April the 18th 2010 was a
disasterous day for KAD and Bill Richards Racing.
An already
occurring 'Serious Racing Incident' collected Bill in his Mini who was
travelling at an estimated 120mph (9,000rpm in 5th gear). This destroyed
the car and put Bill in hospital.
Fortunately Bill escaped with
three broken ribs, lacerations and a few bruises, unfortunately the car
suffered at lot worse with all of the salvageable
components fitting into just 3 boxes!
However, the KAD engine
suffered minimal damage to 'bolt on' components and will run again and
Bill has already started the new car build... will he and the car be
ready to race a Mallory Park on the 15th of May...? Watch this space!
29.03.10
Successful Season Opener for KAD!
The
opening round of the DMN Championship at Brands Hatch on Sunday the
28th of March saw a good start for the KAD race season.
With Bill Richards in hisKAD
powered Mini Clubman claiming both First in Class victories for Class C
and KAD's senior engineer Dave Usher claiming both First in Class
victories for Class D in his Peugeot 205 GTi, leaving Bill second only
to Rod Birley and Dave in a close third on the championship board.
Things are pointing towards an exciting season for 2010.
Well done to both Bill and Dave and their crews.
03.03.10
New Products
KAD announce the launch of 3 new products today, including the long awaited Alloy Front Hubs!
These, along with the new Ultimate Clutch Puller and the Ignition Coil Pack Bracket, can now be purchased direct from KAD either over the phone or through the online shop www.kad-performance-parts.co.uk
01.01.10
KAD Announce Continued Support for Bill Richards Racing
KAD are proud to announce they are providing continued support to Bill Richards for the 2010 season.
As
change of regulations sees Bill moved up a class, so he will face new
challenges this year. But now armed with a KAD 5 Speed gearbox, Bill is
positively looking forward to this season.
After a sucessful weekend racing at Brands Hatch, the season closes with Bill obtaining the following results;
DMN- 1st in class D and 2nd in overall championship SEMSEC- 1st in class 2
Thanks to Bill and his team for all their hard work over the season- its been a brilliant success, proving again the power and reliability of the KAD cylinder head.
Now its down to KAD to continue with the winter developments, ready for Bill to take on his new rivals in Class C in 2010.
01.10.09
Castle Coombe MiniWorld Action Day
Thanks to all of our customers who came to meet us at Castle Coombe. This was the first show in 5 years at which KAD had an official presence!
Also, a big thanks to Bill Richards and his team, who ran their tin top car with a KAD twin cam engine in it all day, giving rides out on track to demonstrate the capabilities of the car, engine and driver.
The car ran well and strong all day- completing an extimated 200 laps of the circuit- a testiment of the reliability of the KAD cylinder head conversion.
The engine Bill was running was a KAD big valve on twin carbs, a 123 ignition and an all steel bottom end- producing 158bhp... which compared to his race cars 186bhp was relatively tame!
28.06.09
KAD- Powering
the 'Fastest Mini in the World!'
KAD is proud to
announce the 'Worlds Fastest Mini' was driven to victory by Bill Richards in
the 'Fastest Mini in the World Race' at Lydden Hill- 28th June 2009- powered by
a KAD 16 Valve engine.
Despite a gruelling weekend's
racing- with temperatures in excess of 25 degrees- Bill's car totalled up over
100 laps of Lydden circuit and achieved 5 outright wins out of 5 races- winning
the Fastest Mini Race by an incredible 19 seconds! Proving that not only is his
car the fastest but also the most reliable.
Well done to Bill and all of his team.
10.04.09
KAD Japan-
New distributor for Japan
Contact:
KAD JAPAN
c/o DELTA CO., LTD.
3-19-13, Hama,
Toyonaka, Osaka
561-0817, Japan
In the continuous requirement to maintain his competitive edge and race winning
reputation, Bill Richards has replaced his Arden 8-Port engine with a KAD 'Works' 16 valve A-series
engine.
Manufactured, supplied, built and dyno tuned by KAD's in-house engineering
team, this full race specification KAD 16 valve, twin cam engine supports
one-off profiled camshafts, lightweight 74mm pistons on a 86mm lightweight
forged crankshaft. Producing peak torque of 123 ft.lbs and reving comfortably
to over 9,000rpm.
Combined with Bill's many years of experience and well developed car, although
it is still very early in the season, we have already seen class wins on its
maiden outings. Moreover, Bill has already broken the fastest ever lap record
for a steel bodied Mini's at both Brands and Lydden this season.
We are sure there is much more to come: For the latest news check the Bill
Richards Racing website: www.billrichardsracing.com
20.10.08
Peugeot Parts added to Online Shop
KAD's latest branch of motorsport products extend to a range of products for the Peugeot 205 GTi and 306 GTI6 and the Mi16 engine. Product information is available on the website and now available to purchase through our online shop.
22.9.08
New K4 4 Pot Calipers for 13" Wheels!
With faster Mini’s being produced every day, especially when
they are increasingly used as road cars, the demand for better braking is
constantly increasing. The best way to approach this is by increasing the disc
size to increase the braking torque.
Although we already produce a 6 Pot caliper which runs on a
10.4” vented disc, adapting the 4 Pot caliper for this size of disc would not
only make a cheaper alternative but would include dust seals in its
construction- enabling it to be used on a road car without worry of damage from
dirt and salt. Furthermore, it allows the widely available- standard 4 Pot
brake pads- to be used.
By using two tested components- the 4 Pot caliper and our
10.4” disc, we had a pretty much guaranteed quality product- Nevertheless Bill
Richards kindly tested these brakes for us and claims they are just as good, if
not even better than our 6 Pot kit!
As a result, the K4 Caliper was developed. Part Number
1019177 for the calipers on their own, or 1019178 for the kit with discs and bells.
The introductory retail price: £750+ VAT for the 1019178 Kit
with Calipers and Discs.
8.8.08
Quickshift Changes Again...!
Having noticed that more of our customers are using the KAD Quickshift on daily use road cars, after a couple of years of rigerous use and abuse the quickshift often requires a squirt of grease to keep it working as smoothly as the day it was purchased!
Instead of having to take your quickstick off and send it back to us for disassembly and a service, and not be able to use you car in the mean time... we have now included a grease nipple in the design, which allows anyone with a grease gun to quickly re-lubricate the quickshift in-situ!
Just be careful not to over do it... you don't want to be greasing your carpets!
6.2.06
Change in new quickshift
All genuine KAD quickshifts sold from March 2006 onwards will now be anodised blue with a distinct machined groove
beneath the knurled screw cap.We have made this change so that customers
will be able to spot the genuine quickshifts from the copies on sale. The copy quickshifts, anodised purple can
be secondarily identified by their poor finish, knotchy operation and silver
plated plunger at the base of the stick. The first version of the KAD quickshifts
which were anodised purple will always have a black plunger at the base of the
stick. The copy will also not be supplied with the distinctive KAD badge or
instruction sheet.
11.11.05
Emails to KAD
If you have recently emailed us and had no reply after a few days, the chances are that your email has been affected by
anti-spam software. As we have email addresses on our website we have been getting a large amount of spam email. We have now been checking through all of
the email traffic daily as we realise that many genuine emails are getting affected by the software and were previously being deleted without been directed to us. To reduce the likelihood of your email being classes as spam by the spam
software, please explain in the subject line the reason for your enquiry, that way the system will recognise your email as genuine and direct it to the correct
mailbox.
Thank you and apologies to those who have not had any reply from us.
11.11.05
Honeymoon over on new quickshift.
KAD made the first Mini quickshift back in 1991. A well known Lancashire Mini
supplier made a verbatim copy of the stick within months and then as the years
passed more copies came to the market. Whilst the first copy was a fairly
accurate replica, those that followed were less impressive engineering examples
which lead to the product getting somewhat a bad name. For the customer, there
was no way to know if their purchase was genuine or a cheap and nasty copy and
many people called us in frustration with a multitude of problems; the sensible
ones ordering a new genuine stick direct and ditching the useless copy and the
brave trying to reengineer their budget problem stick.
When we introduced our New Improved Quickshift, we started with a clean sheet
of paper and with the experience of the old design created a new version which
sorted many of the aspects of the old design that we felt could be improved. We
spent a lot of time prototyping the new stick, ironing out numerous glitches in
its operation until we had a product which worked extremely well even under
arduous competition usage. The changes were all very small details but essential
to trouble free operation.
For the customer, the new, more expensive stick represents, if we may say so,
a nice piece of engineering and is fairly priced for the care that has been put
in to its manufacture and finish.
All was well for two years or so, only one of these, the KAD stick on sale,
if you bought one, you knew it would work because only KAD was making them. Now
we understand this no longer the case. It seems that the first of the cheap and
nasty copies has arrived on our shores. A well known Midland supplier of wheels
has crawled out from under their stone with a cut priced copy. Copying other
peoples ideas seems to be all that they capable of sadly.
Buy this at your peril. I doubt that they have savoured the small
details that we have carefully engineered into our gearstick that will make the
difference. The honeymoon period for safe purchasing is over.
The genuine KAD gearstick will always be supplied with a small KAD badge on
the top of the stick.
If you are mail ordering from another supplier and would like to know that
your purchase is genuine KAD, please email or telephone
us and we will verify that we supply that particular company.
KAD RS Range: Rally Specials
2005 will see a range of parts developed
specifically for the rigours of rallying. In the past many of KAD's products
have been aimed for circuit race use but with parts increasingly finding their
way onto the stages it is time to redesign for Special Stage use whilst still
retaining KAD's hallmark quality and performance ethic.
The new parts will be offered under our RS
branding. Whilst "RS" is used everywhere else to signify something
different or special with KAD's RS Range it will be no different except its
available for the Mini
New advert for Miniworld/Mini Magazine
January 2005
Lloyds Auto Centre appointed as distributor for All Ireland
Lloyd will be no stranger to you if you
follow Irish Rallying, he must be the fastest driver on four wheels (often two)
in a Mini whether on tarmac or in the forests. He knows the cars inside out and
has been of great assistance in product development. His first outing in his new
KAD 16 valve engined tarmac car yielded 10th overall in Decembers Killarney
Historic stages. With 182bhp at 8,000rpm and 126 lb/ft torque at 7,000rpm, this
car should prove a successful package in 2005 and one for the Super 1600's to
watch out for. As a testament to the engine and Omex management system, after
the rally, Lloyd drove back across the famous Molls Gap tarmac mountain stage
behind the rally traffic in 5th gear the entire way: try that with a 5 port
engine? Not likely. Watch this space for more developments. Next outing is
County Mayo March 13th 2005
Killarney Historic Stages, photo courtesy James Burke
KAD's Australian distributor, Minisport, will be exhibiting in Melbourne.
See KAD Quality first hand. The KAD Twin Cam cylinder head, KAD four
pot alloy calipers, alloy swing arms and other KAD parts at the show
KAD appoints Seven Enterprises as sole US/Canada distributor
for KAD Mini products effective November 2003.
This is great news for our US Customers who now have better
access to KAD parts and to the immense experience of Seven Enterprises with
their proven track record in building fast Minis.
see www.7ent.com
