Road Racing Discussion Interested in taking your MINI road racing? Find out what you need to do to get your MINI ready!

Nuzzo Motorsports Announces Partnership with Unichip North America

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old Jan 23, 2006 | 05:41 AM
  #1  
tnuzzo's Avatar
tnuzzo
Thread Starter
|
3rd Gear
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
Nuzzo Motorsports Announces Partnership with Unichip North America

Nuzzo Motorsports Announces Partnership with Unichip North America

January 20, 2006 – Glen Head, NY and Hillsboro, OR

Nuzzo Motorsports, campaigning three MINI Coopers at the Grand Am Cup 200 at Daytona International Speedway this January, announced a partnership with Unichip North America, makers of a plug-and-play piggyback engine control unit (ECU). Nuzzo and Unichip have agreed to a multi-race partnership, focused on building brand awareness through livery applications and outreach in the MINI community, as well as performance benchmarking and testing, using the Grand-Am Cup MINI Cooper S as a marketing platform.

Unichip, a custom-programmable, plug-and-play ECU, allows users to extract maximum performance out of their cars – and their unique engine modifications - using an infinitely-tunable interface. The result of installation and tuning of a Unichip in a given car is a unique calibration that harnesses the power of all aftermarket modifications to an engine, such as cold air intakes and modified headers. Totally re-programmable and custom tunable, the Unichip guarantees car owners maximum performance, while leaving no electronic footprint detectable by an OEM scan.

Nuzzo and Unichip will work together to develop the perfect engine performance characteristics of a race-tuned MINI Cooper S, using the same street-legal product in the race car that customers can buy for their street cars.

Tony Nuzzo, lead driver and team principle of Nuzzo Motorsports said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Unichip North America to the team. They’ve got a product that we believe in, and are eager to use the platform that Grand-Am Cup and MINI racing provides for getting their name out. We’re looking forward to working with the proven talent and technology at Unichip. They’ve demonstrated an enormous depth of know-how when it comes to getting the most out of the MINIs and we can’t wait to get our cars out competing in Grand-Am Cup this year.”

Kim Ziebell, Marketing Director for Unichip North America said, “We’re pleased to announce our support for Nuzzo Motorsports and their racing MINI Coopers. Racing is a new marketing exercise for us, but we believe that by teaming with Tony, one of the foremost MINI technical gurus – and the guy who’s willing to take the fight to the more powerful sportscars out there – we’ll demonstrate to the enthusiast community the performance aspects of our product. We’re looking forward to seeing the Unichip brand out on the track at Daytona, and are excited to do some performance benchmarking in the Nuzzo MINIs to demonstrate how well our product holds up under the stress of endurance racing.”

Tony is the owner of Nuzzo Motorsports which is beginning its fourth year campaigning the MINI Cooper S. Tony began racing in Porsche Club and drove his first professional race in 2001 in a Rolex Series GT Class Porsche finishing sixth in class and tenth overall. In 2002, Tony finished Third in the Drivers Championship in Grand-Am Cup’s STII Class and was named 2002 Rising Star. In 2003 Tony began campaigning the MINI Cooper S in Grand-Am ST class and in 2005 earned MINI to its first professional podium finishing third at Watkins Glen co-driving with Steve Pattee.

To learn more about Unichip North America, visit http://www.unichip.us

To learn more about Nuzzo Motorsports, visit http://www.nuzzomotorsports.com
 
Old Jan 23, 2006 | 05:59 AM
  #2  
RED FURY's Avatar
RED FURY
5th Gear
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 785
Likes: 0
From: oHIo
Exciting news !!! Let us know of any gains you see

Maybe Uni-Chip can offer some redline changes for the "upgraded" MINI S ?
 
Old Jan 23, 2006 | 06:40 AM
  #3  
minimute's Avatar
minimute
1st Gear
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 39
Likes: 0
Tony, how do you plan on using the Unichip with a Motec?
 
Old Jan 23, 2006 | 08:06 AM
  #4  
tnuzzo's Avatar
tnuzzo
Thread Starter
|
3rd Gear
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
We don't. After Daytona we'll refit one of the cars with the unichip and begin testing before VIR.
 
Old Jan 23, 2006 | 09:04 AM
  #5  
TonyB's Avatar
TonyB
6th Gear
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 3,957
Likes: 2
From: a canyon, south Bay Area
Excellent news Tony! Congratulations on forging this relationship. As a UNIChip customer, it's a pleasure to see you guys putting faith in this product as well...

As I shared in the Performance forum a few weeks back, Jack Friedman of UNIChip confirmed that the product does indeed have the ability to raise the rev limiter. He said that if there is enough support in the MINI Community to to do so, he'd make it happen...

Really look forward to your testing!

ADD: I hope your evaluation of the UNIChip includes track times and data-logging... information had under real world driving conditions (not soley dyno pulls).
 
Old Jan 23, 2006 | 11:15 AM
  #6  
danielg's Avatar
danielg
4th Gear
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 318
Likes: 0
From: Richmond, VA
Originally Posted by tnuzzo
VIR.
I hope to be there!
 
Old Jan 25, 2006 | 07:30 PM
  #7  
magic mini's Avatar
magic mini
5th Gear
iTrader: (1)
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 603
Likes: 0
From: Cullman/Birmingham Alabama
Good luck on the up coming race. Can you tell us what ECU upgrade did you use in the past before UNIchip? I think I saw you using some type of Ecu programmer last year but I could be wrong.
 
Old Jan 26, 2006 | 04:43 AM
  #8  
onasled's Avatar
onasled
Banned
iTrader: (1)
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 3,799
Likes: 3
From: Northeast CT
Originally Posted by magic mini
Good luck on the up coming race. Can you tell us what ECU upgrade did you use in the past before UNIchip? I think I saw you using some type of Ecu programmer last year but I could be wrong.
Tony was running the Motec system. I would imagine that at least $10K has been spent to get this up and running .
ECU installation is a very over priced mod IMHO.
 
Old Jan 26, 2006 | 04:55 AM
  #9  
magic mini's Avatar
magic mini
5th Gear
iTrader: (1)
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 603
Likes: 0
From: Cullman/Birmingham Alabama
I have the Mth cartune Tuner ECU upgrade but I'm always looking for new mods.
 
Old Feb 3, 2006 | 11:08 AM
  #10  
astrochex's Avatar
astrochex
6th Gear
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1,731
Likes: 0
From: Anaheim, CA
The Unichip deal is great for Nuzzo Motorsports, but damned if GARRA hasn't mucked things up for next year, "Bosch To Become Sole Supplier of ECUs for Rolex Series and Grand-Am Cup in 2007"
http://www.grandamerican.com/News/Article.asp?ID=5784

 
Related Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
TBRoye
R55 :: Clubman Talk (2008+)
496
Oct 6, 2016 02:41 PM
conky
MINI Parts for Sale
10
Apr 6, 2016 08:03 PM
vetsvette
MINI Parts for Sale
3
Oct 20, 2015 07:42 AM
yyj3869
R50/R53 :: Hatch Talk (2002-2006)
8
Sep 28, 2015 06:53 PM
Vaderm34
Chicago MINI Motoring Club
0
Sep 28, 2015 05:03 AM




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:22 PM.