Catalog 2008_4.pmd - Techtonics Tuning
Catalog 2008_4.pmd - Techtonics Tuning
Catalog 2008_4.pmd - Techtonics Tuning
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Our History...<br />
TECHTONICS <strong>Tuning</strong> opened it’s doors in 1981.<br />
However, our involvement in VW tuning goes back many<br />
years. TECHTONICS founder, Darrell Vittone, became<br />
a VW enthusiast at the tender age of 10 when his father,<br />
Joe Vittone, brought a shiny new beetle home in<br />
1954. Not only did he buy the car, he also obtained a<br />
VW & Porsche franchise and started Economotors in<br />
Riverside, California.<br />
Two years later the legendary VW accessory and<br />
tuning firm EMPI was formed by Joe. EMPI developed<br />
& produced arguably the best parts & accessories ever<br />
made for the air cooled VW’s. Today the parts are collector<br />
items with some selling at 30 times the original<br />
prices. Even the catalogs and literature are worth an<br />
amazing amount of money.<br />
Darrell’s first duty at EMPI was packaging “Okrasa”<br />
kits. Okrasa was the name used by Herr Oettinger for<br />
his special cylinder heads and dual carb kits for the 36<br />
hp VW air cooled engine. By 1963 Darrell was competing<br />
at the local drag strips with his ’56 bug. He found<br />
out quickly that just bolting on a bunch of speed equipment<br />
doesn’t always give the best results. However<br />
EMPI had just bought something that eliminated the<br />
guesswork. This device was an engine dynamometer.<br />
Darrell tuning his 36hp air cooled<br />
VW on the dyno in 1963.<br />
4<br />
Five years later<br />
and more than<br />
double the<br />
power.<br />
This started Darrell’s love affair with dyno testing.<br />
Darrell used to remove the engine to run dyno tests on<br />
the weekend and reinstall it for getting back and forth to<br />
work during the week. This went on for months at a time.<br />
Eventually the car was modified to the point it was no<br />
longer streetable and later became world famous as the<br />
EMPI “Inch Pincher” drag sedan. In 1971 EMPI was sold<br />
to a large conglomerate and Darrell left to head up a<br />
small tuning firm called “The Raceshop”.<br />
Darrell ran 11.5 ET @ 115MPH<br />
in 1971 and was #1 in his class.<br />
Darrell’s VW powered Fiat was<br />
never defeated in its class and ran<br />
10.3 ET @ 130MPH in 1975.<br />
The Raceshop set new standards in VW performance.<br />
Darrell built a Fiat 850 Spider with a VW engine that was<br />
light years ahead of the competition. The car eventually<br />
ran over 130 MPH in 10.3 seconds for the quarter mile<br />
and this was well over 30 years ago! This kind of performance<br />
would not have been possible without the help of<br />
another device in addition to the dynamometer.