2023 Fleet Review

83 QUATTRO RALLY BUILD: https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/quattro-rally-buildWe are closing in on finishing the dry build phase of this project. Once we get the wiring done, we can disassemble the car and prep the shell for paint. Hi-lights this year include, power steering pump mount, hood pins, A-pillar gussets, handbrake lever delete, radiator ducting, cold air intake, spare tire, intercom, fire extinguishers, map light, dash cover, power wiring and the bumper and hood slot...

The 12 Month Anniversary of Our New Showroom

Our new showroom has changed quite a lot in the first year of occupancy. We're happy with how we've been able to use the space in many different ways to accommodate our combination of warehousing, retail and car building needs. Come along for an updated tour by watching the video below.

Early May TIMcienda Showroom / Workshop Update

Sorry we haven't updated you lately. Not a ton of stuff going on with the new building mostly because its not new anymore. Can't believe we've been here six months already.    When we left you our Quattro rally build had just left to get an exhaust built. Well it's back but it's not in it's build room yet. It's spending some time in the workshop while we subject it...

TIMcienda: More Workshop Updates!

This week we fixed a wall, bought a welder, added some bling, got exhausted then started to spiral out of control! Find out what happened by watching the video or reading the words. We finally figured out how to tidy up the wall in the showroom and deal with all the partition walls we had left over by the previous tenant. Yep, we leaned them against the crappy wall and...

TIMcienda Update: New Help, Decorating the Walls & More

We moved a lot of things forward this week in the new showroom. We hired some help but he proved useless as he just sits around doing nothing. We worked on our first car in the fleet though. Our Impreza was in desperate need of an oil change. As the floor is still covered in carpet glue we thought it best to put down a tarp.  It's still technically winter...

TIMcienda Workshop Build Update: It's Time for Indecision

So, the decision about the floor is..................not to make a decision! So much easier LOL. We were struggling to decide and then it hit us. It's probably fine as it is, for now. This revelation came about once we realized that the only area we need a glue free floor is under a car. So that's only about a specific 10'x20' patch in the middle of the space. That, coupled...

"TIMcienda" Week 10 Update: Progress is Progress

These past couple of weeks has been a hodge-podge of, small, seemingly insignificant, events that, in total, still amount to progress, so we'll take them. In the kitchen and bathroom we scored a drainer for our prodigious amount of dirty team mugs and a small screen for the drain in the bathroom where we keep dropping things and losing them. We also found some door handles we like for the...

"TIMcienda" Workshop Update: We're floored!

    As we mentioned in the last update job #1 with the workshop was removing the carpet from that area. YouTube was very helpful in suggesting how this should be done and we even bought special tools for the job. A carpet cutter and a carpet puller. If only we had such professional tools for our car projects! Check out the video to see these in action.   It...

Our New Showroom, "TIMcienda" Time To Build a Workshop

We've been piddling around with the showroom, warehouse and storage areas of our new space for nearly two months but now it's time to get serious and build a workshop. This is what we need and this is what we've got. We don't need to build a building as we've got one. Well, the corner of one. This is the space we've allocated. Plus, we have to be able to...

Week 8 of the "TIMcienda" Showroom Build

This week we moved our tire machines in, added a shelf, painted the entrance walls, scored some extension cord covers and dried some tents! We are finally completely out of our old space as we moved our tire machines from the old space into the new building this week. You can't imagine how good it feels to never have to go back there again. It was a bit of a...

Our New Showroom. "TIMcienda" 2021 Edition!

In this week's episode we get some stuff, put up some racks, see daylight, struggle with our tire machines, start to think about the workshop, get some seats and earn a badge! But first we'd like to wish everyone a happy New Year and thanks our customers for their support during, what must be said, was a very difficult year. A friend of ours donated some cool vintage car mags...

Our New Showroom. "TIMcienda" Week 6

This week we replace some windows, organize the warehouse, clean our parts washer, move a wall, paint things and add a car. Maybe this will become a thing. Weekly pano shot anyone? This is what it looked like on Monday.   This week we replaced the windows in the garage door with 1/2" plexiglass. Some idiot had painted over the glass ones then an even bigger idiot leased the building...

Our New Showroom. "TIMcienda" Week 5

FIVE WEEKS! Can't believe we've been in here five weeks now. Seems like we haven't done much but the video and pictures say otherwise. A lot of moving: We moved into the kitchen, moved the trailer over, moved the rally car and moved the last of our stuff, almost. Though not finished yet we couldn't help ourselves and moved into the new kitchen. It still needs the walls painting but...

Our New Building. "TIMcienda" Week 4

In this episode we empty the storage units, finish painting the blue monolith, paint the fridge, plant our flags, demolish a wall, have a leak and start the build room. This week marked a milestone as we finally emptied our storage units and moved out. We still have the tire machines in our old building but everything else is in the new one. Mostly 83 Quattro parts. We'll need to...

Our New Building. "TIMcienda" Week 3

Another busy week developing the new showroom. We brought a lot more stuff in and made some decisions about how we are going to use the space. Job one this week was to put all those shelves somewhere. The obvious place was the back storage room. They seem to belong there and are out of sight but it may be just a temporary home for now. This created some space...

Our New Building. "TIMcienda" Week 2

Big week this week. A lot of activity. Moved the showroom along nicely and started to think about warehouse and workshop layout. Here's the video. More detailed words and pictures below. The big development is that we got our 85 Quattro into the showroom and gave it the premium spot by the front entrance. This car is undergoing a (slow) engine rebuild and has been away at a shop for...

Our New Building. "TIMcienda" Week 1

As you can imagine, a lot of activity this week as we started to move out of our storage units and into our new showroom. As the space will be used primarily as a showroom we plan to establish that first. Then we'll figure out were to store inventory, parts and other stuff and whatever space is left will be the workshop. Lets see how that goes. Here is a...

New Building. Our "TIMcienda"

We finally got a new building. No more storage units :) 2800 square feet in a great location. It's in a nice industrial park in Bloomfield Hills: One mile from Woodward Avenue. One mile from M1 Concourse, One mile from High Octane Cafe. Could not be happier.   This is what it looks like inside. The double doors and single door to the next unit will be blocked off and...

New Wheel Release - BRAID Tenrace+ CrossKart Wheel

BRAID's range of Tenrace+ competition wheels are designed to survive the rigors of competition. They can be built to your specifications with any offset, bolt pattern and center bore you need in either beadlock or non-beadlock system configurations. Contact us for custom color and dual drilled options. View Tenrace+

The Road to Victory

This guest post was written by Amanda Skelly of Noble Star Rally Team. Team Illuminata is a proud sponsor of Amanda's rally program and would like to congratulate her on her recent win. This is her account of her journey to victory! Just when it feels like the racing season is finally starting anew, you can blink and it is already halfway over. Within the last 7 months, I have...

Frigid Sno*Drift

A couple of weeks ago we made our annual pilgrimage up north to attend the 2019 running of the Sno*Drift rally. This is a unique and enjoyable event we have attended in some form for the last 12 years or so. In the past we have serviced for teams or just spectated but in more recent times we have sponsored the event and set up a display at various locations...

TIM News - Round The Workshop

None of our project cars have progressed much lately, mainly due to being busy fulfilling orders but also because we have been picking away at some of the less glamorous tasks and vehicles we have. Therefore we thought we'd give you a quick run down of what we've been up to in the workshop.   85 UR Quattro With the Quattro running somewhat adequately after it's Concours prep we decided...

Concours d'Elegance of America

Well, what a day we had at the Concours d’Elegance of America last Sunday. This is the first time the car has been accepted to a concours event and our first too so we had no idea what to expect. It’s scertainly not like RallyCross! With 11 year old tyres and a nice shiny car we decided the sensible option was to tow the car to the event, even though it was...

Great Southern Ohio Forest Rally For TIM

This past weekend we sponsored and attended the second Southern Ohio Forest Rally (SOFR) and Ohio Valley Region RallyCross in Cillicothe, Ohio. Both events proved very sucessful for Team Illuminata Mototorsport. (TIM) As we were going to display, spectate and ultimately compete in our 911 CarreraRX we felt we should at least start it out clean. It was a five hour uneventful drive down to Chillicothe under gray skys. The...