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Sleepin mOnkey

jp
Posts: 2459

Location: Japan Universe, Milky way ,Solar system, Earth
Occupation: Automotive engineer Student
Age: 32
V$: 14.750
#321   2019-05-13 15:56          
mah boy getting the mustang life
Roleplay: A engine Builder and tuner that lives in Japan and Builds cool stuff.
Cars: Corolla Levin coupe Tog/show car
180SX s13 350hp SR20DET 6MT Babe 1
Supra Sz JZA80 2jz-Gte Vvt-i 2000's Hotboi
240sx Vert HOTBOI 2

CLICCC...

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#322   2019-05-13 23:53          
# Sleepin mOnkey : mah boy getting the mustang life

Hell yeah my man, eventually I decided to get one after all :))



Also BOI IT'S PAGE 9 ALREADY :O
I'll have two number 9s, a number 9 laaaaaarge..........

And here's the latest update in cae you didn't bother to go back one page:

The All-American Projects












It is time to catch up on the 3rd(? I've kinda lost count :)) ) week of the American Tour!
Picking up from last week, it's time to enjoy some sideways shenanigans!
And for this entire week I've hunted and acquired two new rides to the stable.......
Oone is someting you might expect, and the other one might be something you didn't expect!
So what are we waiting for? Let's jump into the update! :D













[04 May 2019]
As I've said at the last update, there was a grassroot-level public drift day and drift competition held by Full Lock Drift drift club, held on an empty lot somewhere in Stroud, OK. Everyone was looking forward to the event, including Franklin(um, Franklin) despite having spent less than 48 hours in USA. It looks like he's unfazed by the jet lag.....perhaps hanging out with friends and driving might be an effective jet lag repellent :)) Nevertheless our lineup for the day consists like this: Ziga(Lagano) will enter both the public drift sesh and the competition with his Chevelle, Ben(Phonexius) whips out his brand new C63 AMG, Franklin has picked up his lightly modded Mustang SN95, Muza(Niatross) has switched to Ziga's AE86 at the last minute, AJ(RocketBunnyS13) and Marc(Macaron_moon) picked up their recently-bought RX7 FD as our crew's spare car, Soju(well, Soju) and 11K(11000rpm) brought their respeotive rides (Supra A80 and E36) and I picked up the Silverado and some of the garage's tools for mechanic and repairs duty.

I, Soju and 11K decided to do the mechanical and repairs duty for the day and would be hanging out from trackside. I mean, despite 11K's E36 being set up properly for drifting(kind of, it's actually for gymkhana), obviously they don't want to lose their rides in any kind of mishaps. Oh well, it could be a great garage garnish and crowd magnet material after all :)) AJ and Marc will switch between driving and helping us on the spanner works. The rest of us obviously would be driving, and Ziga will be competing as well. If you want to see how the event unfolds at the track, jump here into Ziga's update. But hey, that doesn't mean the trackside scene is dry.....I'll show you later what I mean ;)

But first thing first, Franklin asked me to go with him and grab some spare tyres from the nearby junkyard. He also said he's quite curious over the Silverado's hauling capability. Given that I've rarely haul things since I've secured the keys to this thing, this could be a good test for the long haul later. So, at early, cold morning, I and Franklin set off to the junkyard.

"Hey Biggie, you know what? This truck feels so nice to ride on man"
"Aaaaah I know you'll love this thing. Thanks by the way, but I think Ben should be thanked as well"
"Eh?"
"I mean he's the one composing the mods for this thing, after all this was his ride. Well until he gave it to me that is"
"Aaaaah I see. But dang, it really hauls ass with this kind of power"
"Once you get used to the brakes and ride quality, yeah"
"Anyway Biggie, this makes me wanting to get a truck as well I should say"


"What kind of truck would it be? You tell me"
"Um, F-150 Lightning, RAM SRT10, probably GMC Syclone as well"
"Aaaaah the speedy trucks. I see you have great taste on them"
"Yeah. The only problem would be it's hard to find one in clean condition"
"Kinda expected this, I mean they're rare unicorns after all. That's why Ben made his own using this Silverado"
"Well I could see his point"
"But eh, I'm sure you'll get to drive those unicorns some time"


Some time later, with the spares scavenger done, the crew stacks the last of the tools and spares into the truck's bed and we set off to the event. The event starts at 8am, with drivers briefing taking place half an hour later. In the meantime, I and the rest of the crew will set up our workspace for the day. Given this is a public event, we also expected people to stumble upon our place....there's Soju's A80 and 11K's E36 after all to be seen and appreciated ;)

There's an empty storage building near the lot at Stroud, so we and most of the participants used said building to park our cars and set up the workplace and some stands there. It was a hot day as well, and obviously you don't want to roast yourself under the sun. Despite the industrial vibe it has given, it's actually not so dusty and the air inside was cool aswell, giving us a decent environtment to work on our cars inside.

And here are some of our lineup for the day. Here's Ben's C63 AMG and Franklin's Mustang SN95. Ben was quite lucky to be able to purchase this thing for V$8500 thanks to Soju accidentally stumbling over the ad for it some time ago. It was crashed once, but was repaired by the last owner before Ben, and fortunately the raucuous N/A V8 engine was still safe and intact. Top Gear Magazine (not the TV show though) once said this is the engine that can 'tear paint off the walls' with it's ultra loud engine roar. Franklin meanwhile was originally going to use the V6 version instead. But some time before departing to USA he found this Mustang, with the V8 engine and Mach 1 lip. It was much cheaper and in fair condition, so Franklin decided to grab it.

And here's Soju and 11K with their respective cars. Turns out there are a lot of drivers, enthusiasts and fans gathering today, so their cars are quite the perfect material to turn many heads on us and might be able to stop the entire show ;) These cars are quite legendary around here, so probably no further explanation is required to describe these other than being a majestic piece of dynamic arts.

With the drivers briefing over and people starting to jump into track action, including Ziga and Muza, we started our work on prepping Ben and Franklin's cars. People are also started to scramble over our place, mainly interested on Soju and 11K's cars as I predicted. And The crowd was swollen further when we reveal that Franklin is our part of our crew (i.e. the Mustang is part of us) and will be going as well, and then there's the Silverado with the LS7....which surprised almost everyone. Almost nobody believed it can be done, yet here it is in front of their eyes!



This was tainted a bit when someone jeered over Ben's C63 AMG. Granted, you don't see modern Mercs going sideways everyday, particularly outside Europe and in the sea of Japanese and American cars, but what almost made me and Ben seeing red was the fact that he didn't appreciate the fresh stock condition. Ben immediately jumps into the C63 as I said to the crowds: "You lot gotta watch this and stand back in amazement!" Ben then drove the Merc into the start line.

As Ben goes away in a loud echo of V8 orchestra and a copious amount of wheelspin, I decided to make it sound like a Top Gear documentary by citing various infos and trivias about the engine while trying to sound like Jeremy Clarkson to the fans. Apparently some of them are fans of Top Gear as well!

And seconds later, Ben went sideways in complete fury, echoing the V8 orchestra to the open skies and against the spectators. Along with the others that on the track, he was in complete harmony with his C63, shaking the tail-happy Merc as he goes around the lot. Seeing someone seething in rage and venting his anger has never been so.......beautiful.


As he went on drifting and flinging the Merc sideways in resonance with other drifters, crowds are cheering massively over Ben, finally realizing Ben's amazing skills over the course and the potential of the Merc. Ben continued on swinging the Merc and sometimes drifts right in front of us for some bragging rights has he and his Merc won the hearts of the crowds and enthusiasts. People always say this but let me say it again: It's not about what you drive, it's how you drive it! ;)


As Ben went back to our workplace in a flurry of oversteer and smoke, I screamed "Ladies and gentlemen please welcome your new Euro drift hero!" in joy and people started to gather around him and his Merc. We all shared fistbumps and have a lot of banter about Ben's amazing skills and the Merc, in particularly on how did he get it. Ben really has cemented his legendary status at this point :))

After Ben finished shredding rubber in the Merc, it is time for Franklin to shine inside the Mustang. He jokingly shoo away the crowd to make way for him as he made yet another crowd control jokes associated with Mustangs these days, then proceeded to the start line.

Moments later, the V8 engine inside his Mustang screamed in joy followed by a thick cloud of burnout. Franklin then goes on to swing his Mustang sideways and beyond, followed by lots of cheering particularly by Mustang hardliners. Given that both Camaros and Mustangs are present in the event, the presence of hardline fans of both sides was inevitable. While it might not be as violent and bloody as football/soccer hooligans and can be solved in peace, they still gave a dangerous aura.


Nevertheless, Franklin provided a great entertainment to all sides watching him as he continued to swing and dance at the lot with other drifters that went on. It felt like a huge petrolhead celebration ritual, resulting in a huge cloud of smoke and a strong scent of rubber as everyone gets sideways for a very, very long time. It was so surreal and fun to see! Now if only my Silverado could hold a long slide.......


As the day passed on, it is time for the drift competition to take place. As we only have Ziga and Ben to race on, all of us are united to help him through the competitions. Muza elected to be Ziga's spotter, Soju elected to be Ben's spotter, while the rest of us are going to be their mechanics and observing other drivers. Turns out almost everyone brought heavily modded cars with lots of power for the competition, so Ziga was right to pick the Chevelle as his weapon, given it has 950 BHP and better at holding long slides. Ben meanwhile was quite confident with the stock form of his Merc.....it has produced 500+ BHP from the go after all :D

As for the rules, it works like pro competitions, particularly Formula Drift, where at preliminary rounds you'll run alone, and starting from Top 32 eliminations you'll run twice in tandem with another competitor. All your runs will be judged by 3 judges, and in case if you're tied in score with your rival after the 2nd run on the elimination rounds, an OMT (One More Time) session will be held. OMTs can be held multiple times until judges can determine the winner of the run.

After lots of high-pressure drifts and repairs, and some OMTs, Ziga managed to secure 9th place and Ben was right behind him in 10th....much better than we expected!! :bananajump: And Ziga's just one place off from entering the Top 8 battles! Ziga's last battle was quite intense with no less than three OMTs being called and Ziga dishing an intense battle during his runs. Ultimately though we're all happy we can go this far. We spent the rest of the day watching the rest of the sessions with lots of meals and drinks.


[05 May 2019]
I received the news from Sleepy(Sleepin mOnkey) that the Mustang I delivered to him has almost arrived at the Japan shores. As a thanking gesture, he gave me V$500. I hope he'll be able to enjoy his Mustang very soon, that thing has left a deep and sweet impression to me, even if I was only drove it for a while. And oh, this also reminds me of something........

As I've explained in the last update, my original plan for this US trip goes like this: Get something as cheap as possible that isn't for sale in Japanese market, mend it as far as possible, and use it for a trackday and daily. Then at the end of the trip I'll evaluate if it's worth it to bring back to Japan or simply sell it for profit. But you know what happened so far: I ran out of money, borrowed the Silverado, then unexpectedly handed the keys to the Silverado permanently. Now that I've gathered some money over two weeks, it is time to fullfill this plan.....sort of. And yes, I'm quite insipred by Top Gear back then on their US trip, where they bought a car for $1500 to see if it's easier to buy a car rather than renting it, then went on for a road trip from Florida to New Orleans (and almost died in Alabama).

After I spend some time on the front of my laptop with Franklin and Ziga (since they're US car experts), I found a really, really good candidate I could purchase and mod for track and daily purpose: It's a 1993 Ford Mustang Foxbody LX 2.3 hachback in red, located in Petersburg, VA. You can see the original ad below.

As you can see in the original ad link, it was sold for V$800. Quite cheap for a Mustang, innit? That's because this is the 2.3 liter inline 4 model. As the ad states, the last owner wants to swap it and put a 5.0 V8 from the same-gen Mustang GT inside, but he has two other Mustangs he had to work on. Since he has no time to work on this one, he decided to sell this Mustang. The engine is fairly healthy with normal wear, but the auto transmission is rather worryingly starts to dying. Body-wise you can see it for yourself: Everything bar the bonnet is rust-free, and the front and rear bumper paint has been ruined.

I was planning on simply improving the stock inline 4.....until Franklin pointed out that it has an unbelievably meagre amount of power.

"So here's the plan: Let's look for some performance parts for this thing, I want to keep the engi-"
"Wait Smoke ARE YOU MAD? It only has 80 horsepower!"
"EIGHTY?! ON A MUSTANG?!"
"I'm not kidding! Look it up"
"Well here goes........"

Well turns out he's both right and wrong, and he's not kidding either. He's wrong because by standard it has 105 BHP, but he's also right becuase not only it's still a tiny number of power, that figure stands at least a quarter of century ago, so obviously some of the horses has ran away from the stable. Franklin's prediction of it having only 80 BHP might be true after all.

Fortunately, being familiar with American muscle cars and US engines, Franklin proposed a good idea for the Mustang: Give it a Ford Modular 4.6 SOHC V8 engine, and mate it with 5-speed Tremec T5 transmission usually used in Ford Mustang of the age. Given that the Modular engine is easy to source, cheap and quite bulletproof even with minimum amount of care and maintenance (this is the engine of Ford Crown Victoria taxi and cop cars, mind you), I instantly agreed with the idea. And so, after securing the deal with the Mustang to be picked up next day, we started our shopping list for the Mustang.

First off is the Modular 4.6 engine, taken from 1994 Lincoln Town Car for an unbelievably cheap V$350. It has run around 179,000 miles and the internal is still incredibly healthy. The only problem is, there are some rust here and there, including on the engine cover and the oil pan. The engine cover can be removed anyway, but it's the oil pan that becomes the main problem. So we looked up for a fresh replacement and got one for V$60. Next up Franklin was able to locate a fresh Tremec T5 transmission from the same gen as his Mustang, which he said has the same layout as the Foxbody Mustang and much stronger for V$440. And finally, I sourced a clutch kit from Summit Racing for V$128 and a flywheel from Perfection for V$82 to complete the bucket list. We decided to pick up everything on the way back from picking up the Mustang.

And oh, at this point I was supposed to compete in round 2 of Tsukuba Circuit Trial Championship, but uhh......I'm not even in Japan right now man! :)) That's okay though, I can also have fun with my friends here in USA and moreover I don't have to attend all rounds to be classified in the championship. And that's the only competitive time attack event I can attend this month. Next up would be at June where I could at least attend three races! :D


[06 May 2019]
*loud sax blaring*
*sinister guitar and percussion kicks in*
I think it's time we blow this scene/
Get everybody and the stuff together/
Okay, three, two, one, let's jam.

*epic sax performance ensues*


Well, what's better way to start the week other than receiving my paycheck of V$940 and blasting 'Tank' on my speakers :)) Anyways, it's also the time to pick up the Mustang as well all of the shopping list I and Franklin has bought the day before. And of course that means another ride with Franklin in the Silverado, and since we're heading to VA, that means there's one song appropriate for the occassion! ;) (and yes, I do aware West Virginia isn't actually a part of Virginia). To top it off, I also sang the Japanese version along the trip, while Franklin sang 'Big Iron' to replicate the jokes spreading around the Fallout fandom.

The roads we passed along the trip was so beautiful, feels like something from a distant dream. Swerving away earlier from the Interstate roads felt worth it. It was a pleasant day as well, not too hot, not too cold, but still nice to have your window down and enjoy the view.

Some moments later we arrived at the tow where the Mustang was located. It looks like it's a peaceful town all around, remind me of my hometown where I would spend time either cycling around town or have a football match with my friends. The owner's house is also small but the runway was wide enough to store three Mustangs.

After some cups of coffee and small talks about the trip, here it is.....the Mustang LX, ready to be picked up and driven. And then a self-imposed challenge rises on my head: Can I drive this without breaking anything? Well, there's no way to find it other than trying it out. This is also why I've got Franklin on my side: If something went awry in the way, we could fix it up and if we couldn't, we only need to call a tow truck without having to be stranded in the middle of nowhere for hours.



(yes, that's yet another stock I4 with DSpeed Headcover)

After yet some more coffee, mods discussions and sorting out the slips and papers for the Mustang, the key for it is now officially mine and I can drive it back to Ardmore with Franklin in my back. Will it survive a long haul back home? Here it goes!


I think there's one (and probably only one) good thing with the 2.3 liter inline 4: You can keep your foot all the way down and yet you'll never going to break the speed limit at the interstates. Yes, it is THAT slow! :)) The engine isn't that sprightly either, though surprisingly the transmission still holds up nicely. This reminds me back to the time I picked up my Tico....every single second of the trip back home felt like forever. But at least inside this one I could chill up and enjoy the trip since this is an LHD country. Also the landscape is now only consist of deserts, deserts, hills, and deserts. Nothing's more American than driving a Mustang through an interstate in the middle of a desert.


Along the way we stopped at several places, including an abandoned fuel station and abandoned motel. The result? Probably the most American looking pictures ever. It's just blends perfectly! Sort of stuff that makes you want to wear a rodeo hat and blast country songs along the way :)) And oh, along the trip we also picked up all the stuff we bought for the Mustang and chucked up all inside the Silverado. We put the engine and the transmission in the bed, while the clutch, flywheel and oil pan was enough to be put inside the cab's bench seat.

Many, many, many hours later, we finally arrived back at Ardmore just at the time the sun sets. I don't think the city was prepared for an incoming of a dying, barely rolling Mustang......but on the other hand I don't want the Mustang to break down here. Not only it'll be a shame to have a breakdown at the final miles of the trip, I'll embarrass myself and Franklin if it had a breakdown on a crowded area. We don't want to be a Snapchat or Instagram material for it! :))



Finally though, the Mustang made it back home, and surprisingly it looks like the transmission broke down right inside the garage as I parked it and I felt a very hard jolt as it stopped into a stall. Becuase it's an auto, it looks like something has slipped otherwise stuck inside it. Well yes it's broken after all, but I didn't expect it to make the trip this far, and only breaking down after it's all over. It's okay as well becuase after all it's going to be replaced anyway......


[08 May 2019]
I was supposed to put the engine the day before this, but I ended up having a rest day and helping Franklin modding his Mustang and Jetta a bit. After all it was quite a long journey both of us has faced. The work for the day started by....not directly working on the car, but rather than that clearing and sanding most of the rust that remains on the engine. Thankfully most of them was only on the outside, and the engine cover can be removed easily. And while we're at it we also install the new transmission, oil pan, clutch and flywheel. Because we haven't install them into the car yet, working on them took rather short time and we could work on them like playing with Lego blocks.
When everything was done, we get the engine crane and prepares for the engine swap operation. Here we go! :D

Next up we lifted the 2.3 liter inline 4 engine. Other than it being an NA SOHC engine and it was made for efficiency, as well as being strained by emission rules, I still can't understand why Americans, at least at 70s-90s, can't make a well proportioned and well performing inline 4 engines. 2.3 liter engine making only 105 BHP seems so, so odd to me, at least in modern terms. Still, could be worse: Due to oil crisis in 70s and 80s, V8 engines of that time rarely touches 200 BHP(or 250?) while still being big in dimesion. How odd is that?

Shortly after, the inline 4 engine is cleared from the engine bay. We had a good look at the transmission and yap, it was ruined as hell. And after cleaning and another sanding session to remove rusts, it's time for the Modular V8 engine to get into the bay. Ah yes, this Modular engine, coming from a Lincoln Town Car as I've said before, produces around 210 BHP, at least when it was new. Since it could be pushed further (later versions of the Modular 4.6 engine comes out with at least 250 BHP by standard), I might only need to do ECU and cam tuning without worrying any needs for aftermarket parts. And the Foxbody Mustang is one of the lightest Mustang ever produced, sitting at around 1245 kg, so roughly on-par with Japanese tuner cars of that time, e.g. S13s.

And finally, it is time to repaint the bonnet, front bumper and rear bumper. I did a small test by sanding the rust on the front panel then respraying it. It wasn't the tidiest of paint jobs, but at least it'll do. And don't worry, the bonnet and bumper paints was done professionally. So, for the moment the Mustang is out from the action as it waits for the paint to dry. You'll see it soon for a test drive though, so don't worry! :D


[10 May 2019]
Went for another laptop browsing session again, this time with AJ and Ziga. While I was randomly stumbling over car ads, I saw something interesting: A Nissan 240SX SE Convertible for sale at V$850! It was in decent condition exterior-wise, and the engine was recently refreshed, but the auto transmission was dying as well, just like the Mustang. And being an American 240SX, it has a KA24DE inside. Still, it's a convertible S13, one of the rarest of it's kind, both in Japan and USA. I didn't expect to stumble upon this thing, but I felt the urge to buy it. AJ, being an owner of various S-Chassis, pushed the urge even further......so in the end I purchased it after all.
(NOTE: The original ad was gone sinc ethe car has been sold irl, and I forgot to take a snap of it)

My plans for it? Unlike the Foxbody, I'll definitely going to bring this home to Japan and try to restore it to former glory there, obviously because parts are easier to source there. And most likely I'll mod it into a 90s lowrider (turning Japanese cars into a lowrider was a thing in Japan) or hotboi mobile. Whether if it's still going to be LHD or being converted into RHD remains to be seen, but all I know is I'll keep it on wearing soft tops and most likely either keeping the KA24 insdie with minor mods and no turbo or swap it with CA18 (instead of SR20) and some mods, also still with no turbo. It might would retain most of it's drifting ability, but it's not going to be a drifter. Yes, this one might going to be an opinion splitter.

Anyways, we've secured the deal later that day and planned to pick it up the next day, this time with AJ accompanying me on the Silverado. I picked AJ because his know-how on S-Chassis, and because he'll might appreciate this one as well since it's a rare unicorn among S13s. I can't wait to see this thing rolling on the streets of it's homeland very soon....it could be an automobile embodiment of Sally Amaki! :))

And of course, we've secured some stuff for it as well. Later that day we went back to the local junkyard and secured a manual transmission for KA24 in a fine condition, and we gladly paid V$100 for it. We also order a clutch and flywheel kit from Exedy, costing us V$189 and will arrive in two days. As I said, it's not going to be a drifter, but still, having some aftermarket parts could be a good idea.


[11 May 2019]
It's the weekend and it's also time to pick up the 240SX! But first off, we had a quick breakfast at the local Burger King. I never knew their fish fillet burger and fries tastes so, so great! Definitely something to look for next time I'm going here again. AJ meanwhile opted for the double stack burger since he's quite hungry :)) American lifestyle are almost always associated with something in huge size: Big people, big trucks, big burgers, big highways........

Later on, we proceeded our way to the car location, which is at somewhere in GA. As weeks have passed, I've mastered how to handle the Silverado quite well I should say. As long as I paid attention at least, otherwise it can't do panic braking very well. And that reminds me I still have to buy a brake kit for this truck. It was a rather hot day, and traffic was considerably crowded. Oh well, it's weekend after all

Some hours and one traffic jam later, we arrived at the car's location. It's a small neighbourhood on a cul-de-sac in the heart of a well-sized city in GA. Looks like somewhere I would live in, to be honest, but I'm rather worried about garage space.....there's literally a lack of them. And probably donuts in the center of the cul-de-sac would be frowned upon, and it could be worse if I brought a Mustang here.

We and the owner of the SX enjoyed some cups of coffee for me and some cans of light booze for AJ as we talk about our journey here, the S-Chassis ownership as well as our life at Japan, seeing as we normally live at the birthplace of S-Chassis. Turns out he was an S-Chassis enthusiast and used to be a grassroot drifter. He has an S14, which at the moment undergo some tuning and this S13 convertible. These days he rarely drifts and spend more time on the front of his PC chatting with other S-Chassis owners in various forums due to intense work schedule. And oh, speaking of the 240SX, here it is.


"Uh Smoke, is that a Onevia?" Nonono, it's not a Onevia, it came out from the factory that way.....let me explain a bit. So as we always know 240SX are sold in hatch form in North America, but did you know they were also sold in coupe form just like Japan as well? The main differences are obviously they're fitted with KA24 just like the hatch. Another one is that instead of using the PS13 front end, they still retain the RPS13 front end. So it's quite fair to say Nissan North America already has Onevia from the factory. Sometime in early 90s they decided to employ a company called American Speciality Cars (ASC) to convert some of the coupes into a limited-run convertibles. If you're wondering, the convertible job for Japan was done by Autech. If you don't believe me, read here ;)

With more cups of coffees gulped in and all the slips and papers sorted, it is time to see if I could bring another car with dying transmission back home safely. AJ was so ecstatic to see that I could secure a rare bastion of S-Chassis for a cheap price. And to celebrate all of this, despite the hot condition, I decided to get the roof down and enjoy the breeze along the way.

Sadly, our joy was short-lived this time. With 2/5 way to go from Ardmore, the transmission decided it had enough and stopped working in all of the sudden. Oil and debris was dropping everywhere from the SX, so I and AJ had to pull off the roads. It's a bit of luck this didnt happened in the interstate roads, otherwise pulling over would be very, very difficult and has the potential to cause a huge crash.

In the end, after a call for tow truck and waiting for half an hour the 240SX continues it's trip back to Ardmore on a tow truck bed, while I returned to the Silverado with AJ. Welp, I kinda did see that coming but given the Mustang survived quite well with the same condition, I didn't expect this either.









Welp, I didn't expect to be able to grab 2 cars in a week :))
Now let's see how did my wallet survives after the shopping spree:












That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by
and see you soon here or one of the boys's updates!
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

RocketBunnyS13

ph
Posts: 418

Location: Philippines MNL
Occupation: Yes I ruin cars
Age: 34
V$: wat
#323   2019-05-16 22:39          
YASSSS joining the S13 gang!! That's a Chuki USDM S13 coupe, therefore the chassis code would be MS13 instead of the JDM SR PS13, or simply the JDM CA S13. But YEET it was a pretty solid day and I still can't believe you bagged a pristine (except for the transmission) 240SX SE Vert for V$850! Definitely a steal. We might have broken down along the way, but that car will be AMAZING when it's done.

Also let's not tell everyone about how I tried to get the transmission to work by playing with the shiftgate and rocking it back-and-forth HAHAHAHA. Oops I just told everyone myself didn't I. F

s t a y c l a s s y

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#324   2019-05-17 05:11          
# RocketBunnyS13 : YASSSS joining the S13 gang!! That's a Chuki USDM S13 coupe, therefore the chassis code would be MS13 instead of the JDM SR PS13, or simply the JDM CA S13. But YEET it was a pretty solid day and I still can't believe you bagged a pristine (except for the transmission) 240SX SE Vert for V$850! Definitely a steal. We might have broken down along the way, but that car will be AMAZING when it's done.

Also let's not tell everyone about how I tried to get the transmission to work by playing with the shiftgate and rocking it back-and-forth HAHAHAHA. Oops I just told everyone myself didn't I. F

As I expected form the S-Chassis expert, thanks for the quick knowledge material indeed :D
Also I'm glad you were able to help me on picking it up (though not ended so well), since I was sure you'll be happy to see an S13 vert, and indeed you were! :D

Row, row your box......probably the box's internals is basically a metal milkshake/smoothie by now but let's see :))
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

Renaruto

jp
Posts: 376
http://https://www.facebook.com/R...
Location: Japan probably
Occupation: Yes
Age: 25
V$: 5.300
#325   2019-05-19 21:22          
OHH S13 vert! Thats a new one. Sounds and looks like a nice find body wise but bummer bout the trans tho lol

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
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Age:
V$: Broke
#326   2019-05-20 03:57          
# Renaruto : OHH S13 vert! Thats a new one. Sounds and looks like a nice find body wise but bummer bout the trans tho lol

Glad to report everything's fine exterior-wise :D
Yeah it's only the trans that's busted at the moment :))
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
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#327   2019-06-02 09:18          
Shredfest and Homecoming
(NOTE: I'm using ReShade for this update. Let me know what you think! ;) )











Welp, finally got time to write another update again!
Real-world issues has hampered me to write one to be honest.....not that I mind actually.
Anyways, at the moment I've came home to Japan but first, Ii'll cover the final week of the US trip.
So here we go boys let's jump into the update! :D












[13 May 2019]
Paycheck time! Aanother V$940 landed on my wallet. This day's quite a busy day for me and the boys at Side to Side for......quite a lot of things: Before all of us going home, we're planning for a trackday and BBQ party for three straight days! The track selected for this occassion was Hallett Motor Racing Circuit in Tulsa, OK. The 3km circuit is quite a fast and flowing one, with 10 huge turns along the way. It's not so big and the facility is rather simple, given this track is at best used in regonal and national levels, but the character reminds me of my home turf that is Tsukuba Circuit. Okay, Hallett might be slightly faster and Tsukuba has much better asphalt, but you get the point. As a bonus point, we could build a camp nearby for the night and settle down while enjoying BBQ.

Another reason is Muza(Niatross), AJ(RocketBunnyS13) and Marc(Macaron_moon) was also delivering their cars back to Japan much earlier, given they're already has another car for the final week. Marc is also going back to Japan earlier to help with the shipping and logistics matters, as well as firing up their garage's business again and in Marc's personal case, applying finishing touches to his now-turned-out-monstrous Evo X. He's a busy man indeed. As for the cars being shipped back, Muza ships back his E90 birthday gift that has been modded lightly over the course of our trip, AJ ships back his Impreza GRB, and Marc ships back his brand new Mustang S197A, which was also a gift given by the former two. The power of freindship is lovely indeed :D

As for me, I've got a lot of things to do as well. First off, the Foxbody's bumpers and bonnet has finally dried up from repainting process. But before that, this gave me a chance to do a light tuning for it....well y'know me, it would be cam and ECU tuning. It is a good thing the Ford Modular engine is basically tunable in any form, since it was created with the idea that you could have it in any guise with various tunes with similar or same parts, hence the name 'Modular'. It's also one of Ford's first fuel injected V8. The one inside the Foxbody right now, lifted from Lincoln Town Car as I've mentioned in the previous update has 190 BHP by standard. Quite a meagre number, don't you think? With this in mind, I gathered some infos and have Franklin(well, Franklin), who has a Mustang with exactly the same engine on my side to guide me on the tuning process. The goal here is to match Franklin's Mustang's stock power figure.

With the tuning session finished, we put back the dried bumpers and bonnet to the Foxbody, and then we cleaned and polished the car. Safe to say, this is my envision of the Foxbody when it was showroom new. One thing still remains though: The stock wheel is so 90s it hurtes my eyes a bit...is it just me or it actually looks like a knock-off Advan Super Racing wheels? Though on secong thoughts, it might be able to be painted to resemble one, thus making it uhhh.....a rep that isn't actually a rep :))

Mustang modding done, it is time to move on to the second car of the day: The 240SX Vert I acquired at the last update.....and almost immediately broke it's own transmission. It's time to replace the transmission anyway, with me and AJ securing a manual transmission for dirt cheap at the last update and the clutch and flywheel kit already arriving the previous day. So it is time to pull out the entire engine, get a huge table and play Lego with the transmission again. To be honest, I didn't expect the transmission internals to be destroyed THAT bad.......
(yeah I know that's a CA18, not a KA24. The KA24 mod is buggy and crashed my game)

While we're at it I also do yet another light tuning to the engine. AJ and Franklin said the KA24 is quite durable for any purposes, so it shouldn't be a problem whether if I keep it NA or have a bolt-on turbo on it, though at the moment I'd like to keep it NA since it's not going to see any aggressive motorsport actions. After tinkering over the transmission swap and cleaning up the mess that we made, we put back the engine in.

After all of this was done, I realized that not only the remains of both the Foxbody and 240SX's auto transmissions would fill the StS HQ for nothing, I also need some more money, so I consulted Ziga(Lagano) on what to do. For the charred remains, he suggest for selling it to the junkyard, since there's nothing can be done to them other than being scrapped and recycled. Surprisingly though both transmission's cores are still relatively in good condition. Originally I'm planning to sell them online, but since I need money as quickly as possible and I'm going to go back home to Japan very soon, Ziga suggests to sell it to any auto shop around downtown.

So then, it is time to whip out the Silverado for one more time. But as I load up the truck's bed to accomodate two boxes of transmissions and sme buckets of transmission internals scrap, I heard AJ and Muza planning to ship their car back to Japan later. Then it hit me: I have a whopping three cars to be shipped back to Japan, so it'll be easier to ship them back one by one rather than simultaneously. Since I'm going to drive the Silverado and there's nothing much to haul for the rest of the week, it might be better to ship it as well after the cash-grabbing trip is done.

First, I went to the scrapyard to deliver the scraps. Because I only know one scrapyard around the place (and it's the scrapyard where I found the KA24 manual transmission), I went straight there. Fortunately they got a good weight-based deals for scrap metals, and so I scored V$20 for selling the scraps. Not much indeed, but again, they're scraps so I would take anything to get rid of them after all.

Next up, getting the cores delivered to an auto shop. After a rather long hustle around downtown, mainly against my own steering wheel and brakes, I found an auto shop who accepts used car parts across the other side of the city. They accepted to buy the Foxbody auto core for V$200 and the KA24 auto core for V$300. Quite a deal for me. So with that sorted, I contacted AJ to get the directions to the shipping port.

Some time later, I arrived at the port. Muza's BMW has been recently lifted to the cargo ship, and because AJ is somewhere else when it's supposed to be his turn, I was allowed to take his turn instead by Muza. Not only shipping the Silverado earlier will make shipping the Foxbody and 240SX easier, when I come back to Japan I could quickly grab the Silverado again for the trip home to my crib. Later on, turns out AJ felt asleep after planning to ship our cars, and he was so late later on the ship was almost ready to go to Japan when he arrived. Understandably, Muza scolded him along our way back in our Grab car :))

At one side, I can't wait to experience driving a huge pickup truck in Japan. On the other hand, that might turn into a hellish experience.......

At the end of the day, I checked out some wheels for the 240SX, seeing if I can find a wheel that doesn't require any lug swaps. Yes I know it's rather easy and it's commonly done, but I'd rather save some money for the wheels and everything else. After an hour of hunting in front of my laptop, I've scored something that's not only fits 4-lugs but also, coincidentally, a rare classic: Weds Albino in 15 inch size! It's also actually fits the 240SX perfectly period-wise since Albinos has came a long way since the 80s, thus enhancing the kyusha look on the 240SX later. Well I could grab one in Japan, obviously, but since I found one for cheap here, I paid for a set straight away for V$600. And to wrap the tyres, I picked up a set of Dunlop SP Sport 5000 for V$276, which I plan to stretch to fit the wheels. All of the items will arrive at the end of the trackday.


[14 May 2019]
After a whole day of preparations before our trackday bash, we set off at noon to Hallett so we can set our camp eariler. Since I've shipped the Silverado to Japan, we had to put some of the tools inside the Foxbody....and surprisingly they fit well! It was a hot day downtown so AC was on full blast inside the Foxbody. Still, hot seats meant it was rather discomforting for my body instead.

As it turns out, there was a truck accident on the highway leading to Tulsa, so we have to use alternative routes to go to Hallett from Ardmore. It's not going to be a fun trip when you're stuck in traffic jams after all, and we want to build our camp as soon as possible. And we get to see the neighbourhood outside the city as well.....not gonna lie, I'd like to live here for some days.

Some hours later, we arrived at Hallett as the sun sets. The wind is cool and the temperature got calmer there, perfect for setting up our camp and have a dinner later. It is a good thing the bar nearby the track is still open as well. So basically we're all set for the event :D Meanwhile, let's see what everyone brings to the event. For starters, I obviously brought my Foxbody. I'd like to assess the result of the engine swap and tuning before bringing it back to Japan.

This is StS bossman Ben(Benny, formerly known as Phonexius)'s legendary R33, finally popping in front of my eyes again with full 1300 BHP! Hallett and Heartland Motorsport Park at Topeka, KS are the home turfs of this car, though Ben himself didn't do much track days these days. Seeing it parked under the dying light of the sun is quite a mesmerizing yet tranquil experience. This car, when parked, arguably paints 'the calm before the storm' moments perfectly. Tasty colour choice too, not too vibrant but augments the savage aura surrounding it.


Ziga also brought his own R-car, which is his own R32, straight from StS's second garage at Los Angeles. Despite being RWD and has the GTS-t bonnet installed, it's actually a full-on GT-R. Ziga chose the GTS-t bonnet for it's lightness (I kinda doubt this) and aero efficiency (this I could agree with). Just like Ben's R33, it's made for grip racing, but it's more than happy to be thrown sideways and swinging around corners.


Next up is Muza and AJ's shared toy for the occassion, a Mazda RX7 FD3S. As AJ would tell you, this one was acquired from once a famous Japanese drifter who made his name here in the US until a Chicago resident beat his records mercilessly in his hometurf in Autopolis circuit back in Japan. This time though, AJ has totally overhauled the ride thanks to him meeting a couple who are RX7 fans and has a connection to Kyle Mohan, owner of Mazdatrix tuning shop and Formula Drift racing team. What a lucky guy! The LS1 engine still remains inside the car, but visual-wise it's all brand new and totally fresh.


This here is Vahid(Smokiegun), a California resident and both Ben and Ziga's longtime close friend. Or should I say bro? :)) But yeah, they're quite close like brothers. Vahid recently has sold all of his cars in exchange of couple of BMW M5s spanning from various generations. As you can see here, this is the F10 model, recently restored and lightly modded by himself. Engine-wise it's pretty much stock, but we're talking a modern M5 here, so performance should be as raucuous and savage as an entire cast of Mad Max movie. If you're a fan of M5s, BMWs, or big sedans in general, or restomods, I'd suggest you to visit his RP here. He's basically turning his garage into a dedicated M5 museum!


And here we got yet another R33, driven by another of Ben's friend, Lydia(RedCarDriver). An Arizona resident who is a trackday and time attack enthusiast, she got her R33 slightly widened and sitting on 19 inch wheels. It screams both trackday vibes and 90s aesthetics in my eyes. And oh, as the plate points out, it has an RB26 inside making north of 900 BHP on all wheels. Serious spec indeed! Being a trackday and time trial enthusiast myself (and living near the spiritual home of time attack racing), I'm looking forward to hit the track and learn one or two things from her.


Next up is Franklin(well, Franklin) with his Mustang SN95. Nothing much has changed since it's last outing at Stroud drift event, and he's just as eager to hit the track as ever. Originally he planned to ride his Jetta VR6 here for grip sessions together with me, but then he realized he's currently lacking funds for his competitive 180SX project back in Japan, so he decided to sell it and bring the Mustang here instead.


Moving on, it's another track ready machine here that is Soju(well, Soju)'s legendary Supra A80. As you can tell from the mods installed on the car, Soju and his car feels pretty much at home here. It's modded and tuned for track racing, so I expect blistering fast times coming out at the end of the day. Aggressive setting should garner lots of new fans as well. This time though, it'll face more challenges: Not only there's Ben with his R33, Lydia should be able to dish exciting duels with both drivers as well.


And finally, we got 11K(11000rpm) with his SR20-swapped E36. Modded for gymhkana events (the traditional Japanese ones, not the obnoxious Hollywood-worthy Ken Block-induced ones), the E36 is also basically at home as well. I'm rather sure the SR20 would create a split opinion amongst the track day attenders, but of course 11K could give a concrete answer over these doubters once he hit the track.


After we set our camp, we had a 'small' initiation party. Well, 'small', as we see AJ, Ziga, Soju and Franklin downing some shots of lagers already :))


[15-17 May 2019]
Trackday time! As the track day spans over three days, it'll be very, very, very long to tell you in daily basis, so I'll just wrap the 3-day event into one section. It was all fun and thrilling to have our cars running on the track, following and/or racing each other. Some of us are running on grip settings, trying to minimize sideways action for more grip and saving tyres. Others are going rowdy as hell by going sideways almost everytime. There are also some who alternates between grip and drift driving for fun.

First off, obviously it's going to be myself in the Foxbody. At first the car was rather surprisingly wobbly in the corners. This was expected given it's bone stock suspension-wise after all, but I didn't expect it to be jelly-welly wobbly. As you can see fro the pic, the shocks are rather undecisive on damping the car along the track, giving it a comical body roll in the process. Running on old, long unused tires doesn't really help either.

Soon though, I could understand what's going on beneath the car and started to get in the groove of things. Despite grip levels are basically hit or miss sometimes, I could bring along the Foxbody at speed around corners much better for the rest of the event. The Foxbody is one of the lightest Mustangs ever produced by Ford, so it behaves a bit like a Japanese cars I usually drive, being predictable around corners and doesn't pull itself too much around high-speed corners.


The only catch would be the massive bodyroll and thanks to the V8 engine up front, it's a bit nose-heavy. The Foxbody at times gets confused on juggling it's own mass when you don't really know what are you doing. But nce you figured out how it transfers it's own weight, you could alter your driving style it your and it's liking. You can try to find the limits of it's grip to the point the front end bottomed out, or you could induce a small slide and flick it around corners like a Mario Kart player. Or if you feel so cute and want to mess around, you could pull a big one just for the fun out of it.




Next up, we have 11K and his E36. Being set up for gymkhana events, predictably he and his E36 easily flies away and blasts around the track. It also looks graceful doing so. Occassionally, he'll pull a small slide on corners to have fun while running around. And fortunately the front lip wasn't grated by Hallett's hilly evelations. Imagine how great it would be once this thing hits Tsukuba.....



And then there's AJ and Muza with their RX7. They truly had a lot of fun sliding the car around for three days straight....they've turned the trackday into Hallett Drift Matsuri for themselves! :)) Everytime they went off the pit lane, they always being quite rowdy in the process, so much that combined with the sonorous LS1 engine chatter it looks like someone set a lion's tail on fire. Dangerous but fun sight to behold I should say! :D


At some runs they asked me to be their camera car, with either AJ or Muza driving and whichever of them that didn't drive sitting inside my Foxbody holdig the camera. It was fun chasing the RX7 while spewing smoke around the track, and the fact that the Foxbody was actually able to keep up with the RX7 is fairly a miracle. Both of them were absolute pros at their job on the wheel, pulling huge angles and putting on an etertaining spectacle on the camera lens. We should've invested on drones I should say! :))


This one taken at the last day though, was the most majestic from all of the shots. Hallett's pit wall and main straight was separated by a patch of grass, but that doesn't hold them back from pulling a manji and wall tap. It might be still far off the wall but still, it was done in quite an unbelieveable speed. People in the pit wall reportedly having their caps and ID tags flew off when they perform it, and they described the move as if they've just received a gigantic, powerful slap from the car. I guess it should have been called a wall slap instead ;)

All those sideways shenanigans on the 3rd day infected and hyped lots of people on the track, even Ziga can't even hold himself from finally breaking the traction of his R32 on track! Having focused on grip driving and hunting for lap times in the first two days, it looks like Ziga had enough of gripping for dear life and decided to break loose as he saw Muza entering the first corner in the RX7.

Seeing Ziga carving up the track sideways echoing the tenor sound of the RB26 engine feels like seeing someone trying to conduct an orchestra with a side of rock and roll stingers. He definitely didn't hold back and made a very good use of all that massive power and potential of the R32.

Vahid spent the trackday alternating between grip and drift driving to see how far the M5 F10 can be pushed in both aspects. The M5 is quite a bulky car, even in modern sedan terms, and like other BMWs it's quite moody when you want to throw it's tail around. It's also obedient though, as guiding it's tail and nose around corners is surprisingly easy, so having it fitting your driving style is quite easy once you figured out how much weight can be thrown around the corners. It's a modern car after all.


Vahid steers the M5 like a battleship, juggling the car's mass around the corners with full force. And surprisingly despite all that mass, Vahid was still able to score times comparable to the faster cars of our group. I'm quite sure if Vahid was put inside a lighter car or had his M5 undergoing engine upgrades and massive diet, he could go even faster. Or he could also probably enter Formula Drift with his M5!



Then comes the power players of the crop. First off is Soju in his Supra A80. God damn I love seeing this thing flying aroud the track, with screaming 2JZ sounds as the soundtrack and aggressive aero setting as the icing on the cake. It was absolutely planted and dead-flat running around Hallett, allowing Soju to turn up his skills and guts to eleven and fearlessly setting lap times without anything holding him back. Added with big brake kits on all sides, this here is an absolute stopwatch devastator, which eats tyres and tarmac for lunch.


Even having him passing us by in the pit wall was enough to vibrate our chests and turn our heads, usually followed by loud and barbequey backfire as he enters the forst corner. At times he was clearly over the limit as he fights back oversteer mid-corner, but overall his driving style can be described as a sight of tranquil fury: Calm and flowing, but also lightning fast.


When it comes to lap records though, Ben actually managed to one-up Soju! This also become an equalizer as Ben is finally able to beat Soju in his Supra. Well to be fair, the last time it was happened when we have a touge drive weeks ago, it was more like an impromptu battle as Soju was cruising alone and Ben decided to chase him inside his R34.....but still, he was quite quick even Ben was sweating a lot chasing him. Back to the trackday, at times not only they're battling over lap times, they also managed to get side by side at times! It was rather fearful to see them going door to door (in fear of crashing, obviously) but also deeply entertaining since they're basicaly the titans of the track.



At the final day though, Ben gave me a wonderful surprise.

"Smoke, I know you always want to ride this"
"Well, uh, honestly, yeah"
"Get in man, let's have a ride of your lifetime"
"WOAH HOLY SHIIIIII-" :O

And so, I giddily jumped into the passenger seat, still unable to believe that I could ride shotgun in one of my favourite forum cars ever! As I became a meat ballast for some laps in the R33 while spotting for traffic, I also took some note from Ben's driving style. From my seat it looks like he's breathing along with the track, becoming one with the flow as he flings the R33 around corners. This was ruined a bit when someone exited from the pit lane and accidentally blocked us at turn 1, understandably angering Ben. Luckily, once he vented his anger by aggressively overtaking him, everything went back to normal again.


And despite being close to running out of tyres at the end of the day, Ben quickly adapts his driving, resulting in some satisfying sideways action around the track. It feels slik smooth and precise. Now, if only I have the cash to buy an R33 GT-R......


Lydia wasn't simply hanging around either. Quite a lot of times she scored lap times worthy to challenge Ben and Soju. Bigger wheels also helps the car gripping around nicely, though initially I was rather worried about understeer possibilities. But no, it turns out the whole package was blending nicely with Hallett's asphalt indeed!



She was also kind enough to let me check out the setup of her R33. Though it might look rather unassuming at first glance, everything was made and set up for pure tracking action. It's also doubles as one of her daily ride, just like my own Silver Queen (my Evo 3, in case anyone didn't remember). I can't imagine how 1st and 2nd would feel like on traffic lights in this car, but overall this should be an amazing thing to drive all the time. I'd like to see this car in the shores of Japan, if you ask me :D



And finally, Franklin as usual let himself loose and flying around in his Mustang. Even being still near-stock, Franklin didn't hold back from sending it as hard as he could. And due to us having the same engine, sometimes we were going side by side, with either Franklin later chasing me sideways or me giving space to see Franklin going sideways.



[17 May 2019, later that day]
With our time on the track finally over, I returned to the pits to wrap up our camp before going back to the garage.

After a long drive back to the garage, AJ, Muza, Soju and 11K decided to ship their cars back home immediately, so I followed suit to make deliveries easier. But first off, my new wheels and tyres for the 240SX has arrived, so while we're on the garage I decided to install them first. Looking good and proper, aren't they?

When I finished installing the wheels, turns out I was left behind by the boys, so I immediately grabbed the Mustang's keys and rushed through downtown to catch them up. How did I didn't catch the attention of the local cops was rather miraculous indeed......it is a good thing I already know where the shipping port is, cutting some precious time to get there.


In the end I managed to catch them just when they were going to lift their car to the docks. After some rather hectic diplomacy and paperworks I managed to get my Foxbody shipped along as well. If I'm being honest, I don't really know what I'm going to do with the Mustang and Silverado once they hit the shores of Japan. For the Silverado, it could be a spare daily, a flexing tool, parts truck when the Sprinter can't cut it, or for some track fun, I'll try to find a drag racing venue around Japan. As for the Mustang, either I keep it as a lower-tier TA car, rent it for TA events to drivers, or probably turn it into a drift car.


[18 May 2019]
Finally, it is time to end our stay in the USA and go back home to Japan, bar Franklin who decided to stay for one more week. But this wasn't even trouble-free either, as I still have one more car waiting to be shipped to Japan, which is the 240SX Vert. With this in mind, I and our crew hatched a plan: They went off first to the airport with some of my belongings, pick up a later flight, while I'm delivering the 240SX first then get a Grab to the airport so I could catch up before the flight. A bit risky, but I assured everyone this would work.

And so, after bidding our goddbyes to Ziga, Ben and Franklin, I immediately jumped into the 240SX with it's recently replaced stockies inside and rushed into downtown for one last time. It was a cool day as well so I can drive with roof down for one more time here.

The downtown is so beautiful and vivid as usual. I never expected it to be pleasant to drive on but come a month later, I wish I could drive around here again. The people are great, the food is delicious, the weather is rather hot but still bearable, and the traffic are surprisingly not too crowded at times.

I arrived in the shipping port later on, and trying to rush on the paperwork to catch the plane in time. Then AJ informed me there's roughly one more hour before the plane leaves. With that in mind, after the paperwork was done, I immediately get a Grab to get me to the airport.

Fortunately, I made it in time to DFW Airport with around 40 minutes to go before flight. I could swear that was one of the most intense experience I've ever had outside racing. After I handed my own luggage and spending the rest of the time with some final banters with Soju and 11K who went on separate flight to Seoul, we finally went onboard the plane to Narita Airport.

Seeing the skies of America for one more time bring me back to all the thing we've done for a month here. And the fact that most of us are quite lucky to snag at least one car along the trip :)) I can't even believe I managed to get three of them! :))

Finally, 12 hours with some sleep in-between later, we safely landed at Narita Airport. It's been a while since we see Tokyo skies at night, it was extremely bright to us. And safe to say, we were absolutely wasted when we were off the plane.

To regain some energy and curing a bit of jet lag, we decided to settle down for a while in the airport with some cups of coffee (finally, UCC coffees!) while AJ and Muza waits for their Grab. We were reflecting on what happened on our trip for a while.......

Finally, as AJ and Muza's Grab came to the airport, we bid our goodbyes. What about me, you ask? As Narita is closer to Tsukuba than Tokyo, I simply used the shuttle bus from Narita. Well the walk home was indeed rather long in the freezing cold night, but at least finally I can smell my own bed and have a long sleep.


[19 May-01 Jun 2019]
There aren't much happening these days, since there's no time attack event to attend so far and I'm finally resuming work and daily life, save for some days when I fell ill and had to put myself out of action for a while. As for the three cars, I've taken them off the Tokyo dockyard and had them in my garage, don't worry. I'm also in the process of looking for a new job so I could speed up the progress on the S15. As for the time attack schedule, I might be able to attend up to three events in June (which also means possibly another championship to attend), so stay tuned here ;)

And in the very end, I would like to thank Ben(Benny) and Ziga(Lagano) for their inviation to the land of the free and hosting lots of things for us as well as guiding me on buying a car in the USA, Muza(Niatross), AJ(RocketBunnyS13), Soju(Soju) and 11K(11000rpm) for joining the trip, as well as Marc(Macaron_moon) and Franklin(Franklin) for joining in the last minutes, and also Vahid(Smokiegun) and Lydia(RedCarDriver) for joining the trackday. Y'all guys are truly the best, I tell you that ;)














Welp finally able to update again!
Let's see how my wallet survives after coming home to Japan:













That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!

This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-06-02 17:39, ago)
Still following the damn train since 1992

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Benny

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#328   2019-06-02 10:10          
Thanks for all the kind words biggie, none of that fun would be possible without you guys.
I am thankfull for everyone who came and who ever wants is free to visit us, just give us a heads up so we can pick you up from the airport

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#329   2019-06-02 17:18          
It was one of the best meets and sessions so far :)

Glad everyone had a real great time!

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#330   2019-06-04 01:00          
Had heaps of fun with you guys that day, hopefully we all get back together once more in the coming future!

BigSmoke

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#331   2019-06-04 05:46          
# Benny : Thanks for all the kind words biggie, none of that fun would be possible without you guys.
I am thankfull for everyone who came and who ever wants is free to visit us, just give us a heads up so we can pick you up from the airport

Anytime bossman, thank you for the invitation to the USA and the shotgun rides!

# Smokiegun : Had heaps of fun with you guys that day, hopefully we all get back together once more in the coming future!

# Soju : It was one of the best meets and sessions so far :)

Glad everyone had a real great time!

Looking forward to our next meeting, was quite honoured to be able to meet you guys! :D :cheers:
Still following the damn train since 1992

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Benny

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#332   2019-06-04 14:33          
Biggie it might happen sooner than you think he he

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BigSmoke

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#333   2019-06-10 19:55          
Back on the Rocks














......no, I didn't make a switch to an R32 but nevertheless, Silver Queen is back for more! ;)
After missing the only time attack event it could attend last month, it's time to bring her back to the competitive grounds.
Outside the track action, S15 is coming back as well and finally it's able to roll under it's own steam! :bananajump:
All these lovely occassions can be experienced by jumping down into the update below! :D









[03 Jun 2019]
Paycheck time! Yet another V$940 enters my wallet blissfully. Now since I've saved decent amount of money, I reckon it is time to continue the progress of my mods to my cars. To think that now I have a staggering eight cars and only one of them has it's progress completed.....it feels quite messy, not gonna lie. Worse still, I still don't really have a soild plan over my Mustang compared to the other cars I've brought home from the land of the free. As I've said before, the 240SX vert (MS13 yes? Can't remember the exact chassis code) will be a show and roller kyusha boi, while for the Silverado, aside from being the second workhorse along with the Sprinter van, I would like to bring it to any offroading venues around Japan, and if there's also any, uh.......I'll take it to drag racing events as well! :)) I know usually there are some that being held at Motegi and an unused airfield at Okinawa, and there could be still some at Fuji Speedway like the yesteryears did as well, but I don't know if there are any more anywhere else.

Back to the Mustang, I could have it as yet another track day racer but I've got my Silver Queen for that (and technically the Tico as well), rent it for people to be used in time attack and endurance events, or I could turn it as a drift missile but that means the end of it's life is basically nigh as repairing it would be difficult due to lack of spares and as I've pointed out, Japan's drift scene is currently improving safety measures in grassroots level by limiting acceptable missile damage level. Don't worry, normal wear, tear and dents are still allowed. The one that doesn't are more like excessive amount of rust, major fluid leaks or any damages that dramatically reshapes the car a la banger racing or destruction derby. As long as you can repair it to acceptable and safe condition, you can still have your missile running around the track. Anyways, feel free to add some more suggestion on what to do with the Mustang (other than selling it, that'll be the very last resort).

Enough ramblings for now. As I've mentioned some time ago and at the top of this update, I missed the 2nd round of Tsukuba Circuit Trial Series (TCTS), which was the only time attack event I could attend in May, due to myself having a month of automotive shenanigans in US of A, together with Side to Side bossmen (Ziga(Lagano) and Ben(Benny)), Kami-Sama gang (Muza(Niatross), AJ(RocketBunnyS13), Marc(Macaron_moon)), and Seoul Tuners boys (Soju(well, Soju) and 11K(11000rpm)), as well as Franklin(well, Franklin). Not that I mind though, it was truly a good time and I had a genuine fun helping evryone on the drift event that day. And after all, the Circuit Trial regulation only requires you to attend at least 3 of the 5 events along the year to be classified in the class and overall standings. Speaking of which though, my absence from round 2 predictably caused my position in the standings to basejump rather badly from 5th in class and overall to 9th in class and 12th overall. So it is time to get a chance to take back some spots by attending the 3rd round of the championship.

Just like the 1st round, the 3rd round of TCTS is hosted by Victory Sports Club (VICIC), while the 2nd round that I miss was hosted by Brains Motorsports Club (B-Sports). This would be the final TCTS event that will be hosted by VICIC for this season, as the 4th and final round will be joint-hosted by Team Magnus Auto Club (TMAC) and JASC, a subsidiary of JAF. To remind you of the series's rules and classification, you can download their official document here or uhh.....let me just explain to you real quick.

The format is 2x15 minutes of Super Lap or one-shot shooutout (1 lap to get out from the pits and warming up, 1 lap to score your time, 1 lap to get back to the pits), which means one mistake could shake the championship significantly. As for the classes, there are three classes: B, PN and AE, which then are divided into sub-classes as follows:
- B1: <=1600cc road-legal cars, e.g. EK9, EF, EG6, MX-5 NA and NB, Cappucino, Caterham Seven 160, Honda Beat, old Alto Works
- B2: <=1600cc road-legal cars that can be FIA/JAF-certified for racing use, e.g. base MX-5 ND, base Swift, S660, N-ONE, March Nismo, current Alto Works
- B3: 1600-2400cc FF road-legal cars that can be FIA/JAF-certified for racing use, e.g. top-range Swift, current Corolla
- B4: 1600-2400cc FR road-legal cars that can be FIA/JAF-certified for racing use, e.g. 86, BRZ, top-range MX-5 ND
- B5: 1600-3500cc 2WD road-legal cars, e.g. Civic Type-R EP3 upwards, Silvias, Skyline non-GTR, RX-7, RX-8, Z33, Mini JCW, 208 GTi, non-turbo 911, Cayman, non-supercharged Lotus
- B6: Any road-legal cars that doesn't satisfy B1-B5, e.g. WRX STi, Lan Evo, Skyline GT-R, Ferraris, McLarens, Lambos, Golf R, turbo 911.....basically AWDs and supercars
- PN1: <=1600cc FIA/JAF-certified racers, see B2
- PN2: 1600cc-2000cc FIA/JAF-certified racers, see B3 and B4
- AE: Fully electric cars with power output under 40 kWh, e.g. Leaf, e-Golf, i3 without range extender. No Teslas, sadly.

Turbo and supercharged cars capacity are multiplied by 1.7 and rotaries are multiplied by 1.5 to make them easier to be classified and segregated.
Anything not satisfying any of those (e.g. prototypes and open wheel racers) will be classified in Closed class and is not eliglible for championship points.


As my Silver Queen (if you're new to the thread and wondering what car is this, it's an Evo 3 with a stroker kit) is an AWD car, it's automatically classified as a B6 car just like in round 1. With the car and personal documents sorted once more, I paid V$205 to register for the race. I'm really looking forward to hit my home track once more and returning in the championship as well :D

That's not the only thing I blew my money for at the day though. As the S15 has been neglected for rather long time despite only a part away from running again, I decided to give it the attention it's been longing and deserve by buying an aftermarket intake manifold. You see, the last time I bought something for it (which was before the US trip), one of the shopping list was a complete ECU and wiring kit. That wiring kit was configured to fit aftermarket intake manifold. The only problem was the rest of the money wasn't enough to buy one. Yeah, silly me. So, with enough money at the moment, it's time to complete the final piece of the puzzle.

After (and despite) consulting to Muza (who works at Nismo, I should point out) over the ideal intake manifold for the RB26 nesting inside the S15, my final choice falls into GReddy's single throttle surge tank, which was priced almost the same as Nismo's very own performance intake manifold at V$1566. It looks big enough to accomodate more air for the engine, which would translate into better combustion and obviously, more power. I'm eyeing 650-750 BHP output (should I push that a bit further to 800? With the parts list so far it might just be able to do it, just another matter to control it on the track) so that might help a lot. It's set to arrive in 4 days of delivery.


[07 Jun 2019]
With the intake manifold arrived safely, it's time to install it to the S15 and check if it's actually able to run after all. To give more work space, I had to drive the Silver Queen off the garage a bit further. Installing the intake itself was rather easy and quick, but calibrating it with the ECU and O2 sensor took much more time than I expected. So much for being used to ECU tuning.......but in the end it was all good. Now though, moment of truth awaits. Time to fire up the engine into life.

After adding almost all engine oil and small amount of fuel that I had as spares into the car (both was meant for the Silver Queen way back then), checking up all the wirings and charging the battery for a short while, I went inside the S15 and start it up as I recite a fairly long prayers of hope.

A minute passed, my hand was still twsited. Alternator is running but not able to start the engine yet

Two minutes later, my hand aches and it's still not working. I rested for a minute and had another crack.

Two minutes later, still twisting.

A minute later, finally, signs of life! I kept on twisting my arm in excitement as I try to keep the starter alive

And moments later, I earned my happy ending as the sweet, lowly inline 6 engine barks into life, introducing itself into the world for the first time. I celebrated by pretending I won a big race and jumping a bit in my seat :))

All this excitement made me think further: How much power it currently produces at the moment? So later that day, I whipped out my Sprinter, attach the trailer behind it, and.....go for a bit of a game of musical chairs. I had to drive the Silver Queen even further to the lot across my crib, then I have to steer the S15 outside while hoping not to hit the ER34 and my own crib's gantry. Then after I drive the S15 into the trailer and secured it, I have to get back to my Silver Queen to store it inside my garage again. Quite a hassle I say, but it's also inevitable.

The destination for the day is ProMods Garage's Tsukuba branch, which was band new for this year. The Tokyo branch helped me tuning the Silver Queen earlier this year so we're quite in good terms in general. They also have a brand new dyno, perfect for what I need for the day. As I went to the other side of the city, the Sprinter tows the S15 with ease. It feels like carrying sacks of cotton.....you barely feel it's there. Of course braking manner has to be altered, but thankfully this can be easily done thanks to the time spent in the Silverado with it's biscuit brakes.

As I arrived to their shop and have my S15 inside, I spent some time chilling with the crew and have a chatter about the S15's progress as it's going up the dyno. Honestly I don't expect much figure as almost everything is stock, save for the ECU, fuel injectors, intake manifold, quick shifter etc etc etc.....but since it's been spending its life being dormant recently, it's important to know how much power it does produce today.

A moment later, raspy RB26DETT symphony fills the dyno room. We discussed the result as the crew shows interest over how precise and quick the quick shifter was during the run. Speaking of which, here it is!

Quite healthy and not too far from it's original figures I should say, which is a godsend considering it's not been used in a long time. It's quite obvious that I haven't used all the potentials from the fuel injectors though, so while we're at it I have a RB26 light tuning crash course with the crew. Afterwards we have the S15 run on the dyno again, this time with a smidge but nice improvement.

As we continued our banter about RB26 tuning, I have a random and wild idea crossing my mind all in a sudden. I half-jokingly asked the crew.....

"Tell me, is the garage door high enough for the van?"
"Well yes, you want to have the van inside?"
"Holy sh-really? Worth a shot I'd say. Can it run on the dyno as well?"
"Well yes why not?"
"Alright, I'll have it inside as well"

And so, a random joke turned into a hilarious but exciting experiment in all of a sudden. We have the Ssprinter van lined on the dyno while I hold back my giggle.

The result? It now spews 150 BHP and a nice amount of torque thanks to the chip tune I did way back then. That explains the ease of towing I experienced on the road earlier very well. Well it's still not pulling up like a sportscar, but eh, it's more than sufficient for the job.

We also did a bit of light tuning to it by re-adjusting the actuators so the turbo can make receive a bit more pressure. When we put it back on the dyno, the power bump is lovely and not too overkill for the job, just what I needed.

With all the works done and V$600 quoted for all the job done, I thanked the crew and went back home to prepare for the race day.


[09 Jun 2019]
IT'S RACEDAY! And that means yet another early morning wake-up and shower. Just like the first round, it's a multi-discipline event, and the TCTS racers got to taste the track eariler in the morning, so coming early in the morning is a must. After a freezy cold shower and packing up my race overalls and helmet, race undies, some spare undies and another T-shirt to wear after the race ends, I had breakfast, then went off to the track. I swear this was one of the coldest dawn I've ever been experiencing, even some cup of warm coffee can't fight it off.

05.30
I arrived at Tsukuba Circuit's entrance gate, where as usual I took my race number (which is still the same time after time, after all it's my favourite number of sorts) and timer beacons. I arrived a bit late than usual, which means some drivers already took the paddock slot and there was a bit of queue at the gate for timer beacons. Thankfully though I still made it inside and still able to park at my favourite spot. After applying the race number sticker and installing the timer beacon, I went off for bathroom break (the coffee had quite a strong effect on my bladder. I've said this and I'll say it again, it's not going to be funny if nature calls you mid-race), then went to the locker room to change into my race overalls.

When I come back I and other drivers had some chatter about preparation for today's race. Some TCTS drivers was also actually delighted to see me again, most asked me where I had been during the 2nd round. In return I told them about my adventures in USA, as well as flexing a bit about the three cars I brought home. It turns out ssome other drivers were also absent for various reasons as well! We continued on chattering while we wait for driver's briefing to start and parc ferme conditions to be instated.

This round will also see actions from Tsukuba Touring Car Championship drivers, but unlike at round 1 and 2, Super FJ won't make an appearance here. Instead, their spot as the main event will be filled by Japan Kart Cup and WAKO'S Super Kart Series. The fact that they also run at the main course instead of the junior course is quite amazing and shows just how fast and powerful these karts are. As for the supporting race, Tsukuba TC-2 Endurance championship comes back to held their 2nd round, as well as Lotus 111 Cup also for their 2nd round.


06.00
After informing the marshalls that my car is ready to be put under parc ferme condition, I and other drivers attended the driver's briefing at the conference room. As I've said previously, the format for the day is 2x15 minutes of Super Lap shootout. Our final time will be taken from the fastest between two sessions. The first session will be held at 08.30 after the qualifiers for Tsukuba Touring Cars and Lotus 111 Cup, and the second is at 12.15 after lunch break.

For the running order, I'll start in 9th in B6 class as I'm currently in that position in the class standings. This is actually okay for me, even a godsend, since by the time my turn comes lots of rubber would stack on the track, therefore helping with grip. From what I heard the weather forecast said it's going to be a sunny, scorching day as well, perfect for cooking those tyres quickly. For the running format it's similar to round 1 and 2, where 2-3 cars will enter the track to score their time, then as soon as their turn is over, another 2-3 cars gets into the track.

And oh, today's event also saw yet another full 30 car grid today, with 10 cars from B6 class and 7 cars from B5 class as top running contenders, followed by 6 B1 entries, 4 B4 cars, and B2, PN1 and PN2 classes each yields 1 car. Just like in round 1, nobody enters the B3 and AE classes due to lack of interest.

07.00
With the driver's briefing over, a small ceremony was held to open the event and the parc ferme condition is lifted. First to go was the Tsukuba Touring Cars drivers. These things might not be so powerful and considerabl plucky compared to the other cars racing today, but the drivers aren't simply goofing around and actually quite aggressive when attacking the circuit. Well, justified as they have to maintain so much momentum in a lap.

The Lotus Cup cars were absolutely gorgeous and went around the track gracefully. Despite most of them are specially prepped for race usage and therefore not streetlegal anymore, I and some drivers discussed the possibility to enter one in a TCTS event. As I've elaborated in the beginning, non-supercharged Lotus can enter the B5 class, whereas supercharged ones would enter B6 class instead. Just imagine the overpowerness if someone actually did enter one to the championship......

And as always local and regional medias were present to cover the event, and of course enthusiasts are also attended the event. To kill the time before our session begins, we had a chatter with lots of them. And of course, Silver Queen is back in spotlight for a while after a month of disappearance :))

08.25
With our turn to hit the track approaching, I wear my helmet, get inside my Silver Queen and went into the pit lane to line up for the run. Now with some experience under my own belt I could notice that I was much calmer than usual, which is good since I'd like to concentrate more for the track conditions. I also still put the fact that I can only score my time in a lap into account, since obviously it's not funny if I'm going to screw it.

Some mere minutes later, it's my turn and other two cars to run. As the pack before us finished their run and went past T1, pit lights went green and we're all off.

Track conditions were lovely, air was cool enough and as I expected rubbers are scattering everywhere. Asphalt started to heat up as well, so I have a bit more of advantage compared to early runners. Still, I have to get around the warm-up quickly so I don't lag and/or block those behind me so I don't cause any kind of jams and dramas. All in all though, I'm feeling quite positive.


As I approach the final sector, I loosen up my mind a bit, regulate my breathing rythm and pray for everything to be alright. Time to commence the first attack of the day!


START!
Almost lost some precious grip inexplicably at the final corner's exit but I could recover quickly

I pushed the Silver Queen rather hard than usual at T1, was a bit under pressure but eventually still could keep the trajectory clean. Grip is aplenty and helps the car skate around the track. I felt a bit of goosebumps whew!

The rest of the run was thankfully still clean and fast enough, and as usual I joyfully send the Silver Queen bumping around the kerbs and keeping it smooth in general. It's a good thing my experience with my ER34 and Mustang as well as trackday at Nikko taught me more about measuring the car's limit even further.



As I approached the final sector again, I decided to give it all I could. I'm not sure if this would send me to the 58 second territory, but I'm glad enough if I could keep my consistency at the 59 second territory as usual. There's no going back now, I can only ask myself how fast I could be as I blast across the back straight.



Aaaaand across the line! I wonder how fast did I do for this run? That was a flowing and great run overall in my eyes. But I can't punch my own chest in pride yet since there's one more run to do in the midday session. But still, glad to be back in competitive term after not hitting the track for rather long time.

With that in mind, I and the other cars gave way to the next group of cars and made our way back to the pits. Obviosuly we don't want to interrupt their run with our presence.


08.50
With everyone finished their runs and returned to the paddock, it's time to have a break by having yet another bathroom break and watching the Lotus 111 Cup and Tsukuba TC-2 race unfold. Despite it's increasingly hot on the track, surprisingly I didn't sweat a lot during my run, so I decided to keep on wearing my race overalls and undies. The Lotus 111 Cup was quite intense with battles everywhere but surprisingly it's ultra clean with almost no contact happening. I wonder why this series was promoted as supporting race instead of main ones? I could watch this all day! The cars are gorgeous as well, surely a huge magnet for spectators.

When the Tsukuba TC-2 race went on, I and other drivers as well as some media crew and fans spend the time watching them as well as enjoying our lunch. I love this kind of off-track life with passion....friendly banters filled with passion and spirit to compete in fair terms with spice of laughters. No pressure, no cut-throat pro stuff, no worries. As for the TC-2 race, I actually would like to join one race if there's one that doesn't clash with the TCTS calendar since the car regulation is pretty much the same. All I need to then is find some friends who are willing enough to be my teammate and pit crew, as well as buying lots of spare tires and crew suits :))

12.10
With the TC-2 race and lunch break over, it is time to resume the track action with the second TCTS run of the day, followed by Japan Kart Cup and WAKO'S Super Kart Series and finally the Tsukuba Touring Car race. The weather forecast turned out to be frighteningly correct as it was a scorching midday at the time I returned to the seat of Silver Queen. At one side I'd like to turn on the AC to cool myself down, but the other hand it'll rob power and fuel as I run later.

Eventually, I decided to turn it on anyway as I lined up in the pitlane for the second run. I don't want to roast myself inside the car or even worse, fainted from the sheer heat as I wait for the others to finish their run. Turns out having a daily-able track car has it's own merit indeed!

Once again I'll hit the track with another two cars for the run on the track, which now turns into a frying pan for the tyres. You might as well get some butter and an egg and cook a sunny-side up on the asphalt for yourself. As the group of cars before us finished their run and passed T1, pit lights went green and we hit the track once more.

As I did my warm-up, I realized I haven't turned off the AC yet so I rather frantically do so mid-way. Well I could do a run with them on but y'know, I need those extra power from the AC heheh :D It's only a lap after all, I could boil myself as hard as I could in that time window. But not gonna lie, you might as well open a gyoza/pelmeni/pierogi/shumai/well pretty much any kind of dumplings shop in the back of Silver Queen with this sheer amount of heat inside the car :))


As I approached the final sector, I tried to acclimatize myself with the heat for the final time, regulate my breathing to suit the heat and uhh....my own pungent, smelly body and race overalls, and pray for the best once more. This is the last run of the day and I might as well cook those tyres into a rubber toast.



START!

This time I tried to enter T1 in a much calmer manner. I don't want to fry the front tyres too much by forcing it on ultra hard braking, in fear of too much of the rubber would peel off too much. Baked rubbers, baked rubbers, who want baked rubbers? Fresh from the sheer heat of Tsukuba's asphalt!


The rest of the run went smooth and quite fast as I simply just want to end the sauna torture inside the Silver Queen. The fact that my own sweat drips and runs along my face in large amount doesn't help either. But heck at least I still could keep my concentration on and more importantly can see the apex and differentiate which is left and which is right. Sspeaking of which, hydration is quite a serious business in racing, as a certain renown doctor with a speedy purple S2000 would tell you from his experience.



The sprint across the last sector was one hell of a final run. At least the backstraight gave me a chance to wipe a bit of my sweat off my eyes. But the sheer heat becomes almost unbearable. It feels like basejumping into a giant melting pot at this point. All I could do afterwards was taking a deep breath before entering the final corner to keep my blood and oxygen pumped to my brain and thus keeping my concentration on.



Finally, I crossed the line and thus the sauna torture ended safely. As I enter T1 for the final time I turned on the AC once more to cool myself down. I was quite dizzy already. Never a hot lap feels this scorching and hot indeed, which brought me back to a question: How the hell I could survive free runs in the past?



Our group of cars gave way to the next one and we finally returned back to the pits safely. I really need a drink badly now.

12.40
At last, all TCTS cars has finished their hotlap and returned to the paddock. After I parked my Silver Queen at the paddock, I rushed to a water stand to grab some mineral water bottles to cool myself down. Then after I rehydrated enough to carry on moving, I uninstalled the timer beacons from the car and returned them to the stewards office. Then I went for one final bathroom break before having another shower. My skin was noticeably glowing red from the sheer heat I experienced inside the car. Then I changed into a dry spare undie and t-shirt, but kept on wearing my race suit on top of it.

I spent the rest of the day watching the Japan Kart Cup, WAKO'S Super Kart Series and Tsukuba Touring Car races. All of them was quit etight as hell, and the karts were lighting fast! Seeing them feels like facing an agitated pack of hornets buzzing around the track.....bonus points for the super karts for having a proper aero and powerful engines. Meanwhile the touring car race was at best described as public sumo on wheels, with contacts galore from start to end. Even the final lap was filled with people punting each other to the gravel trap! Probably this will end with penalties thrown here and there.......

15.20
With all races over, it is time to see the final result of the event. Let's see how I did for both sessions!

I scored 59.877 seconds in the first session, likely due to the botched start and T1 entry. Well that's kinda okay, but I reckon I could do better. But at least the second session was much much better, with me scoring 59.426 seconds which also stands as my final time. Turns out this was enough to secure 4th in class and 5th overall! Though it's also a bit of missed chance really since the B5 winner was only 0.2 second faster than me, preventing myself from taking 4th overall as well.

With those positions secured, I won V$600 for finishing 6th in class, V$800 for finishing 5th overall, two medals for each achievement and yet another memorabilias from VICIC. This boosted my position in the standings as well. Now I'm sitting in 6th in class with 18 points, and 8th overall with 16 points. Quite a sweet comeback that I had today! As usual, I can bring home the medals and memorabilias straight away, while the money cheque prize will be transferred along with my paycheck.

After the podium celebration has finished, I went home and immediately took a long sleep as I was extremely tired. The tiredness though was really, really worth it in the end ;)


[10 Jun 2019]
Paycheck time! And yet another V$940 safely landed to my pocket. But that's not all! As you've recently read, my prize money from the TCTS round 3 is transferred today. But that doesn't mean my time attack shenanigans stops here. Before I left the track yesterday I was informed and invited to enter another regional championship! This time, it is the Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship, held by Team Magnus Auto Club (TMAC) under direct supervision of JAF. Aapparently I've missed the first round, but there are still five more rounds to go, with four of them being held in Tsukuba including the finals. And to qualify for the championship standings, I only need to attend at least three of them, just like TCTS.

As round 2 and 3 are held this month at 15th and 27th June respectively, I see this as a chance to earn yet more money and experience for myself and the Silver Queen, so I applied for round 2 this week, which costs V$170 for the application. If I find myself satisfied with round 2 result, I'll continue attending round 3 onwards. 2019 hasn't ended yet and I already attending more than one sanctioned regional championship......how cool is that? :D As for the class, here's the rundown for the Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship, which thankfully is much simpler than TCTS:
NT1: <=1600cc Road cars, including MX-5s of all generation, but no VTEC/MIVEC/Ssimilar sytsem allowed
NT2: <=2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars
NT3: >2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars, as well as rotary-engined cars
AT: Anything from above-well, pretty much anything with automatic transmission

Given that my Silver Queen has a stroker kit, it's most likely will be registered in NT3 class, which means facing the likes of GT-Rs and RX-7s. Holy crap......but that's okay though, new challenges are always welcome! :D

And uh, one more thing. I realized I've brought home the 240SX vert stockies along with the car, and with the car now sitting on new wheels (and a rare one at that), it's likely never to see any day rolling again, so I decided to sell it anyway. Here's how they look, I'll try my best to improve the condition as well. At the moment I'll put V$400 as the price tag of a set of them. If you're interested on buying them let me know, bargains are welcome and free shipping around Japan! :cheers:












Wew finally finished my update and coming back to competitive TA scene!
Here's how my wallet stands up after the TA shenanigans:













That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!

This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-07-06 16:51, ago)
Still following the damn train since 1992

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BigSmoke

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#334   2019-06-16 18:44          
......And Another One!










It's time for the second time attack event of the month in a brand new championship! :bananajump:
It has a different class division and running format so I hope I could adapt very well.
But that's not all, one of my cars has received a new dress as well!
Take a guess which one would it be.......while checking out the update below! :D














[11 Jun 2019]
After working on more scientific document translations for the day, I found myself having nothing to do at the moment. To fill my time, I decided to do some planning on mods for my cars. Obviously, the Silver Queen is out from the plans since it has been pretty much finished. My priority was put on the S15......until I'm a bit confused on where to start next. With the basic engine needs done, it's either time to start on the aero works or the handling departement. If I start on the aero works first, I could visualize how the aero will affect the car later as well as making the handling setup easier. But then I don't have lots of money for fancy aero works that is popular and effective these days (though to be fair, neither most of Attack Second class teams). If I start on the handling departement, I could adjust them earlier to my liking, but then when the aero kit comes I have to re-adjust them again (in particular the track spacers), doubling the amount of work.

With that in mind, I started on the aero works first by trying to find a publicly sold widebody kit. This tactic is also used by a Turbo class car in Attack series, namely the Goodride S15 which uses Rocket Bunny bodykit. Justified though as it's also living a double life as a drift car. This caused it to perform not so well in most of their appearances, rarely breaking even the 1 minute mark. Then there's the Garage Mak TA bodykit. The car it's fitted on is a top contender for Second class and has won some of it's outings. But then it's quite expensive(and uh, the S15 mod doesn't have them).After some considerations, I decided that the GP Sports G-Sonic Evolution kit will do quite well, though it's more popular as a drift car bodykit. Problem is, it's not exactly cheap either, being priced at V$12,800 for the complete kit. With this in mind, the S15 project had to be halted again while I'm saving for those :crying:

The ER34 could do without any upgrades at the moment, though I could buy it new valves and cams for extra power......and probably bolt the turbos from the spare RB25 in my garage, courtesy of AJ(RocketBunnyS13). Whether is this possible to do I don't really know, but might worth trying once I mastered drifting properly and needed some more power kicks. My Tico? It's not really my priority at the moment, though non-Type-R Honda D-series engine are cheap as hell to obtain in general. The Mustang? I'm still not sure on what to do with it. The Sprinter is also basically complete at this point, though it could use slightly better brakes. The Silverado? Sourcing parts for it would be a huge pain since it has to be sourced overseas. That leaves me with the 240SX vert, with little to none performance upgrades on plan and simple kyusha style as the visual plan.

Using various kyusha-styled S13 pics(both PS13 and RPS13) as cues and hints, I created my own envision of kyusha-style and ordered some sets of kits to be installed into the 240SX. First off, a simple bumper lip kit from Forcewerkz for VS$300. Most kyusha-styled cars retains stock bumpers or improve them a bit so I decided to do the same. And then I ordered a set of Origin Lab Streamline front quarterpanels for V$310. I don't really need a wide stance but these would add a contemporary touch to the car. Next up is ChargeSpeed side skirts for V$289. They aren't wide as well, and more importantly looks simple and clean to me. Next up, I'm quite fascinated with Canadian-spec optional rear lip for the 240SX there, but being an optional kit, it's rare as hell. So I tried to replicate it by ordering two separate rear valances, each respectively for V$85 and V$109. And to top off the package, I've scored myself another extremely rare piece of kit: The B-Wave rear spoiler, sold for just V$390!

Additionally, despite I'm saying little to no performance parts are required for the 240SX, I still decided to buy camber adjustment kits for it to enhance the looks. So I ordered rear camber kit and front camber bolts kit, both from SCP Performance, each for V$387 and V$52 respectively. With the vast availability of just everything for the S13, as well as their cheap prices and the versatililty of the way of visual modding achievable, no wonder it's the favourite S-Chassis among the others.

Later that day I spent some time with the 240SX vert by tinkering around with the KA24's head and cams for some more power. No, I don't plan to turbo it I should say. I'd like some more kick from the engine though. Probably I'll buy it new valves as well. And oh, everything I've ordered above will arrive in 5 days, or one day after my next time attack event.


[15 Jun 2019]
IT'S RACEDAY! Thankfully unlike the Tsukuba Circuit Trial Series(TCTS) which is put inside a multi-event day, the Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship(EKCTC) is only superceded by JAF A-License workshop and test, thus the event starts after lunch. It turns out Team Magnus Auto Club (TMAC), the host of the championship, also provides A-license workshop, tests, and registration. How about me, you ask? I've obtained my A-License not a long time ago this year from Clever Racing (read it here!), so I don't have to attend the workshop and test. Similar to Clever, TMAC also has an nteresting offer: If you're attending both the workshop and Circuit Trial at the same day, you'll exempt from further driving test and automatically earn your A-license. You don't have to win the event, and no need to attend the entire championship, just arrive and drive. Cool deal, don't you think? And let me tell you this: JAF A-License grants you the chance to race at Japanese top level racing series, such as JF3, Super Taikyu's non-road car classes, Super GT and even Super Formula!

Right back to the topic. Since the seminar and test ends before lunch, I can go to the track way later than usual. The drivers briefing starts after lunch and track action starts at 13.30, so there's plenty of time to rest on the track before the briefing. I'm looking forward to have lunch at Tsukuba Circuit's canteen too! Not much to offer there but it's absolutely delicious. Probably this should have been listed on reasons why you should come to the track :)) Also before going to the track, I refuelled the Silver Queen while I could. Hopefully this won't affect the weight too much though.

11.30
I arrived at the track and receive my race number stickers and timer beacons as usual. Unlike other events I usually attend, today's events only consisted of the workshop and circuit trials, so understandably it's not so crowded as usual and there's only a bunch of local medias on the track. Having the track in near-serene condition is......strangely peaceful and intriguing. Several race fans also attended the track as well, despite no trackdays being held that day.

I parked my car in the paddock, applied the race stickers and the timer beacons, then went to bathroom to empty my bladder and then to locker room to change into my racing suit. I've said this multiple times but I'll say it again: Having nature called you while you're racing is not a funny business.


After changing into my race suit I had some nice banter with fellow racers and enthusiasts, as well as listening to the weather casts to prepare over the circuit trial later. Despite chances of clouds, it's almost confirmed there will be no rain for the rest of the day. Summer has approaching Japan fast indeed! It's the time of the year where there are lots of discounts on shop, ice cream becomes the top cuisine and various juices are on sale everywhere, people going to the beach in groups, young girls running along the beach in their swimsuits and bikinis......okay okay I'll stop delusioning, it looks like the track heat has brought me too far :))

Later on we have lunch together as well. My lunch consisted of shrimp ramen, takoyaki and iced tea. Yeah, I'm a fan of seafood, they're good for your health. Shrimp and lobster are good for enhancing your memory and reasoning capability as well, which is important not only in racing, but also in your general daily life. If you have a child one day, I'd say feed him/her shrimp from at least 8, 9, or 10 y.o. :D And that's all of my health advice of the day :)) Being used to eat with cars surrounding us, the lunchbreak felt more like dining in a campus with almost no cars running around, save for officials car doing the final track inspection.

12.30
With the lunch break over, we told the marshalls to put our cars on parc ferme conditions and walked to the press conference room to go to the drivers briefing session. The format for the event (as well as the championship) is once again different from what I usually race on. For the Eastern Kanto championship, the good news is you have five laps to do your session: One for getting off the pits, three to score your time and one to return to the pits. The bad news? There's only one session to score the time, unlike other events I've attended which usually has two of them. So one mistake here could snatch the victory away from you, let alone a crash.

There are 25 cars competing today including myself. Running order is same as TCTS, where 2-3 cars are racing in a group on the track. Once everyone in the group has done their run, next 2-3 cars replaces them. And the lower class will run first, then the upper classes. Oh yeah, to remind you again, the classes in Eastern Kanto championship are much simpler than in TCTS where there are a total of staggering nine classes (thouugh not all classes are attended usually). Here there are four of them, which are:
NT1: <=1600cc Road cars, including MX-5s of all generation, but no VTEC/MIVEC/Ssimilar sytsem allowed
NT2: <=2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars
NT3: >2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars, as well as rotary-engined cars
AT: Anything from above-well, pretty much anything with automatic transmission

As you can guess at this point, I will enter the NT3 class, which means going against the likes of RX-7s, Imprezas, fellow Evos, and R-series cars. Not really a problem, since I usually take on them as well in the TCTS. This though is a brand new battleground as well, so everything still remains to be seen. And oh, there are 10 NT3 cars, 8 NT2 cars and 7 NT3 cars participating today. There weren't any AT class cars for uhh......rather obvious reasons. The race session starts at 13.15 and I'll be the 16th car to run for the day. After the driver's briefing was done, I returned to my Silver Queen and go inside to cool myself down.


14.00
After a long time of waiting and several yellow flags, finally it is time to rock and roll! I drove my Evo to the pitlane and have myself queueing there. Track and air temperatures are starting to drop thankfully so I don't have to suffer from the sauna torture like I did in the last event.

Some time later, I arrived at the pit exit, so I turned off my AC to get ready for the start. Seconds later, lights went green and we're off for our only chance to score a time as we did our warm-up lap.


Albeit there are clouds near the track, it's been confirmed it'll be a dry day for the rest of the session, so there's no need to worry about chances of rain during the session. Also, because my session was near the end of the race day, there are a lot of rubbers I can use to my advantage on the track. Track starts gaining some dust as well though, so that might not be absolutely true.


As usual, as I approach the final sector, I calmly prepare myself for full attack as I pray as long as I could. Welp, here goes my only attempt for the day......
START!!


I was going for maximum attack on T1 but uhh....I overcooked it and locked up for a while. Thankfully I recovered quickly and this allows for a late apex at T1. But I can tell you, that split moment I thought I'm goign to lose my Silver Queen. And possibly myself as well.

The rest of the lap was clean, fortunately. The ride was quite enjoyable as well surprisingly, despite being in a competitive environtment. Never I've spent an afternoon this intense. And despite the lockup earlier, Silver Queen just shrugs it off quickly and continues to amaze me with it's gripping capabilities.


Lap 1 finished with one mistake, but no dramatic marks fortunately. And I'm still alive and running as well. It is time for........
Lap 2


T1 entry luckily was much better, faster and cleaner than lap 1. I don't want to grate my tyres further, obviously. This also means faster but slightly wider exit. Hope I could cut some miliseconds off there.......


Lap 2 felt faster and more concrete as the result of that nice T1 entry. I have more confidence to push the car more as well as some of the dust is now swept by the wind off the track. I think air temperature has dropped further as well, keeping my engine healthy and generates power much better.


That lap was fast and concrete enough to be put int the final standings, but as long as there is chance to improve then I'll try to use it well. It is time to start........
Final Lap

With lesson learned, I entered T1 a bit slower, but in a much smoother manner. I hope this would result in even more shaved seconds off my lap time.


As the sunlight slowly starts dying a bit, the track has been fullfilled with rubber almost everywhere. Silver Queen continus to grip on and hugs the apexes tightly as if they're its long-time lost lover. The fact that it's still working brilliantly as a daily driver after multiple times driven on the ragged edge amazes me deeply. I think it's still able to soldier on for, oh I don't know, hopefully next 10 years.




After a fast-paced three laps of time attack session, I've crossed the line. It is time to end the session, yield to others and go back to the pits.


I wonder how fast I did in this kind of condition? But honestly, that was one of the most satisfying runs Ii've ever done in my life. I'd say I'll definitly apply for Round 3 and continue to drive in this championship competitively, despite my chances to be in the top spot are already low enough. Sometimes it's not about winning indeed......as long as you can enjoy the ride and enlighten yourself on the run, life is good ;)


I and other cars behind me gave way to the next running group, then we all enter the pitlane and went back to the paddock.


15.15
Finally, everyone has ran on the track and finished their respective sessions. With the session officially over, I went to the stewards room to return the timer beacons, then to the bathroom to empty my bladder once more. But unlike in usual occassions, I don't sweat much today, so I didn't have another trip to change my clothes. I still feel comfy inside my race suit somehow, only need to remove my helmet and gloves.

While waiting for the final results, I had snacks and another banter with fellow drivers and fans. This is what I love from these kinds of events: No boundaries, no bitter rivalries, no cut-throat professionalism, just you and fellow like-minded people competing in a friendly anf fun environtment, as well as being able to connect with fellow enthusiasts ;)

16.15
The results are in! Let's see how well I did in this event..........

Lap 1: 59.932 (due to that locking experience)
Lap 2: 59.335
Lap 3: 59.342 (ah so close to topple Lap 2 record!)

Yup, Lap 2 time is my best lap time and it goes as my final time for the event. The good thing is it's actually enough the secure 5th place, both in class and overall! And with this I've earned 8th points in both the class and overall standings, where now I'm placed in 10th and 14th place in respective standings.

And not only that, I'm also rewarded medals and memorabilias from TMAC, which would be a nice addition in my bedroom and lounge as I could carry them home straight away. There's also monetary rewards as well, V$500 for finishing 5th in class and V$800 for finishing 5th overall. Unlike the medals and memorabilias, these will be transferred together along with my next paycheck.

With the podium ceremony over, I went to the bathroom for one last call of nature, then went home. I guess I love my life as a time attack racer already :)) Admittably though I still need a stable, monthly paid job.

[16 Jun 2019]
But before all those monetary rewards come to my doorstep, there are some other stuff that landed there first: It's uhhh.....everything I've ordered earlier for the 240SX vert! So with jack, spanners, rivets and everything else on the hand, I giddily worked on the vert along the day. I've said it earlier and I'll say it again, now I understand why people love S13 among other S-Chassis: Lots of mods for it even until now, as well as it can be turned into everything you want it to be, from a humble daily ride to a show-stopper street car, from a slidey drifter into a hardcore racer, from an uhhh......ruined car into a tasteful show car, etc. etc. etc.

Some hours, some swear jars and a bleeding finger later, here's the final result! Granted they're not painted yet but just look at it! Gorgeous isn't it? I can feel the 80s-90s kyusha vibes already. And oh, not pictured yet, the final product after the camber adjustment. That'll be later, don't worry.


Later that day, I drive to VS garage Tsukuba to have it painted. They've done a great job painting my HR34's rear spoiler, so I trust them in painting my vert. Along the trip the vert feels much more sprightlier than when I drove it in USA. And being a vert aids me a bit on overtaking fortunately, so this car being LHD isn't really a problem with open top, thus broadening my road vision by some degree. I can picture myself cruising inside with my good friends or some girls as the sun sets and G-Funk tracks playing in the background........though personally I'll pick this one

I arrived at the VS garage Tsukuba while they've just finished their late lunch so uhhh.....no pizza for me sadly :)) Anyways I and the crew spent some time discussing on S13 mods of the yesteryears (mainly 89-93 era) before having my car going into their paint booth. Indeed, some would say the 90s is the golden age of JDM tuning and while it's not always the case, I would agree in some circumstances including this one.

As the vert is driven onto the paint booth, the crew said it's going to take 5 day for the whole painting process, and it'll cost V$800. It's okay though, I have my Silver Queen still rolling around and this time I can pay for the paint :)) But do you want to see the kits painted to match the car or do you want to see it in another colour? Let me know!


And finally before I close my update for now, a small reminder that I've still got stuff to sell and now there are two more of them!

FOR SALE!
SOLD!!





Nissan 240SX/180SX Stock Wheels + Tyres (1 set)
15 inches, 4-lug pattern
V$ 500, Bargains Welcome

Nissan 240SX/180SX Front Quarterpanels (1 set)
Taken from US-spec 240SX Convertible (MS13 Vert)
Would fit MS13 Hatch, MS13 Coupe, MS13 Vert, RS13U, PS13, PS13 Vert, or RPS13
Great for RPS13 restoration or Onevia conversion!
V$ 300

Nissan S13 rear wing
Taken from US-spec 240SX Convertible (MS13 Vert)
Would fit MS13 Coupe, MS13 Vert, PS13, or PS13 Vert
Great for PS13 or MS13 restoration!
V$ 200

Pictures (CAR IS NOT FOR SALE!):















Yep another update done and one of my car having a great progress!
Let's see how my wallet survives after both the TA and kyusha mod shenanigans:













That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!

This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-07-05 18:50, ago)
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

Benny

ba
Posts: 1143

Location: Bosnia And Herzegovina Lukavac
Occupation: Electrictian
Age: 30
V$: V$756
#335   2019-06-16 19:16          
I like the Varietta, just slamm it now....

Press on photo

Role Play

Weekly Income : V$1125/w

Lagano

si
Posts: 1739

Location: Slovenia West side
Occupation: Taking it easy
Age: 24
V$: :$V
#336   2019-06-16 19:21          
Wow those were some wild moments on the track!! The lap times surely prove that, they're getting better and better. Careful when braking late in the corner though, it can lead you into a massive understeer which usually doesn't end well. You got some nice goodies for the vert, that wing fits it perfectly! If you're going for a lowrider style like you mentioned a few times i'd respray it in something crazy and maybe add some pinstripes, like on the American 70's lowriders ;)

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#337   2019-06-17 01:37          
# Benny : I like the Varietta, just slamm it now....

Ohohoho of course I will, just waiting for money right now ;)

Ah s**t, now I have two cars waiting for coilovers.......

# Lagano : Wow those were some wild moments on the track!! The lap times surely prove that, they're getting better and better. Careful when braking late in the corner though, it can lead you into a massive understeer which usually doesn't end well. You got some nice goodies for the vert, that wing fits it perfectly! If you're going for a lowrider style like you mentioned a few times i'd respray it in something crazy and maybe add some pinstripes, like on the American 70's lowriders ;)

Thanks bossman! :D
Yeah that locking moment had my heart stopped for a while it seems :))

Looks like I'll either apply a glitter paintjob or going full lowrider :morncoffee:
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

Alex876

jm
Posts: 356

Location: Jamaica Swift Tune JA
Occupation: Putting illegal camber on cars
Age: 23
V$:
#338   2019-06-19 21:12          
Vert looks real hotboii

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#339   2019-06-20 02:18          
# Alex876 : Vert looks real hotboii

Hehey thanks my man, glad you like them! :D


Also a bit of heads-up: I do realize that lots of you are having troubles on reading the updates properly since admittably, there are lots of images as much as the writing does (one update here almost broke the 100 images mark.......guess which one). So, to help you load the images faster and thus obtaining a proper experience while reading my updates, here are the direct links for the updates shown in this page:

Update 0: The All-American Projects (click here!)
Update 1: Shredfest and Homecoming (click here!)
Update 2: Back on the Rocks (click here!)
Update 3: ......And Another One! (click here!)
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

RocketBunnyS13

ph
Posts: 418

Location: Philippines MNL
Occupation: Yes I ruin cars
Age: 34
V$: wat
#340   2019-06-20 08:40          
Congratulations on placing 5th overall! Good show, JOLLY GOOD SHOW! Silver Queen still hasn't lost its edge I see, but of course what is the potential of the car without the driver, solid performance, keep it up!

I see the S15 is going well, I gotta hear that RB sputter in wonderful life in person, lemme drop by soon! I'm keen to take a look at the MS13 in person as well when it's finished, hopefully my RS13U will be done as well so that I can bring it and we can take pictures!

s t a y c l a s s y

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#341   2019-06-21 17:07          
# RocketBunnyS13 : Congratulations on placing 5th overall! Good show, JOLLY GOOD SHOW! Silver Queen still hasn't lost its edge I see, but of course what is the potential of the car without the driver, solid performance, keep it up!

I see the S15 is going well, I gotta hear that RB sputter in wonderful life in person, lemme drop by soon! I'm keen to take a look at the MS13 in person as well when it's finished, hopefully my RS13U will be done as well so that I can bring it and we can take pictures!

Hehey thank you thank you! :cheers:
I'm glad Silver Queen is still as sprightly as ever, because no matter how fast I am, after all what is a man without his tools :)) A solid connection and relationship is indeed key to success ;)

I can guarantee the S15 now houses a peaceful orchestra of inline 6 turbo. And of course I'm looking forward to your and you RS13U's visit! :cheers:
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#342   2019-06-27 18:23          
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! :D


[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? :O :-X

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 :cheers:


[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! :O

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 :cheers:














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)
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

Soju

kr
Posts: 1247

Location: South Korea
Occupation: Smuggling Soju
Age: 122
V$: Broke
#343   2019-06-27 18:33          
The 240SX Vert came out absolutely beautiful! And I like the nickname of it :)

Lagano

si
Posts: 1739

Location: Slovenia West side
Occupation: Taking it easy
Age: 24
V$: :$V
#344   2019-06-27 20:18          
Awww man i thought the vert's new paintjob would be something more flashy lol. It's still looking good though, silver with gold wheels is always a nice combo! Like you said it almost turns to white when the lighting's right, kinda like my Supra :) also i think either removing the black trim or adding the missing piece on the fenders would be the final touch for a clean looking ride!

Alex876

jm
Posts: 356

Location: Jamaica Swift Tune JA
Occupation: Putting illegal camber on cars
Age: 23
V$:
#345   2019-06-28 15:08          
vert is fire bro

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#346   2019-06-29 19:49          
# Soju : The 240SX Vert came out absolutely beautiful! And I like the nickname of it :)

Thanks my man! Glad you like the nickname choice! :cheers:
After all you're the one who nicknamed my Silver Queen :))

# Lagano : Awww man i thought the vert's new paintjob would be something more flashy lol. It's still looking good though, silver with gold wheels is always a nice combo! Like you said it almost turns to white when the lighting's right, kinda like my Supra :) also i think either removing the black trim or adding the missing piece on the fenders would be the final touch for a clean looking ride!

Welp looks like the lowrider plan fell apart anyways......though tell me, does glitters mix well with white paint? Might still pulling that one :))
Hmmmmm noted, certainly would look very well if I remove the rubber trims :cheers:

# Alex876 : vert is fire bro

Thanks my man! Glad you like it :D
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

Niatross

bd
Posts: 430

Location: Bangladesh
Occupation: topkek
Age:
V$: yes
#347   2019-07-03 21:43          
The 240SX came out so good man!!
Thing was an absolute delight to see back at the meetup
And im sure it gets some attention overall due to being a true USDM specialty roaming these streets :))
Just gotta find the time to put out my update on things soon
The Omori life is kinda catching on out here

Oh and Silver Queen is KICKIN' the tracks as well as it does! Glad to see it still going strong :cheers:


Current owned cars:
- Toyota Supra GA-JZA70 Mk3
- BMW E46 M3
- Nissan Skyline ECR33 GTS25t
- Nissan 200SX Hatchback
- BMW E92 335i
- Nazda RX-7 FD3S Type RS
- Mazda RX-7 JF1FD (USDM)
- Nissan Silvia S14

Sleepin mOnkey

jp
Posts: 2459

Location: Japan Universe, Milky way ,Solar system, Earth
Occupation: Automotive engineer Student
Age: 32
V$: 14.750
#348   2019-07-04 00:29          
man the vert is sexy love the 90's style
Roleplay: A engine Builder and tuner that lives in Japan and Builds cool stuff.
Cars: Corolla Levin coupe Tog/show car
180SX s13 350hp SR20DET 6MT Babe 1
Supra Sz JZA80 2jz-Gte Vvt-i 2000's Hotboi
240sx Vert HOTBOI 2

CLICCC...

insolivion

ee
Posts: 100

Location: Estonia Finland
Occupation: MAXIMUM STYLE
Age: 25
V$: 6,433
#349   2019-07-04 10:10          
as already said, the 90's vibe is strong, i dig it fam.

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#350   2019-07-04 18:40          
# Niatross : The 240SX came out so good man!!
Thing was an absolute delight to see back at the meetup
And im sure it gets some attention overall due to being a true USDM specialty roaming these streets :))
Just gotta find the time to put out my update on things soon
The Omori life is kinda catching on out here

Oh and Silver Queen is KICKIN' the tracks as well as it does! Glad to see it still going strong :cheers:

Glad you like Kaede and the mods done on it, thanks man! :cheers:
It does have its own charm indeed, combining Americana origins with Kyusha hotboi flair.
I know life is getting intense at Omori, take your time my man. I pity you for not being fully able to enjoy summer :))

And of course my Silver Queen is still ripping on Tsukuba and fighting around! Hopefully it'll perform better after the maintenance ;)

# Sleepin mOnkey : man the vert is sexy love the 90's style
# insolivion : as already said, the 90's vibe is strong, i dig it fam.

Glad you guys like Kaede as well, I'm quite happy to be able to enact that 90s vibe correctly. Cheers guys! :cheers:
Still following the damn train since 1992

Visit my RP HERE!

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#351   2019-07-06 17:15          
Two Sides of the Coin











With the rest week over, it is time to get back into the action one more time!
And this time I'm not alone as some of my friends joined into the action as well!
And uh, there's also something I should tell you as well. Don't worry, nothing big actually.
But as usual, let's delve into them by checking the update below!














[24 Jun 2019]
Paycheck time! Yap another V$940 landed safely into my pocket as usual. As you might remember form the last update, Rifky(Shez) has agreed to enter the third round of Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship with me, and I offered to pay the registration fee for him as well. To my delight, he agreed and seemed enthusiastic about it. After all it's been a while since the last time he had a proper trackday, and it seems his DC5 has been undergoing a major upgrade as well. So obviously it needs a proper proving ground to see how the upgrades affected his DC5.

So before I register myself and Rifky into the event, I asked him over the details of himself and his DC5 so I can accurately enter them in order to be assigned into one of the four classes of EKCTC. Turns out Rifky still has his MSV-issued MSA UK racing license he brought over from England, which can be used as a replacement of JAF license that is required to enter. It is a good thing JAF is kind enough to accept and evaluate international racing licenses, as well as national racing licenses from other countries. Seeing as his license came from the home of lots of motorsport discipline and series, including Formula 1 and rallycross racing, and the one issuing the license is a well-known name in UK Motorsport as well (they own Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Donington Park, and Cadwell Park to name a few. The owner is the Palmer family, whose dad(Jonathan) and son(Jolyon) has raced in F1), I'm pretty sure Rifky's chance to qualify for the event is more than absolute ;)

Ah yes, if you didn't remember the class system, let me refresh your memory again:
NT1: <=1600cc Road cars, including MX-5s of all generation, but no VTEC/MIVEC/Similar sytsem allowed
NT2: <=2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars
NT3: >2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars, as well as rotary-engined cars
AT: Anything from above-well, pretty much anything with automatic transmission

As per usual my Silver Queen will enter the NT3 class. And seeing as Rifky's DC5 is equipped with K20A engine, you'd expect him to enter NT2 class right? Well turns out Rifky had installed a stroker kit inside his DC5 like I did to my Evo, therefore bumping him into the NT3 class. Yep, not only I've got companion for this round, he'll be racing in the same class as me! :D As for the stroker kit, I'll let him tell you about it some time.

And as the last step, I asked him to pick a number he likes as his car's start number. In the end he picked number 5, and fortunately no one has picked it yet. Speaking of which, JAF and it's sanctioned series and auto clubs would usually differ numbers that has the same value but different number of digits. So in this case, had someone picked '5' for Rifky's start number, he could alternatively pick '05' or '005' instead. And with everything sorted, I sent him the directions to Tsukuba Circuit for the main event at Thursday. And oh, the registration costed me V$340 in total.

"Hang on Smoke, a race at Thursday?" Well yes- "I though races are held at weekends?" WELL YES, it's at Thursday since the track is used for D1GP season opener (though technically it's been opened with an exhibition at Odaiba) at both Saturday and Sunday, where D1GP will have a double-header event there. Actually this year's D1GP calendar composed almost entirely of double-header events, with the final round at Autopolis being the only single event. In total there will be seven rounds held at Tsukuba, Tokachi Speedway, Ebisu and Autopolis. Back to the calendar issue, this results in some trackday events and the Circuit Trial to be rescheduled earlier, except for those that takes place at the 1000 Junior course and the Gymkhana lot course.

After registering both of us, I surfed the internet for a while and found an announcement: To celebrate the D1GP opener, there will be an open drift session at Tsukuba Circuit at Friday evening, when all the D1 teams have finished unloading their cars and finished their track walks and/or paid practices. The session runs for a full hour from 16.00 to 17.00, and all kinds of drift cars are free to join. With this in mind, and having never drifted at Tsukuba despite experiencing multiple trackdays and competitive events, I decided to join in the fun. But I would like to have someone to share the fun and delivering inputs to my HR34, so I hatched a plan..........

"Yo Muza(Niatross), it's me Edo. Hopefully I don't disturb your work at Omori"
"Oh hey Edo! Don't worry man, I'm pretty much finished for the day. Sup?"
"So I've come across this event announcement, a drift day at Tsukuba"
"Ooooo interesting, when is it?"
"Friday this week at evening. I'm sure you've finished working by then"
"Probably, but chances are I indeed have. I think I could join in"
"YAY! But how about the others?"
"AJ had his own dose of Tsukuba drift already, and he's restoring his RS13U at the moment. As for Marc, you know him"
"Ah I see......so it's only you and me then?"
"Yeah, I'm afraid"
"It's okay though, see ya at Friday my man!"
"See ya there boi"


So there you go, Muza has agreed to join me as well. For the rest of the day, I tried doing Ziga(Lagano)'s suggestion of peeling Kaede's rubber trim (the 240SX vert, if you're wondering) for a cleaner look. After some amount of fuel to remove the glue and polish to refine the results, safe to say he's right indeed. The clean 90s kyusha vibe is even stronger with this one ;)


I plan to attach this slap sticker on Kaede as well, which features......someone named Kaede. Would this fit the vert or should I leave it clean? Let me know! (And my stickers collection has just been updated, feel free to look at and/or pick them here!)



[26 Jun 2019]
Finally, after a loooooooong wait, all of the original parts of Kaede the vert I've put for sale has been sold, netting me a grand total of V$800. But if you're looking for other parts from me, don't worry, chances are some are coming soon to the parts classifieds. Here, I give you a bit of hint: I'm considering to change the wheels of my Silver Queen and HR34.

For the Silver Queen, after hearing suggestions from Muza and AJ(RocketBunnyS13), it looks like I'm going to switch into Volk ZE40s. They're strong track wheels, can be ordered in dark colours at no additional price, and more importantly, 0.5 kg/wheel lighter than the TC105Ns I currently use. The weight saving might be meagre on paper, but hey, in motorsport, every gram counts. And the wheel design itself actually looked like TC105N in some ways. I'm automatically sold.

For the HR34, I've been aspiring to fit Advan TC3s on it. It looks quite fitting and cool to be fit on R34s and drift cars in general. It's ultra strong and quite sturdy for drifting purposes. Normally they're available in gloss or chrome finishes, and I'm seeking the chrome one to complement the HR34's current simple look.

The only problem would be I can't actually buy them yet. Both wheels are rather expensive and I'm aiming to save some money in order to continue the progress of my S15 TA build, which now focused on aero works first. Oh well, to the wishlist they go.


[27 Jun 2019]
IT'S RACEDAY! Just like at the round 2, the Circuit Trial race is held by Team Magnus Auto Club (TMAC). The circuit trial starts after lunch, with driver's briefing held at 11.30, so I don't need to go at early morning. After preparing my race suit and spares as usual, I went off from my crib to Tsukuba Circuit at 09.30. Thankfully brunch time means traffic wasn't so crowded. It was a hot day though, so AC is deployed on full power. Summer has come indeed, and it isn't being kind to me so far.

After arriving to the circuit's gate to pick up the timer beacons and number stickers, I went to the paddock to apply them. This time, I was beaten to my favourite parking spot. But the good thing is, it's Rifky who occupied it! I'm glad he eventually made it to the event! So I giddily parked my Evo beside his DC5, which already has race number stickers attached on the doors. Admittably, my Silver Queen looks timid when it's parked beside the DC5, which turns out has undergo huge changes aside from the stroker kit. Just look at that beauty! :D

"RIFKY MY MAAAAAAAAAN! Finally you're here!"
"AAAAAY EDO! I'm glad I could be here man, the cars here are awesome man! Are they going to race as well?" *points at other cars*
"Most likely so. Ah anyway how's the trip from Tokyo?"
"Had to go from Gunma to Tokyo yesterday evening, which was pure hell. But today's ride to Tsukuba is much better"
"Ah did you drive on the expressway as well?"
"Oh yes! That's pure joy as well, though I can't go as quick as I expected due to traffic. And uh, one thing"
"What is it?"
"Do you know how to install these?" *hands the timer beacons*
"Oh sure sure, let me install it for you. Watch and learn"


And so, I installed the timer beacons to Rifky's DC5 before installing mine to my Evo, as well as applying number stickers to it as well. And then I went off to the bathroom to answer my call of nature, and then to the locker to change into my racing suit. If you're wondering, Rifky has his own gloves and boots, but he simply wears long sleeves and jeans to race. As for the helmet, he rented one from the equipment rental, which is located beside the circuit's canteen. To kill time before the driver's briefing starts, we had some chatter with other drivers and attending enthusiasts and fans, as well as introducing Rifky to the amateur competition world.


11.30
Driver's briefing started and our cars are put under parc ferme condition. For the format of the race, as I've explained before, racers are given only one session to score their time, which consists of five laps: One to get off the pits and warm up, three to score your time, and one to get back into the pits. And as usual we're spilt into some groups of 2-3 cars for the running.

There are 30 cars for the day, which consists of 12 NT3 cars including mine ad Rifky's, 10 in NT2 and 8 in NT1. Understandably and for obvious reason, there's no entry in the AT class. Rifky will start 5th, while I'll start 10th. Thankfully we'll run the cars after lunch so there are still some time to have lunch and do the last-minute preparations before getting into the car. And it looks like Rifky enjoyed the lunch menu a lot here! :D


12.45
It's time to race! Because he's running earlier, Rifky already lined up at the pit exit. As for me, I'm still waiting at the pitlane with AC on full blow. Of course I already told Rifky to turn off his.

Pit lights went green and Rifky's on his way to set his first lap of Tsukuba. Although we had a thorough discussion over how the track goes along the day, we didn't have any sort of track walks, and as I've mentioned he never had a track day here or anywhere else in Japan, so I was a bit worried. I can only hope he could learn quickly.

Loud engine blares were heard from distance and Rifky blasted past the main straight, marking his first hot lap here. His DC5 sounded like an angry legion of hornets with the new stroker. Then he enters T1, fighting understeer in the process.


In the process Rifky seems to learn quickly and produced blistering lap times. I don't have stopwatch on my hands so I have to do by counting with fingers, but from what I can tell he's adapting quickly and his lap times are relatively fast.


In his last final hot lap I had a good feeling this would be his fastest, so naturally I screamed "COME ON BOY PUSH NOW!" internally as he started the lap. Not sure how this ended up at the moment, but of course we'll get to this later.

Finally, Rifky finished his first day at Tsukuba and scored his first lap times. He went for a cooldown lap and returned to the pits. And with the next group running for the track, I turned my Evo's AC off and my group prepares ourselves in the pit exit.



13.10
With the group before us finished their hotlaps, as they went past T1, lights went green and we were off for our session. Here we go for the last laps before summer break kicks in! And oh, the weather might be cloudy when it's my turn to run, but weather forecasts shows no sign of rain. The air was still hot as well, giving one last sauna torture inside my Silver Queen.


START!
It looks like lowering my Evo does have a good effect for it, as my exit for the last corner went much faster and stable. Though this means I have to modify my approach for most of the hairpins so far, I really hope to improve my laptime this time, even if I can't touch 58 seconds territory here.


First impression felt quite good nonetheless, boosting my confidence. This might ended up as my best lap I've ever had. But for now, I gotta curb my enthusiasm. Particularly since both the air and asphalt are hot, frying me, my engine and my tyres simultaneously like I've been thrown into a huge oven.


Lap 2
Lap 1 went very well, much better than I expected. This made my pace for Lap 2 felt better as well, and I've adapted my driving style over the lowered suspensions quickly. Now I've got the clear idea how to drive the Silver Queen even faster.


Now, I have absolutely no idea if this setting will be friendly with other tracks, like, say, Nikko, but so far it doesn't compromize me on public roads (though obviously it absolutely dislikes potholes now) and look, it suits Tsukuba much better, so I guess I'll keep my Silver Queen this way (apart from the ZE40 switch plans obviously).



Lap 3
Final lap! As usual I tried to give all I could so score one more laptime, since it could be a game changer. Since it's very hot inside at the moment, I tried to regulate my breathing in order to keep my concentration and rythm around the track. This is one hell of an unhealthy sauna I should tell you, but nevertheless it's fun and I enjoyed it! :))


As I reached the back straight, everything felt like it's almost disappear, as if I warped into another place with the raucuous, screaming 4G63 engine as the soundtrack. Thankfully, I was still aware enough to notice the final corner. Though does this translate into a fast lap remains to be seen.


Finally, I crossed the line. I took a deep breath and almost choked by my own breath after crossing the line. Cue myself heavily coughing as I enter T1. Thankfully it doesn't turn into something worse, and thus I returned into the pits safely.

14.30
Finally, everyone has fnished running despite some yellow flags in between and the last car has returned to the pits. I and Rifky went to the stewards office to return the timer beacons. Then as we wait for the final results to be announced, I and Rifky had more and more banters with other drivers as we compared our laps and experience, as well as with other enthusiasts and fans.

And for once, Silver Queen received not a lot of attention. The star of the paddock definitely was Rifky's DC5. Rifky turned out to be a fast newcomer, as well as his DC5 looks very fit for purpose, which of course is a perfect recipe to grab instant fame here :))

15.30
The results are here! Let's see how I and Rifky did for this event........................

First off, Rifky's result.
Lap 1 = 1 minute 03.328 seconds
Lap 2 = 1 minute 01.667 seconds
Lap 3 = 1 minute 01.527 seconds

That last lap's time was great enough for him to secure 9th place in class and 10th place overall! And turns out he was the fastest FWD driver of the day as well, though sadly there's no honor for that and he was actually the sole FWD entry of our class. But this proves that Rifky's competence, skills and potential are a lot and is definitely one to watch should he ever make a comeback. I'm glad his first track time in Japan actually ends up very well! And as the reward for finishing in those positions, Rifky receives 2 points in the class standings, 1 point in the overall standings, memorabilias from TMAC as the host of the event, as well as V$100 for the class result and another V$100 for the overall result. I'm not sure if he'll ever going for a TA event again, but if he does, he might still be able to qualify for the championship standings.

And now, my own result.
Lap 1 = 59.534 seconds
Lap 2 = 59.193 seconds
Lap 3 = 58.992 seconds

OH HOLY S**T WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! The lowering upgrade actually works very, very well indeed! I never expected to touch the 58 seconds territory yet I actually (barely) did it! But what's more unbelievable is this: That lap was enough to have me finish at 3rd place, both in class and overall!! I seriously can't believe this! Not only I have scored a new personal best, I also have set my best racing result so far. Everyone who knows me from the Tsukuba CIrcuit Trial Series and some other, including Rifky, congratulated me for the result. We in turn also congratulated Rifky as well for his spectacular debut.

As for me, here's what I net: I received 15 points for both the class standings and overall standings. This gave me a huge bump at both standings, where now I'm sitting 6th in class and 8th overall. I also received bronze medal for the class podium, as well as a trophy (finally!) for the overall podium. As for the monetary prizes, I won V$750 for the class result and V$1000 for the overall result.

After the podium celebration, I and other drivers celebrated the result. But being a regional event, there was no champagne to be found even for the official podium ceremony, so we have to substitute the champagne with lots of soft drinks bought by the drivers bar me and Rifky. Cue myself and other winners having a Sprite and 7up bath thanks to Rifky and other drivers spraying them for us for the rest of the evening :)) Thankfully, this was done near the canteen, so our cars were safe from the soda torture. After washing my hair in the bathroom and one last call of nature, I and Rifky left the track, with me still in my wet racing suit and Rifky totally being wet from his sweat and the soda sprays.


[28 Jun 2019]
With the grip action over, it is now time for going sideways! As I've mentioned earlier, the event starts at 16.00 so I can go to the track a bit later. But here's a problem: Tsukuba is a pretty fast track even for grip purpose, while so far my HR34 has only drifted at Nikko, which has much slower character. I'm not sure how much power my HR34 currently rolls on, but I reckon it might be too slow for going around the track, let alone going sideways around the track. Thankfully though I still saved the RB25DET turbo from AJ, which still has the OEM turbo and pipings set on. As a precaution should my hipothesis comes true, I brought them along to the track.

When I come to the track, my usual spot has been occupied again, but this time it's Muza and his E46 that occupies it. Just like Rifky's DC5, Muza's E46 has undergo a lot of changes since the last time I saw them. Now it wears full-on CSL kit, sitting on R34 stock wheels, had a custom exhaust and obviously sitting ultra low with lots of camber around. I though this thing was going to be a grip build! The Bavarian Knight has undergo a complete diversion it seems.



As we waited for the track to be green-lit for the run, I and Muza spent some time chattering about the HR34, the changes done on the M3, and my podium the day before. Muza had a rather busy day at Oomori it turns out, and he's still a bit tired. So he told me that he'll going down to the track, but only for several laps to assess the M3 after all the upgrades done to it.

16.00
Eventually, we're ready to run. Muza told me to run first, and he'll catch up later as he opted to do some final adjustments. And so, I lined up at the pit exit.

Lights went green and I went.......into a pool of issues. Of course I can't immediately going sideways at T1, but for the chicane afterwards it didn't have the power to go sideways. Even it has none for the hairpin, which prompts me to pull the handbrake. And it's not a hydro handbrake, so keeping up with the car's rythm is a bit difficult. The power issue bugged me so much eventually I didn't take the final corner sideways in fear of crashing or gravel bathing.


I tried to do a walltap as well. It was successful........kinda. I also failed to do a proper manji entry as I almost cannonballed the HR34 into T1 with somehow entirely locked wheels. This almost destroyed the car and myself. Eventually I can define the problem: The car could pull a drift, but so far I have a problem on holding it sideways.


How about Muza, you ask? Iit looks like he had fun in the E46 even if it's only for while. He were flowing nicely in the E46, frying the tyres like a five-star Michelin star restaurant chef (no, he didn't use Michelin Pilots sadly). Even though E46 is a rare species to be drifted around Japan, it feels like home going sideways here. Ad Muza is arguably the first guy to properly fling an E46 here: Well there was Ryuji with his own E46, but his drift were a form of save from a spin in a grip trackday, so that can't be counted I guess.


He also didn't hold back when it come to the approach of the last corner and T1, where not only he deliviered a lightning fast drift at the last corner, he chained it with a reverse entry at T1! As you can guess, this prompted a fair amount of cheering and hollering from everyone at the paddock. All in all, Muza let himself and his E46 loose and wild once more even though he only went into the track for a while.



After some time, I had enough with the lack of power in the HR34, so I went back into the pits. Shortly after Muza went back as well.

And so, I and Muza spent some time installing and prepping the turbo kit into the RB20DE engine to make a quick solution over the lack of power. We did this quite quickly, as if we're a pit crew in an endurance race. So We gut the front a bit to ease the process........

......install the turbo and the piping, and return the body parts. It is a good thing that RB20, RB25 and RB26 has the same head construction so their parts can be mixed and matched easily and saves quite a lot of time and effort on installing them, as I've once explained here. Welp, the installation might felt like a makeshift lab grade work, but hey, at least it (might just) works.

As we've done the work, Muza was suddenly approached by someone that by the looks of it might has connection to or working for ASSIST, a famous Japanese tuner house that usually works on BMWs. Muza told me he had enough for the day and will wait for me in the paddock while he has a banter with the ASSIST representative. Well I don't mind really, so I went back to the pitlane to enjoy the rest of the allocated time. Noticeably though the car now backfires at some time. Maybe because it still runs NA internals while being turboed.

The turbo installation really has it's magical effects to the car's performance and behaviour. Not only now it's much, much faster, it's also a bit more rowdy and keen to go sideways. This results in much easier and controllable drifts......and also a lot of backfires in between. And oh, also my first reverse entry as well! :D


This also allows me to do what Muza did before: Have a fast drift at the last corner, connect it with a manji and walltap and the main straight, and connect it with a drift around T1. Previously it was pretty much impossible to do, but now? It's a piece of cake arguably, though admittably I'm still a bit too afraid to do a wall tap. I guess I grew up loving this thing soooo much......time for a new missile I guess? Preferably with a car I could feel less remorse when I crash it of course.



The drift day gave me quite an insight of how to enjoy Tsukuba in a different, brand new way. Drifting here requires a different mindset and approach compared to when I have a track day here. But despiyte this, I still could have fun and enjoy the ride along the way. Just like those two sides of a coin.



17.00
Finally, the alloted time to run is over. I went back to the pits to meet Muza and uninstalling the turbo. Yes, it might be powerful and helps me on drifting faster (and going faster in general), but it seems like it had some arguments with the egine internals given the constant backfiring it results along the run.

After a short evaluation over my HR34 and Muza's E46, we parted ways to our own cribs. Speaking about the turbo, I want to have them again, but I gotta balance the setup first. And I guess it is time to have a proper brakes, handbrake and suspension setup for the HR34. But uh, there are still lots of things I have to sort first.


[01 Jul 2019]
Paycheck time again! Yup another V$940 landed on my wallet safely, as well as the monetary prizes from the Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship. For July and August there will be no time attack action at all at both Tsukuba and Nikko as Japan enters summer break. Both are still open for track days though, but so far I have no plans to do one in either locations. I would like to have another tour to Tokyo as well, but it looks like Muza will face busy days at Omori as Nissan drivers seeking summer discounts on parts, AJ still have to sort his RS13U and Marc will either have a trip to Europe again or finishing one of his cars.

As for my own group......Kenichi has returned to Ooarai for the summer break, Rantaro is going to Okinawa again wih his now-fiancee (I'm happy for him!), Ryuji and his sister, Ryoko, is going to New Zealand for the vacation season and Genzo is going back to......somewhere I can't remember in the Kanagawa region. I could go somewhere else like to a beach or a touge route alone, but currently I don't really want to. I need to save my money and admittably I'm yearning for some time of peaceful rest.

I'm still going to reply your messages here, just expect a less frequent amount of updates or even no updates at all. And don't worry, I'm only resting for a while. I'll be back in action and resuming regular update schedule at one of these dates:
-10 August 2019, Ebisu Summer Drift Matsuri preps and main event, probably using HR34 or something else
-18 August 2019, something I can't be sure to happen yet, but definitely attend. It's a secret ;)
-23 September 2019, 4th round of Tsukuba Circuit Trial Series

From my lovely and comfy crib, I wish you all a happy, joyful, and memorable summer holiday. Stay safe and healthy, and have fun! :cheers:
















Welp finally finished the last update before the summer break!
Now though, time to see how my wallet prepares for the summer break (counted per July 6th):

















That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!

This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-07-06 17:32, ago)
Still following the damn train since 1992

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Lagano

si
Posts: 1739

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#352   2019-07-07 01:16          
Ayyy you finally got to drift on Tsukuba! Take it as a break from the constant flat-out racing, yeah? ;) I told you the R34 needs a turbo, now you really know it does! :D For drifting though, you need a fairly reliable setup but that depends on what kind of power you're looking for. Also you managed to pull off a reverse entry with it?! Bet you barely made it haha. And i'm glad the other guys had fun at the track :)

marcus915

ca
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#353   2019-07-07 02:45          
glad to see you are picking up the skills of drifting! i visit tsukuba once in a while as well, maybe sometime we can link up and i can teach you some more advanced car control as well as give you some spare parts off my old ER34s?
//C o o l d o w n\\
offset > takeoff

Niatross

bd
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Location: Bangladesh
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#354   2019-07-07 09:55          
Tsukuba was super fun that day
hadnt been there in a long while so it was quite refreshing too!
I did struggle to slide the E46 due to its weight and relatively low power but hey, it was fun after all!
And you 2 did some GUD lap times too!! Thanks for having me over :-X


Current owned cars:
- Toyota Supra GA-JZA70 Mk3
- BMW E46 M3
- Nissan Skyline ECR33 GTS25t
- Nissan 200SX Hatchback
- BMW E92 335i
- Nazda RX-7 FD3S Type RS
- Mazda RX-7 JF1FD (USDM)
- Nissan Silvia S14

Soju

kr
Posts: 1247

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V$: Broke
#355   2019-07-08 04:24          
It's great to see Rifky's DC5 and Niatross' E46 M3 once again :)

I wish I could participate in that event as well!

BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains
Age:
V$: Broke
#356   2019-07-13 21:13          
# Lagano : Ayyy you finally got to drift on Tsukuba! Take it as a break from the constant flat-out racing, yeah? ;) I told you the R34 needs a turbo, now you really know it does! :D For drifting though, you need a fairly reliable setup but that depends on what kind of power you're looking for. Also you managed to pull off a reverse entry with it?! Bet you barely made it haha. And i'm glad the other guys had fun at the track :)

Well it's a good break from trying to breaking lap records indeed! :D
I'm not really looking for huge figures so far, anything around 300-400 BHP makes me happy already. Although tbh I don't know yet how much power the HR34 produces at the moment, both with and without turbo.

God that reverse entry almost recolored my undies into streaks of unpleasant brown :)) But I'm so glad eventually I could catch it, by luck I should admit. And I'm so happy both Rifky and Muza enjoyed their respective events with me :cheers:

# marcus915 : glad to see you are picking up the skills of drifting! i visit tsukuba once in a while as well, maybe sometime we can link up and i can teach you some more advanced car control as well as give you some spare parts off my old ER34s?

Oh sure sure! I would be honoured to see you and see if I can pick up one or two things from a well-know veteran like you :D
I'm quite honoured to receive such offer, cheers man :cheers:

# Niatross : Tsukuba was super fun that day
hadnt been there in a long while so it was quite refreshing too!
I did struggle to slide the E46 due to its weight and relatively low power but hey, it was fun after all!
And you 2 did some GUD lap times too!! Thanks for having me over :-X

See I know you'll love it! :D
Well you did juggle those German steel mass brilliantly, and it's a lovely sight to be admired :-X
And of course Silver Queen's still kicking ass, especially after you recommended me to lower it :))

# Soju : It's great to see Rifky's DC5 and Niatross' E46 M3 once again :)

I wish I could participate in that event as well!

It's been a long time since I saw both cars and BOI they've changed significantly! :))
You gotta join the fun sometimes man, I swear it'll be worth it! ;)
Still following the damn train since 1992

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Benny

ba
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Location: Bosnia And Herzegovina Lukavac
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#357   2019-07-23 20:46          
Hey Biggie when will you get a real car :P

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BigSmoke

id
Posts: 844

Location: Indonesia
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Age:
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#358   2019-07-25 15:27          
# Benny : Hey Biggie when will you get a real car :P

Ah come on Benny, we all know Rome wasn't built in a night, and so does my garage collection. Even it took y'all legends some years to have a Porsche and a Lambo in your garage :)) :cheers:
Still following the damn train since 1992

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Sleepin mOnkey

jp
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#359   2019-07-27 19:23          
mah boy you seem to be rippin those cars without a doubt r34 must be way better with a spooly boi now we should rip he and the vert some time or maybe a gotbi ver meet tho
Roleplay: A engine Builder and tuner that lives in Japan and Builds cool stuff.
Cars: Corolla Levin coupe Tog/show car
180SX s13 350hp SR20DET 6MT Babe 1
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RocketBunnyS13

ph
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#360   2019-07-28 12:24          
AYYYY that was an epic Tsukuba update! Damn I was just there with my S14, didn't get a chance to see you sadly. ER34 needs that turbski yo! And for suspension work I HIGHLY recommend 326Power Chakuriki GT+S Coilovers. Also rad to see Rifky's DC5 (best one on the forums!) and Muzahid's E46 (hottest one on the forums!) getting some track time.

s t a y c l a s s y