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Finally got a chance to get the rabbit out for some much needed track time. Here is some in-car footage from my 3rd session. Enjoy!

RalleyTuned 16v Rabbit @ Pacific Raceways

After the successes and dramas that we encountered at the Wild West event, the DemonRally team regrouped and rebuilt for the 2010 Oregon Trail event. The issues we had at Wild West would almost all be attributed to stock parts getting too hot. The easy remedy here was to carry out the already planned gear box change. By changing from the stock 020 linkage shift transmission to the much more stout 02J cable shift box, we knew we could gain some much needed reliability. There was also some wiring changes that needed to be made, which we were more than happy to handle.

Another issue we had was some excessive oil coming out of the crankcase, upon our post-rally tear down we found what we had known all along. the #1 cylinder getting some extra oil from the wrong place. Tom (owner/driver) decided that not only would the motor need a rebuild, but a plan was hashed to get him some more ponies. The end result was a ABA/9a 16v combination, built with forged pistons and H-beam rods of course. Atop the ABA sat the robust 16v head that had been previously (and heavily I may ad) by Steve Hanaford. Strapped to the prepped head would be a Garret GT28 turbo. In the end the motor put out a very healthy 191whp and 181wtq!

Car getting strapped in at Kito Autosport for some dyno tuning

We arrived at Portland International Raceways for the 2010 Oregon Trail event with a lot more power, a much stronger drivetrain setup and the confidence that came from a good result at our last event.

Arriving at PIR:

Setup service for the first day: You can see Jake from JRM Fab checking over the exhaust before Tom heads out..

The new dash setup:

The boys had a good start on Day 1 but it was cut short when they managed to shear off the out axle stub nose. With the car unable to move under it’s own power they were done for the night. This failure unfortunately also ended their chance at the Max Attack 2wd Series podium.

Day 1 Highlights:

Service crew working way too late into the night. We finished the event around 11pm and had to pack up and head about an hour east to the next days first service location. After a hearty denny’s breakfast we set to fix an overheating problem and also the broken axle:

Parc Expose for day 2:

Tom ran the car hard on day 2 but the overheating issue kept him from pushing for a win. The car ran well all day but the team ran too low on fuel and got stuck on stage which cost them valuable time on day 2. Exhausted from a late night on the car we packed up and headed south to Dufur for the final service of day 2 and for the final day of the rally.

An unfortunate incident late in the day sat involving a hay bale and speeds of around 80mph brought the car into service on a trailor. Once again the crew set to work in the dark hours of sat evening to get the car back in action. A snapped rear control arm bolt would prove very difficult to fix due to a battery issue with our drill. After we nearly lost a crew members finger in the mayhem of fixing the issues, the car was set down and the crew finally was able to retire back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Day 3 brought some awesome weather and with only one service scheduled for lunch time the crew was able to relax most of the day aside from a short and un-eventfull service stop. The car was not making boost and with no time to fix it since no more services were in the schedule, Tom was forced to push on as it. Incredibly though, he was able to shimmy the car through the stages on day 3 down on power, running on 3 cylinders some of the time (faulty spark plug wire) and somehow managed to best all other 2wd competitors!

Coming out of this event with a lot of new knowledge about our setup and even a Day 3 gr2 win, we are heading back to the garage quite happy. We were not able to push for an overall win or even a Max Attack podium, but it was a very successful rally in the eyes of the team. We are making some new additions and planning to come out to Wild West in September with a much better sorted car and be able to run hard and compete for the top spot!

Don’t miss out on our newest feature car! We are happy to share with you a local PNW Rally Rabbit that we had the pleasure of doing some tuning work on.

Click on the photo to see more!

The site of the event was a small town in the southeast corner of Washington state. A town where if you blink too long you may just miss it. Once a year this delightful town opens its doors and welcomes the competitors, teams and spectators for the Wild West Rally. This year would mark the return of the Demon Rally team in their brand new VW mk2 Golf. Just a year ago the Demon Rally team had a very bad wreck which left their VW Rabbit in completely destroyed. This year they came back, and they came back with a vengeance!

Since the wreck in ’08 the team had found a new completely prepared VW Golf that was already a decently fast vehicle. However, the teams owner/drive Tom Burress knew that without some major re-working, the car would never be fast enough to compete with the best teams in the country. Over the past 6-8 months prior to this even, RalleyTuned and the Demon Rally crew set to work tearing the new Golf completely down to a bare shell and upgrading and improving anything an everything they could get their hands on.

To start out the entire chassis was seam welded and reinforced. The suspension was upgraded to a much beefier setup from JVAB. RalleyTuned was brought in to help with the Fuel Injection upgrade as well as handling re-wiring the entire car. We removed every single wire out of the car, stripped anything out that wasn’t needed and added new circuitry for the things that the team felt would be necessary for competition. A STACK cluster was installed to handle all the guage needs in one handy package, however the discovery of the internal battery being bad prompted us to make a last minute change to use a small Palm Pilot to display the information. The motor was upgraded to a 2L 16v with some beefy cams and head work, megasquirt EFI, and a VWMS gearbox. Tom also fabbed up a steering quickener to help control the car in the heat of battle.

After some initial testing the team was confident in the new chassis and ready to get the car into it’s first event. After a short press stage the car was puking out oil from the breather. Modifications were made and the breather situation was fixed so that Tom could focus on driving. “When we finished the second stage w had a chance to check on the oil consumption, fortunately, the breather drama had calmed down. We lost much less oil, my confidence in the car was starting to grow, and I felt like we could attempt to get into a good rhythm very soon.” -Tom Burress


Despite a plethora of issues including melting shift linkage, broken motor mounts, smashed radiator fans etc, the Demon Rally crew continually kept the car in running order and allowed Tom and Don Burress to complete the rally. At the end of the weekend the team had finished 6th overall on day 1 and 4th overall on day 2, and besting the 2wd cars winning Group2 in its debut event! For more info and a more thorough breakdown from the event, vist DemonRally.com

Check out some video highlights of the rally!
RalleyTuned Wild West Highlights

Was a gorgeous sunny day and the Rabbit got it’s first wash after a pair of track days and an autox so I took the opportunity to snap a couple new pics!

This weekend RalleyTuned and the Demon Rally team did some preliminary testing on their new VW Golf, debuting for the first time since the dramatic roll of their previous Rabbit. Initial testing went very well with only a few minor tweaks being needed in the mapping, and possibly a few small setup changes.

We got the call from the Demon Rally team late last year and got busy re-wiring their 85 Golf. The car now hosts a fire breathing 16v with a worked head and some nice sized cams. The chassis has been fully prepped with seam welding and very beefy suspension from a local rally specialist (John Vanlandingham). A Kaaz differential and VWMS gears take car of getting the power to the dirt, and bearings replace most of the suspension bushings throughout.

The team is well on track for their ’09 season debut Sept. 26th in Pomeroy, Wa for the Wild West Rally. Check out built pictures and info at DemonRally.com!

Got the call last night from a good friend, turns out our tuning equipment got put in his car and buried under all his stuff. He just recently cleaned out his car and found it! So with that good news we are back in buisness! Ready to help with all your tuning needs!

I recently had the chance to take the IRDC’s (irdc-racing.com) Performance Driving School. I have been preparing my car for lapping days for quite some time now and finally felt the car was ready for action. The cost of the school is $250, and includes a classroom session and a full day of on-track action! I highly recommend this school to anyone looking to get into racing, lapping days or just want to go have fun in their car!

Registration was at 7am so it was an early morning. Got the car loaded up late Saturday evening and loaded everything up. We made it to the track by 7:15 and got the car un-loaded and started with my pre-run checks. Soon we all loaded up into trucks and were taken on a track tour. Our guide for this session drove us around the track to point out not only driving lines but also hazards and pointers for each section and turn of the track.

From there we waited by our cars for our driving instructors to come by. My instructor for the day was IRDC President Ron Johnson. I had met Ron a few times at events in the past, and knowing his history driving Rabbit’s, I knew today was going to be a fun one! I waited for my session to come and we headed onto the track. Ron drove my car first to give me a good run of the course at speed in my own car. It was a little nerve racking at first, but after he opened it up a bit it was pretty obvious he had done some laps in the mk1 vw chassis before.

After 3 laps (he remarked after the 2nd that he wanted to take one more just because the car was fun to drive haha!) he pulled off and let me hop in the drivers seat. I gotta say, the rush of getting onto a road course for the first time was intense! I only got a few more laps in that session but i really started to get a feel for the car and the track. The car was performing very well and felt extremely stable, corner grip was good and got better as the tires got warmer. We pulled in and i breathed a sigh of relief, my first session was over and the car an myself were completly in tact! I was ready to get back on track.

I had 3 more 30min sessions for the day, each one i got progressively faster and was able to push the car closer and closer to the limits. By the final session i got the ok from the Instructor to run solo, and i went out feeling very confident in the car and what i had learned through the day. I got out just in front of a friend in his R32 and i pointed him by the next lap (he had me on the straights). The rest of the session him and I ran hard and eventually caught up with a pack of cars. After making our way through we were stuck behind a new Mazerati Quattroporte’. Yeah that’s right, 130hp rabbit stuck behind a 130k 400hp exotic!

The driving school taught me a ton about car control and driving at racing speeds. I had so much fun my girlfriend said I was grinning ear to ear for a week solid! I’m officially hooked, and already doing some upgrades and planning out my next track day! -Brendon

This weekend the RalleyTuned/TRAKS Clothing SPU race car made its season debut at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wa. It was a very warm weekend with temps in the shade hovering around 90deg. We saw track temps both days in the 130′s!! Needless to say it was a very warm weekend and we are pretty certain everyone got some color from the sun!

The weekend started off shakey on Saturday morning with a very tail happy practice session. We found that the issues lyed in the heat cycled out Hoosier R6′s. The decision was made to take the Saturday qualifying session on the better/newer Kumho 710′s. Brad set a pretty decent pace despite the heat running in the high 1:41′s for Saturday. He also noted some pretty high oil temps due to the ever increasing track temps, and the search for some better synthetic oill was on. We found something, although not ideal, but would work for the day. The Redline oil was sourced in a very light 10w, and the crew settled in for an evening of watching drag racing.

Sunday morning came with the forecast of even higher temps and another beutiful day at Pacific Raceways. The oil was changed, car fired and warmed up and was set to go. Working through a soft brake pedal all weekend the crew was finally able to squeeze out a few air bubbles and get a nice firm pedal, which relieved the driver as you could imagine. Brad went out and set a fast qualifying time of 1:41.9 and was sitting mid group in the huge 56 car field.

Brad took the green and pressed the orangazmic Rabbit hard to keep up with the faster cars in the group! Running in a group with probably 90% of the cars running at least double the HP makes for a very hard working vw! He settled into a battle with a well prepared Nissan Sentra and the battle was on! Eventually besting the Nissan the TRAKS Clothing/Ralleytuned Rabbit finished the race strong. With the thin oil presenting an oil light at anything under about 4000rpm, the car was loaded on the trailer and the exhausted and overheated crew headed home to cool off. All in all a great weekend, the car ran strong and we had no issues, a successful weekend!

Brad Greco and the RalleyTuned/TRAKS clothing race car make their 09 season debut at Pacific raceways this weeekend. We made up a short promo vid for the occasion!