isn’t quite the motorsport beast the Evo X is, so scratch the Variant 3. No doubt, the Variant 2 coilovers still provide superb handling without sacrificing ride quality, a crucial must-have for a street build like ours.
Modified Magazine – 2008 Mitsubishi Evolution X – Uncorking More Power
After doing some research and comparing brands, my intercooler of choice was the AMS unit because of its cast end tank design, excellent fitment and 80 percent increase in flow area over the stock intercooler. The bar and plate core measures 12.4×20 inches wide and is 3.5 inches thick while flowing 1,250 cfm. Plus, it’s the same intercooler AMS runs on its 750-whp time attack EVO X – meaning you’ll never have to upgrade it again.
To go along with the FMIC, I also picked up the AMS upper and lower hard piping kit. The factory piping consists of many rubber pieces that tend to expand under high boost pressures and can become prone to popping off as the rubber deteriorates over time. The AMS four-ply…
Read more: http://www.modified.com/tech/modp-1006-2008-mitsubishi-evolution-x/viewall.html#ixzz1VBJGU9NW
Modified Magazine – Evo X AEM Intake – RRE Tune
Netting A Massive Gain Of 51 Whp And 35 Ft-Lbs Of Torque, The EVO X Proves Very Mod Friendly.
The EVO is one of those cars almost everyone buys knowing that they will eventually modify it. With the older-generation EVO VII and IX, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a stock one for sale. Almost every one of them has some type of aftermarket part on it, but the X is a bit of a different story. Being a brand-new car on the market, owners are a bit hesitant to mod them because the chance of losing their warranty is high.
I can agree with that argument for about 10 seconds. Then I step on the pedal and a surge of 50-plus wheel horsepower over stock pushes me back into my seat, and I can’t find any reason why an EVO X owner would putt around stock. It’s just so easy to unlock so much power for so little money while never worrying about reliability…
Read more: http://www.modified.com/tech/modp-1005-evo-x-aem-intake/viewall.html#ixzz1VBGiqfpl
Modified Magazine Project EVO X – Dyno Tuning Video
Modified Magazine put up a youtube video of the dyno session from when we did some dyno tuning on the RRE AWD Dynapack dyno…
Edmunds Inside Line – Track Battle: Our Project Mitsubishi Evo vs. Nissan GT-R
Mission Improbable
By Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor | Published Dec 21, 2009
“Beat the GT-R around Streets in the blue Evo. I still want to take my kids to bassoon practice with it, though. And you know how I hate getting my hands dirty. I’m an ‘arrive-and-drive’ kind of guy. Get it right or pack your stuff, Pal.”
With these words from Scott Oldham, IL‘s big enchilada, it was clear from the outset that Project Evo, our long-term 2008 Mitsubishi Evo GSR, wasn’t to be a one-string banjo. The boss wanted a fair fight.
A fair fight? Not the words you’d expect to hear when it comes to challenging a 2010 Nissan GT-R, one of the most comprehensively fast cars extant.
Truly Dual-Purpose
Streets of Willow Springs is a road course in the high desert of Southern California. It’s got a mix of corners, cambers and speeds. It’s technical. Every weekend…
Video and Read More:
http://www.insideline.com/mitsubishi/lancer-evolution/2008/project-evo-mission-improbable.html
