German Car Blog, Performance, Tuning, Motorsport, and Modification News

Check it out, Arkym's full carbon bumper is here. The piece is beautiful and appears to be flawless. You have to look closely to see the weave as the 1 x 1 blends in quite well. The piece is set to debut officially at SEMA but these teaser photos were put up. We do not know the weight or the pricing yet but we will follow up after SEMA. Our main concern is, if this is all one piece, if you crack it, it would seem you are screwed and will need a whole new bumper. Check out the pics! ...

Congratulations to BB user MikeWads for raising the bar:

Went out this morning and made a 60-130mph run (Full weight/93 octane). I recently got the ESS DCT software installed and lowered the boost some (for the time being I'm running the 98mm pulley which is around 6psi). I run Borla's full race setup which is catless. My Flip video camera is strapped to the front of the car to give you guys a unique perspective. Enjoy! ...

Grand-AM and NASCAR have partnered to make a 12 race DTM championship series happen in 2013 in the United States. For us, this is big news as now we have another racing series other than ALMS to reflect cars that are much closer to their production counterparts. Where else can you see Audi, BMW, and Mercedes sports sedans all go head to head? The interesting part is NASCAR racers may get in on it driving some of the Euro hardware. Cool? We would say, very cool. ...

Here we have Simbol Design's Lavazza GTX-R supercar. The car seems to take design cues from everything and throw them together. We don't want to be harsh as the more options the merrier and utilizing a BMW V12 powerplant is very cool. However, the last car to use a BMW V12 set the bar, oh, at the very top of the supercar world. No word on pricing or availability so we would not be surprised if this was yet another pipe dream getting press to look for investors. ...

This video gives a quick overview of the M-power museum in Germany. There they have all the production M cars as well as the Motorsport vehicles. If you ever wondered what it would be like to visit, take a look at the video. ...

Modding comes in all forms and is not always power centric. We spend a ton of time arguing about engines, turbos, superchargers, and performance. BMW modification does not have to be centered around how much power you put down. Take this E28 for instance belonging to Mike Burrows. The car has been.... umm, transformed to put it mildly. Many people expressed praise for the previous iterations of the vehicle but is this newest version too much? We can tell you this much, it certainly is getting people talking and taking notice. ...

European Auto Source recently did an Eisenmann exhaust install on an X6, sharing the pictures and video of the sound:

Here at eas we see several BMWs everyday; most of them being M3s. On Friday, though, we got to see something different come in: a 2010 X6 35i. The owner wanted a more aggressive exhaust look so we recommended Eisenmann’s Performance Race Exhaust. The massive chrome tips nicely fill out the rear end of the X6 while freeing up some of the twin turbo N54 engine’s sound.

This exhaust looks just as good off the car as it does installed. Prior to installation we took some studio shots of this system to really show off it’s beauty. Check out the video to hear the exhaust note. ...

Do yourself a favor and take a look at these photos of BB member disruptv's E92 M3. There is not much to say other than this is great photorgraphy and he has a beautiful car. Enjoy the photos! ...

Are you saying "Huh?" Because we are. The Rossin-Bertin Vorax is a carbon fiber bodied, $400k, sports car set to be produced in Brazil. It features a 570 hp version of the S85 V10 in naturally aspirated form and supposedly a supercharged 750 hp version (this we have to see). It is supposed to debut Sau Paulo Auto Show this month. Like many of these announced cars, we don't this will ever amount to anything more than the renderings provided. Sourcing S85 motors is also going to be difficult as well. Hey, anything is possible with enough money, we wish them luck. ...

The video speaks for itself but we must say we were very surprised with this result. What happened to Quattro?

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Leaked photos of the RS3 gauge cluster as well as photos of the car testing on the Nurburgring have confirmed what many suspected, Audi is readying an RS3. We do not have any specs but the car will likely share the TT-RS drivetrain (2.5 liter 5 cylinder, around 350 hp) which makes the most sense. If that is true, the car is going to be the main rival for the 1 series M coupe. The other question becomes, will Audi even be able to get this car to the US? They did not bring the TT-RS over until it was deemed there was enough interest and the USA has yet to get the RS6 so who knows. We will keep you updated, but Audi clearly is aiming for BMW. ...

We rarely see ESS cars make it out to the strip so it was refreshing to see an E39 with the ESS SC out at MIR. Car is running a higher boost pulley than the standard setup, 92 mm, pushing about 8 pounds of boost. The car has exhaust along with 3.45 gears and has run a 60-130 of 10.83. We congratulate the owner for getting out there and to put these numbers in context, the car compares favorably with a bolt on E92 M3. ...

These videos are from a private track rental at MIR on 10/22/10. We want to congratulate Boris, BB user djborya, for his 9.5 second pass at 143 miles per hour in his turbo E30. There were several record setting AMG's in attendance as well tuned by BB Sponsor MHP. Enjoy the videos! ...

You may remember when we reported a couple months back that Wiesmann would no longer be able to use the S85 M5/M6 V10. Speculation at the time was that they would switch to the twin-turbo V8. Wiesmann confirmed that they indeed will be using these motors. The N63 twin turbo V8 with just over 400 horsepower will be used in the MF4 model. The S63 with 555 hp used in the X5 and X6 M will find its way into the MF5. The cars can already be ordered with the new motors and should be faster than the cars with the outgoing motors. Sadly, these vehicles are not available in the USA. ...

The E92 M3 dream mod is here. This is what we have truly been waiting for, the ultimate mod for the ultimate driving machine driven by the ultimate attention whore. Want something completely ostentatious that does not belong on an M3? Want something to get everyone around you to sarcastically say to themselves, "Wow, that guy is soooo cool"? Well, LSD-Doors has you covered. Gentlemen, do us a favor and only get this style of door when you can afford the Murcielago it comes with. If you desperately need these though, they will run you over $2k at 1749 euros. ...

We sort of lost two weeks with the project resolving a power supply/relay issue but with that comfortably behind us we are finally back on track and back to tuning. There are literally hundreds of lines of new code and many new algorithms so still much testing and tweaking to do. But very happy with the progress so far.

Here are are a few dyno runs and logs and a video from a tuning session yesterday. Mods are downpipes, IC, and DCI. Still the stock catback/cats and heavy OEM rims. Octane around 92 (had 10 miles showing on a previous 100 octane tank and filled to the brim with 91) and dyno conditions were ideal with temps in the 60s.

Some general notes in no particular order: ...

Is BMW Diesel tuning the next big thing? With Diesel's making up about half of all BMW sales, this sector is poised for great expansion. The sales figures are a bit misleading however as these are global BMW sales and not a reflection of the US market where gasoline still dominates. Part of the reason is that BMW does not sell their full Diesel lineup in the United States. If they did, the numbers would be even more in the favor of Diesel as Americans are becoming more and more open to the idea of oil burners. Just look at the numbers in the graph for the BMW third quarter numbers, almost 2/3 of sales are Diesel. ...

We never get tired of these reviews done by Former_Boosted_IS which simply set the standard in the BMW aftermarket community. In his words:

I have been a guy that has extensively focused on making my BMW quicker and faster. Power to weight ratio is the key to making your vehicle go fast. I have added horsepower where I could and I have tried to lighten the car when possible. Carbon fiber is a look I love and a theme that extends through many parts of my car. With the stock hood weighing about 40 lbs, I felt this was an area that I could shave some weight off while adding a nice aggressive touch to my car. The time had come to get a carbon fiber hood for my car. ...

This is the kind of thing that makes us happy. We like to see the different approaches people take to BMW performance from JDM swaps to electric swaps. Purists may not like it, but we love seeing the different things enthusiasts do with their BMW. What we have here is an E30 with a Netgain WarP11 HV series DC motor powered by a couple of Headway cells. The car supposedly runs the 1/4 in 12.1 and there is a vid of it smoking a Tesla to prove it. Did we mention VST Conversions is based out of Croatia? Impressive work our Croatian friends, impressive work indeed. Click "read more" to see more videos of this car in action. ...