Press Info

Born to Run - LRO February 2011

Alive Tuning had a five page feature in the February 2011 issue of Land Rover Owner International magazine. We took our project Defender Td5 90 to Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire, to push the limits of our new Big Brake and Fast Road suspension conversions, and LRO's Fraser Barsby came along to see the kind of things we do while developing our products before they are finally released for public sale.

Many companies offer power upgrades for Defenders, but few had ever made an effort to make them stop, or turn more efficiently. It was theirfore our mission to push the boundries of road holding and braking, way past what anyone else had achieved, to make the ultimate fast road Td5 Defender. We couldn't use normal tyres for this either, as there would be too much flex in the tyre walls, which would result in understeer, so our best option was to use ultra low profile tyres. These gave us superior feedback, and enabled us to set up the handling characteristics way beyond where they would ever normally be pushed to on more 'normal' tyres!

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Max Adventure - October 2010

London to Cape Town... Non stop, in a Td5 Discovery!

Alive Tuning were proud to sponsor Mac MacKenny and his team, on their epic marathon drive from London to Cape Town. The team drove non stop, without breaking any local speed limits, to reach their destination which is a staggering 10,000 miles away, Across 20 countries, and beating a previous record time of 13 days, 8 hrs 48 minutes. The team completed their jouney in an incredible 11 Days, 14 Hours, and 11 Minutes!

We tuned their 1999 model Td5 Discovery to give outstanding fuel economy, and above all else, total reliability! On the journey back to Reading from our Cleethorpes base, Mac reported that the car had achieved and average 46.6mpg! The car is fitted with our Serck Services Motorsport Performance Intercooler, Samco Sport XDB Silicone Hoses, EGR Bypass, Our JP 304 Grade Stainless Steel Exhaust System, and of course one of our custom made economy biased ecu remaps. This journey tested our products under punishing conditions, and we had every confidence that they would give faultless reliability.

For more information on Max Adventure, take a look at their website:
www.maxadventure.co.uk

Stock Td5 Defender, Live mapped on the Dyno March 2010

We took a stock 2003 model defender Td5 90, and put it on the dyno. In standard trim, it produced 111bhp, and 277Nm torque. This was to be expected, as cars very rarely produce figures that the manufacturers state. That and the fact that this car is overdue a full service! After some live mapping, it left the dyno with a healthy 157bhp and 357Nm. A gain of 46bhp and 80Nm torque. What a difference a good remap makes!

Alive and Kicking - LRM February 2010

Alive Tuning were featured on pages 42 to 45 of the February 2010 issue of Land Rover Monthly Magazine.

In this issue, LRM's Richard Streeton tells of his visit to Alive Tuning (Formerly Td5 Alive) in Grimsby, and gives a behind the scenes look at what we do, and why, in the tech-laden world of tuning.

The Worlds Fastest Landrover - LRM December 2009

We took our newly aquired Td5 90 CSW (Aka - The Rat Bag!) to the 'Worlds Fastest Land Rover' competition, Hosted at Bruntingthorpe proving ground by Land Rover Monthly magazine, and Sponsored by Twisted Performance, who set the event up.

When I first heard about the competition, I spoke to a few other well known tuning companies, who told me exactly what I had been thinking, so I had no intention of entering as it was obvious I would not win. However, Nick King from LRM kept badgering me, and one of the tuning companies that refused to come had a well prepared, VNT turbo'd 90 representing them (all be it under the resellers name), so I thought I may as well give it a go!

Having only bought the car on the Sunday of the 2009 Peterborough LRO show, I had a lot of work to do to bring the car back to a good state of repair, never mind tuning it! New front swivels had to be fitted since they were leaking, The diffs were replaced with new exchange items from KAM, but with taller gearing (rather than changing the transfer box gears to disco 1.222 ratio), since they were about to expire! All oils were replaced, Injector loom replaced, a new manifold and hybrid turbo went on, new decat downpipe, new intercooler with some new Samco XDB hoses, New lowered springs, dampers, dislocation cones, and turret rings. Anti Roll bars front and rear were fitted, and all the brakes were stripped, cleaned and rebuilt, retaining the standard discs and pads. I also had a propane injection kit to go on the car, the installation of which cannot be rushed for obvious reasons! I did manage to get the kit fitted, but had finished the installation at about 9:30 on the monday night before the event, so had no time for testing and calibration, as I had to load the 90 onto a trailer ready for the next morning. I quickly knocked up a pretty hot fuel map, and downloaded this onto the car, before locking up and going home.

Up bright and early on Tuesday morning so I could make the two and a half hour drive down the M1 to Bruntingthorpe, and get there early enough to do some testing and setting up of the propane system. I met a couple of other 90's en route, who promptly sped off into the distance! I was towing my 90 with the Range Rover and could only do 60mph as the trailer got a bit twitchy above these speeds! Once at the track, the car was off loaded and after a couple of laps of the main track, the propane kit seemed to be working, but the car was generating a lot of smoke, which certainly should not happen as propane burns much faster than diesel, so all fuel should be consumed within the power stroke!? Never mind, there was no more time for setting up, so it was going to have to stay as it was.

First event was the circuit lap, which consisted of 3 laps; A warm up, Flying lap, and cool down lap. I had asked a freind to drive for me, since he's had a lot more experiance at driving on the track, so could maximise my cars potential. He did this alright, as out of 21 cars, Toby brought mine home in 2nd place (in the diesel class), in a highly respectable 1 minute, 43.50 seconds, being pipped by the sponsors own java black 'Drifter', who managed a blisteringly quick 1 minute, 38.20 seconds. If we'd have had the previous day for testing, as they did, I am sure we could have closed the gap! Interestingly the JE Zulu managed a best flying lap time of only 1 minute 51 seconds. It did sound nice though, with it's 4.2 supercharger! Who would have thought that a pair of TD5's could whoop a no expense spared peice of V8 exotica like that!

Next up was the Auto Test, and we managed this in 36.6 seconds. There was a green 90 which was on 18" BFG AT's and looked clumsy, screeching and wallowing round the track, but according to the time sheets, it managed a 34.7 second lap!? JE's Td5 90 Automatic came in at 36.5 seconds, and our host cleaned up in a well practiced 34.1 seconds!

Last up was the quarter mile sprint, and top speed combined run. Several people complained about them using a sat nav for the timing, when I had a Racelogic Performance Box in my car, which is far more accurate and it records and stores all the data on an SD card, so there can be no fibbing. Never mind, at least the quarter mile was timed with some proper timing equipment. I never managed to record all the times for this, but our car did a 16.9 second quarter mile, with a top speed of 104mph. The Jeremy Fearn prepared Td5 90 managed an amazing 16.1 seconds after what can only be described as a 'violent' start, and carried on to a top speed of 106mph, taking the throne for the quarter mile in the diesel class. The twisted 'Drifter' 90 managed a 16.9 and a 17.0 second quarter mile on both of it's runs, but amazingly it managed a top speed of 107mph(!?!), according to what the driver said the sat nav says anyway! The sat nav was unplugged before anyone else could see it!

All in all, it was a great day out, and even the LRM magazine feature was suprisingly unbiased, so a good result all round I'd say. Many thanks to the organisers who had obviously put a lot of effort in to make this happen, and Bring on next years rematch. Times next year WILL be quicker!

Update...
It turns out that the driver of the twisted car (Matt Walton), is based at Bruntingthorpe (which is owned by the Walton family), and runs a tuning company from there, so has unlimited access to the track! No wonder the TP 90 won!!! You have to question the ethics of the organisers when things like this happen!?

We had been promised there would be another contest in 2010, in conjunction with LRM and EVO magazine, but it never happened! We had really gone to town, working on our totally rebuilt Td5 90's brakes, suspension, and engine performance, to ensure we would win the diesel class. Let's hope the re-match happens in 2011!!

Tune it & see it fly

Td5 Alive were featured on pages 124 and 125 of the October 2007 issue of Land Rover Monthly Magazine.

In this issue, Trevor Cuthbert brought his Discovery Td5 Engine ECU to us for remap tuning, While his Disco was parked in the airport car park in Belfast!

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Stayin' Alive

Td5 Alive were featured on pages 98 and 99 of the April 2007 issue of Land Rover Monthly Magazine.

In this issue, we fitted our brand new exhaust system, and EGR Bypass Kit on to Jerry Thurston's Discovery Td5, with surprising results!

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The World's Tallest Disco

Td5 Alive were in the May 2008 issue of Land Rover Owner International magazine, with an incredible 7 pages featuring Rick Purchase's unimog axle'd Discovery Td5 ES Premium.

This car has also had an update feature in the June 2009 Issue of LRO, showing off the cars further development. You can see this car on our stand, at many of the big land rover shows throughout the uk.

Also you can find out more about it, on Rick's website, here:

www.monsterdiscovery.com