Month: August 2015

It seems like you can find a million things to take into consideration once you decide to look for a brand new car: safety ratings, overall value, testimonials, expert opinions, past experience, your desires and demands, special needs of your family, and more. The list just goes on and on. But there are many undeniable information about Fiat to contemplate when you start seeking your new vehicle.

Fiat carries a rich history in the transportation industry. You might see an array of cars at the fiat downey dealership today, but in past times Fiat engineered everything from carriages to tractors to aircraft. When you invest in a Fiat, you’re buying from the company who is familiar with a thing or two about transportation. Chances are, you’re familiar with lots of the brands Fiat has acquired, including Ferrari, Chrysler and Maserati, even though additionally, you may not know a lot about Fiats. Fiat has regularly bought quality brands with great reputations that match their own high-end craftsmanship.

In Brazil, one of many world’s most populous countries, Fiat is definitely the leading car brand and just a few years ago, in 2008, a Fiat won the European Car of year award. A Fiat first took home that distinguished prize in 1968. The long history of Fiat in addition to their commitment to excellence is undeniable. When you get a Fiat, you’re getting a car you know you can depend on for many years and a car that’s made with all the expertise of a company that’s been manufacturing fine automobiles for generations. See your local dealership webpage, http://www.ocfiat.com, to peruse selecting Fiats available in your own backyard and see if there’s one that might fit the bill for our family. Our sales people is glad to let you take one on the test drive.

One glance at Jose Guzman’s Arctic Blue Pearl Type-S, featuring its expensive JDM bits and pieces spattered over an overtly sanitary appearance, and you probably draw your own conclusion rather quickly in regards to what this car was developed for. It’s what you can’t see that makes all of the difference in the world,. That’s after all, you’ve been somewhat conditioned, albeit unknowingly, to assume that high-dollar Japanese aero garb is nothing more than yet another piece of flair in a community hell-bent on outdoing the other person in hopes of moving up that imaginary ladder maintained by street cred and likes. Funny part about a car like Jose Guzman’s RSX.What’s quickly learning to be a well-sorted track car was once a full-time street car with little more than a few bolt-ons. Originally bought in 2006 at a dealership in Orlando, FL, with just 40K on the odometer, the car was mildly modded, and was then placed into hibernation on an extended length of time. It sat in my parents’ garage for about two years because I was getting stationed overseas in Japan guzman adds. Once I arrived in Japan and got settled in, the mod bug bit me. I started buying parts and shipping them over to the U.S.–I seemed to get an addiction to Mugen DC5 parts. After completing his overseas duties, Guzman was then stationed in California the location where the build continued, and he attended a few meets and events. It wasn’t until I met Richard Payne from Garage Spec Motorsports that the build started picking up some momentum. He helped me with lots of the new mod installs and suggested ideas on the build.

Time went by, and on a whim Guzman attended a couple of track events, first being a spectator, and shortly after decided to pick up a helmet and check out a few sessions in his own car. Like so many before him, he was instantly hooked. He recalls, It had been lots of fun. That is, until I spun out at Buttonwillow in the rain and landed within the mud. The automobile was covered in mud, it was horrible, and to this very day, I am [still] finding mud in strange places!

2002 acura RSX type S tein camber plate 07

2002 acura RSX type S circuit dreams custom splitter 09

2002 acura RSX type S js racing 60R muffler 13

Another turning point came into being after a chance encounter with Justin Wesseling of Circuit Dreams by JW Racing, along with his father Jerry at Cal Speedway. In order to become more competitive, taking an immediate interest in Wesseling’s Honda Challenge Civic, the two exchanged numbers and began devising a game plan to take the RSX to the next level. In order to accumulate seed money for a K24 block to replace the car’s tired, original 2.0L, many of Guzman’s original mods were then sold. Supporting mods are fairly simple with an emphasis on usable torque, as opposed to peak horsepower. Subtle compression remains, as being the only block changes would be the micro polished and properly balanced crank, while the original K20A2 head received Portflow’s handy work, together with a set of Skunk2 valvesprings and retainers that support a collection of OEM TSX cams. A custom Circuit Dreams 3-inch intake and BPI flow stack bring air in, while a 1-off ASP header directs spent gasses to custom exhaust piping plus a J’s Racing 60R muffler. To avoid starvation on track, a K20 oil pump conversion and Circuit Hero oil pan baffle were both added to insure reliability. To many people, the combination may appear rather simple, almost to a fault, but the results certainly are not, with a dyno finale of 275 hp and 210 lbs-ft tq.

In stark contrast to the mild engine development, suspension upgrades are anything but. Counting on a laundry list of aftermarket bushings, both polyurethane and spherical, tie-bars, lower and upper support bars, end links, roll center adjusters, and a lot more, the RSX delivers a degree of handling light years beyond what the original chassis was capable of. J’s Racing fenders provided enough clearance for 17×9 36 SSR Type C’s in advance, while the rear relies on 17×8 42 for any staggered put in place that Guzman assures us has been very beneficialpropulsion and suspension requirements and significant testing, the team felt that the RSX will benefit from some additional downforce. Guzman states, The car needed more aero, so Justin tasked Jerry with building custom risers for the Mugen wing and a custom splitter with PCI brackets for that BYS front bumper. The back bumper was trimmed significantly and a Max Racing vented hood was added to assist in cooling. The result is an aggressive look that seems to be quite effective; helping to bring home multiple top three finishes in competition.

Weekend track days are the focus, but that hasn’t stopped Guzman from driving the car on the street, even attending a number of meets here and there for fun. Admittedly, parking lot encounters involve fielding a large number of questions about the cars aero enhancements along with its aggressive demeanor. When asked about any future plans for the build, Guzman had this to express, After plenty of testing and podium finishes at a couple of HFF events and Super Lap Battle, the car has become pretty competitive, holding its own on the track against lighter Civics and Integras from older generations. My goal for the car is to consistently develop it and have fun along with it!

The state Arizona hosts a large population of Nissan 240SX’s. It is really not uncommon to come across one buzzing around on your short commute to function. Florida transplant, Dan Marino-I mean Doug Maiorino-has built one of the most unique Nissan 240’s Arizona has ever seen. This took a lot of motivation, money and time and dedication. Doug has come a long way from doing donuts behind his old high school with his classmates.

And taught him the ropes around cars before he died in 2004, doug’s father was really a gearhead as well. A few years later, when Doug was 14, The Fast as well as the Furious: Tokyo Drift came out. With all of the hype around drifting at the time, Doug wanted one thing: to drift. Even though the drift scene wasn’t very popular in Florida at that time, his mind was set on drifting. Moving to Arizona just a year later really fueled his desire for cars and drifting. The drift scene in Arizona was huge at the time compared to Florida. Doug would watch videos and play Xbox to get his drifting fix, since he did not have a car or a license yet. He would pick up magazines, like Import Tuner, to keep up of what everyone was building and to stay motivated to attainBecoming Reality

He already had a build plan under consideration, by the time Doug bought his first 240. Shortlyafter and though, he caught a VIP-style bug and sold them back for a Q45. It didn’t take long for him to appreciate it wasn’t what he wanted, so he off-loaded the Q45 and bought the 240SX that is currently gracing these pages. Doug, being 18 with his first real develop the horizon, wanted to honor his father who was always a big impact on him. Getting the voice of his father in the back of his head, he knew he couldn’t let him down. After receiving a make sure that was left to him after his father died, Doug chose to build the vehicle in his honor.

Not wanting to blend in with all the masses of overdone styling, Doug took a sleek and simple strategy to the body. Drawing inspiration from some of the guys from Risky Devil as well as the older Japanese drift cars, Doug tailored the rear end of his car with Kouki-style taillights, a Type X rear wing, and BMagic 50mm over-fenders, in the mean time tucking 18×10.5 Weds Kranze LXZ’s. Doug stuck with the stock metal fenders up front to suit the 18×9.5s instead of the typical fiberglass fenders; he didn’t want to destroy them while tucking the front tire since he drives this car daily. To keep with all the simple and sleek look, Doug fitted the vehicle with a Supermade Instant Gentleman body kit. From there the automobile was finished off with Dark Driftwood Metallic paint.

If you notice the car you believe style, but what is style on a car without power? The initial choice in relation to an engine swap will be the ever-popular 1JZ. Instead, being the thug that he is, Doug chose to stay in gangsta paradise and go with the SR20DET. Realizing that a stock SR20DET swap is just plain boring, Doug opted to upgrade the tiny-time turbo to your slightly bigger GT28R. This required plenty of extra cooling and fuel to hold the engine streetable. Doug added HKS injectors, a Walbro fuel pump, as well as an aluminum radiator to battle the Arizona heat wave. Doug still desired to keep the engine bay looking flossy, so he took the car to SPS Autosport to have a custom wire harness tuck done while having an aluminum coolant overflow tank, Isis intake manifold, along with a FMIC setup installed. Together with the engine setup complete, Doug took the vehicle to Evan Smith at Es Tuned, where the PowerFC was used to tune the vehicleThrough the two-year build, Doug took an interest in the low car lifestyle. He was hanging out more and more with folks from the Oof! Crew and Street Sweeper Gang. Wanting to have the car as low as possible, he installed a set of coilovers, in addition to the necessary adjustable arms, to attain his desired ride height. After tucking the wheels into bed, Doug took a very Spartan approach to the interior. He planned to hit the real key points to generate a solid street/drift car with good feedback for the driver. With this in mind, he installed a Buddy Club racing seat and Nardi 350mm deep corn steering wheel. Even with the auto pretty much established to the way he envisioned, it still wasn’t done. By putting in a complete sound system with subwoofers-something he feels every true street car should have, doug necessary to add more style points. To Doug, he had built the ultimate car, and something that might also make his dad proud. Doug managed to separate himself in the pack of standard 240 project builds and still stay on track with his goals and dreams that he or she set so young in life. Even though the engine developed rod knock shortly after doing a John Force-sized burnout after the photo shoot, Doug wasted almost no time beginning the massive rebuild process. The car should be done and better than ever, by the time you read this.

It’s a painful realization since the calendar flips to August – it’s the month which hosts the halfway point of summer. You’ve already enjoyed July 4 fireworks, countless BBQ’s and weenie roasts, Saturdays on the beach. The days are starting to shorten in an ever-increasing way, and you also know it’s back to school time soon. Soon the nights may become lonely and funky and your fun will probably be at an end. So when it turns to August, it’s important to love a little before it’s too late. Here are some actions to take to take full advantage of the time you might have before the crushing depression of real life comes crashing back on top of you.

Impromptu Vacation

If you whine about the inability to afford an impromptu vacation, you might as well just jump off a cliff and end all this, because life is made for living, and what’s a few extra dollars in there. You can’t take it along with you after all. And you can’t take that personal credit card debt with you. So, who cares? Look for a saver fare on some online cheap airline place and go somewhere awesome. Go to Hawaii. Go to Puerto Rico. It doesn’t matter. Just stand up and go somewhere for a while or, ideally, a week. Actually 10 days is the perfect vacation. Of sufficient length to escape town, but additionally by the end you’ll actually be ready to come back to your lifestyle. Don’t make excuses, make fun.

Buy a New Car

You know what sucks? Your car. You would spend a lot of time inside driving occasionally and doing errands and picking up friends and crushing to Home Depot. Might as well enjoy your time inside instead of always worrying that it’s intending to break down, or, what’s that noise, or it’s never felt like this before. That sort of worry can really get yourself a guy or gal down. The auto marketplace is still is and reeling trying to emerge from its hole it dug for itself so there are great deals that can be had on cars of all kinds. By way of example, head into garden grove dodge and you may most likely have the capacity to walk away with a cool new Dodge. In fact, no one really wants a Dodge so they’ll be inclined to make a deal. Start looking at http://www.ocauto.com to see which strikes your fancy.

Swim Swim Swim having a Swing

What separates summer from winter? In the summer we like to swim. So don’t let this summer go by without getting your share of swimming it, may it be at the lake or the ocean or a crick or a creek. Submerge yourself in Mother Nature’s finest, the waters that run her lands. You’ll be thankful you did. It’s the little stuff that can really make your life worth living and the Autumn and Winter less than bad.

If there’s ever been a German manufacturer that possesses the capability to span different automotive circles with international appeal, it would have to be BMW. Regardless that the majority of our readers are most likely partial to Japanese cars, it’s tough for any of us to deny the allure of BMWs. There’s one key characteristic a BMW needs to possess to have any hope of grabbing our attention, although to be specific. That important detail comes down to one small emblem: the mighty letter M.

Everything started using the now cult-like status from the E30 BMW M3 chassis. Even today, this platform seems to captivate builders of varying backgrounds, including those who may usually pursue cars through the Land from the Rising Sun. Though the modern M cars now produced by BMW are vastly diverse from the iconic E30, the overarching theme of these cars remains the same: a refined and luxurious design for everyday style and practicality, while still offering a distinctive edge from the performance standpoint. The goal is usually to create The Bestone of these brilliant Bavarian beasts. Being Arizona’s premier performance service and shop facility, as well among the larger performance retailers within the States, Vivid serves a huge customer base all over the world. An excellent majority of those patrons are BMW enthusiasts, so it only made sense for Dan and the team at Vivid to set their sights on yet another M car build.

In addition to serving as one of Vivid Racing’s many project cars, this particular M3 is also utilized as Dan’s daily driver. Though the modification list might not be pages long, the M3 doesn’t need to have a laundry selection of improvements. Instead, key modifications are the way to a successful build without sacrificing practicality. I personally wanted to have a powerful daily driver to haul the kids around, go to the store, allow the wife to drive it, and be able to stay informed about my Porsche, Dan explains. Not a bad problem to have! For the family man and business owner, it really is hard to beat what BMW offers.

Hold on-prior to deciding to flip the page assuming this is just another watered-down daily driver with a set of wheels tossed upon it, we beg you to stick around just to hear what’s tucked within the hood with this M machine. Powered with a sophisticated 4.0L V8 from the factory, this particular M3 pumps out a very stout 342 hp at the wheels without having to turn a wrench or flash a computer. With that kind of power on tap, you’d think Dan will be content. But as most of the dads on the market can attest, we’ll find any excuse we can to changea certain amount of extra oomph thanks to a VF Engineering VF620 supercharger kit. The latest models from BMW don’t like to be tinkered with, as German car buffs can attest. A straightforward intake or exhaust modification can leave you with a gauge cluster that lights up like a Christmas tree. Fortunately, VF Engineering has been in the overall game for a long time and contains developed a thorough bolt-on solution that maintains factory driveability while putting down some serious numbers. When combined with an Agency Power axle-back exhaust system, this M3 spun the rollers in triple-digit Arizona temps to the tune of 474 whp, a 132-whp gain over stock!

The Vivid Racing M3 may look very stock-ish towards the average Joe, but any enthusiast will notice the subtle upgrades performed to distinguish itself from other M3s. Dan turned into his friends at Vorsteiner for an injection of carbon fiber that features a carbon-fiber front lip spoiler, diffuser, and light-weight trunk. In addition to the Vorsteiner components, a slew of other subtle CF visual additions makes its way onto the car. Custom-painted mirror caps tie in nicely on the car’s theme, while a ’10 BMW LCI taillight conversion modernizes the rear end.

One thing that BMW has perfected may be the craft of designing a properly-executed interior. You won’t find bucket seats, racing harnesses, or gutted carpeting here-this really is a kiddie hauler after all! Honestly, there isn’t much you will need to address by having an interior as nice simply because this. Although, Dan did put in a custom Agency Power controls with-you guessed it-carbon-fiber trim. A CF emergency brake handle matches the steering wheelBMW has left very little on the table inside the handling department, but there’s always room for improvement, even if it’s minimal. Vivid utilized some Eibach lowering springs to bring the car’s height down just a touch, in addition to front and rear sway bars from the German tuning pros at H&R. KW Suspension coilovers are already sourced to take things one step further and will probably be set up on the car when you check this out.

The one thing most E92 and E90 M cars lack are definitely the brakes, that may tend to fade after track abuse or spirited driving. The folks at Brembo possess a worthy solution that utilizes 6-piston front and 4-piston rear calipers with large 380mm floating front rotors and 345mm rears.

No matter how far you plan to adopt a build, nothing has as profound an impact in the car’s visual presence as the right group of wheels. This M3 utilized to wear 20-inch Volk Racing G2 wheels before Dan chose to move to a set of 20×9-inch and 20×10-inch MHT Niche Geneva three-piece wheels for any completely different look. The centers in the wheels feature a unique brushed and clearcoated finish, even though the barrels display a rose gold hue that matches the brake calipers and other components under the hood. Meaty Toyo Proxes T1R rubber keeps things as civil as can be to get a daily driver.

If you find yourself in a point in life where a gutted coupe by using a mod list a mile long just isn’t going to cut it, you are able to still have your cake and eat it, too, dan and his team at Vivid Racing have proven that even. Dan is left with a four-door sedan that caters to his every need, whether it be carting the kids around or embarrassing some super cars, through taking an already luxurious and refined platform and choosing to concentrate on several key aspects.custom and fiber-painted engine components

Wheels, Tires & Brakes: MHT Niche Geneva three-piece wheels brushed and clear center with rose gold barrels 20×9 (f) 20×11 (r), Toyo T1S 255/30/20 (f) 285/30/20 (r), Brembo 6-piston (f) 4- piston (r) big brake kit with custom finish

2008 BMW m3 VF engineering VF620 supercharger kit

2008 BMW m3 agency power custom steering wheel with carbon fiber trim

2008 BMW m3 front tow hook

Suspension: Eibach lowering springs, H&R front and rear sway bars

Interior: Agency Power custom controls with carbon-fiber trim, Vorsteiner floor mats with blue piping, window tint, carbon-fiber emergency brake handle

Exterior: Vorsteiner front bumper carbon-fiber lip spoiler, carbon-fiber diffuser, single-sided carbon-fiber trunk; carbon-fiber roof shark fin, hood vents, side indicator covers, front kidney grilles; front tow hook, custom-painted mirror caps, ’10 BMW LCI taillight conversion.