Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Pagani Zonda R Official Commercial

The Zonda has set more than one record at the race track. It raised the bar for road supercars. Passion, ingenuity, knowledge and craftsmanship created the parts to form an effective and focused package. What more could you want?”

These are the enticing words appearing at the beginning of this beautifully-shot video clip. In the clip is the new supercar Pagani Zonda R. It does not move or even start up. This is something of a commercial trailer for the super track car which was commissioned to Supercarmovies.com by Pagani.

At some point during the clip they show some of the components that make up the R and then progress to other shots demonstrating these parts being screwed together by hand to form a complete package. When it’s done you can’t help but admire the polished finished product.

To get the technical spec of this supercar is powered by a 6.0-litre V12 engine with 552kW (750hp) and peak torque of 710Nm. It comes with a 6-speed sequential gearbox and slick tyres.
source:worldcarfans

Monday, March 30, 2009

What's wrong with this picture?


We thought we could just replace bearings on our shot hub. We thought wrong. Not only is the race pitted, but the hub shaft itself has been worn down a millimeter. Going to need a hub, rotors, pads, and I'm going to look carefully at the axle.

I'm having fun junk shopping. I keep finding stuff for my 89 street car though and not VRAM. The local online MR2 guys have been helping locate cars.

In other news I think we're now a team of three. The Marks have paid their fees but Brent has gone quiet.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Shot Hub

I had noticed a lot of play in the rear passenger wheel. Mark Jr and I pulled the brake off tonight and found a minor disaster: Bearing races shot and the brake pad worn at about a 10 degree angle. Andy and Paul had struggled to get this hub assembled solidly last year and I now question if it was already damaged and ever possible. I'm glad the wheel didn't fall of at Altamont, but anyway it shouldn't be too tough to repair. Paul let me check fit with an '85 hub assembly he had handy. The hub itself may fit but the housing does not mate to the suspension. Time for parts shopping.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Accepted to Reno!

We received our official acceptance notice today. WOO! Now we can start really getting excited.

A bummer is that we are no longer allowed to prefix our car number with zero, so we have to give up '04'. I managed to get '0' before anyone else which is cool because we'll be at the top of any list, like the Jalopnik Uber-gallery, that is sequential by number. I don't know though, we may still try to get in sequence with Joe.

Now we can get busy pouring money down the racing hole!

10 Weeks To Reno

We finally rallied and had a work day on the car with Brent and Mark jr. Besides spilling about seven beers, here's what we did:
  • Painted the roll-cage.
  • Filled/bled the cooling system.
  • Installed the original tail lights.
  • Discovered our brakes are mush.
  • Confirmed our rear passenger wheel is floppy.
The big break we had this week was securing a loaner transport trailer from a friend of Mark sr. That is a huge relief!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Lamborghini Insecta Concept

It’s a Lambo with extra bite! Meet the Lamborghini Insecta Concept, the brainchild of Romanian design student Iulian Bumbu. The Milan-based designer claims the car is a fusion of the Italian carmaker's current design language and the exoskeletons, or body armour, found on insects.

Insects to be the inspiration for future Lamborghini’s? That’s what one industrial design enthusiast was thinking about when he turned up this design study of what a future Lamborghini might look like. This supercar is still the concept car and is cleverly dubbed the Lamborghini Insecta and is structurally made of carbon fiber.Rumours said,this supercar, is to be powered by the same V10 powerplant that powers the Gallardo though we’re hoping it’ll feature more power, after all, insects are capable of some pretty amazing things.

And the two-seater mid-engined supercar certainly has a bug-like quality to it – with it’s tightly-wrapped carbon-fibre bodywork, wide-set eyes and winged scissor doors.Iulian Bumbu, the industrial design enthusiast of Romania explains in pure designer language, “The idea was to create an extreme race-oriented supercar with a style that introduces softer and more organic lines and integrate them into the geometrical style of Lamborghini.”Apparently the exoskeletons of insects gave Bumbu the idea for the external structure of the car. According to him, he tried ot to deviate too much from Lambo’s new design language but what will really be interesting is the response from Lamborghini Brand and Design Director, Manfred Fitzgerald.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

11 weeks to Reno

Thunderhill is already a faint memory, though only a couple months ago. Racing has been far from my mind and the enthusiasm needs to rekindle. Footage from the season opener in Texas and visiting Paul's garage has cleared my head a bit. I suppose the when faced with the burden organizing a team the work aspect can overshadow the fun aspect of racing. I know it will all be worth it again.

I'm working on getting the new team organized so we can prep for Reno. The biggest issues we need to tackle to V-RAM to the race at the end of May are:
  • Car transport.
  • Cooling system.
  • Rear passenger hub is floppy.
  • Install kill switch.
Other than that there is a long list of minor issues I'm confident we will resolve easily.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Audi TT RS


A supercar manufactured by Audi,the Audi TT RS is to be officially revealed at next month’s Geneva Motor Show but the power of the internet again prevails as we now have official shots and an audio clip of the TT RS.This supercar will be powered by a 2.5-liter five cylinder turbocharged powerplant. Officially Ingolstadt’s hottest ever TT model, it is also a tribute to the spirit of the original Quattro model of the 80’s.

The new addition to the RS line up is good for some very impressive numbers - 340hp and a max torque of 450Nm, 0-100 in under five seconds and an electronically limited top speed of 250km/h. All that power is channel to all four wheels - or Quattro all wheel drive system in Audi lingo - through a six speed manual gearbox.

On the outside, the TT RS gets a rather subtle treatment over the 272HP TT S model that includes slightly larger front air vents, a distinctive rear diffuser, a fixed boot spoiler and twin-spoke alloy wheels. Inside, there’s a leather multifunction sports steering wheel and sports seats in a combination of Alcantara and leather. Check out the gallery below, more details on this next week.