Introducing: Ben's S4 Avant Mongrel

Let me introduce you to another car that will probably feature a lot in this blog; Ben's S4 Mongrel.

I have a lot of love for this thing. In my eyes, well ears, there is nothing better than the sound of a V6 engine. Add to that the sound of two KO4 turbos boosting away and you've got a noise that will makes your ears drool.

You see, underneath the S4 exterior is a mangy RS4 mutt with upgraded KO4 turbos, injectors, intercoolers, exhaust etc etc. The list is endless! The end result is an absolute monster pushing over 400bhp. There isn't much out there on the road that phases this thing. It's a regular Porsche killer which often leads to some baffled looks from their respective owners.

In the handling department things are taken care of by a set of AP coilovers which offer a comfortable yet firm ride making it perform spectacularly in the turns as well as being a comfortable cruiser on the motorway.

Add to this a rear Neuspeed arb to rectify the understeer you get from a big front engined car and you've got a car that rails the B-roads rather than wanting to career across the road into a ditch.

With all of the power and the handling ability, it also of course has stopping covered with a set of RS4 brakes with discs pretty much the size of my head..

All that was left for Ben to do was work on the styling. Less is more in this game, so he opted for a usable but low ride height on a set of freshly powdercoated satin black Mercedes Alphards. Luckily he managed to pick up two sets of 8.5's, as opposed to having the wider 9.5 rears, in order to stop the quattro throwing it's toys out of the pram from having different rolling radius.

A few finishing touches of satin black paint here and there to further continue the black and blue theme and a few nice additions to the interior such as a liquid gauge and voila. Complete.

Expect a lot more of this beast throughout the summer on here and at shows such as GTI International and Edition38 as well as some possibly track day appearances at Castle Combe.

The New Wheels

So as I was saying, I sold the Rota's and have been in the process of refurbing my all time favourite wheels ever; a set of OZ Futura's.

They were in a bit of a state so I managed to pick them up pretty cheap for what they are. First of all the dishes needed major attention. I wanted them polished so got them sent off to be polished at £25 a dish which wasn't too bad!

From this:

To this:

Then it was time to sort the centres out. I wanted to keep the greyscale theme I already had going on with the Rota's, so decided to paint the centres white.

Initially I had a go at DIYing them with rattle cans:

I was actually really happy with the finish I got from rattle canning them, but when it came to lacquering them it reacted and ruined all my hard work :(.

Couldn't be bothered to start all over again so ended up getting them powdercoated instead. A good finish in the main:

While they were being powdercoated i did a rattle can job on the barrels in black like so:

 
Then once all that was done, it was time for the terrifying task of building them back up. The internet is a major scaremonger when it comes to building splits, I was certain that they would leak so resigned myself to that and got on with it as best I could.

The one thing I learnt during the build is that tigerseal is the MESSIEST stuff I have ever encountered. It gets everywhere, and doesn't come off your hands for days!

Didn't get many pictures of the build because of that, but here are a few rubbish phone snaps:

Left to cure:

 

Annnnndddd tyred:

 

Turns out that three out of the four hold air which isn't bad going for my first time building splits! The fourth has a really slow leak, dropping from 40psi to 20 over four days.

So in an attempt to stop the leak without rebuilding, my good friend tigerseal came back to help..

 

Enough?

The tyre goes back on at the end of the week so everything crossed. I really really don't want to have to rebuild it.

 

Introducing: The Bora

So this is my current automobile..

I'm hugely into the VW community and all things stance. There's something about a well sat car that is so appealing to me, so naturally my car reflects that.

This was my 130PD Bora sat on a set of 17x9 Rota Torques. I say 'was,' because the wheels have now been sold and I've got a pretty special new lease of life planned for the car this summer. Stay tuned!

This is how it currently looks sat at home feeling sorry for itself:

 

Oh, and this is how it got there... just about!

 

I miss it quite a bit to be honest! Expect to see a lot of this heap.

In the Beginning

So.. a blog. Everyone's doing it these days, I'm a bit of a latecomer really. But better late than never! 

I'm a 21..+1 year old (shh I feel old when i say 22) almost graduated media student with a huge passion for all things automotive, stanced, speed and general adrenaline pumping. Ideally I'd love to get into some kind of automotive journalism job but who knows where I'll end up!

Hopefully throughout the course of this blog I'll be able to develop how I write and at the same time, offer some fresh and interesting material for you guys. 


Expect features, original video productions and images, and rambles about the things I love to do!

So if you like what you see give me a follow!