Blog
COVID-19 - How will the Corona Virus affect my Darkside Orders?
Update 02/11/2020
On the 31st October, it was announced that the UK will go back into lockdown from Thursday 5th November until Wednesday 2nd December.
As an essential service, we will be remaining open throughout this period, and as the new rules state that you can travel for 'visiting venues that are open', we are not expecting any issues for customers travelling to us for work on their vehicles. Hotels should be remaining open, but we will need further clarification on that.
We will still b
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23 03 2020
BREXIT - What will it mean for my Darkside Order
The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum, or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country should remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). 51.9% of the votes cast were in favour of leaving the EU.
Since then, there has been an extreme amount of chaos and confusion both in the UK, and the rest of the world about what that will mean for
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30 01 2020
Tuning the 4.0 V8 TDI
There is a phenomenon in the tuning world which we often refer to as the percent tuners. That is, tuners and suppliers that churn out files where a few percent is added here and there. This can obviously result in an increase in power (boost + fuel = horsepower), but such methods beg the question of just what is left on the table when all is said and done?
For that we’re focusing on an Audi SQ7 that recently graced our dyno. At some point it had received a rather generic remap, which did o
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11 01 2020
MSV End of Season Event - Trackday Trophy and SuperCup - Brands Hatch Indy - 16th November 2019
With the MSV Trackday Championship over with, we could have some fun. If you haven't read about the TDC Championship, click below:.
As the season finale, held at Brands Hatch in Kent, hosted the SuperCup and Trackday Trophy races on the same day as the TDC, we thought it would be pretty cool to do all 3 races. The timetable is below, with back to back qualifying sessions for all 3 races, then only a gap of around 1hr between the TDC and SuperCup Race, the team needed to be on point!
We c
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26 11 2019
Brands Hatch Indy - 16th November 2019 - Round 7 - MSV Trackday Championship
With 6 rounds of the MSV Trackday Championship down, after some great battles over in Holland at the fantastic Zandvoort Circuit back in October (which you can read about it here), we were going into the final round in a great position, with a lead of 12 points (9 with my dropped score).
The season finale, Round 7, is always held at Brands Hatch in Kent. This and the season opener at Donington Park are the only dates where the SuperCup and Trackday Trophy races are also on the same day. It wo
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20 11 2019
750MC Birket Relay - Silverstone GP - 26th October 2019
Something a little different to what we normally do race wise, we decided early on in the year to enter the 750 Motor Club Birkett 6 Hour Relay Race which takes place every year at the end of October on the Silverstone GP Circuit.Instead of a straight race or normal endurance format, the relay element is for the driver AND car. Basically, a car and driver goes out, does their stint (which can be anything from 1 lap up to 3hrs of driving), and when they come back in the pits, a second car and d
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01 11 2019
Zandvoort - 6th October 2019 - Round 5 - MSV SuperCup
While we were in Zandvoort for the MSV Trackday Championship we figured it would be cost effective to do 2 races in the weekend, since we were already here and set up, and we would not be getting the ferry until Monday evening. The race on Sunday was the MSV SuperCup which has very similar rules to the TDC, but free tyre choice and more aerodynamic mods are allowed. All we had to do in the Ibiza was take 10Kg of Ballast out (Forced induction requires only 20Kg in the SuperCup). You can read abou
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11 10 2019
Zandvoort - 5th October 2019 - Round 6 - MSV Trackday Championship
Round 5 of the MSV Trackday Championship was back at our favourite track, Donington. You can read about it here.
This time, Round 6 was the international round, at the newly announced F1 2020 Circuit Zandvoort. Right on the beach in North Holland, the circuit hosted the F1 from the 1950s all the way up to 1985, so there are parts of the track that are nowhere near the safety level of the modern GP Circuits!
The most straightforward route for us was to drive from Darkside HQ to Hull, which tak
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09 10 2019
Donington GP - 21st September 2019 - Round 5 - MSV Trackday Championship
Round 4 of the MSV Trackday Championship took us back to Brands Hatch on the excellent GP Layout. You can read about it here.
Round 5 was supposed to be on the GP Layout at Donington, but due to an issue with the number of marshals, the event was switched back to the usual National configuration, one we were victorious at in the first race of the season.
The layout is below:
So with the last minute change from the GP to National layout, our testing on the Monday before was thrown out of the
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23 09 2019