https://www.facebook.com/565175460245464/

Kerry Holland Autotech, Clevedon (2026)

27/01/2026

I've been very slack about reporting back about the season so far with and Mark Pitcher so here goes a quick wrap up. This first season has certainly proven to be one of learning for all as expected but both of them have done a cracker job so far to get up to speed as quickly as possible. We are three rounds deep into the season with the first two rounds at and round three last weekend at Teretonga in Invercargill. It was pouring down and freezing cold most of the time so not only were the lads learning a brand new circuit to them but also a wet tyre that they had never driven on. Our target for each session is to close the gap between our times and the fastest lap time in each session and that's what we have achieved all season long, can't ask anymore than that. For me, as performance engineer and crew chief, watching the mechanics on each car really hitting their stride and getting the cars serviced and set-up as quick as they are is nearly as satisfying for me as the on-track performance is. Nice job fellas! One of the highlights for me was dragging my little bro Craig out of retirement to spin spanners on Lance's car. He hit the ground running like he had never left. Our pit garage neighbour continues to kill it, congrats to him. Round four is this weekend at , another track neither Lance or Mark have driven at but we'll stick to the plan and work on improving our pace throughout the weekend. We've also got a "yet to be confirmed" team mate with a rather impressive CV joining our group. His inclusion will help all of us get up to speed. Stay tuned...

13/01/2026

Welcome back! Let's get back into it for another year. Lots of good things happening this year.
Last weekend I worked as lead race engineer for my old Toyota GR86 race team, Syndicate Motorsport at Hampton Downs for the second round of their season as it was the only round this year that doesn't clash with my TA2NZ race engineering work. Didn't have a great weekend to be honest but as they say, that's racing!
The Alfa Romeo GtAm restomod that I've been working on for too long has hit some "minor dramas" but is currently being sorted. More power please!
A build that I started a while ago, an Aston Martin DB9 endurance race car, will be back from the body shop soon that has made it a fairly close replica to the GT3 version of the factory race cars. We're leaving the engine standard for now, the standard 450hp will do fine for the initial development phase. I have already finished the cage, headers and exhaust, fuel system, rear wing, brakes, suspension and installed the Holinger sequential transaxle. I'm looking forward to getting back into the Aston soon.
The TA2NZ championship continues next weekend in Teretonga and then the subsequent weekend in Cromwell. I feel that we made some real progress at round one last year and am looking forward to building on that momentum in the south island.
There are also some other really interesting projects on the horizon that I'll keep you posted on as they happen. Lets go!

13/12/2025

What do you do when you're sick of the lack of grunt from your Rover based V8 in your TVR Chimaera? You put a supercharged and dry-sumped LSA Chevy V8 in it of course! You know I'm right Mark Parsons 😁👌 My client has decided to bite the bullet and throw 600hp at his TVR but it's no small job. The entire top half of the chassis above the stock lower rails needs to be widened 100mm to fit the engine and exhaust headers. On top of the he wants inboard front and rear Ohlins dampers and, wisely has decided that it probably needs bigger brakes than the stock little brakes all mounted onto an upgraded upright. I've spent a lot of time designing and drawing the chassis to ensure the suspension geometry will give us the desired characteristics for the street and some trackday fun. CAD is brilliant for designing the car virtually to make sure it's alll going to work and it also allows me to send the drawing files Rob to bang out most of the new chassis members as well as jigs to put it all together accurately and quickly. When all of the drawings were completed it was time to get out the angle grinder and cut the top of the chassis off. What fun! All of the parts will be ready to put together first thing next year. Looking forward to it.

30/11/2025

I decided that this summer race season it was time for a change from Toyota GR86 when I was asked to race engineer a couple TA2's . They are a car with a whole lot more chassis adjustability than the Toyotas have, presenting me with the challenge of making these cars as fast as possible via the many adjustments available to me. The drivers, Mark Pitcher and Lance Gerlach are both new to cars with big slicks and lots of grunt so a lot of my time will be spent analysing data and video to help them get up to speed. We're also working with in the car. Rounds one and two at Hampton Downs went well. It was nice to work with old mate, Glenn Mason Motorsport for round two playing with spanners for Lance. The next two rounds are down south in Invercargill and Cromwell straight after the Christmas/new year. I'm looking forward to the break and then heading south and getting back into gear.

26/11/2025

I love a good before and after image and this is one of my favourites. The sound of ITB's on a high revving M62B46 BMW V8 is very hard to beat but the exhaust sound just wasn't complementing it. The car sounds awesome when it is coming towards you but not great as it goes away. A merging x-pipe at the end of the secondaries is guaranteed to give my customer that scream that he requested. It would have been nice to stay with a twin system all the way to the exit but there is limited space for the muffler. I kept the single pipe as big as possible so I doubt it'll be an issue on the dyno. Testing at Hampton Downs soon. Video to come!

05/11/2025

My old boss, Reg Cook and his team of merry humans are currently in Bolivia trying to bring home a bunch of FIA world speed records. They have hit, through no fault of their own, every hurdle that you could imagine and have been in Bolivia for far, far longer than originally planned. This has smashed the budget to pieces and Reg is in need of financial help so he can stay and finish what they've set out to achieve. If you can give him and the team a hand I'm sure they would massively appreciate it. https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/world-records-to-be-set-by-cmr-kiwi-can-do-team?fbclid=IwY2xjawNuGjdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFoa2pjNkFKTGN3NTcwMUFhAR4vUdTxtJVMfUus1VDw1og661FYqK_yH4XOwsV1I9Yfv1idIYhGIP98_lyG9w_aem_0SpEPhOv5t8MTQbB5tyTTg

07/08/2025

The V8 E36 BMW build is coming along slowly as I continue to sort a bunch of fundamental issues with the car. The initial problem cost my customer an engine with a full rebuild and new short block required after a small piece of debris went through the dry sump pump, oil hoses, oil tank and all of the bottom end bearings, bu**er. This could easily have been avoided if the engine had a decent level of filtration.
The first step to avoiding any future issues was to install filters at the very beginning of the lubrication system where the dry sump pump scavenges oil from the pan. These are nicknamed rock catchers as there are there to catch the big stuff and in the process, protect the dry sump pump from damage.
The next filter is situated in the hose heading back to the the oil tank. This inline filter in the black aluminium housing has a large filter element in it to stop any debris making it to the tank. It is easily accessable and will be removed and inspected often, a good way to check on the health of the engine.
Stage number three is the orange spin-on filter that catches any fine particles that have made it past the first two filters before the oil finally makes it to the engine. I'll cut this filter open after the first workshop engine run-up and test session to make sure everything is going to plan. A quick tip, make sure your oil temperature sensor is in the oil flow and not at the end of a hose. "The engine oil runs really cold" No it doesn't...
I've rebuilt the dry sump pump and added an extra scavenge stage to it. I've also plumbed a gauge into the crancase to see how much vacuum the dry sump pump is pulling. It's adjustable. A gearbox breather was next as there wasn't one... Brand new oil hoses are on the way. The coolant header tank was swelling under pressure as the engine warmed up, explains the 13psi cap that was on it! A new off the shelf unit will do a mint job and is a whole lot easier and quicker than making one from scratch.
I've got a very interesting project arriving next week that involves developing an intake and exaust manifold for a race car. If you need anything similar done get in touch.
That'll do, back to work.

29/07/2025

I've got a lot to thank Paul Manuell for. When he decided to go it alone in NZV8 in 2009 he asked me to run the preparation, modification and servicing of the VZ Commodore in his workshop in East Tamaki, Auckland. This was my first full-time job in charge of running a car on my own with help from Mike Squire and gained knowledge that I still use to this day. During the winter leading up to the 2010 season I used every trick that I knew, which, in hindsight, was fck all, to pull as much weight out of the car while trying to make the car stiffer at the same time. Any weight that I couldn't get rid of completely was moved as close to the left rear wheel as possible, always the lightest corner of a rear wheel drive car. I pushed the rule book pretty hard in a few areas and got a rather stern talking to by the officials when I came up with a rather naughty way to raise the front roll centre much higher which helped the Holdens a lot. McPherson strut life... We were the fastest Holden at every round that year, something I'm still very proud of. Fifteen years later and I'm in the process of preparing to run a two car team for the 2025/26 season of the TA2 series that Paul is the owner of. I just can't get away from him...

21/07/2025

I get asked about this car a lot. "Where's the Alfa? How's the Alfa coming along? Is the Alfa finished yet? Are you the guy building that Alfa?" I started building this 1974 Alfa Romeo GTV from a completely bare shell a long time ago. It has been a massive effort to get it to this point with a few delays along the way. This is a perfect example of a build that was originally going to be a nice, tidy club car that very quickly became a top end race car. The problem began when the panel and paint guys did an exceptional job which made every single used part that went onto the car look arse. Before we knew it the Alfa had turned into a replica of the factory built GTAm race car from the 60's and 70's. The restomod bug bit hard and it now has every box ticked with Motec dash, ECU, keypad and PDM, traction control, Bosch ABS, sequential six speed trans, drive by wire throttle allowing flat shift and auto downshift throttle blip and a mil spec wiring loom to control the whole shibang. The car went to the dyno for a tune where we found that the engine wasn't putting out enough power to justify the look of the car so it's out getting a big upgrade to push it well past the 200hp target. This will always be a job that I will look back on as one of the highlights of my career. Many, many thanks are due to the customer for his patience. It's always the long list of little jobs at the end of a build like this that take the longest.

16/07/2025

I've finally finished the third set of V8 Supertourer headers in a row for my customers. That's about a month of imagining, measuring, cutting and welding, four of my favourite things but, by the end, I'm ready to get onto something new. A freshly built BMW V8 has just landed on my door step ready for installation into a race car that has taken a lot of time and money to work the bugs out of it, and it's not finished yet. Working through a race car from front to back sorting out a bunch of issues so that the customer has a more enjoyable race weekend has been something I've being doing more and more recently, always satisfying work.

25/06/2025

I've had the final sign-off on the exhaust I fabricated for my customer with a 1982 Porsche 911 SC. I'm glad to report that he is one happy chappy! It's just loud enough outside of the car but with no internal droning at all. His mates think it sounds cool, it's shiny as hell and as a bonus, I'm pretty sure it'll contribute towards world peace. Have a listen to the video through headphones, it sounds crap on your phone. You know you want one. Call me. 😉

Kerry Holland Autotech

27/01/2026

13/01/2026

13/12/2025

30/11/2025

26/11/2025

05/11/2025

07/08/2025

29/07/2025

21/07/2025

16/07/2025

25/06/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category