Richard Jordaan hits the Number 2 ranking

The battle for the quickest four cylinder title has once again changed hands. As we all know, 2008 has seen a titanic battle between Nasen Padayachee in the front wheel drive Nascar Opel and the rear wheel driven Nissan Champ of Richard Jordaan, both chasing Louis Lima’s five year old 4-cylinder record of a 8,6 seconds. At the last Sport Compact, Nasen stormed to a record storming 8,74 seconds, a world class achievement for a front wheel drive Unibody vehicle, which placed him firmly behind Louis’ time. Yesterday though, things changed once again.

During Wednesday’s National Drag meeting, Richard Jordaan blazed through with a time of 8,72km/h. He ran an 8.76, an 8,75 and two 8,72s, a highly consistent performance. The scene is now set for the final instalment of Sport Compact where the two will finally clash and perhaps topple Louis Lima’s old record. The question on everyone’s lips will be: Will Nasen spring a surprise on the Jordaans and beat them to it?

Emotion breaks another record

He’s done it again! Marius Lloyd, the diminuitive owner and racer of the bright orange Emotion van, cemented his position as Africa’s quickest 4-cylinder normally aspirated vehicle by posting a 10.98 second run at the
Nationals practice day at Tarlton Raceway on Sunday morning. The scariest part is that he ran a 10.97 the Thursday night prior without the use of trackbite.  ”As soon as I can sort out by trans brake problems, the car should be launching even quicker. I’ll be saving it for the next Sport Compact on the 9th of November.”

35 000 unlicensed drivers caught in six months

More than 35 000 people were caught driving in Cape Town without valid driving licences in the first six months of 2008 – and more than 19 000 unlicensed cars were pulled over. According to the Metro Police’s quarterly report, Cape Town’s traffic department dealt with 19 234 unlicensed drivers and just under 11 000 unlicensed vehicles in April, May and June, 2008.
Traffic spokesperson Merle Lourens said the high number of unlicensed drivers could be because of the testing backlog. It could also be caused by motorists who did not want to get a valid driver’s licence.

Bonneville record-chaser dies at 385km/h

A rider chasing a world record for the fastest two-stroke, two-cylinder motorcycle has died after crashing at 385km/h on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. The American Motorcyclist Association said 49-year-old Cliff Gullett of the Team Bullett Costella-Gullett Racing tem was competing in the 500cc Streamline class.
Gullett owned Team Bozeman Motorsports, a motorcycle and snowmobile dealership, in Montana. He had set a few world land-speed records, according to news reports, and wanted to become the first to reach 640km/h on a two-wheeled Streamliner.He leaves a wife, Leanne, and two children. - Sapa-AFP, motoring.co.za

Why Satish’s car is so fast and reliable!

Well besides the wicked red floor (so coloured to be able to spot recent oil drippings in record time), Satish has some top class mechanics on his home team. Here Daredevil Darryl jacks the Opel up to check for leaks.

While Darryl inspects the Opel lump for any loose bits, the Bat (Satish’s left hand man!) gets down and dirty ready to replace that common failure on a T-car – the sump gasket.

With the new red sump gasket drying, the Bat starts to carry out his patented oil filter lubrication technique (The real pics are PG35!).

For the second time in the hour, Darryl tops the turbo lump up with a 5-litre of the best (a can of the best is too small!).

This is actually a restricted pic, but we thought you should see it. Even Satish doesn’t know about this. You see, the Bat and his sidekick have actually installed 12 of these mini nitrous systems throughout the Opel’s bodywork, and then activate automatically when the oil level drops (so that’s about every hour). Here Darryl is about to hide a cylinder…

The Bat’s secret weapon is revealed here. Clutch fluid! The simple addition of 12 bottles of this stuff to the radiator makes the T-Car run super cool. Lower temperatures mean faster oil leaks, in turn, the nitrous activates sooner!

With the Opel prepped and full of oil it’s time for Satish’s genius mechanics to test their handy work… Don’t look so nervous Darryl!

An hour in, the oil level has dropped and the hidden nitrous comes into play. See how amazing it is? It even adds in that awesome Vin Diesel tunnel vision blurry background effect. Oh, and the screams are real!

Well, with the car tuned to perfection, and the new gaskets being in place for a few hours, all that’s left is for the Bat to seek and eradicate the new oil leaks on the red floor. See, I told you the red was handy. When he’s done, the final step to making the ten-second Opel run is to wring the mop out into the oil intake on the tappet cover.

There you have it, the REAL reason Satish’s Opel is so damn fast. Don’t tell him we told you his secrets though – please!!!

Spyke installs some audio equipment

What can I say, my car audio influence is slowly starting to rub off onto the guys on the speed side. Krutch has already installed a woofer system and so has Chad, however this month Chad decided to take it one step further by installing an Audio Visual system into his pride and joy. The system consists of a 7-inch Fire Audio roof mount screen with an Evo DVD player and is virtually plug and play. The full install took us less then half a day, and has brightened Chads life in more than one way.

Zaks little upgrade…

What can be expected from the employees of a performance motoring magazine other than that they are performance junkies themselves? Well Zak, our resident advertising sales whizz is crazy about performance cars and decided that his Mk4 GTiR was in desperate need of some more grunt. With this in mind he paid a visit to Ivan at Mr. Turbo to discuss his options. They decided not to go too big and went with a T28 upgrade for the pure reason that it would give a nice increase in power and the stock management system would still remain in place. The job took three days and the outcome was awesome! Read issue 20 of VDUB for the full story.

Insane 155

What’s an Alfa 155 doing at a midweek track day? I joined Domingos and his “mad-maxed” Alfa at Zwartkops Raceway to find out that very answer. With its widened body and aero package it looks ultra menacing and it doesn’t take long to realise there’s more to the car than meets the eye. It’s rear-wheel drive and has a mid-mounted 3000cc V6 over the rear rubber. To add to the carnage he has added twin turbochargers making the package push out nearly 300kW. It’s a masterpiece and a nightmare combined, a project made possible by the biggest Alfa brains on our shores.

Author - Andrew Leopold

Hot Hatches - the originals.

With the cult car section becoming rather popular in the magazine, we actually started getting requests from readers about certain cars they want to see. We already showed you the daddy of hot hatches, the GSi 16v S, or Superboss to the common folk. Well we roped the owner back and added in an original Mk2 GTi 1.8 16v and a Toyota Conquest RSi from 1988, also known as the “flat back” or “chisel shape” RSi. So keep an eye out for the feature if you remember these old bangers, it’ll certainly drum up some memories.

Author - Krutch

Annie gets her plates

“After having RG Motorsport treat my M5 to one of their stage one
conversions, which entailed replacing the lumpy decats with a free-flowing
performance exhaust system, twin BMC CDA systems with ports and a Dastek management system, I thought of getting some personalised plates to suit the new tone of the eight cylinder, and perhaps it’s driver. I think I came up with the perfect title.”

Next Page »