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  • HYUNDAI I30N TUNING GUIDE

    The Hyundai i30N is the underestimated gem of the hot hatch crowd, but it’ll more than hold its own against the usual suspects, especially when tuned. We speak to expert tuners Courtenay Sport to give you a quick-fire Hyundai i30N tuning guide to heat up your motor.

    Engine

    The Hyundai i30N uses a 2.0-litre, 16v turbo G4KH Theta engine, which comes with either 250bhp in the N, or 271bhp in the N Performance. The block itself is essentially the same unit as found in the Mitsubishi Evo X, but has been strengthened by being of a closed deck design, which means it’s also a great base for tuning.

    First up for Hyundai i30N tuning is an option for those not wanting to get their hands dirty, and that’s a remap. A stage one map from Courtenay Sport is a simple plug and play affair that boosts power to around 305bhp and 332lb ft. But if that’s not enough for you, then there are hardware upgrades you can make too. The stock inlet is superb, featuring big bore pipe work and a cone filter in the stock airbox, so gains in this area are hard won, with an induction kit making more of an aural improvement that any noticeable power increase. To this end, a simple uprated filter for the stock air box is recommended, which allows you to save your money for the exhaust system. The OEM exhaust is a roarty unit with pop and bangs aplenty, but it is quite restrictive, especially in the flexipipe, so a bigger bore replacement here does reap around 10bhp alone for around £170. Combine this with a GPF delete or cat-back system from the likes of Milltek and you get a nice torque gain low down, plus an even better aural experience.

    An uprated tube and fin intercooler from Wagner will also be worthwhile, as it flows better and has improved cooling properties, allowing more boost to be run. Combine these with a stage two map and you’ll be seeing around 325bhp and 350lb ft. Finally, any more will require a hybrid turbo and uprated fuel pump, but combined with a stage three map, outputs of up to 400bhp and 385lb ft are to be expected, making for a seriously rapid hatch.

    Hyundai i30N Tuning

    Suspension

    The stock suspension is a properly sorted set up, with an excellent e-differential and electronic damper control via the steering wheel modes. If you want to retain this functionality, then simple lowering spring kits are available from Eibach and ST, but the ride does tend to suffer. A better, if pricier, option would be to upgrade to a full coilover system from the likes of KW. Their V3 kit with damper cancellation offers an excellent choice for lowered road driving, with superb handling and ride comfort, but you do lose the ability to adjust the damper settings from the driver’s seat. For those who want a more hardcore option or that want to do a lot of track work, the KW Clubsport kit is what Courtenay Sport  recommends, along with adjustable camber bolts from Powerflex.

    Brakes

    Unlike many other hot hatches, the i30N doesn’t use a swanky Brembo setup or similar and just makes do with its own braking system, lifted from a heavier model in the range. But far from a poor option, the stock brakes are immense, with excellent feel that gives plenty of confidence and power. Due to this, it’s worth limiting upgrades to a set of uprated pads from EBC for the road or some Pagid RS29s for the track, with a set of Tarox S2000 two piece discs a good option simply due to their lighter weight. Teamed up with some Goodridge braided hoses and your brake setup will be stunning!

    Hyundai i30N Tuning

    Interior

    The i30N’s interior is simple and stylish with supportive sports seats, a multifunction steering wheel and a multimedia screen dominating the centre of the dash. To be honest, there’s not a lot we’d change, but if you were looking to track your Hyundai, then Recaro do their excellent Pole Position bucket seats with i30N specific mounts and you can get a bolt-in rollcage from either Rollcages UK or JP Cages. It’s not recommended to fit an aftermarket steering wheel, as you would lose too much functionality, but you could always get the stock wheel customised with wither a flat bottom, some carbon-fibre, or retrimmed to your taste by companies such as Royal Steering Wheels or Control Customs who can tailor the wheel to your own spec.

    Style

    When it comes to styling the i30N, you’re pretty much limited to low-line kits including splitters, side skirts and diffusers from either Maxton Design or Zaero Design, but that’s no bad thing, as these make just enough impact to help the car stand out. Wheel wise, the N comes with 18in wheels from the factory, while the N Performance has 19in, so either size will fit no problem. Just ensure to select a lightweight option if you want to retain the car’s excellent handling, and it’s said that an 18in wheel with a quality 235/40/18 is the sweet spot for performance and ride, although the 19inchers definitely win in the looks department.

    Hyundai i30N Tuning

    Hyundai i30N tuning conclusion

    It may lack the kudos and brand heritage of the likes of Honda’s Type R, VW’s Golf GTi or RenaultSport and Ford’s RS monikers, but the Hyundai i30N relies on much more than its badge and is a better car as a result. In stock form it’s a belter, but with the potential to add 50% more power into the mix, plus make the already excellent handling and braking more focussed and potent and you’ve got a seriously impressive hot hatch for very reasonable money. So if you want to fly fast and under the radar, or you’re just not that bothered about the badge, you can pick up a three year old i30N for around £20k and have one of the finest hot hatches around.

    Hyundai i30N tuning contact:

    Courtenay Sport
    www.courtenaysport.co.uk
    01692 404313

    Source

  • TUNED FOCUS ST MK2: (ANTI)SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

    Spitting flames and howling like a jet fighter through a screamer pipe while it deploys a riotous 515bhp directly to the tarmac, Danny Tanton’s tuned Focus ST Mk2 certainly fulfils his ambitions of building a car worthy of that infamous ASBO nickname.

    Feature from Fast Ford. Words Jamie King. Photos Jason Dodd

    If there’s one car that sums up the fast Ford scene today, the Mk2 Focus ST is it. It’s a car that’s as comfortable on the school run as on a weekend track session; as confident on the summer show ground as it is the supermarket car park.

    And the best bit is the Focus ST can – and usually does – combine all those things into one very neat, very capable package. No wonder it’s the backbone for modern fast Ford culture.

    But let’s face it, the real reason we all love the Focus ST is because it’s a little hooligan of a car. Of course, being labelled the ASBO by Jeremy Clarkson helped set the ball rolling, but like all stereotypes it had to be based on an element of truth, otherwise it simply wouldn’t stick.

    And that was 15 years ago, talking about a car with the factory 222bhp. Things in the ST world have come a long way since then – getting faster and faster, and becoming ever more powerful – but one thing that has remained a constant is way the Focus ST is viewed as a tearaway of the hot-hatch market.

    Tuned Focus ST Mk2

    Danny’s started his own business making show-spec bonnet props – DnA Bonnet Props

    Perhaps not as technically adept as some of its (more expensive) German rivals, the ST has something not many other cars have: character, and bags of it. In this case, an anti-social hooligan personified by boisterous paintwork and a thunderous five-cylinder soundtrack. And that, ladies and gents, is the real reason we love the Focus ST.

    “It’s true,” confirms owner of this particular ASBO, Danny Tanton. “I only got mine back in 2016, but I’ve wanted a Focus ST ever since I first saw one in the Ford showroom. Of course, it had to be Electric Orange too.”

    Danny came very close to buying a brand-new Electric Orange ST, but he’d just put down a deposit on a Fiesta ST. As it turned out, he then had a change of heart and stepped back into his faithful Escort RS Turbo. “I still miss that old tin,” he laughs.

    Tuned Focus ST Mk2

    Screamer pipe spits flames all over the windscreen and howls like a jet fighter

    Fast forward to 2016 and Danny finally became an ST owner. Purchasing the car from a friend (Jason, who was selling up to make space for a Focus RS), he knew the Focus had been well looked after, so jumped at the chance to become its next owner.

    Danny remembers, “It had already been modified with some nice bits; stuff like the K-Sport brakes, exhaust, and the block mod, and it was maintained to a high standard. But it was just lacking some of the ASBO-ness I was after…”

    So, the plan was always to build something of an anti-social thug for the streets, then? “Err, not at first. My original plan was to keep it sensible with just a few cosmetic mods. Obviously, that very quickly went out of the window,” laughs Danny.

    Tuned Focus ST Mk2

    As a tunnel fitter by day, Danny spends a lot of time working away from home, where a dangerous combination of an abundance of free time in evenings away from the family, and a smart-phone with internet access to various tuning websites wreaked havoc with any notion of ‘cosmetic upgrades only’.

    Danny recalls, “My first few mods were actually purely cosmetic: Maxton Designs splitters and skirts, Zunsport grilles, light brows and so on. My first performance upgrade was swapping the lowering springs for a set of BC Racing coilovers.

    “But the biggest changes started to come when I was working away from home a lot; I had time on my hands after work, and I would sit in my digs looking through the Auto Specialists website saying, ‘I want that’, before promptly ordering loads of bits.”

    The next few years saw Danny chopping and changing any bits he could. The mapping was swapped to Dreamscience Mod XRS software (complete with the anti-social ‘pop and bang’ add-on, naturally), and a host of bolt-on performance upgrades found their way under the bonnet. Part of this process saw Danny and Andy at BRC Performance become good friends, and with Danny always knowing he wanted to go for more power eventually, Andy proved an invaluable source of knowledge and advice.

    Then, one fateful day, the time came for those big ideas to become reality. “After four years of abuse, the stock turbo blow itself to pieces,” recalls Danny, “but this served as the perfect opportunity to go for it, and pull the engine out to forge it ahead of chucking some serious power at it.”

    The engine was duly removed, stripped and inspected by Andy and Jamie at BRC Performance, before a set of Wossner pistons and PEC conrods were added – along with Newman cams in the refreshed cylinder head – and the five-cylinder was dotingly rebuilt in anticipation of a significant power hike.

    Tuned Focus ST Mk2

    At this point, the turbo was a BorgWarner K16 from a Mk2 Focus RS and the software was the tried-and-tested Revo Stage 4+.

    “That only lasted while I was running-in the new engine, though – about 200 miles, I think. I managed to get my hands on a Garrett GTX3076R turbo setup, and Andy at BRC came back with a new Ecumaster EMU Black engine management system and complete wiring harness,” remembers Danny.

    Things had just gone up a notch. Unlike the direct-fit RS item, the massive GTX turbo meant Danny needed to fit an external wastegate system too. And that lends itself to another of this ST’s hooligan upgrades – the screamer pipe that exits at the back of the bonnet. Not only does it sound like a jet fighter about to launch, it also spits huge flames all over the windscreen. Not your average optional extra.

    Custom flat-bottom steering wheel is a nice touch

    But this isn’t your average tuned Focus ST Mk2. It’s been built with thrills and giggles in mind from the very start, and after Romain at Race Cal had tweaked the very clever EMU Black ECU the ST produced a raucous 515bhp.

    “We’re not finished there, either. We’re currently running a development BRC fuel pump, so there’s definitely more power to come yet once that’s dialled in. We’ll probably cap the power at around 550bhp – that’ll be plenty. The noise, the power, the flames out of the bonnet, and the way it scares passengers already is awesome,” admits Danny.

    But then, Danny drops a bombshell. “I do wonder what it would be like with this power and all-wheel drive…”

    Blimey. Sounds like this story is far from over. Which brings us to what is perhaps the biggest reason so many of us love the ST – its ability to constantly evolve, and the seemingly limitless tuning possibilities. While wider society may frown upon cars like Danny’s tuned Focus ST Mk2 for their antisocial nature, in a bizarre paradox, it’s precisely these kinds of cars that bond us enthusiasts and help form the fast Ford society. It’s a funny old world…

    Tuned Focus ST Mk2

    Tech Spec: Tuned Focus ST Mk2

    Engine:

    2522cc turbocharged Duratec five-cylinder, Wossner forged pistons, PEC forged conrods, block mod, Newman high-lift cams, BRC Performance ‘development’ fuel pump, 1000cc injectors, Garrett GTX3076R turbo, Turbosmart external wastegate, Focus RS oil cooler, Funk Motorsport turbo heat blanket, BRC Performance custom downpipe and screamer pipe exiting at rear of bonnet, Anembo Engineering inlet plenum, oversized throttle body, Airtec ported lower inlet manifold, Airtec intercooler, Airtec breather kit, Hardrace and Powerflex engine mounts, Pro Alloy big boost pipes, Syvecs MAF-less crossover pipe, RamAir Proram filter, KMS Thunderstorm exhaust, Auto Specialists engine dress-up kit, hydro-dipped engine bay plastics, DnA custom bonnet prop, Ecumasters EMU Black engine management system

    Power:

    515bhp (will be capped at 550bhp after further tweaks)

    Transmission:

    Focus ST Getrag M66 six-speed gearbox, Quaife ATB limited-slip diff, Helix Motorsport six-paddle clutch, B&M short-shifter kit, Hardrace uprated mounts

    Suspension:

    BC Racing coilovers, Hardrace lower arms and track-rod ends, Summit strut brace and rear subframe brace, Hardrace rear anti-roll bar, Whiteline front anti-roll bar, Powerflex bushes

    Brakes:

    Front: K-Sport 356mm drilled and grooved discs with eight-pot callipers and EBC Yellowstuff pads; rear: Focus ST callipers with drilled and grooved discs and EBC Yellowstuff pads; Goodridge brake lines all round

    Wheels & Tyres:

    8.5×18 Cruize Blade alloys in gloss black with ET42 offset, 225/40R18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres

    Exterior:

    Focus ST in Electric Orange, Maxton Designs lowline kit, Zunsport grilles, Maxton Designs RS-style rear spoiler with extension, Climair wind deflectors, custom rear diffuser, DRL switchbacks in headlights and fogs, direction arrows behind wing mirror glass, custom grille lights, underbonnet mirrors, Rally Flaps mud flaps, RS bonnet vents

    Interior:

    Focus ST, custom floor mats, custom flat-bottom steering wheel, orange and black leather seats, hydro-dipped interior plastics, custom dial faces to match hydro-dipping, ST puddle lights, ‘ASBO’ custom door sills, custom boot liner and parcel shelf, Alpine head unit, Edge 6x9s, tweeters and mids, 1000w amp and 10in JBL sub in custom enclosure

    Source

  • Electric Mercedes-Benz G-Class launches in 2024

    Mercedes-Benz will launch a battery-electric version of the iconic G-Class in 2024, the automaker said on Thursday.

    Confirmation of the electric G-Class, which could go by the name EQG, was made during a presentation outlining Mercedes’ plans to transition to a full-electric brand by 2030. Yes, get ready to say goodbye to internal-combustion engines at Mercedes-Benz, including at Mercedes-Benz AMG.

    Mercedes CEO Ola Kaellenius first mentioned plans for an electric G-Class in 2019. At the time, he said Mercedes had looked at discontinuing the G-Class, but he felt that the last Mercedes to be built should be a G-Class.

    But why the long gestation? The big and blocky G-Class will require a substantial kilowatt-hour rating and Mercedes may want to wait until battery technology improves. It isn’t clear whether Mercedes will electrify the G-Class platform, or install the G-Class body on one of its electric platforms.

    A plug-in hybrid G-Class is likely to eventuate before the electric version, and it could come with an AMG badge attached. AMG plans to introduce plug-in hybrid technology across its range before switching to a full-electric lineup, and the Affalterbach tuner is known to be readying a powerful setup incorporating a V-8. This setup debuts shortly in the GT 4-Door Coupe and will offer more than 800 hp.

    Note, if you want an electric G-Class today, there’s a company in Austria by the name of Kreisel that offers an electric conversion, though so far the company has only shown converted versions of the previous-generation G-Class. Kreisel’s setup features an 80-kwh battery and an electric motor at each axle for a combined 482 hp. One of the first people to take up Kreisel’s G-Class electric conversion was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    Source