| Author | Message |
BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#153973 2019-02-25 14:09 |
# Shez : Dang I missed lot of stuff here haha Welp you should definitely catch up!  Gee thanks man! The only problem atm is it has no means to stop rolling around Seeing as you own an S14 now it'll be nice to work togther somethimes. And of course feel free to come over my crib man!  I'm definitely going to tell him, turns out there are a lot of Grom fans here! # DEADMANE : Ooooh RB! Awesome S15 man. Haven't been around last couple weeks everyone has cool new stuff lol Gee thanks man, it's basically shopping spree everywhere!
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Time to Learn
No, really, there's a lot of stuff I've learned and I have to learn while I'm working on the S15.
Basic RB knowledge, how to engine swap stuff, and uhh.........how to drift. And oh, I guess you'll be mad at me over how I manage my wallet these days............ Either way let's jump into the update! :D [19 Feb 2019] After a long waiting time, my Wilwood Superlite brake set has finally come! To remind you again, I bought both with 298mm heavy duty discs, with 6 pots caliper in front and 4 pots in the back. Should has enough power to enhance the stopping power on my Silver Queen. This will be definitely, definitely the last performance upgrade it'll get (hopefully). At one side, I'm really happy I can finish the project with gracious yet powerful results, and on the verge of bankruptcy as well
but on the other side, with a car this gracious at the moment, there's nothing more I can do to it other than driving and enjoy it on the roads. This also explains how most of us feel when we sold or crashed our first cars here......it's quite heartbreaking to see our first blank canvas go away in mere seconds.Oh, speaking of which, in the previous night, I was watching various videos of Danganronpa V3 gameplay, and seeing the character sprites made me thinking: "What if I make JDM-Anime style stickers based on these?" so after a long day of working I grabbed my laptop in the afternoon, opened Photoshop and internet and started to making sticker designs based on the characters. I was so pumped up I ended up making 67 designs! Then I bought a sticker paper for V$3 at the nearest stationary shop to test if the design would work well.At the end of the printing and cutting procedure it was already nighttime, so it might affect the precision of the sticker placement. So I decided to stick them to my car the next day, as well as having the new brakes installed. Additionally, the S15 back seat,panels,air vents as well as the RE002 tyres has been sold for a grand total of v$920, leaving only the SR engine left to be sold [20 Feb 2019] After deciding which sticker should I stick to my Silver Queen, I brought the stickers along with th enew brake set to my car. The initial plan was sticking them to the doors, but after some time of imagining I decided that sadly it might look rather odd and won't match with the RalliArt sticker on the doors. ICYMI, I fitted one on each doors and here it is.
 So I decided the best place I could place the sticker is in the back of the car. Not the rear bumper since it might get dirty easily, but on the boot/trunk since it will still retain the clean look. Anyway, after 5 minutes of figuring out the exact position I wanted, I made up my mind and stick it to the right side of the trunk. Here's the result!
 If you can't really see the design on the trunk, here's how it looks, along with an alternative version of it. Featuring my favourite character! I decided to stick the first one because it really looks like a personification of my Silver Queen: Looks graceful and not too flashy, but also has it's own naughty side. 
 If you want to know who is she and from which media she came from, look no further!
After sticking the sticker, I gave a call to a figure that I've never seen for a bit long time: Ohira-sensei from Summer Yume garage. I realize fitting all the brakes and bleeding them alone would be a very difficult job, so I'm going to need his help along with his boys.
"Excuse me Ohira-sensei, it's me Edo" "Aaaah, I've never heard your voice in a long time. What are you up to these days? How's your Evo?" "I've been in Tokyo for more than a month, and I modded my Evo along the way. Oh, I'd like to talk about it aswell!" "Sure sure, I and the boys are working at the moment but feel free to come in" "Thank you sir, I also like to fit one last upgrade for it" "Last upgrade you say? Seems interesting. Either way, come here and be safe on the way" "Alright sir, thank you" After I ended the call, I remembered that I still have some stock of brake fluids, so i brought them as well. With everything set, I made my trip to Summer Yume garage. Dang, I wonder how would the boys react to my Silver Queen after a month of disappearance from thir eyes...... 20 minutes later, I arrived at their garage's doorstep. Yuuta welcomed me and guided me though the working bay. "Hey Yuuta, you've grown up quickly!" I cheerfully greeted him after parking my car. "Ooh come on it's not much of a difference, look at your Evo Edo-san!" Yuuta replied with even more enthusiasm as we fist-bumped each other. "Oh hey Edo-san! Indeed your Evo looks a bit different, but how come it's louder than the last time you came here?" Mishima jumped in our converstaion with curiousity. "Heheh, you'll see once we took it to the dyno" I answered, as Ohira-sensei steps in. "Finally you've come home, young man. So what's this final upgrade? An engine upgrade?" "Ah no sensei, I got them back in Tokyo, but to answer Yuuta and Mishima's question let's take it to the dyno later"  But before working on my car, the crew finalized their works on another customer car first, which was a classic, considerably rare Mitsubishi Lancer EX 2000 Turbo. Ohira-sensei talked to me whilst I was waiting through many things, including Kei and Gary is now working for a Gunma based rally team which also used a Mitsubishi for national championships, and the shop is now quite fullfilled with lots of Mitsubishis, both performance Mitsus and non-performance ones. They also used testimonies and pics of their customers to promote the garage, and interestingly mine is also included. Not that I mind or mad, I'm quite happy to help people building their business
In turn I told everything from my Tokyo trip. Meeting the WestKyo boys, especially Marc(Macaron_moon) the Human Lan Evo and his Evo X that currently is out of action and awaiting for mega-sized upgrades, as well as the cars the boys made, and all the downtown trips we made as well as our touge sessions including my solo trips where I found some touges on the way.......and to top of that, all the perfromance upgrades I've installed to my Evo while I'm there. Looks like Ohira-sensei's ears ringed so hard when I muttered the words 'WRC-derived gearbox settings' and 'stroker upgrade' he also said he wants to meet Mmarc someday, seeing as he's quite knowledgeable with Evos and some other Mitsubishis in such young age.Finally the boys finished working. As we work on installing and bleeding the brakes, Nato asked me about various things over my Evo, but one that's interesting is where did I get the brakes from. "Hey tell me man, where did you got these big discs? I've never seen them around here" "Me neither, so I had to import it from England" "Woah that's quite far away!" "I know man. Actually there's also Brembos with even bigger discs but that'll require bigger wheels as well, and my money has been spent on this along with something else. Besides, it might ruin the current look" "Why you don't just use brakes from newer Evos?" Goro interjected midway. "Nah man, that means I have to redo the suspension mods as well and that's even worse" I answered Goro's inquiry. "Well you're right though" Additionally, I also made a micro-sized ride height adjustment. Now it sits 6.75 inches from the ground all around, from previous 6.77 inches. One and a half hour later, all the installation and bleeding was done. I drove the car down the working bay and here's the result! 
   As I finished taking photos, I looked at Yuuta with menacing grin and said "Yuuta, you know the drill", as I signalled Yuuta to get in the car. Meanwhile Ohira-sensei instructed Nato and Goro to be stationed at the dyno. Ohira-sensei then sat on my side inside the car, while Yuuta and Mishima took the back seat to balance the weight.
I proceeded to start the dyno session, and the Silver Queen echoed her roar inside the garage. It was so loud and raucuous, and included some massive backfires as well that Goro took some steps back, while Yuuta looked like he enjoyed the experience very much, like a teen in a rollercoaster ride with his/her best friend. Cue him happily screaming "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" along with the engine sound as the session went on. After the session has been done, we gathered at the top floor of the garage to see the result. "That was very loud! But that's a good sign as well" Mishima half-complained over the experience. "That was fun!" Yuuta exclaimed, trying to talk despite losing a lot of his voice after screaming. As you'd know from previous updates, the final figure was 450 BHP. Yuuta and Nato was astounded with the result, and immediately took their phones to capture my car and the dyno result. I'm glad I can make people amazed and happy at the same time. As the crew continued to discuss about the dyno result, I spotted Ohira-sensei's Galant VR4, still in the same condition as the last time I saw it. After gaining permission to take pics of it, I immediately parked my Evo near it and snapped some pictures. So here you are, Mitsubishi's old guards, some of the cars that started their success in the rallying world back in the early to mid 90's. Seeing them being around is very heartwarming, and seeing them being reduced to almost nothing but a label these days is very, very heartbreaking. Man, if only Mitsu didn't just focus on making cars for the future and families, I reckon their sales outside Asia should went as well as they expected. 
   As we talked again, another customer arrived. Seeing as I don't want to interrupt their work, I bid Ohira-sensei and his crew goodbye, and drove back home. Speaking about which, the brakes did their job very well. It only need a bit of push to stop the car on traffic speeds.
Back home, I continued to make some more stickers, adding the tally to 77. If you're interested, I'll show some of them in the end of this update. As I was working on the stickers, AJ(RocketBunnyS13) phoned me. "Hey Edo, it's me AJ" "Oh hi AJ, what's up?" "You still got the SR engine?" "Oh yah, they're still here" "Good, I'll buy them full price, with trans" "Oh my god, thank you so much man. I'll send them tomorrow" "Okay man. But oh, one more thing. You know the RB25 inside my wrcked S14?" "Yeah?" "I heard about your S15 project, and I'm going to rebuild the S14 with another engine, so I'm giving it to you" "Wha-wait wait, I don't have mon-" "I'm giving it for free, seeing you've ran out of them" "Oh my god AJ, you're so kind man. I really owe you one" "Ah don't mention it man, it's okay. They'll arrive at Friday" "God,man, I'm really grateful for this. Thank you very, very much" "Ggood luck with the project, fam" Yep you read that right, free RB25 for me. I don't know how I should react properly to this, it feels like a very, very lovely dream you won't wake up from. I'm really grateful to have him on my side. I could have the block and everything above it, including the flywheel as spare parts in case my own build messed up or damaged badly, and I can have the flywheel and the ECU to be installed in my RB26 in the meantime. But how about the transmission and the clutch? I think I have an idea on how to use it....... [21 Feb 2019] This time, it's my stuffs for the S15 (RB26 engine,CD009 transmission with adapters and engine mounts) that arrived into my crib when I and Kenichi worked together in my crib on document translations. Kenichi has nothing to attend or do for the rest of the day, so after we finished our work we decided to mount the RB inside the S15. And oh, he brought his Honda Grom as he did some time ago!
 His life with the Grom so far has been amazing. Now he can virtually go anywhere without worrying about space. It's quite sturdy for long trips as well, despite it's tiny size. The only place he should stay away from is the highways, obviously he'll get wiped out by pretty much everything there. Nnot gonna lie I actually want one as well, if only not for my body size
 We started working after some cups of coffee to keep ourselves focued on the job.  Kenichi took a jack to raise the car to let me slide under the car and install the engine mounts for the first procedure. After it was done, I slid back off the car and we worked on the engine. As I explained in the previous update, it has no turbo manifold piping and no transmission, but in addition to that, it also has no ECU and alternator as well. At least the harnesses are there. And for the transmission, I've sorted his by having the CD009 transmission and it's adapters for RB block. I didn't forgot to buy clutch and flywheel for it, I just don't have the money yet. Also, by fitting the transmission first, I'll have the idea over how hard can they be installed (as a heads-up, with this setup, I have to install flywheel produced for RB engines and clutch produced for VQ engines).
And now, the big moment: Fitting the entire package inside the car. This took several hours, probably hundreds of attempts and four dirty hands to do this. But the result was amazing: It fits very well! 
 With the size and length of the engine block, I think Sleepy(Sleepin_mOnkey) would be right about the handling: it might induce some amout of undesteer, which could kill the S-Chassis characteristic that is easy to chuck into oversteer. Being used to drive AWD car, I might be able to fight it a bit. And uh, it could be an embodiment of Audi Quattro: Understeery, but easier to handle among other Group B rallycars (iirc as well as one that never killed it's driver). Yeah it's not an AWD car, and Audi eventually struggled to catch up at the end of Group B days, but still, being an RWD car, chucking the S15 into oversteer should yield less dramatic result, allowing confident inputs.
But then, being only able to go sideways using the handbrake on my Evo, and only in short time, I should have a quick tutor on how to bring a car sideways, as well as holding them and saving them from said conditions. ENtry technique, weight transfer, holding it on etc etc etc.......Not much for some showy drift actions I should say, but for controlling oversteer in general as for F1 and GT drivers when they had grip loss upon exiting corners or simply tyrig to retain some power through the corners. WHen done correctly it can be awesome even though it happened in just a flash. Later that day, I looked for something I can use for those reasons as well to utilize the RB25 transmission and clutch. And boy I have a good idea of what it would be......... [22 Feb 2019] As promised, AJ's RB25 has arrived on my crib. It's extremely complete, including the transmission set, ECU and harness. AFter receiving those and moving the crate inside my crib, I plan to go pick my new car purchase but I can't be arsed to drive my Evo only to call for tow services to bring the new car home. Not only I have to pay for that, the car can't arrive immediately to my crib as I experienced back when I bought the S15. So I have to have someone chauffeuring me for a day. Thankfully, it's weekend so............
"Rantaro-san, it's me Edo" "Oh hi Edo-kun, pretty slow weekend huh?" "Pretty much. How about a trip together?" "Good idea, I'm free at the moment. Where we going?" "Yokohama. Should be a 1.5-2 hour to the place" "Nice, but what are you going to do there?" "Okay straight to the point: I need you to drive for me" "Wait what happened to your Ev-" "No nothing, it's fine, just don't want to drive it that's all. I'll explain later" "This seems shady but okay, I'm on my way" Rantaro closed the phone in worried tone. Welp, I really ought to explain what happen indeed. 25 minutes later, Rantaro arrived on my driveway. "Come on boy, jump in!"  As we move off my crib, Rantaro rained me with some questions. "Dude, why you don't drive your Evo? I though you like it" "Yeah I know, and I do, but uhhhh......I'd just spill it here damnit. I'm going to buy another car" "Wait you're going to ditch the Evo?" "No man! No way I would do it" "Then how are you going to use it? You just bought one as well and you stripped it off!" "Listen dammit I'm not done explaining yet!" Then I proceed to explain everything you've read previously, as well as the S15 purchase experience.  "Oh I see, so you'll be carrying the car on your own after the purchase?" "Yap that's the point! If I'm driving my Evo who's going to drive it?" "Well I could drive it for you-" "But that's not going to be efficient, if you can drive your Merc II straight to Yokohama why bother switching to my Evo first?" "Well you have a good point" "Besides, the car I'm going to buy is similar to yours, which is a big sedan" "A big sedan you say? Have you finally considering owning one?" "Kind of. Weight transfer should be easy to conduct" "Yap, welcome to the sedan world my dude!" Rantaro said as he pat my head. "OI WATCH THE ROAD! But hey, thanks" Two hours later, we arrived at the car's location. "Okay there it is, park over there and wait for a while. I'll come back here if it's done." "Okay man, I'll have a watch here"  Shortly after, I walked to the deal location. After all the papers has been done and deal is sealed, I present to you................  Yes, it's a Skyline R34, but not the ones you're usually thinking of. This is a HR34, the most basic form of the R34 family. Four doors, powered with a humble RB20DE that produced meek-sounding 153 BHP. But being an RB, it still retains it's smooth baritone voice providing a great soundtrack for pretty much anything, from city cruising to trackdays. All of the power is channeled to the rear wheels via 4-speed automatic transmission. At this point, you might already figured what I'm going to do with it........anyway it has all the basic functions like AC, airbags, radio(yay!) and the interior is all clean. Apparently it spent most of it's lifetime being a garage queen, as it only has covered 72,000 kms. And all of this for just V$1130! Dang, there are fewer better deals ever made in this world I should say.
Anyway, after the deal was sealed and the key was given to me, I returned to where Rantaro parked. I revved the burbly engine lowly to scare him a bit. I parked right beside him to give him a surprise. "Who the hell are you what do you-" "FOR GOD'S SAKE IT'S ME MAN! The deal has been sealed yoooooo" "Dammit Edo-kun you freaked the dip out of me! So that's the new car?" "Yup!" "How much you paid for it?" "A grand" "A GRAND?" "YES A GRAND!" "Damn what a deal!" "I know right? By the way let's grab lunch, I know a good place downtown" "Oooooh nice, indeed I'm hungry" "By the way let's communicate with handsfree while the road" "Roger that boi" So we hit the road to go to downtown Tokyo, specifically Shibuya, to have lunch at my (and AJ's) favourite sushi parlor. We parked at the roadside. It looks like Rantaro enjoyed it as well! After we finished lunch we went back home to Tsukuba.  On the highway, Rantaro demanded my impression over the HR34. "How does it drive Edo-kun?" "Oh, splendid all-around. You won't believe me this only has covered 72k kms in it's lifetime" "Dang man, that's quite fresh!" "What's more, it's clean all around here man. Feels like your home's lounge" "Hoowee! I want to be driven inside I should say!" "Yeah, perfect car to chauffeur people in. Oh by the way do you remember the high school girls?" "Yea? Oh yeah those nice girls" "This should be a perfect car to roll with them inside, it's big and comfy" "Yeah, but not with these cheapskate wheels!" *laughter ensues* "But really though, do you want to see them again?" "Yeah, they're fun to talk with after all"  At this point I should tell my plans for it. So basically engine wise I'm going to swap the transmission with the one from AJ's RB25. Then I'll do a simple cam tuning, and perhaps I'll put a makeshift stroker kit as well by putting AJ's RB25 internals inside the RB20. Handling wise I'll only equip it with better suspension kit, new wheels and if I can find one for cheap, steering knuckles. And for exterior, it can be either I retain the stock kit and slap some stickers on the car or having a simple-looking kit on it. As I don't really need a lot of power to go sideways at the moment, I deem this setup to be ideal. Hell, it might not be reaching 250 BHP in the end of the procedure.
As we reached Tsukuba, we split up and went back to our cribs at it was sunset already. Now here comes a new problem: The garage space is already occupied with the Evo and the S15, so I have to park the HR34 outside. Oh well, at least the alarm is still functional.  [25 Feb 2019] Paycheck time!Yup, another V$750 landed in my account. I bet after the HR34 purchase there will be two people saying different things. One would be "Damn Smoke! You're short on budget yet you still want a unique project car! I approve!" and the other would be "Smoke you utter idiot! You're on the verge of bankruptcy yet you took another project car? Why don't you finish the S15 first?" But eh, at this point I don't really care. It's a bit surreal as well that I bought another car (a)in the verge of bankruptcy and (b)roughly a week after buying one car. I'm quickly moving up into the 3-car garage club it seems
Anyway, let me show you the fresh heart of the RB20 inside the HR34! And oh, I haven't thought a nickname for it...........  (yes I know, that's an RB26 cover)
I haven't had any time to work on both the S15 and HR34 yet, so the inter-RB transplant operation should be done in next days. Speaking of which, I now own three of seven RB blocks officially produced by Nissan, and basically I can only get one of them if I want to complete the collection, with one sold outside Japan and two being basically unobtainium (to elaborate, I have RB20,RB25 and RB26. The rest are RB24 that isn't sold in Japan (and basically a mix between RB20,25 and 30), RB30, RB28/RRR (the one for R34 Z-Tune and GT500 cars) and RB-X GT2 (the one for R33 LM and Nismo 400R)). Interesting, isn't it? And of course, most of the parts spreading between all of them are interchangeable (just like the case of RB24), giving me an advantage over the transplant process.
Dang this update is long but at least I barely made if out from bankruptcy. How did I survive? Let's see.............. And oh, I do mention about my sticker designs.
Check out some of them inside the spoiler and all of them HERE! That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-02-26 08:04, ago) |
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