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

Here is a nice set of renderings of the upcoming Audi RS7 that has been testing for some time now. It is likely the RS7 as well as the new RS6 will share the same specs. That means a hotter version of the 4.0 TFSI from the Audi S8 which is already putting out 528 horsepower and powering the Audi S8 to some very impressive acceleration times. How much hotter? Likely similar to the version found in the Bentley Continental GT which puts out 567 horses. ...

The Porsche Panamera platform is modular and the future Panamera chassis will be shared by many models in the VW Group portfolio. There is a good chance we will see a revival of a Porsche GT style coupe with a front engine V8 and two seats based on the Panamera. An independent artist took it upon himself to render what such a vehicle might look like. The Armenian artist calls the coupe a Porsche 929. ...

The E46 M3 in the video below is a very, very fast car capable of over 900 wheel horsepower. The vehicle belongs to BimmerBoost member Zooyorq and is by any stretch of the imagination a stupid fast car. The problem is it ran into an even more stupidly fast car. In the defense of the M3, the Gallardo gets a huge jump and the M3's power was dialed down a bit to the 700+ wheel range due to traction issues. ...

This thing looks flat out cool, like a G-Class from the future. Introducing the Mercedes Ener-G-Foce which is designed to look like a Patrol Vehicle from the year 2025. The styling cues are taken from the G-Class and modified very radically. Mercedes is entering this concept in the LA Auto Show design challenge and from the looks of it they have a very good chance of winning with such a progressive and forward thinking design. ...

This came about pretty quickly, BMW will display their concept for the F26 BMW X4 at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show in January. With Porsche set to launch the Macan SUV and Mercedes producing a GLA SUV the Luxury Sport Utility segment keeps getting tighter with manufacturers looking to squeeze into every niche possible. The X4 will likely mimic what the X6 does which is take an existing platform, in this case the X3, and change the styling a bit into what BMW calls a SAC (Sport Activity Coupe). ...

The entry level Porsche SUV designed to slot in below the Cayenne is coming as we know from all the spyphotos. The SUV will be based on the current Audi Q5 platform and likely have many drivetrain similarities with its Audi counterpart. This means a 2.0 turbo four-cylinder as an entry level motor with the same automatic transmission. Porsche will likely develop their own 3.6 V6 turbo based on the Panamera V6 for the high performance offering of the Macan likely offering over 350 horses. ...

When the Audi SQ5 was announced in June of this year it shocked a lot of the automotive world that the performance SUV was launched with a diesel powerplant instead of a gasoline version based on the 3.0 TFSI V6 motor also used in the B8 Audi S4. The diesel powerplant certainly offering formidable performance with 313 horses and 479 pound-feet of torque but Audi would not bring this car to the USA. Well, rejoice, as it seems another SQ5 is in the works this time with the gasoline 3.0 TFSI. ...

Hot on the heels of the SLS AMG Black Series Coupe which was just revealed officially last week is the announcement that the car will also come as a roadster. The idea of a track focused lightweight hardcore high-performance convertible is not anything new as Ferrari successfully did this Ferrari F430 Scuderia Spyder and Lamborghini as well with the LP 570-4 Perfomante. Now Mercedes is joining the mix with the SLS AMG Black Series Roadster. ...

Always fun to see these comparisons especially with how much stronger 28i models have gotten now thanks to the new N20 turbocharged 2.0 liter four-cylinder. Insideline decided to see just how big the difference between the N20 xDrive28i and the N55 xDrive35i are. The result is that even though the new N20 four cylinder is a considerable improvement over the N52 naturally aspirated 3.0 liter inline-6 but the N55 is still a much stronger motor. ...

You may be saying, wait a minute, didn't GIAC already have software available for the new S4's? And you would be correct. However, the 2013 models of the S4 and now the S5 utilize the Simos 8.51 ecu which required different programming than earlier models with the 3.0 TFSI supercharged V6 motor. This means ECU parts numbers that match 8K5907551C and 8K5907551E for the US Domestic Market can now be tuned. ...

It is not secret that the new 981 Cayman will make its debut at the LA Auto Show this month. As tends to happen these days, photos of the new car were leaked out before the debut. Unfortunately the photo quality is not very good with low resolution and fairly poor lighting but the pictures definitely show the general shape and layout of the car. These photos are not all that flattering however and still contain a little camouflage on the lights. ...

Well, this is a bit of a beatdown to put it mildly. A tuned E60 M5 should really put up a better fight especially from a roll but the E55 simply puts buslengths on it and quickly. A Stage 2 Eurocharged E55 consisting of a tune, 180mm crank pulley, Eurocharged long tube headers, heat exchanger, and upgraded intecooler pump. The E55 appears very strong for those mods and possible has an 82mm throttle body upgrade as well. The M5 features a Eurocharged Stage I tune and underdrive pulley. ...

Wow, simply wow. USP Motorsports just keeps raising the bar with this car. The car recently broke its own record running 9.48@160 in the 1/4 mile. Now we know how much power it was putting out for the record run with 932 horses to all four wheels. They managed to up this from a figure of 915 to all our wheels achieved previously. Keep in mind that this car is limited by restrictions imposed by the class it races in. ...

When the Gallardo and E60 M5 first came out this was always an interesting battle. Could a luxury sports sedan from BMW for about $100k less take on a dedicated sports car from Lamborghini? What was impressive about the M5 is that it had a similar high revving V10 engine with about 5.0 liters of displacement. Same style of motor that is right at home in a mid-engine Lamborghini sports car was essentially under the hood of a 5 Series BMW. ...

Congratulations to M3ntal for some very impressive results from his stock internal Porsche 996 Twin Turbo. Modifications consist of forge intercoolers, IPD Competition Plenum, custom E85 fuel system, FIC 1100cc injectors, Tial 44mm external wastegates, tial 50mm blow off valve, Hallman Pro boost controller, Sachs 764 PP clutch, and FP HTA 3071 .63 AR turbos. This combination was tuned by Roshan Patel (mafless tune). ...

Here are the new downpipes for the M157 Twin Turbo V8 from MBH Motorsports. MBH partnered with Evotech regarding a tune that compliments their downpipes on the motor. The result is large gains but the graph does not show the peak figure so some slight estimation is necessary. It would appear that with a tune the downpipes are claimed to offer a gain of almost 50 wheel horsepower on top of just a tuned M157 car. That at first impression seems to be somewhat high. ...

This is somewhat similar to what Audi did with the TT-RS. Build up hype and see if the public in the United States wants the car. The difference is that this is an RS wagon something which Audi has consistently said would not sell in the United States. We did not get the B5 RS4 and Audi did not announce it would bring the B8 RS4 to the United States. Well, they are at least open to the idea showing off the car and taking notice of the Facebook page Bring The Audi RS4 Avant to America. ...

Ok, this is quite simply just flat out cool. BMW Motorrad will honor their 90th Anniversary with a retro re-launch of sorts. The very first BMW motorcycle in 1923 was called the R 32. It featured an air-cooled, horizontally opposed (boxer) two-cylinder 4-stroke motor. The new version of the R 32 will feature a motor with the same specs but updated output/tuning. The bike and motor will obviously be updated with modern engineering and manufacturing processes when it is produced next year. ...

Last night I hit the dyno to see what the car can do with the new ported N54 cylinder head, RB turbos, 3.5bar TMAP sensor from the new BMW N20 four-cylinder motor, FBO (catless), pump 94 octane and meth, stock turbo inlet pipes. Key thing here, this is with a tune that sees ZERO timing corrections everywhere on all cylinders and timing that is set right at MBT for this level of boost and this car's given octane. I've run the car on the street with this exact setup this morning, number of pulls, it's pretty ridiculous. ...