As you can see with the hood removed, the stroked LS3 breathes through a large carbon fiber intake scoop, which at speed can generate quite a big ram air effect.
No matter which angle you look at the car from, there’s so much attention to detail.
The Brill Steel carbon Silvia runs some locally made racing wheels created by a small motorsports wheel company called NTM. These Racing PISTA measure 10.5×18″ at the front and a massive 12.5×18″ at the rear where the rim has been reversed to get the correct offset. Enrico has sourced some Yokohama Advan Neova AD08s, 255/35R18 for the front and the same 295/30R18 I run on my car for the rear. Now that’s a hell of a lot of rubber!
Behind the wheels Enrico has taken a little inspiration out of Daigo Saito’s book, running a Wilwood braking set-up with 11-inch scalloped rotors all round. The rear runs a twin four-pot caliper set-up, one pair used solely for the e-brake to make initiations as easy as a flick of the big WRC-lever inside the car. If the car is to participate in time attack events the braking will have to be upgraded to a larger and more grip-oriented system.
Matching the evil red headlights are some pretty cool custom LED taillights, all meticulously soldered by hand tracing the edges of the S15 taillight housings. On such a mean-looking car, the Brill Steel guys certainly couldn’t have chosen a better way to finish off this particular area.
With so much attention to detail having gone into this project, not to mention the astonishing numbers that it boasts, this is one car we would love to see shredding tires around Rudskogen with that big V8 bouncing off the limiter. With 945hp per ton, it would certainly fit in to the Scandinavian way of doing things…
Tank Moto issue 2 recently hit the shelves (and promptly sold out!) and one of my favourite stories from the issue was the one about my visit to Champion Motorcycles workshop in Abbotsford, Melbourne. Champion owner Jim Clark has been customising ex-Australia Post Honda CT110's for several years now under his Post Modern Motorcycles brand and I finally got the chance to meet the man behind the bikes that make grin from ear to ear. Here's an excerpt from the feature...
Back in the early nineties Jim was customising Yamaha SR’s and British bikes under the influence of the Japanese custom scene. After a friend suggested he try Postie Bikes as a platform Jim started sketching a few ideas. He stripped away the stock seat, added some fat rubber and was happy with the result. Soon afterwards he purchased his first Postie and it was transformed into the ‘Blackmail’. When Jim started showing people the bike the feedback was unanimously positive and Post Modern Motorcycles was born.
All of the Post Modern builds are ex-Australian Postal Service vehicles. These versions of the CT110 were designed and built especially for Auspost by Honda and feature a series of special modifications to cope with the day-to-day wear and tear of postal delivery. Postie Bikes feature a heavy duty gearbox, rock solid heavy duty gauge rims, 3 stands (center, left and right) so they can be quickly parked on any surface and a locking front brake. Starting with this platform Jim performs a set of standard upgrades to all of the bikes he builds. The engines are rebuilt by removing the side cases, barrel and head. Jim then replaces the piston, ring, cam chain, seals and gaskets and the heads are blasted clean. The barrel is also given a thorough clean before being resprayed in engine black and pieced back together. While there’s no huge power improvements to be easily gained from the CT110’s engine, Jim unlocks a smidge more grunt by dropping around 5 to 10 kilos of excess weight and by opening up it’s airways. He starts by pulling out the stock air box and fitting a K&N filter to the carb. The exhaust is debaffled or completely replaced with a hi-flowing system and the carb gets a new set of jets. With modifications like these a Post Modern Motorcycle will haul along at around 90-100kmh at full tilt.
The black bike is Jim’s most recent build. The customer wanted another Blackmail so it’s almost a carbon copy of the original. After the tear down it was treated to a full respray in gloss black. The stock seat was replaced with a Nitro Heads unit and the bars swapped for Café Racer style, low hanging Clubmans. The red bike (“Pinko Bastard”) is Jim’s personal ride, which he refers to as a kind of Street Tracker. He prefers a more comfortable upright riding position so this bike has a wider set of handlebars, giving it the look and handling characteristics of a BMX. The rear end has been made rigid by swapping out the springs for solid struts, lowering it by around an inch and tucking the rear wheel up into the fender. Jim says the bike will easily get air over speed humps but recommends standing up on the pegs before landing. Post Modern builds also regularly feature a mix of custom components from Japanese parts manufacturer Easy Riders, for which Jim is the Australian distributor. Individual design/style changes come in the form of custom paint and decals, the occasional fuel tank add-on and Brooks leather saddlebags, grips and mudflaps to compliment the 40’s/50’s aesthetic of his builds.
Honda first released the CT110 in 1980. Powered by a 105cc, 4 stroke, air cooled engine it was the predecessor to the CT90 and offered commuters exceptional economy and reliability. Like the CT90 the CT110 had an automatic centrifugal clutch for ease of operation and a robust, steel pressed frame. Certain models also featured a “dual range subtransmission” that could be activated by flicking a switch under the transmission. With the subtransmission engaged the CT110 could tackle the steepest of slopes under full load, despite it’s low powered engine...
If you want to grab yourself a copy of issue 2 to see the rest of this story you will need to be quick. It's now only available through a handful of distributors including our friends at 100MPH.
The next installment of the Gran Turismo series is just one month away from release. Ahead of the launch, here is a mouth watering trailer of what we can expect.
The driving simulation of the game is about as close as you'll get on our home game consoles and each release of the series brings added excitement.
There will be a total of nearly 1200 different cars to choose from including 124 newcomers.
The Barracuda is one of the most advanced off-road racing vehicles in the world, the fact that you can build one from either a kit, or from plans also makes it one of the most affordable.
Each Barracuda has a tubular steel chassis with rack and pinion steering, a liquid cooled motorcycle engine, independent front and rear suspension, front and rear disc brakes, a top speed of 120mph (depending on gearing) and a 0-60mph time of 4.5 seconds (on dirt).
Most people who build this buggy choose a 600cc to 1400cc superbike engine with the Suzuki Hayabusa engine being the most popular choice. The original transmission is kept and the chain drive runs directly to the rear wheel drive assembly, the completed Barracuda weighs in at ~380kgs so as you can imagine, the off-road performance is a little on the brisk side.
If you want to build a Barracuda in your garage you have a few options, you can buy the kit here from Edge, you can buy the plans here, or you can grabs the plans, build the parts you want and then individually order the parts you don’t want to make in the garage.
It’s possible to build a Barracuda for ~$7,500 USD depending on the options you choose while building, sourcing a suitable engine isn’t as difficult as you might expect – a large number of high-performance bikes are wrecked every year by riders who slightly overestimated their ability, so grabbing a crashed crotch-rocket and pulling out the engine/transmission can be a cheap way to get your hands on 140hp.
If you’d like to see a Barracuda in action, hit play on the video below, or you can visit Edge here.