Highland Performance Rolling Road Tuning

A few tips on porting a head for power. How much can be ground out of a cylinder head (and where) to improve flow? Well chop up a scrap head to find out! The manifolds can be "port matched", valves can be modified for better flow and then dowel (locating pins) them to the head to ensure perfect alignment. This one is a Black Top 2.0L Zetec Ford that has just been completed.

Michael Sutherland's 1100cc Mk1 fiesta has had a few upgrades since the June Caithness Car Club Sprint. Its now sporting a Ford 1660cc crossflow engine on twin Weber's. 26 power runs later and more jet changes than NASA, it was sounding the buisiness. Mark Morrison, it took me back a few years as it sounded exactly the same as your old Mk1 XR2:-). Good to see such a clean classic, so keep it on the black stuff!

Verrry busy weekend. Yes, got the gearbox machined, built and mounted. Then finally the engine could go in. Thanks Walter Hossack for helping out with the final awkward gear selector lining up when putting the case back on. All those years blowing up Renault 5 & 9 gearboxes did do some good then LOL. Lots if shiny bits in now, but the hard work is still far from finished on the race Renault Clio 172 build.

Today's job stripping down a gearbox, ah the joys! Renault gearbox strengthening. Here are all the stages of how to do it. Ian Mackay (Coe) this is what you need to do to your gearbox to handle the new power your Clio Williams has. Main tip here is always use loctite on bolts that don't have split washers or nylock nuts.

No cylinder head milling today, but a Clio/Megane gearbox needing a bit of work.

OK I need another leaderboard, this time for Motorbikes. John Munro took his newly painted Suzuki Hayabusa along as its been 11k miles since it was new and its Power Commander 5 was mapped. As its run in now, there should be a hike in the power. Originally mapped by HMD Tuning it was 185 bhp at the rear wheel, now it pulls 197 bhp at the rear wheel (220 bhp flywheel), so surely I could pull the wheel horsepower up to 200? The answer was no! I see so many rubbish maps on cars and bikes that I can sort out for better fuelling and more power, so credit to HMD for doing the job right in the first place:-)

All the Gremlins of a new build now ironed out and Greg Mathieson finally made it on to the rollers. 6hrs later the bike throttle bodied Mk Escort was on song pulling a decent 137bhp all the way up to the 6800rpm limit. This car showed that throttle bodied really can find power where carbs can't, yes it seen 9bhp more mid range than a similar twin 45 Webber car. Really nice build and a credit to Greg for building it.

Philip Blowers has a chance to qualify for the Banger racing world championship. A lot if upgrades since the first race of the season so a trip north to sort out the fuelling issues. The result was pretty impressive from a 2.0L Zetec on the regulation Capri carburetor!!! Good luck:-)

Michael Summersbee and Dave Smith made it up on a damp day to Caithness. Both have had Bluefin maps and nothing between them on track. You will see Dave's map is by far the best but luckily for Michael, Bluefin should be able to sort the dodgy fuelling for free:-)

I know you are not into farming Stewart Elkin but there's a fine set of rams for your 2.0L Zetec. Getting ever closer to getting mapped on the rollers. Aluminium pipe spun into air rams. Hopefully good for around 200Bhp

Cylinder heads look amazing after a skim and a shame you can't see the work once they are fitted. This one was saved from the scrap bin, but needed 0.025 of an inch off to ensure it was dead flat and no more head gasket problems.

Ryan Fraser Milne took his VW Polo along for a health check after fitting a new cylinder head and turbo. It was supposed to have a Revo map on the ECU, so a good opportunity to check. The result?? Bang on 200bhp and confirmation that it was mapped and a good one at that.

Andrea Stewart (yup my cousin) visited her favourite cousin for a cuppa tea and wanted to see if her 2014 Astra VXR was behaving as expected. Standard power is 276bhp and the result a credible 272bhp from the 2.0L turbo. With the VXR button 'on' it recorded 6bhp more throughout the entire rev range!

Shaun Macmillan took his VW Lupo along after its winter rebuild. With a new engine and uprated turbo it was 50ft/lbs torque up from the last time. 205bhp this time shares the leaderboard. That's three people within 1bhp of each other for the diesel fwd class! Knockhill in two weeks so good luck.

Lindy Lockhart took his Black Edition A3 2.0 TDI along for a crack at the leader board. James Hendry has been there for a couple of years with his 204bhp Golf. With 1bhp more the A3 has it at 205bhp and a good power curve too. It's up for sale, so give him a call if you are interested.

Out with the old minis and in with the new. Allen Cowe took his race spec supercharged mini cooper 'S' through from Skye for the full works. Murkle Motors remap, 4 x wheel alignment and corner weighting. The remap gained 9bhp all through from 3000 rpm and also a 28ft/lbs torque hike at 3000rpm! This one is going to be hard to beat at Knockhill Racing Circuit track days this year.

With a broken 998cc engine Dylan Mackay wanted something with a bit more grunt this time. I then built up a stock 1275cc MG Metro engine and upgraded it with a fast road camshaft and then a completely rebuilt gearbox. After an upgraded carburettor needle and tune the result was a 25% power hike over a standard 1275cc engine. 68bhp is a goodbye to the old 998!

Biggest and Baddest Board. Graham Scollay was topping the leader board on Saturday, but less than 2hrs later his 435bhp was beaten by a mere 2bhp. Not to be outdone and just over 24hrs later, remap uploaded the result was a run just over the magic figure line at a whopping 505bhp! Now that is going to take some beating, for a 2wd car and the remap again with very good fuelling.