My trip down to Active Autowerke in Miami

[Jason Leung <jleung20@xxxxxxxxx>]

I went down to Active Autowerke to pay them a visit this past weekend, 
Aug 29th.

AA is owned by Mike and Karl Hugh, and let me tell you, they are fabul-
ous hosts.  I stayed at Mike's home with his wife and son, and Mike's
family, Karl's family, and they're whole entire extended family, incl-
ding Fred, their father, treated me like a part of their family.

I ate lunch, dinner, and Dim sum with them, and they are fabulous hosts.
To show how well they treated me, both Mike and Karl spent their whole
weekend at the shop with me....they don't work on the weekend. 
Anyways, on to the good stuff:

AA is one HUGE shop.  They have offices, a large service area, a very
larged fenced in and security-gated parking lot, and canopies outside
over the parking lot to shield customer cars' from the Florida sun.
The service area itself is sparkling clean....a _very_ professional
outfit.  All sort of modified BMWs all over the place.  It seems
that many locals trust AA to do all kinds of turbocharging and 
service work on their cars.  They have a huge industrial tank
filled with Castrol oil so that they can grab an oil fill line
suspended from the roof and fill up a car's oil system with
oil w/o ever opening a can of oil!  Just like the quick lube places.

They have a VERY large stock room with all sorts of BMW parts.
Everything you can think of.  Take-off exhausts are piled up
12 ft high in one corner.  LOTS of wastegates, turbo kit piping
that's powder coated black, cast turbo manifolds,
hose clamps of marine-application quality everywhere.
Everything you can think of is there.  Copper head gaskets, aftermarket
exhausts of all types, 6-speed trannies, Suspension parts from
basically anyone you can think of, European M3 oil coolers,
super high capacity aluminum racing radiators etc etc etc etc.....

They have a rack full of turbochargers of all sorts.  Stage 1,
Stage 2, and super experimental EXTREMELY large turbochargers
for all out ridiculous setups.  Some of these turbos come from
of industrial trucks applications.

Intercoolers in three different sizes, Performance exhausts of
all brands, three different external wastegates from HKS and
Deltagate, Lightweight aluminum flywheels, HD performance clutches
of their own design, 4 and 6 piston caliper AP brakes (the 6 
piston caliper brakes are milled from a solid bolck of aluminum.
At least 1/2 the weight of the 4 pot ones.)  They have Brembo brakes
there, and even the Euro floating rotors, which look positively
puny compared to the AP set up.

Their piping has ridges at the end to insure that hoses don't
blow off under boost.  I got to pick and poke all over the
engine room, where they have 3.0s, 2.5s, 3.2s, every motor
you can think of, disassembled.  I saw an example of an 
overrevved S50 with BIG holes in the block.  I saw stock
pistons, *forged* pistons they've been doing work on, Con-rods
they've shotpeened and metallaxed, my God, I was a kid in
a Candy store, I snapped off 100 pictures in their shop in
15 minutes!

They sell 3 guage clusters for the e36 done in stainless steel.
But what's impressive is that all the connections are soldered
and shrink wrapped, and all the ends terminate in a solid pastic
connector that you connect to the car, so that the whole
unit is one serviceable unit.  Very clean.  Everything is *really*
impressive.

Karl sat me down for a good hour and showed me how he changes the
values in the car's chips using the DME editor by Jim to modify
the values from turbocharged and normally aspirated cars.  What
Karl was talking about was completely over my head.  They
have an EEPROM burner on site, so Karl can make up a chip,
analyzes the results with the inhouse Horbia analyzer, and take the
car to the Dyno literally across the street.  Seems that Karl
has gotten together with Jim C to use larger than stock injectors,
w/o the need for additional injectors, and man, they're using 42lb/hr
injectors.

Anyways, on to the cars.  I got to drive one car and ride another.
The car I drove was a stage 2 3.0L M3.  This car is basically
LUDICROUS.  Good heavens, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, bam bam bam!  It all
went by like *that*.  I was going 100 in no time.  In fact,
I was *afraid* to take the car over 5K rpm.  Basically, it was
like being launched like a missile.  This car acclerated so
fast I was even a little worried about the brakes, and the
car has the AP 4-pot brakes, 13" diameter.  GGEEEEEEEEZZZUUUUUUS
is the best way to describe this car.  And the car was quieter
than stock.  And drove like stock except for the stiffer clutch.
Refined.  Very.  No off-boost driveability problems, Turbo lag is
not an issue....You know how the supercharged cars really only
start to gain power over 4500rpm?  This car, man, by 2500rpm,
its already going mach 3.  Cya later, kompressor.  Cya later,
Euro 3.2.  Cya later, anything.  Really.

And the temperature gauges didn't budge, even with constant
WOT blasts continusously and Miami heat.

If you're not satisfied with this car, you're crazy.

Then, I got to ride in the 3.2 liter stage 2 turbo.

And I thought the 3.0 liter was fast.

The 3.2, crimony, was basically UNGODLY.  I saw the dyno sheets
for this car, and this thing is making 490 lb ft and 420 hp
At *the wheels*  I know this sounds like total BS, and sounds
rididculously high, but believe it when I say this is absolutely
the fastest car I have ever been in in my whole entire life.
If the 3.0 is an F16, then the 3.2 is an F22, that's the
best way to describe it.  This car should be illegal.  It doesn't
matter what gear you're in, you can spin those tires.  Wanna
beat a crotch-rocket?  This is the way to do it.  If you're
not satisfied with this car, either

a)  Your name is Joe Amato or Kenny Bernstein or something and you
    run nitromethane dragsters for a living.
b)  You are comatose.

I can't believe some of their customers want even MORE than the
stage 2 3.2.  That's just plain loco.

If anybody is in the Miami area, I highly suggest paying them
a visit.

Not a paid ad, but HIGHLY pumped after visting these guys for
2 days (that Northwest strike is screwing up my flight
plans to go back home!),    I have no financial interest, etc, 

Oh, I forgot.....and they have a 24 cylinder 900hp
40 ft cigarette boat in the back of the shop.....
;-)

Jason Leung

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