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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#156951 2019-06-27 18:23 |
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Me and the Boys, the Boys and Me
After a barrage of time attack events, it is time for a week of resting before continuing for the next one.
But that doesn't mean it's as calm as I would thought, 'cause I still got to jam with my good friends! And oh, guess who received a brand new, fresh visual look? All of this can be checked out by going down below into the update!  [17 Jun 2019] Oh yes it's paycheck time! Along with the monetary rewards I've mentioned in the last update, additional V$940 has landed safely into my wallet. And since the Silver Queen has nothing to do for at least a whole week, I think it is the right time to give it the maintainance and care it really deserves. After all, besides it's task as a daily machine, I've been driving it on the edge and competitively for weekends these days, to the point it's almost becoming a routine (don't you guys think so as well?). I'd like to give it a rest for a while while taking care for the internals as well. Obviously I don't want her to break down in an event, let alone suffering a terminal damage.
So after lunch I went to my favourite store that I haven't visited for a loooooong time. Not only this is a perfect time to change most of the Evo's fluids, I ran out of them after using the ones I stored to power my S15. So it's simply make sense to stock up again once more. What I bought are four bottles of Motul 300V Competition SAE 15W-50 engine oil, four bottles of Motul Gear Competition SAE 75W-140 transmission fluid, two bottles of Motul Dexron III for the power steering, and eight bottles of Motul RBF 660 DOT 4 oil for brakes and clutch. All of those scores a grand total of V$300.  Next up, I rmemebered that ever since I bought the Evo, I only cleaned up the air filter a bit (by slapping it into the ground, no less) and I haven't changed the oil filter, so presumably both are dying right now. I guess it's time to change the fuel filter as well. So along with the fluids I also grabbed Apexi Power Intake panel air filter for V$33, K&N Performance Gold oil filter for V$13 and surprisingly, they got OEM Mistubishi fuel filter for V$9.I hope those upgrades will free some constraints from the Silver Queen and lead to better performance.
 With the errand run done, I went back to my own crib. Before I start the work for the day, I pondered over my Tico for a while. I found some good engines for it by the way.....just waiting for more cash to flow in. I also wonder how could I connect the electricities and hydraulics stuff from a Honda engine into a Tico? I guess it's another experiment time to see if I can actually do it. Speaking of which, it's been already done before actually........
 After preparing spanners, jacks and alike to go to work as well as some stretching, I went off to work on the Silver Queen. Upon further inspection, yup air and oil filter are pretty much clogged out it's almost not worth selling. Fuel filter was also clogged up but at least I could sell them later. And oh, I also cleaned up the radiator with brush. Would like to use water as well but I'm afraid it'll result in corrosion.
 After working on my car, I received a phone call from Muza(Niatross). I wonder what he's been up to?  "Eeeeeeyyy my man Edo!"
"Sup yooooo, another slow day at Omori eh?" "Nah, I'm at the garage right now. Oh I'm with AJ right now, here AJ say hi to Edo man" *AJ(RocketBunnyS13) proceeds to give me an earrape 'HELLOOOOOOOOOO'* "God damnit dude that was ear-tearing. Anyways I've just finished working on my Silver Queen so I'm fre-" "Oooooh interesting. What did you do to it this time?" "Not much really, oil and filter changes. Been a long time since the last one" "Aaaaah I see. Ey listen, wanna come with us?" "Where we goin'? I'm free for the week, no races at all" "Oh great! We're going to visit our close pal, recently re-opening his garage at the other side of Tokyo" "Oh cool! When y'all going?" "Saturday, midday" "Oh, at high noon. *laughter* aight, I'm down for it" "Good. We'll give you directions later......and just wondering, is your Evo still high riding?" "Uhhhh......perhaps?" "Lower that thing man, it might be your next time-shaving upgrade" "Well, I'll do that I guess. Anyways thanks for the invite, see y'all at Saturday" "See you my man" *closes call* "Ah s**t, here we go again" So there you go, additional work on my car by lowering it a bit more, from 6.75cm all around to 6.50cm all around. Thankfully since I've got the skills obtained from my times with Ohira-sensei and his boys at Summer Yume garage, I could do this myself. And more importantly, Muza and co. saved myself from boredom for the weekend by having another meet up. And I think I'm going to meet some new cool guys as well, hopefully we can be good friends  And speaking of which, here's the Silver Queen after a short drive around the block to let the fluids flow and to see how low is it now. Thankfully, the front lip is still safe from the possibility of being grated or taken off by the road. But whether this would make a performance difference is yet to be seen. And oh, for the rest of the week, the daily driver duty is handed to the HR34. Sitting on it's driver seat feels like sitting on a sofa after all the time sitting on bucket seats. 
  [21 Jun 2019] Got a call from VS Garage to pick up my 240SX Vert: The new paint for it has been dried, polished and finished! Sadly though Rantaro had a meeting for the day so he can't pick me up. Welp, time to grab a Grab again then. Not that I mind, I just missed cruising together with him inside his Merc II-I mean Mark II. Man we should cruise together again sometime.
Anyways some time later I arrived at VS Garage, and once again I missed their lunchtime pizza fest. The crew spared some chicken wings though, and the offered me some. I only took two nonetheless, but dang it was good. As Ii munched on the chicken wings one of them gave me a walkthrough on what they've done to the Vert. Welp speaking of which, here it is! 
 Yup, instead of repainting the new parts in red, we decided to repaint the whole thing! The colour we picked is borderline between dull white and very light gray, giving it some sort of two different shades depending on sunlight intensity. The colour choice, at least for me, screams 90s kyusha vibes properly and matches very well with the rims and the setup very well. It's quite astonishing that this half-gaijin Vert (mind you, it's US-spec 240SX) ends up looking deeply at home after body mods and light setup.
After thanking the crew for their efforts and the chicken wings (services has been paid at last update), I went back to my crib and unleashed the KA24DE engine on the streets for a while. It was a mildly cloudy day as well, perfect weather to go topless and enjoy the breeze that comes to my head. It's a proper head-turner as well, as I can see lots of people, men and women, boys and girls, young and elderly looking at me as if I'm a celeb or a rich baller. Though of course there are those that gave bitter looks as well, thinking I'm some sort of a rebel or gangster. But uh, which of those wears hoodie, denims and cheap, clear-lens sunglasses at daytime? None I'd say. Though i should change my sunglasses into blue lenses ones.........I gotta attract more girls, y'know  
 After a while, I arrived back at my crib. It's still unbelievable that despite the ride height so far, the front lip hasn't scratched anything yet! Though come to think again, I should have ordered extra PPF protection for the paints. But then again, these things are expensive!
And oh, one more thing. The vert as you know it runs the KA24DE engine. Since that code is close enough to be mis-read as 'Kaede', and I know at least three manga/anime/game characters that is named 'Kaede', I guess I'll call the vert Kaede as it's nickname, similar to Silver Queen. What do you think, is it fitting enough or do you have a better suggestion? 
 And I guess I'll bring Kaede to the meet. I'm sure Muza and co. will appreciate it.....everybody loves kyusha rides!  [22 Jun 2019] After having an early brunch, I blasted to Tokyo inside the Kaede to the meeting point given by Muza. Traffic was.....a bit crowded with trucks. Thankfully I had my roof up thsi time, so I won't have to deal wih truck fumes and avoiding the risk of gettg blasted by diesel fumes and roasting myself even more in the middle of the heat. And oh, summer has come to Japan it seems.
After some time following the route on the map, I arrived at the meeting point and have the roof down. It was located at a neighbourhood near the expressway area (Was it Yokohane or Yokohama? S**t I can't remember). But thankfully the highway is at the top of the area, so audio pollution level is at best ignorable.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the R-Style garage, owned by Lennart(Renaruto), or Ren as his close friends and neighbours would call him. Ren used to run the garage with his friends, but after everyone splitted away in good and friendly terms to go separate ways, Ren continued the business by himself. Muza and AJ has known Ren for quite a long time. And oh, Ren is also an avid fan of 90s JDM scene, a point which he prove later by his FC3S demo/daily car and stacks of Hot Version and Option Video video collection. Frankly speaking, I tried to hold myself back from creating various Persona 5 references.....
 As I arrived inside, Muza and AJ greeted me but it's cut short as they gawked around Kaede.  M:"Heeey finally you've arri-HOLY MOLEY WHAT IS THAT?"
E:"The vert from the USA man, you don't remember this?" A:"Hang on did you repaint it? Other than that I do remember it" E:"Of course you do, you delivered thsi thing back together with me" A:"And destroyed the gearbox further as well, don't mention that" *laughter*M:"I should say Edo, this thing looks clean and pristine" E:"Pretty 90's looking don't you think?" A:"Safe to say, he's comfily running in the 90's" *even more laughter, proceeded with 'Running in the 90's' sing-along*E:"It's not built for going sideways but it might just do it I guess" M:"Well it should be able to!" Muza with his M3 E46 and AJ in his S14 Kouki aren't the only ones coming to the gathering. Aside of them and Ren, Marc(Macaron_moon) was also rolling with them as always. Rifky(Shez) was tagging along as well, being picked up by Muza after a short shift of work at his animation production house. There were also two Japanese tuner legends in the meet, namely Marcus(marcus915) and Ymani(turbotuned). I've read a lot about Marcus and his creations way back in the past and Ymani's grassroot drifting journal and publications are top-notch stuff, so meeting both of them at the same time feels like a dream come true for me.......did I just skyrocketed myself into tuner heaven?   Sadly though all this hype caused me to not taking lots of pics, but don't worry, Muza and AJ should cover that later on their respective RP threads. Wwe talked about lots of things inside. With Ren and Ymani, who are 90s JDM and grassroots drifting enthusiasts as I've suggested before, talked about kyusha builds and the genesis of competitive drifting in Japan, where the grassroots vibe is still strong and the machine of yore was much, much simpler than the pro cars driven today. Then I also spent some time gawking and taking notes from Marcus's various whips and having some chatter about his life stories. With AJ, Muza and Marc, of course we have a banter over AJ's restored S14, Muza's drastically changed E46 and of course my Kaede. And finally, Marc, Rify and I talked about......recent anime trends and traits, with Muza visibly facepalming behind Marc's back. I also offered Rifky a chance to join the next Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship round with his DC5, with me paying his registration expenses. Seeing as Rifky needs some means to evaluate his DC5 upgrades and it's been a long time since his last trackday, he giddily accepted my invitation.  But the fun didn't stop there! After the sun has going down a bit and the temperature going down as well, we wnet off for a mass touge session. Ah yes, the reason why Ren chose his HQ close to highway is rather obvious: Not only it makes access to downtown Tokyo easier, it's also ease the access to Wangan Line expressway and some touge roads. And so, we were off with myself putting the roof up again.
 Some hours later, we arrivedat the touge spot with much cleaner air and rather strong breeze. Normally this means.....nothing if you're driving a hardtop car, but for soft-top drivers this is pure heaven (unless you wear hats of any kind. Scarfs are a case of hit-or-miss, but I guess they never miss huh?). It's like either paragliding or skydiving with better control of your ride and surroundings! And the view here was quite lovely as well, so we spent some time for pics before our run.
 Some time later, we started our run. Keen to see how Kaede performs at higher level of stress and being lowered, I rather carelessly hit the gas and ripped myself off the line. Sure, it kills the tyres but it's worth the spectacle and the smidge extra tyre heat gained.
 Sadly I didn't have much pics for this one either, but AJ should cover the run better as well. Anyways, Kaede performed a bit like what I predicted: Not much power to get it sideways but exchanged it with a stable ride. Turn-in was also a bit quicker thaks to the camber kits I purchased back then. This thing though absolutely dislikes bumps so far, causing a bit of surprise understeer. But hey, at least I and Kaede's bodykit made it out alive and well.
  After the run ended as the sun goes down, we had a short evaluation and goes separate ways to our respective cribs, except Ren and Marcus who decided to stay a bit longer. I also exchanged contact with Ren, Marcus and Ymani. I'm truly looking forward to meet up again with everyone, whether if it's in my Silver Queen, Kaede or something else
 [23 Jun 2019] There was almost nothing to do for the day other than watching various racing series.....until my phone rang again at brunch time. Turns out Richard(azm613) from the forums was visiting Tsukuba and looking for a place to rest later that day. I gladly offered him to stay at my crib for a while and gave him directions to my crib to be followed later on.
Later that day, Richard finished his drift day and went to my crib. Richard came quite far away from Osaka to Tsukuba to test his PS13, which has CA18DET running inside. Engine wise it's quite healthy, but the main focus was put on the suspension setup. He spent some time restoring the car, which was an ex-missile back into it's 90s period-correct hotboi glory.  I could swear this is the lowest car I've even seen as well as the first one that made it to my crib......it's quite awesome to see how low it is! To top the effort Richard installed SSR Longchamps wheels, which is now a rare item just like the Weds Albino set on my Kaede. And what's more impresive is it's still able to pull high speed entry somehow without grating too much underside panels!
 We spent some time discussing about driving around Tsukuba, S-Chassis mods and our life stories, including Richard's severe crash before he went off to Japan. He was lucky to be able to get off unscathed from the crash, but sadly his ride, a Subie Outback, was wrecked. Richard himself wasn't sure how could that happen, as life suddenly felt like warped away from him. I could relate very well.
 After some cups of tea, dinner and a quick nap by Richard, he went off back home to Osaka. As a thank-you gesture for allowing him to stay for a while, he gave me V$20. And oh yah, at this point Richard's S13 has been repainted and looking even better as I write this. Check out his rides, build progress and adventures at his RP thread HERE, where alongside his S13, he also has a Civic EG6 he recenly started to restore. Hopefully the power of [ C O O L V I B R A T I O N S ] can help him along the build
 Another update done and dusted with deserved rest from the TA world! Here's how my wallet holding up at the moment: That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-06-27 18:36, ago) |
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