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A different start to the day for the A5 project. As our Dyno Dynamics 2WD system is not capable of running the Torsen Quattro, Ryan, James, Paul and Danny set off to meet up with our friend John Sleath - http://www.john-sleath.com/ - in Doncaster. We used John's dyno many times when Darkside Developments first started and the now infamous Jetta's 300bhp graph was produced there. John saw the development of that project from start to finish and was always impressed with the figures and reli …

Prevention is cheaper than the cure... Although not massively common on these engines, we have seen many swirl flaps get ingested by the engines causing dire consequences. We discussed them at length in our previous blog post Killer Swirl Flaps As we will be pushing this 3.0 TDI engine pretty hard, we thought it would be a good idea to remove the flaps to prevent any possible problems in the future. To makes things even easier we have put together a full kit (listed below) and annotated this …

Part 6 and its time to install the Meth! This week we fitted the Snow Performance Water Injection kit in hope we can squeeze a few more ponies from our 3.0 TDI project when we come to put it on the dyno!We will be fitting the Snow Performance Stage 1 Kit with a 375ml Nozzle. We also discuss the Particulate Soot Trap fitted to aid measuring of Exhaust Manifold Pressure (EMP) during tuning. Snow Performance Stage 1 Water Injection KitSnow Performance Solenoid Upgrade HYPER-SONIC™ Nozzl …

Part 5 of our A5 BuildWe are now on to the Exhaust System. This is a common modification our customers do, both from a performance, aesthetic and acoustic perspective.A quick look at the stock exhaust, it is 65mm (~2.5") to 55mm (~2.15") and has 2 small boxes right at the back, but is still pretty quiet as the DPF is also a large silencer. It also has twin 3" Rolled Slash Cut Tips as standard. The standard grade of stainless is very poor and we see a lot of cars with rusty ex …

On to Part 4 of our 3.0 TDI Quattro Audi A5 project car vlog.In this vlog we perform our own custom remap on car as well as testing the before and after 0-60mph times on the Racelogic Performance Box to see what difference this makes in the real world, as opposed to the pub bhp figures that can be produced by a dyno. Its a must have item for any enthusiast that wants to varify the upgrades they are doing are worth the outlay. They can also be used as a driver training tool with a little dat …

Part 2 of our 3.0 TDI Audi A5 project car vlog. Hopefully the sound is a little better the last video but we still didn't have our external mic during recording, so apologies for the poor quality! This time we talk about what modifications we will be performing to the chassis and brakes before upgrading the power. A lot of people overlook this, even on everyday road cars that are not destined for the track. We always recommend that you make sure the Brakes and Suspensio …

This is our first vlog so be nice... So as a tuning company that spends a lot of time and resources on Research and Development, there are situations where we need to purchase a perfectly good vehicle to then rip it to pieces. We were in that situation. The team were brainstorming ideas for the next vehicle, and came up with a few 'must haves': 3.0 TDI Common Rail Engine - We have already pushed the boundaries massively of the 2.0 Common Rail with our Arosa and CitiGo Pro …

After a number of years helping Jerome build his pride and joy Seat Ibiza into a tyre shredding driveshaft twisting Drag car, the time had come for him to let it go and move on to his next venture. We discussed idea's around selling the car but quickly realised that giving the car away in a competition would be much more fun, Our agreement with Jerome was to get the best possible price to cover all his expenses for his final 2 races and then buy him another daily driving Ibiza with the r …

What are Swirl Flaps? Swirl flaps are small butterfly valves fitted to the intake manifold just before the cylinder head inlet ports of many modern automotive engines, that unfortunately includes a lot of VAG and BMW Diesel Engines too. What do they do? The Swirl Flap position is adjusted by an electrical or vacuum-actuated servo mechanism, controlled by the ECU. In a typical implementation the flaps will be closed at idle speed, creating additional turbulence in the intake. As engine …