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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#151047 2018-11-05 06:01 |
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Hot Seats and Hot Wheels!
(Most of) running gear upgrades has been completed!
I swear the quick delivery order option was worth it even if it is basically created a black hole in my wallet!
Another guest build appears as well! I can't wait to tell you guys about this one!  [04 Nov 2018] I woke up early again at 7am, but instead of going for another shopping spree, I realized that (a) my wallet has went on a diet due to my actions and (b) it was a race weekend with 3 major events going on, so I'm watching live stream of Australian Supercars Championship instead. The race was a great one I should say, with the championship gets heated by on and off-track actions with only 2 (3? Or even only 1?) rounds to go. As the podium celebraion finished and podium interview started, I heard a door knocking. I immediately got off my computer to see who's coming. I could skip the interview anyway.
I opened the door, and turns out it's the delivery service truck has arrived with quite vast amount of delivery! Even the driver was surprised by the amount of my orders. If you don't remember what did I ordered previously, they were a set WedsSport TC105N wheels, a set of Bridgestone Potenza Adrenalin RE002 tyres for the wheels, 2 sets of Endless 4 pot brakes with OEM rotors, and two Bride Zeta III seats. After putting together boxes of the orders with the driver, I took care of the papers and thanked him. I gleefully returned to the garage to install the seats. First, I had to remove the stock seats. Surprisingly, the stock Recaro seats aren't as heavy as I thought, but still generally feels heavy. They're made for comfort after all, not for performance. "What about the rear seats, Smoke?" For that I'd say I'll keep it stock. Looks like there are no aftermarket rear seats for Evo III, and I'm not going to remove it since (a) the Evo doubles as a daily, (b) they still look comfortable, and (c) it can be a good ballast (but this is just my hypothetical theory). Chances are when all the sponge/foam has been flattened, I only have to replace them (I humoured myself that I could have filled them with kapok/cotton like pillows in tropical areas, but then I remembered that most pillows these days are filled with synthetic fibers anyway. Cotton-filled pillows are lovely though!). 
 Some minutes later, I've successfully mounted the new seats. Look at them, proper stuff for the job, aren't they? I also have a small quality test by sitting on them. Neither my arse or my back protested after some minutes, so I reassured myself that I've made a right choice by picking the Zeta III seats (with recommendations from Erwin, thank you very much!)
 Then I prepared to continue working on the wheels and the brakes, but midway I remembered something: Brake bleeding is one hell of a job, let alone when it is done alone for all wheels. Top Gear has a good evidence of this when the hosts raced against time (and The Stig) assembling a Caterham from scratch, and I myself also almost gave up when I refilled the brake fluid alone some time ago. So the best thing I could do is contacting Ohira-sensei for another visit at Summer Yume garage.
"Sensei, are you in the garage?" "Yes I am, young man. I and Minami are free today, and the boys are watching races as well. You want to join?" "Oh, great, I'll jump in too. And uh, I got some more parts to be installed, is that okay for you sensei?" "That's okay for me, I guess the boys won't mind too" "Alright sensei, I'm going there. Sorry to disturb you" "Be safe, young man. That's okay" Half an hour later, I arrived at the garage. Ohira-sensei greeted me and guided me to place the Evo on the working bay. Other than Ohira-sensei and Minami-san, the others that was present that time are Goro, Kei, Mishima and Yuuta. Nato had taken a vacation with his family that day, while Gary understandably had to finish his assignments and reports from the Tsukuba Uni. Before working on the car, we decided to watch the final half of the MotoGP race taking part at the same time, despite the fact that I don't like the competition from the off-track aspects these days. The race itself had a huge plot twist with a dominant leader crashing with 4 laps to finish.
 After the race was finished, we set off to work. Kei and I replaced the wheels and fitted the tyres, while Goro and Yuuta replaced and bleed the brakes, with Mishima pumping the brake fluid using the pedals from inside the Evo. Kei also commented over my choice of the wheels, as well as its lightness. Meanwhile Mishima was surprised over how low yet comfortable he was when he sat on the Bride seats. That's another reassurance of my choice, then. But the bit that interested me is that Mishima also said that Ohira-sensei also used to own a bucket seat before being sold by the time he joined the crew squad. I might ask Ohira-sensei about that later.
When all the works has been done 2 hours later, I and Kei gave Mishima some treatment since he complained the brake fluid pumping session gave quite a pain to his left foot. Yuuta and Goro washed their hands before being treated with coronet cakes and coffee by Minami-san. We all returned to the office afterwards to see the FIA Intercontinental Drifting Cup on TV. It was quite interesting as it was held in damp condition, so we all discussed about the differences over drifting in dry and wet conditions as well as the skill the driver has to deploy over the damp condition. We also talked about the entrant's car as well. Ah yes almost forgot to show you guys how does the Evo look now. Aaaaaand here it is! Feast your eyes on the Evo for free 
    Before I left the garage, I remembered that I said to you guys I'll show Ohira-sensei's Galant when I returned here. So I asked him about it. "Sensei, is your car also here?" "Yes, what's the matter?" "Can I have a look at it? I and some of my friends are quite curious with it" "Oh yes, sure. I've just cleaned it this morning" "Thank you very much sensei. Um, I'll make sure you're safe by censoring the plate later" "Wise move, young man, I appreciate it" And here it is, fresh from the 90's glory in factory dark blue (can't remember the official name) paint. Most of the parts are still retained from the 90's era when Ohira-sensei raced with Mr. Eikiji, such as the Tein Super Flex coilovers, Apexi exhaust and muffler setting and the SSR Professor SP1 wheels. He also added custom handmade front and rear anti-roll bars crated together with Mr. Eikiji. However, some parts are noticeably relatively new, such as the Project Mu brakes with matched colors as the body, and front Recaro seats taken from stock Evo IX.
   As of the performance, Ohira-sensei said that near the death of Mr. Eikiji, he was able to push it up to 312 BHP so he could still dish battles against newer cars of that time. Quite an astonishing feat for a Galant as well as early-gen 4G63T. But since he and Minami-san opened Summer Yume garage, he understandably detuned it to 265 BHP. This was done to ease the maintenance of the car since they don't have much money at that time, as well as giving the car some balance as a daily driver and sense of safety so Minami-san won't freak out inside it. I'm sure that figure is still enough to attack Tsukuba Fruits line touge swiftly.
Here I was also given some explanations about Mishima's words about the bucket seats. Ohira-sensei used to install Bride Lowmax seats, but obviously Minami-san didn't like it and worse, she had a back pain for 3 days because of it. So Ohira-sensei had to sold them, bought back the standart front seats and lived with it. Circa 2011, a customer with an Evo IX arrived and asked him for help on installing a bucket seat. At this moment, Ohira-sensei had an idea. He decided to keep the uninstalled stock seats, tried to install it and modified the electric parts together with Kei and Mishima. With the installation done successfully, Ohira-sensei asked Minami-san to try sitting on it. Although skeptical at first, Minami-san turned out liked it for it's size and comfortness, so here it is, the Evo IX seats retained to this day. Minami-san chuckled and smiled during the explanation, and jokingly said, "I have to be blamed for this." We laughed together before I bid farewell to them and the crew. I'm sure I'll be visiting the Galant for some more time [05 Nov 2018] Whoopee paycheck time! The promotions I did at the thot-baiter update was also worth it, as I net V$470 this week. Might not be much for tuning the car, but the most important thing is it still be able to keep me and my Evo rolling day by day. The saving for engine tuning starts now, and before the winter holiday I'll make sure to visit Tsukuba again at least once. As for the holiday itself, I'll be visiting 2 places along the holiday. But where exactly I'm going? Um, I can't tell you yet about that
 I'm glad the Evo has become more gorgeous! The update is quite short to me so no TL;DR this time. As of my cash though........ Thank you for stopping by this update and see you soon!
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