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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#152486 2018-12-31 09:58 |
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End of The Year Notes
As 2019 is coming upon us, Tokyo is getting crowded everywhere to celebrate it. Despite the cold weather here, everyone seems to be fired up. Well, I also celebrate it....albeit in a different way  Let's jump into the update! NOTE: Some pics are taken from AJ's RP [28 Dec 2018, later in the day] The location at AJ pointed to me is located at around east Tokyo, some kms away from downtown. It is a garage shop called Vstanced Garage. AJ also instructed to me to ask for him to the people there regardless of his presence there via text message. The trip itself takes some hours, moving from west to east Tokyo is quite a feat to do. Thankfully though the streets itself isn't so crowded this time, so there are less traffic jams compared to the day I came here. The Neon Genesis Evangelion-esque weather definitely helps too with engine cooling and tyre grip, allowing me to unleash all the power the Evo has on the highway.
Some hours later, I entered the highway exit. The map says the garage shouldn't be far from it.  Several turns later I came to the front of the Vstanced Garage. The gargae itself is located in an old but big building, and the front gate as well as the building itself make the garage a blink-or-miss it spot if you're going past it without being attentive to your surroundings or having a mpa on your side. I proceed to stop for a while on the front of the garage since it looks like nobody's around.
 I decided to call AJ, to make sure whether he's already inside or not.
"Yo AJ, it's me Edo. You there?" "No I haven't but I'll be there" "You sure this is the place? I've seen the sign but I see nobody around" "Yap if you can see the sign then that's it. Hold up let me contact one of the boy there to let you in" "Thanks man, I'll wait inside" So turns out AJ was somewhere else at the moment. Then it looks like somebody told me to go inside the garage from afar, so I decided to follow him in the Evo. "AJ's friend?" "Yup" "Come in, dude" 
 The Vstanced garage crew told me to park my Evo at the respraying bay, since there's nobody using it so far. As we wait for AJ, they told me about their works, including AJ's iconic CR-X and S15 which I'm totally a fan of. They've been creating a lot of legendary liveries for all purposes since a very long time ago. They were also kind enough to treat me for a slice of pizza and a can of soft drink
They also told me that they have a lot of branches around Japan, and recently they opened another one in Tsukuba, specializing in livery designing and wrapping, as well as expert detailing for time attack cars. They've got someone who is regarded "carbon fiber doctor" by them, since said man expertises on carbon fiber detailing and repair, e.g. he can repair and cover cracked carbon fiber parts which is normally quite difficult to do. I wonder if he can do it to, say, Formula 1 cars?  The location of the Tsukuba branch is another surprise as well, as it turns out to be close to the school when I and Rantaro once hang out and picked up girls. Perhaps when I've got my own drift car or time attack machine (remember, the Evo is also a daily), I'll pay them a visit for liveries.  Some hours later after the sun sets, AJ came into the garage with his friend, Jack. Man, Jack's Sileighty is so awesome, I actually want to look at it for a longer time! 
 But then comes the saddening news. As you can see at AJ's RP, AJ's C-RX has been sold to someone else. Knowing that it was AJ's first car in Japan and he has gone through a lot of things in it makes it more painful in heart. AJ looks like he's ready to move on though, after all he has three other cars he can drive and work on. But he's right as well, the final result might not give the same vibe and feel as the CR-X when they're finished.
After a long chat with everyone and some more slices of pizza, I and AJ went back to Westkyo garage. We hit the highway again for fast trip home, hoping for lesser traffic. 
As we're cruising on the highway, AJ told me all he had done with the CR-X, as well as his resolve to work on his other cars, mainly his S15. But then suddenly Queen's "I'm in Love with My Car" kicks in over the radio. Before I proceed to sing along, I asked AJ not to be irritated or saddened by the song, or in particular my voice. He said it's okay and I may go on singing. The radio kept on blasting evergreen rock songs as darkness fell upon us.
 After a long drive, I and AJ arrived at Westkyo at 10.45pm, and we decided to go straight to our separate beds. It's quite an eventful day for both of us. [29 Dec 2018] After waking up and had a freezy shower, AJ invited me for breakfast. Since Marc(Macaron_moon) was running out of ramen, and Muza(Niatross) has already one with Rifky(Shez), I accepted his invitation. AJ says we're going to the suburban area near Westkyo. As morning mist clears up, we hit the road. It was so freezy I have to put on my thiccest jacket that I brought.
The suburbs itself is quite fascinating to drive around and surprisingly has a lot of trees. There are also quite a lot of highway exits in case you have an urge for doing expressway runs in a sudden.  But what occupies my eyes most is AJ's Strawberry red S15 that he brought. It is one of my favourite builds here as it reminds me of Nobuteru Taniguchi's personal S15 that has made a lot of appearance in video games, particularly Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift (TXRD) series, usually along with Ridox Supra and RE Amemiya RX7. Makes sense since Nob and Max Orido helped along the game's development process in order to make these games the ultimate touge simulator at that time. Only time can tell if AJ will have a similar role
 The city's view was so enjoyable I can't hold myself to take pics of my Evo. The brekkie menu was delicious as well! AJ really knows the culinary map of the suburban area. Man, if only all the crew can join us.........also, while we have the brekkie AJ compliments the quality of the ride the Evo has. I'm glad all the handling upgrade gives a brilliant result!
   Sadly, our joy was offset on our way back. AJ was suddenly slowing down and the car misfired a lot of times. We decided to stop a while on a bridge to see what's going on.
"What happened?" I asked as I run lightly towards AJ. "I don't know either, let's pop the hood" AJ asnwers, then he opened the bonnet while the engine is still running. "Please don't be something serious, please" I pleaded inside as we look over the engine. As you can see on AJ's RP, it turns out the SR20DET inside proceeds to turn itself into a SR20DE with a blown, non-functional turbo. A moment of silence for the turbo, please. With the turbo dead, AJ's S15 has become asthmatic. I offered to call a tow service, but AJ refuses, and reckoned he can limp it home. I can understand his decision, after all this is his beloved car. Thankfully though we made it back to WestKyo unscathed. We spent the rest of the day removing the remnants of the blown turbo. [31 Dec 2018] It's the final day of 2018 and I've got an info that now I'll be receiving V$655 a week! Clearly this is a blessing for me, as thsi means more money for tuning the Evo. And speaking of tuning the Evo.........
After weeks of hard thinking whether I should get engine or transmission upgrades first, I decided to refresh the stock transmission first. After all, it's the component that transfers the fierce power of the engine to the wheels, so I think it'll be good to prioritize it first while I've got the money for it. The Evo might actually need them as well, after all these years of running on stock components it must have been tired of changing gear multi-million times. So after consulting with Muza, AJ and Marc the Human Lan Evo, I started the shopping spree. TMZ Performance offered transmission rebuild kits, transfer case rebuild kits as well as rear diff rebuild kits. For the transfer case and rear diff I'm going for the standard Stage 1 ones as I'm not going to do ridiculous stuff which requires billet components at the moment, but for the transmission I'm going for the Stage 3 option, which features several race-spec components and center diff modifications including 4-spider gear center diff conversion. Along with it I added additional 1st gear input shaft and 12% taller 1st gearset and competition spec clutch fork as options. With that sorted, the transmission kit costs V$3490, the transfer case kit costs V$615 and the rear diff kit costs V$495, bringing the grand total to V$4600. But the shopping list doesn't stop there. I plan to replace the front and rear LSD as well. Fortunately RHDJapan has a year-end discount promo going on, so I can grab LSDs for cheap. I grabbed Cusco Type RS LSDs, both for front and rear. The front one costed me V$939, while the rear one costed me V$904. But no, the shopping list doesn't end here either. To match the LSDs, I decided to change the clutch set as well to Cusco's. Fortunately, Cusco JP has them for reasonable price at V$532, with no charge for material selection. This allows me to pick the copper ones, hopefully this one will be stronger. But one question still remain: Despite the 4-spider center diff conversion, should I replace it with LSDs? Or can I combine said diff conversion with this? I want to do it since it's quite rare but I'm not sure if it works. Any answers will be appreciated. For now it doesn't seem to matter though. As the day passes, we decided that instead of going downtown for new year's eve, we simply enjoy the fireworks from the marina nearby and bring our own snacks. And luckily for us, the marina is surprisingly not so crowded. We enjoy the night as we see fireworks, fill ourselves on various snacks and watch as the year changes in my Evo and Muza's E46. 
 Happy new year everyone, I hope 2019 will bring all of us more colours, adventures and opportunities, and perhaps new cars in our garage as well Final update of 2018 has been done!  Let's see how my wallet survives the shopping spree....... That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you in 2019!
(either here or one of the WestKyo boys RPs) |
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