Specified on paper, before anything is ordered
A build is one decision made once, not a series of parts bought in the order they came up in conversation. Turbo, fuelling, cooling, clutch and chassis are chosen together — and what the car will run out of is agreed before it is built, not discovered afterwards.
The Tuesday-night hatch
2.0 turbo, front drive, manualA daily car that spends six or seven evenings a year on a circuit and has to drive home afterwards without smelling of brakes.
It came in on a map from somewhere else, making good peak power and running out of brakes and inlet temperature by the third lap. The peak was not the problem — everything either side of it was.
We took the map back to a baseline, fitted a properly cold induction and a bigger front-mount, then rewrote the calibration around charge temperature instead of around the number at the top. Peak went up by less than the previous map claimed. Lap after lap, it is a different car.
Pads, fluid and a two-piece disc went on at the same time, and the geometry was set with a little more front camber than a road car wants. The owner still drives it to work.
The clutch, and the front tyres on the fifth lap. Both by design — it is a road car that goes to track days, not the other way round.
- Fuel
- 99 RON
- Gearbox
- 6-speed manual
- Clutch
- Uprated, 500 Nm
- Sessions
- 2 on the rollers
- Sports catalyst downpipe and cat-back
- Sealed induction with a cold feed
- Uprated front-mount intercooler
- Two-piece discs, track pads, braided lines
- Coilovers, corner-weighted and set up
The quiet estate
3.0 turbo six, all-wheel drive, automaticLong motorway miles with a dog in the back, and enough in reserve that overtaking is a decision rather than a plan.
Nothing on this car is visible. The owner wanted it to sound exactly as it did when it left the showroom and to pull like something twice its price between 40 and 90.
That is a torque job, not a power job. The map was written for the middle of the range with the top left almost alone, and the gearbox was recalibrated so it stops changing down for something it no longer needs to change down for.
It went out with a resonated exhaust section that is quieter at a cruise than the standard one. The only thing that gives it away is the graph.
The standard turbo, which is exactly where the owner wanted it left. There is another 60 in it with a hybrid, and no reason to spend it.
- Fuel
- 98 RON
- Gearbox
- 8-speed auto
- Exhaust
- Standard, resonated
- Sessions
- 1 on the rollers
- Stage 1 calibration, standard hardware
- Gearbox calibration — clamp pressure and shift map
- Resonated centre section
- Fluids and plugs, because it was due
The long project
2.0 turbo, all-wheel drive, twin clutchA car built over a winter to make a genuine 450 at the flywheel and still start on a cold morning and idle in traffic.
This one was specified on paper before anything was ordered. Turbo, fuelling, cooling and clutch were chosen together, because picking the turbo first and then finding out what it needs is how a build ends up costing twice.
Port injection went on alongside the direct system, which is what let the calibration hold a sensible air/fuel ratio at the top without leaning on the standard pump past its limit. The clutch pack and the gearbox software were done at the same time — the torque had nowhere to go otherwise.
Three sessions on the rollers, a running-in period, then a recheck. It idles, it does the school run, and it is quicker than the owner is.
Traction below third, and the driveshafts if it is launched often enough. Both were known before it was built and both are on the list for next winter.
- Fuel
- 99 RON / E85
- Gearbox
- 7-speed twin clutch
- Cooling
- Chargecooler + oil
- Sessions
- 3 on the rollers
- Hybrid turbocharger and manifold
- Port injection with the standard direct system retained
- Uprated low-pressure fuel pump and lines
- Chargecooler, oil cooler and uprated radiator
- Clutch pack and twin-clutch gearbox calibration
A build starts with a conversation, not a parts list
Tell us the car, the budget and what you actually want to do with it. You will get back a plan in the order the work should happen, with the figure it should make at each stage and the point at which spending more stops being worth it.
Figures are from cars we have run, and they are typical rather than promised. Yours is measured before anything is changed and again afterwards, and the two graphs are what you leave with.