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In 1999, Volkswagen introduced what would become one of the most well known engine designs of modern times - the Pumpe Duse (PD) diesel engine. In a departure from many of its rivals, the PD used unit injectors rather than a common rail system, despite most manufacturers thinking that common rail was the better design. Volkswagen proved them wrong for many years, with these strong, reliable, powerful and economical engines being a huge part of what made diesel cars popular. Their 2000 BAR pea …

After Round 3 and the MSV Extra Race at Silverstone back in June, we missed Round 4 at Oulton Park due to a clash of calendars (with the Goodwood Festival of Speed - a must for any petrol or diesel head!), which meant our next race was Round 5 at the fast and flowing Brands Hatch GP Circuit. The format was changed slightly for this race from the norm, with Classes S and A being mixed in with our Class B and the C & Ds due to the increased circuit limit and packed schedule. More inf …

High Pressure Common Rail fuel systems are the key piece of technology at the heart of modern diesel engines. The advances in this area over the last 20 years have taken diesel cars from being slow, dirty and noisy to clean, torquey and powerful, with much wider rev ranges and powerbands. While Volkswagen bucked the trend for a number of years with the ubiquitous PD engines, since about 2010, VW joined the rest of the automotive industry and made the switch to Common Rail for all of its diese …

Before Reading this, please take a look at our ‘Dynos - What to know’ Blog - HERE Many people think a dyno is a tool for measuring peak power and little else - while this is the figure over which many pub conversations are won or lost, the peak power itself is the least important and least relevant part of the graph. This article should help you understand more about dyno testing, what you can tell from a graph, and crucially, what a graph doesn’t tell you. To the trained eye, a d …

A month after Inters we were at Donington for VAG Tuner Live 2018. The only real changes, aside from a working braking system, were the Aero mods. We didn’t think we had tested the chassis enough to start pushing the Engine any further. Despite only having ~230bhp, the van performed brilliantly. The chassis feels great and will easily take another 100+bhp. The Craner Curves were an easy flat all the way from Redgate, through Hollywood down the Old Hairpin The only thing we found to …

On the same weekend as Round 3 of the MSV Trackday Championship (which you can read about here) a special event was scheduled for the Sunday Afternoon. It was a race, combining all entrants from the MSV Trackday Championship that we are in, with all classes mixed together, as well as Class B, C and D from the MSV Trackday Trophy - http://www.trackdaytrophy.co.uk/ More info about the TDC can be found on their website - http://www.trackdaychampionship.com/about-tdc/ Our Ibiza is in C …

After an eventful first time racing in the Ibiza at Donington 15th April 2018, which you can read about here, we missed the 2nd round of the MSV Trackday Championship at Snetterton so we could improve the car as planned, and rejoined the action at Silverstone. More info about the TDC can be found on their website - http://www.trackdaychampionship.com/about-tdc/ Our Ibiza is in Class B. The regulations for the series are reasonably relaxed, so that most cars that have already been …

Intro Dynamometers are a tool at the heart of the tuning and automotive industry. Being able to measure the power an engine produces is the only way to get a good indication of how much difference your new turbo, injectors or remap has really made. The power figures and graphs produced are the source of much speculation, competition and controversy in the industry. This is made worse by a general culture of misunderstanding by the public, which can be taken advantage of by those in the …

Once the Chassis was done, we moved on to the interior, and got all the cage painted! With the cage painted and all dry, on to the fiddly and time consuming interior refit! I wanted to fit as much as possible with it being my daily driver, so we cut some Touran door cards around the cage and flocked the top to match the dash. I also fitted a rear view camera on an ignition live to use as a rear view mirror. Andy Forrest does this on his Time Attack Subaru so thou …