We have just had a fresh delivery of Kinzuru Kits arrive including the eagerly awaited universal rear diffuser. Huge range of kits available on 48hour delivery from stock. Or if you are in the area drop by and pick a kit up
This weekend was the first round of the British Drift Championship at Lydden Hill in Kent, England. Lydden Hill is always a popular track with the BDC even returning here for Round 4 in August. This time we had 3 drivers running Walton Motorsport exhuast systems, Lee Barker of Midnight Motorsport, and Martin Wannacott in the Pro Am Class on the Friday and Matt Carter in the Pro class on the Saturday. For the 2016 Series of BDC, The event has been taken over by David Egan, the man in charge of the highly regarded IDC (Irish Drift Championship) and the changes were immediately obvious, David Egan has put a big focus into making the sport more spectator friendly with the addition of Live Scoring and a much improved Live Internet Feed. These factors combined with a large trackside screen added an extra element for the spectators including the ability for the trackside fans to see replays just like the Judges. A new qualifying format for the Pro category also came into play where the top 8 qualifiers go straight into the top 16, and the remaining 16 qualifiers battling each other for a spot in the top 16.
Lee’s first BDC event and also his first outing in the newly formed Midnight Motorsport having gained the ability to enter from finishing 3rd in the final round of Drift Cup at Lydden Hill at the end of 2015, Lee successfully qualified 21st which gained him the much coveted BDC license allowing him access to all events future BDC events. Unfortunately when it came to his first battle against Neil Bamford a quick burnout to warm the tyres resulted in a snapped driveshaft putting Lee out of the competition.
Martin with a new turbo setup including nitrous, along with a new tyre choice in the shape of a the Westlake Sport RS Semi Slick just made it to the event after a mad rush to get the car ready for battle. Martin’s Toyota came to us just after the final round of 2015 to have a JZ manifold and bespoke exhaust system fabricated and from what we heard it sounds awesome. Martin put some great qualifying runs down in the relatively unfamiliar car and managed to end up 9th in qualifying. next on to the battles and Martin went up against Tom Marshall, in the Martins lead run, some contact resulted in a damaged door and wheel, but Martin kept the power on and emerged victorious. Top 16 battle and he was up against Matt Stephenson of Slide Motorsport, it was a very close battle with alot of deliberation from the judges but in the end Matt Stephenson just had the edge to put Martin out of the competition. We can see Martin as one to watch once he tames his new beast!
New year and new team, Team Falken UK is no more and fan favourite Matt Carter is still driving the R32 but in the familiar black, white and orange of Team Japspeed. Just before the event we modified a Nissan GTR twin backbox to fit Matt’s car to help reduce the noise levels and make sure the car passes Lydden Hills strict limits. Matt was looking forward to this event for his new team with the refined R32 including a sequential gearbox and a new better performing tyre. Matt succeeded in qualifying in the top 8, bypassing the first group of battles. Matt went up against new team mate Shane Lynch in the Supercharged Nissan 370z and unfortunaly made some costly mistake putting him out of the competition, But we know he will be back hungry for victory at round up in Scotland.
Round 1 – Lydden Hill – April 8th & 9th
With the first round of BDC (British Drift Championship) tomorrow and our 2015 Team Mate Lee Barker’s first venture in the UK’s top level drifting competition we felt it was a good opportunity to revisit Lee’s memorable run up our local hill climb event, Kop Hill.
The run was performed in Lee’s old Nissan S14a running the same RB25 Engine that his current Midnight Motorsport Nissan Skyline R34 4 Door is now powered by. The car produces around 540bhp which as you can see form the video is plenty to spin the tyres a long way up the hill. Since 2014 Lee has been a running Walton Motorsport RB Manifold and full bespoke system.
For 2016 The event will be held on 17th-18th of September
Visit the Kop Hill Climb website HERE
What better way to brighten up Tuesday afternoon than having Kirsty Widdrington call into Walton Motorsport to pick up a few goodies for her 2016 build. We have supplied Kirsty with a pair of Bosch 044 Fuel Pumps and a set of our prototype spoiler brackets to help complete the build on Syril the Silvia.
Kirsty also runs a Walton Motorsport SR20 Exhaust Manifold and full bespoke system on her Nissan PS13.
For 2016 Kirsty is competing in a full season of the Irish Drift Championship and select British Drift Championship rounds.
We wish Kirsty the best of Luck in 2016 and if you want to catch up with Kirstys progress this year then you can follow her on her Facebook Page HERE
Photos by Nathan Parton – Lensburn.
Diversity is what keeps the automotive world interesting, from the technological marvels of cutting edge hyper cars to the far from what the manufacturer intended world of Drift cars. The latter is what we are exploring here with Kinzuru Kits, all Petrolheads look for that little something, that detail that makes their car stand out even if it is just an unusual colour option from the factory, but subtle is not what Kinzuru are about.
Kinzuru Kits are a product of Kinzuru Auto Salon, and their business is creating body panels for cars based on popular tuning house styles such as Rocket Bunny and BN Sports. When I first heard of the Kinzuru name it conjured up an image of a specialist workshop based in a Japan surrounded by all kinds of crazy Nissan’s and Toyota’s, and while most of this may be true you might be surprised to learn that they are actually based in West Wales, UK. Kinzuru are located near the Pembrey Circuit where they can regularly be found smoking out the track in their drift cars. Gavin, the owner has a Nissan S13 Pickup Conversion fitted with a Kinzuru Version 2 Rocket Bunny Style Kit.
At Kinzuru, the guys who work out of the west Wales workshop are car fanatics, and they create kits with the love and attention that their own projects receive. Make no mistake, this is no far eastern factory spraying fibreglass into moulds ready to ship out to the next unsuspecting enthusiast, only to be disappointed by the fit and with no real support from the people that made it. We know all too well passing on customer requests to Gavin for kits not on the pricelist only to be told they are working on it and not yet happy with the final details.
We discovered Kinzuru Kits from trying different body panel suppliers for #captaincrash’s S13 which didn’t make it through a single round of Drift Outlaws series without needed the minimum of a replacement bumper until we discovered the latest front bumper was actually pretty tough. How was this one stronger? We had to find out and that is where we first met Gavin. Kinzuru pride themselves not only on the enthusiasm from tuned Japanese automobiles, but on the strength of the kits, and its actually a pretty simple formula as to how they are are made so well.
Two layers of white gel coat, followed by a careful hand lamination process utilising 650g Glass Fibre Matting rather than the industry standard 450g matting. The combination of superior materials and care, produce a product that can last multiple drift events with #captaincrash at the wheel. You can confidently twist a Kinzuru bumper to near 90 degrees without damage as we regularly demonstrate to our customers. This is why Kinzuru have a growing following, Kits that fit and kits that last.
Walton Motorsport keeps a large stock ready to dispatch aiming to get the panels to the consumer as quickly as possible all over Europe. You can view the range HERE
Mike recently attended a Demo at Wigan’s Three Sisters Race Circuit and K98 Media were on hand to capture the action. Mike was running the Nissan S13 with a Kinzuru Kits Rocket Bunny V2 Style body kit, with no time for upgrades from the Driftcup Round 1 the previous weekend at Rockingham Motor Speedway in Northamptonshire, the S13 ran in its temporary early season setup. After the fun of this event, Mike is looking forward to putting the S13 through its paces in third round of Drift Cup 2016 which is being held at Three Sisters, after our next stop at Norfolk Arena.
Our first event of the season was Drift Cup Rd1 at Rockingham Motor Speedway in Northamptonshire. Drift Cup was on the Saturday followed by Spring Matsuri on the Sunday, our original plan was to take the BMW compact but unfortunately we had an engine issue and had to work around the clock to get the S13 into shape for the event. We arrived on Saturday morning at Rockingham in the fog and quickly set up our pits behind Andy Stroud of Team 1340 and Kinzuru Kits Belinda Challis, always handy to be with good company in the pits as you never know when you may need a hand or to borrow a tool. Luckily for us we were the ones lending the tools to Andy to help change his diff ratio following a slipping clutch.
Practice was quickly underway and Mike hit the track straight away in the S13 and immediately spun twice. Back in the start queue we dropped the tyre pressures and immediately Mike reported back that the car was feeling great (always a worry after a last minute rush) Mike began winding the pace up and putting in some impressive runs right on the qualifying line. Unfortunately when it came down to qualifying, out of the 60 cars and his first run Mike was sitting in 34th place. Needing to get into the top 32 to qualify, Mike upped the game and put in an improved run to get into 29th place. Close, but with quite a few drivers to run there was a good chance Mike would be knocked out.
We all nervously awaited the Judges announcements of who had qualified… “Just scraping into 32nd place is Mike Walton”. He was into the comp and ready for action. There is however a downside to qualifying in 32nd place and that is that you have to battle the number 1 qualifier and today this was Chris Taylor in the Motorparts World S13. Chris was leading first, and Mike put in a great chase run forcing Chris to make a small error, but when the order was reversed Chris chased Mike down hard, and on the exit of the big corner Chris put his door into the rear corner of Mikes S13!
Nervously awaiting the judges decision did Mike have the edge? Did Chris bump into Mike? Was it the end of Walton Motorsports Day? The judges radioed down to the finish line to ask the drivers what happened… The judges announced… Chris goes through! Chris had knocked Mike out of the event, Mike had told the judges he missed 2nd gear resulting in a loss of speed, meaning Chris had no choice but to bump the back of Mike and ultimately that Chris should win. game over for team Walton. Unfortunatly Chris was to be knocked out in his next battle of the top 16 whilst we watched the rest of the competition from viewing area. With Mark Webb finally taking the win of Drift Cup Round 1.
Sunday came and with it a fun day for all on the infield of Rockingham with Drift Matsuri, again Mike was straight out and putting in the laps building speed and working the S13 through its paces, Rockingham is the fastest track the Nissan has been on so far and Mike was loving it, only returning to the pits for tyre changes and a quick cool down.
It was also great to see Matt Carter and Paul Cheshire of ex Team Falken shaking down the R32 and Infiniti G35 for the new season, both Matt and Paul are running full Walton Motorsport Manifolds and exhaust systems on the Toyota engine conversions. Arron Stevens of Scrape n skid was also out on the Matsuri tracks running our SR20 manifold. Other highlights included Michael Marshall in the wide arch M3 running Toyota power and former competitor from 2015 Drift Outlaws, Leonard Kepert in his newly supercharged BMW 5 series.
