Blog
How will BREXIT affect my orders from Darkside?
As of 31st December 2020, the UK will be leaving the European Union, we would like to reassure all of our European customers that our ability to ship orders will not be affected.
In the simplest of terms, the only real change you will see is around taxes and duties. Instead of paying us the UK VAT @ 20%, we will sell the goods without VAT, then the taxes will be paid by yourself upon import at your local rate. If you are VAT registered in your country, you would then claim this back like any
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22 12 2020
Brands Hatch Indy - MSV SuperCup - 12th September
The next round of the SuperCup, took us all the way down South to Brands Hatch, on the short Indy Circuit.
With a busy schedule outside of racing, we were not able to do any testing before the race, which wouldn't have been much of a problem had we not being having the usual Golf nightmares!
The DSG box started causing issues on Wednesday night, sticking in gears. We figured it was a wiring or solenoid issue, both of which we had lost interest in trying to diagnose after countless hours tr
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16 09 2020
Silverstone GP - MSV SuperCup and Focus Cup - 15th-16th August
With only one week between our MSV Trackday Championship and EnduroKA success at Oulton Park (which you can read about here) and the next round of the SuperCup, we needed to get the car ready quickly, especially after we found a few niggles that we know would haunt us if we didn't get them sorted.
As the circuit is so big (and expensive to rent for over an hour), MSV decided to combine the SuperCup Grid with that of the TDC and Trackday Trophy. This meant we had a grid of over 50 cars, so i
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25 08 2020
Oulton Park - MSV Trackday Championship / EnduroKA - 8th August 2020
The first round of the MSV Trackday Championship was a proper stinker at Snetterton, with 2 DNFs in the Golf due to various issues (which you can read about here). Not to let this dampen our spirits, we came back to base and worked like crazy to iron out as many issues as possible before round 2 at Oulton Park in Cheshire, which comprised of a 45 minute Race in the Golf, then a 5 hour race in the EnduroKA. We did plan to also enter the Trackday Trophy in the Golf, but once bitten twice shy, we d
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13 08 2020
2.0 BiTDi Engines. What to know!
The idea of a 2.0 BiTDI Transporter or Amarok sounds great, and with quoted figures from the factory round the 180bhp mark, it sounds like the perfect platform to start with, right...? Whether you already own a vehicle with one of these engines or thinking of buying one, this blog is well worth a read.
Factory Figures
The first thing to note when it comes to these engines are the quoted power figures from factory. Since the first one we tuned to date, we have yet to see one of these
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23 07 2020
Snetterton 200 - MSV Trackday Championship / SuperCup / EnduroKA - 4th-5th July 2020
After the long wait for the start of the season due to the COVID-19 situation, the first round of the MSV Trackday Championship was at Snetterton, on the shorter 200 Circuit. On the same day we were doing the combined SuperCup and Trackday Trophy race, as well as a 12 hour race in the EnduroKA, we might have bitten off more than we can chew!
So an eventful first race weekend for us, and one we want to forget most of. A brief summary is below
VOSA decided to pick on us in the race van on the
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07 07 2020
How to tune your 3.0 TDI Amarok in 3 easy steps!
If you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, you may have already seen the series of videos we made on tuning the 3.0 V6 Amarok. If not, don't worry, this blog will cover all the bases!
Or, you can still watch the videos here:
From the beginning:
This project all came about after a customer contacted us regarding tuning his pre-ordered brand new 258bhp VW Amarok. His brief was simple. 400bhp and 60mph in ~4.5s!
Suprisingly VW made things easy when it comes to the engines fitted
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02 07 2020
SRS Automotive 2.0 TDI CR DSG 4Motion Caddy Race Van - Engine and Gearbox Build
Back in 2019 we collated all the build photos of Stef's SRS Automotive Caddy Van. You can view that by clicking the image below
The one thing is was missing was a proper engine! Stef suffered for a long time with only 240bhp, so we decided to give him the same Engine as our CitiGo which should give it a good kick up the rear!
Part 1 of the video is a walkaround of the van showing the attention to detail of the whole build, before we rip out the stock engine.
Part 2 s
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13 04 2020
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 st
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23 03 2020