Amish finds a bumper

Antony has been losing sleep over the rear end of his Beemer but some astute detective work led him to Japan where he uncovered this Schnitzer bumper. Outline Autobody stitched it together and sprayed it. New door mouldings keep the 540 looking tidy.

Andy adds Lamin-X

I was pretty ticked off when Krutch came to work with smoked LaminX on his car. I went to Autostyle where, after some creative thinking, opted for the eye infection yellow and some eye drops. The touring car look is king and even at night it’s a hell raiser. Now I need a little more for the fogs…please.

New wheels for Annie

A new set of Audi RS6 shoes for the R32 as well as a satin black spray job sets the precedent among the modified few. Outline Autobody managed the satin spray job while Hi-Tech sorted out the PCD change and matching black to the wheels. Toit!

DRL’s for Krutch

With Krutch’s turbo route firmly on the back burner, he had to find other ways to entertain his gothic Ford. After his LaminX success he made a quick return to Autostyle for some Day Time Running Lights. Wired up and ready to rock, he can walk and talk like an Audi.

Mark Jones aquires an upgrade

Mark sent his track toy to Savspeed for a meaty 300kW turbo conversion. His E36 Beemer is easy on the eyes, although the same cannot be said for this profile picture. Watch out for his build thesis in the coming issues of SNS on the CSL-killer.

Zak gets a manifold

Not happy to limit his advertisers to one sheet of A4 paper Zak’s latest conquest was the fitment of the turbo manifold to his uber-cool Volkswagen GTi-R made by Jannie Badenhorst. It’s a big help since Zak had a bigger turbo fitted not too long ago too.

Spyke goes nuts!

It’s been a crazy few months for me and the Mazda MX6.

It started out with a disappearing 3rd gear and a fading clutch. This was sorted out by Brian at Geardown Gearbox and Diff who sorted out the gearbox and fitted a new clutch. While he was at it the wheel bearings, tie-rod ends and ball joints were replaced. It was great having 3rd gear again.

All was good until a trip from Tarlton ended in an almighty bang which was followed by a deafening silence. The cam belt had snapped. General consensus is that at least 12 valves bent, 6 pistons got damaged and both heads got hurt.

In the end it was cheaper to fit another motor than to fix the cam belt issue. So not being one to pass up an opportunity, I elected to fit an import motor and upgrade at the same time.

Shaid from Japan Auto hooked me up with a KL-ZE motor, the 200hp version of the MX6’s 2.5 V6 (as opposed to the 165hp KL-DE that local MX6’s are fitted with). This was fitted for me by Frans at TDM Performance out in Springs. It only took two days to complete the swap, (check out my up coming Spyke’s Point to read more) and I was back on the road. She’s strong like a bull and I just need to get her on the dyno to see what I’ve gained. Unfortunately, my drama didn’t end there.

A power steering hose ruptured and resulted in the Mazda needing to go in again. On top of that, one of my STR wheels that have served me so well decided that it’s taken enough road construction abuse and cracked. This led me to Autoquip in Fourways where they fitted a spanking new set of A-Line GTs. It’s a radical departure from all silver I was used to.

Big up to Shaid (Japan Auto), Frans (TDM Performance), Gene (Autoquip Fourways), Ryan and my Dad for all the help!

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.

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.”