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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#151478 2018-11-19 17:52 |
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Small Update: Turning Up
Handling Upgrade Complete!
Aaaaaah finally, the piece de resistance of my Evo's handling upgrade has come up!
Here comes the suspension upgrade from NZ! I also did a bit of tuning afterwards. Man I can't wait to tell you guys about it, so let's jump into the update!  [18 Nov 2018] Ah, forget to tell you when the suspension parts I ordered would arrive. The answer is at this day! It was around 10 am, and I was streaming the WTCR races at Macau GP when I heard a door knocking. As the opening laps has been passed and the race pack(peloton?) has been spread quickly after an incident at the start, I opened the door to pick up the parts and taking care of the papers. That already fixed my mood which was slightly ruined after the incident since some of my favourite drivers (and also Saturday's race winner) got caught and stuck.
But honestly, it could be worse though. Saturday's race was red flagged for a while due to Gordon Shedden binning his Audi into a tyrewall, blocking other drivers in the process. It's quite a downer to watch, since Gordon was a well-known BTCC alumnus and all, but then again the corner was indeed a difficult one, and I'm relieved that everyone's okay and the damage caused was minimum. The crash was quite identical to last year's GT World Cup incident at exactly the same spot, which sees multi-million dollar cars literally stacking one over the other in the process. But then the crashfest wasn't over that day....... Anyway, moving on. As the race finished, I called Ohira-sensei to check if he's in the Summer Yume garage for the day, since it's raceday. He was, and he was also seeing the Macau races too with the whole crew bar Gary (college stuff, again) and his wife. I told him I got brand new parts to install, as well as something to discuss. With the phone over, I went off to the garage with the parts in the backseat. I arrived some time later, with me missing the Exige Cup race in the process. That's okay tho, that wasn't my main interest (because of the driver roster, not the Exige themselves. Since it's a national championship, I don't really know any of the drivers, compared to other events, even the Macau Touring Car Cup). Kei guided me to go up the working bay. 
 Oh, how I love to see the Evo bathing in the sunlight. It was a hot day BTW.
Afterwards I retrieve the parts and half-unbox them, to the interest of Ohira-sensei and a gleeful response from Mishima and Yuuta. Nato also commented over the quality of the parts, saying that they're one of the top ones he'd eever seen. I also told him it's been race-proven, hence the quality. Then our discussion was ended for a while as we watched the Race 3 of WTCR, as well as the main race of GT World Cup. The crew naturally rooting for Japanese manufacturers and drivers, and Goro also said it is remarkable that Nissan finally joins in the World Cup, being the second Asian manufacturer to did so after Honda last year, and that was with Honda had their NSX GT3 begun it's final development process, compared to Nissan with their GT-R GT3 receiving a relatively effective upgrade this year. The crew cheered on as Esteban Guerreri won the final WTCR race gracefully, but also a bit dissappointed with the fact that Hyundai and Gabriele Tarquini has sealed constructor and driver's title a day before. Then we discussed how Hyundai has moved up to the competition rapidly in WRC and WTCR, as well as lamenting the fact that Honda had lost three of their major touring car drivers this year. Norbert Mischelisz was 'stolen' by HYundai, only to become Tarquini's wingman. Thiago Monteiro suffered a heavy injury at the beginning of this year, causing him to miss the entire season, with his replacement didn't do much better. Meanwhile, Ryo Michigami was moved to the GT division to develop the NSX GT3. This made Honda only had Esteban Guerreri and Yann Erlacher left as their spearhead on the title hunt, with Timo Scheider still on his transition time after his DTM stint while racing in World RallyX in-between the calendar, and Tom Coronel also entered transition time, switching to a Honda after years of driving RML-prepped Chevrolet Cruze. We also lamented at the fact that not only the GT World Cup entrant was drastically decreased compared to last year, Nissan can't do much in the race. But hey, at least they secured a midpack position. Also, the previous day, a Japan-prepped R34 finished 2nd in the Touring Car Cup. The Touring Car Cup itself is roughly an equivalent to Australia's Improved Production races, where you can modify any road car that you want within a set of rules to make it balanced. The rules also serves as some of the basic rules of WTAC's Clubsprint class. With a long time gap between the GT World Cup and Macau F3 GP event, we set to work on the Evo. Nato, Kei and Mishima installed the new suspension parts, while I and Goro refurbished the retained standard parts. I also did some setup with him, with Ohira-sensei's input. Ohira-sensei told me to keep the steering rack ratio as is, which I at first wondered why. He explained that steering angle modification is enough to make a difference, so I and Goro did just that. Meanwhile Yuuta is on stand by over the TV, informing over race preparations. As of the tune I did, what I and Goro did is adding 1 degree to each sides, so now the wheel would turn 36 degrees at max. 10 minutes before the F3 event started, we finished our work. I rolled the car off the work bay and took some photos, then frantically went upstairs as the formation lap started, slipped and fell off the stairs in the progress  For now though, let's look at the result!
  Hmmmm yeah that's lovely.
As for the race itself, it was quite an event, with quite alot of Japanese drivers, from the young stars such as Sho Tsuboi, veterans such as Yuhi Sekiguchi, and even team owner like DRAGON (yes, that's how he was registered. Once you know his real name though, it all made sense. And oh, there's one interesting secret about him that you guys might already know or even love......). Yuuta also complained over the fact that the B-Max team DRAGON owned switched to VW engine units for the event over their usual Nissan units, with I and Kei explaining that that's the more competitive choice. And of course we were also shocked over Sophia Floersch's monstrous crash, involving Sho in the process. Thankfully, everyone involved was safe, though all was hospitalized. Understandably Ohira-sensei and his wife was looking quite worried over them, with Mr. Eikiji's death in mind (turn back to page 1 for their history, if you want to know about it). Before I went back to my crib, I discussed with Ohira-sensei over the 4G63 block offers I found in the previous post. Ohira-sensei said all of them looked decent, but still has some doubt over their work quality and performance. He suggested to me to buy either any of them without the cranks, conrods and pistons, and he also offered to me to do machine work and restoration over mine instead. With him offering a considerably low price (he only said low, but ensures not more than V$2000), I think I'll consider the offer. He also ensured me that the reworked block would fit a billet head and still be able to run as a daily. I went back to my crib and indeed what Ohira-sensei is true over the mods. I can already feel it working, even turning into my crib's gate is easier now thanks to the angle and controla arm mods. Combined with the Hipermax shocks and springs, safe to say the handling upgrade has been a match made in heaven.  [19 Nov 2018] Paycheck time! Another V$470 landed in my account. I also listed the uninstalled standard suspension parts on the local forums after refurbishing them by hand for V$4000 in total. While refurbishing I also stumbled upon my old standard clutch disk. Can't believe I forgot to got rid of them despite being the first part I replaced the first time I had my Evo. After a micro-refurbishment, I listed it at the forums as well for V$500.
After some thinking time, I think I'll accept Ohira-sensei's offer on the engine block rework. The plan is, I'm going to combine it with Tomei 2.2L stroker pack (with 85.5mm crank for safety), and that's why I initially worried the engine won't be able to handle the resulting power. As of the head, I still planned to import it since it's cheap with no cams option, and later combined with Tomei High Lift Procams (most likely 270mm in and 270mm ex, not sure how 280 ones would turn out. The Poncams variant are weirdly more expensive) and TODA head gasket. But if you wondered what are the block offers that I got, here it is again (links at previous post): Here are the ones that I found: No TL;DR since it's quite short to me. Let's jump to the cash instead. That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
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