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My buddy Jan did some updates on his S30Z renderings that I posted a while back. I had to share these. He is so talented. I am jealous.
Such beautiful hips..
The rendered sunlight looks so realistic.
Jan has done some minor updates since last time. I would say it's pretty close to perfection now.
Lastly, a mega-detailed model of a Mikuni 44mm PHH carb.
Take a look at Jan's Flickr to see more of his awesome work. Thanks again Jan.
The first event I covered this year was the Time Attack Special held by Powerhouse Amuse back in January. If you remember, it was quite a great time and I knew I had to get back for another Amuse-hosted event. While I missed the 2nd event of the year, I had my calendar set for February 28th, the day of the third Amuse Tsukuba event of the year.
I was expecting to see some great tuner cars and I as I walked into the paddock area my expectations were exceeded right away. The pits were full of many well known tuner cars as well as privateer entries.
The top ranked VARIS MKsport Cyber Evo 5 was at the track for a full day of running.
J's Racing brought their K-series-powered Fit all the way from Osaka.
The famous Sun Auto/Unlimited Works Cyber Evo was also brought out to do battle. As expected,Tarzan Yamada would be in the cockpit.
Of course an Amuse event wouldn't be complete with out Tanabe-san himself. He was again behind the wheel of the Phantom R35 GT-R trying to best the 59.970 lap time that it ran back in January. The car had also been outfitted with a new set of front canards for improved airflow.
This one caught me by surprise. Koyama-san and the crew from JUN Auto were out to do some shakedown laps in the JUN Evo X. Nobuteru Taniguchi would pilot the car and give his valuable feedback to the JUN mechanics.
The fellas from Hosaka Tuning Factory were representing with a whole squad of tuned GTR's.
These N2 AE86's were two of several out at the track.
Garage Mak's S15 time attack car.
The Knight Sports FD that was shown at Tokyo Auto Salon.
As the cars took to the track for the morning sessions the weather was cool and dry with frequent wind gusts, not the best conditions but nothing terrible.
Here is brief run down of how the day went.
Tarzan was ripping it up all day long in the Cyber Evo, Video Option even sent a crew out to document it.
As you might expect, the Cyber Evo was the fastest car at the track. At the end of the day Tarzan was able to pilot the car to best lap time of 54.756. This is not far off from the car's all time best. It will be interesting to see if they can catch the M-Speed GT-R later this year. If you have not had the chance of seeing this car in action in the United States or Japan you are missing out on something special.
Second fastest was the simple-looking KEIYO BNR32. This car just BARLEY missed breaking the 56 second barrier. Best lap was a 57.097.
Next was the other Cyber Evo. Although it wasn't running its fastest, a lap time of 57.433 was good for third overall.
"Under" Suzuki was back with his redesigned front air splitter. This car is really coming along now. It had a best time of 58.921.
My favorite Super Now FC was out again. Best lap was 59.122.
The Garage Mak S15 ran a best lap of 59.342.
Now, the car most of you are probably interested in, the Amuse Phantom R35.
Although many adjustments were made, for most of the day the car's lap times hung just over the one minute mark.
Finally, at the end of the event the canards were removed and Mr. Tanabe was able to turn a best lap of 59.916. The time was good enough to just barely beat the lap time the car ran at the last Amuse event at the end of January.
I'm sure Tanabe-san and co. will be able to extract even more from this set up with the data they got today. Looks like its going to be a battle between Amuse and Mine's from here on out.
Unfortunately the lap times for JUN Evo X were not printed. It did look like it was running well though.
Different settings were being tested all day long.
This Nismo Fairlady 380 RS belongs to Pro Stock Racing. I talked to a rep for AME Wheels and he told me that the team was testing the new AME Tracer wheel against the competition by getting feedback from a Super GT Driver. Track-testing a wheel? Not something I was used to in America. It is awesome to see so much effort being put into the performance of a wheel. Great products are derived from passion like this.
Hosaka TF BNR34.
The Hosaka R33 GTR was running in the 1:01 range.
The ITB-fed K-series powered the J's Racing Fit to a best lap of 1:00.459.
Of course the sound of the throttles was awesome as well.
I loved this privateer AE86 Levin. Perfect wheel choice and fitment.
The narrow track and tall height of this kei car turned a typical spin into a slow-speed roll over. Luckily no one was hurt and the car did not appear to be seriously damaged.
Lastly, one more shot of Tarzan pulling out of the first hairpin, fighting for traction all the way. This is why I love time attack.
Check out the full gallery of 300+ photos right here. There is a ton of other cool stuff that I did not have the room to post here.
I am already pumped for the next event. Powerhouse Amuse really knows how to throw a great track meeting.
Sweet video I found posted on the Ziptied forums. No explanation needed.
Another interesting YJA find here, a race-tuned 2 door KGC10 Skyline. As you can see. this is obviously not your typical Hakosuka build. The GT wing and rear air diffuser look like they would be more at home on an S2000 or Evo then an early Skyline.
The engine is an L-series stroked to 3.1L. Check the purple anodized trumpets on the Solex carbs which are a nice touch. Among the huge list of modifications are a KPGC110 radiator and master cylinder, and a one-off oil cooler and exhaust system. Underneath is R31 Skyline suspension.
In the interior are twin Recaro seats with 5 point harnesses and a 7 point roll cage. The wheels are Watanabe R-type 15x8.5 -15 in the front and Panasport 15x11.5 -15 in the rear. The headlights have also been retrofitted with HID bulbs.
She can be yours for a little less than $15,000 US. Check out the auction right here http://page13.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r43415591 .
The folks at Japan's Best Car Magazine, being the great speculators that they are have done some speculative renderings of a (gasp) possible R35 GT-R based crossover SUV. I doubt there is much truth behind this. but the magazine is speculating that that the that GT-R based SUV would be output around 480ps, be a 5-door hatchback and target Porsche Cayenne buyers.
If you thought the ideas of an Infiniti-badged GT-R sedan were way out there, then what do you think of this?
Whether or not anything like this ever comes to be, it is quite interesting to think about.
The twin turbo V6-powered Z32 300ZX is a car that fell into a strange place in the world of Japanese tuning. In the United States the car was a very popular platform, going head-to-head its Supra, RX7 and 3000GT rivals. In Japan the car never got quite the following it did in the United States. This can be attributed to the amount of similar cars available at the time, particularly within the Nissan brand.
In Japan the Z32 found itself wedged somewhere between the top of the line all wheel drive GT-R and the more affordable Silvia/180SX. The 3.0 liter twin turbo V6 also meant extra tax when registering the car. The Z32 wasn't ignored by the aftermarket in Japan, it just never took on the significance of the GT-R or Silvia. The mega-cramped engine compartment didn't help its tuning popularity either.
In 2002 with the demise of the Silvia and the R34 GT-R the new Z33 Fairlady took over as Nissan's premiere sports car and the the aftermarket naturally jumped into Z33 parts development. The Z32 was left relatively forgotten.
Z32 enthusiasts should not feel left out because Tokyo based Pentroof is a tuning company that has shown some much needed Z32 love. Although they produce engine and suspension parts for a variety of platforms, their "flagship" is the Z32 Fairlady. Besides a number of engine parts and suspension components, Pentroof also offers circuit-developed aero for the Z32.
The Pro SpecII Z32 2+2 demo car is loaded with the Pentroof's parts inside and out. These photos are from a few years ago.
A Z32 built for the circuit like this is very rare. I remember seeing an Option article about this car awhile
back and if I remember right it was running somewhere around the one minute mark at Tsukuba.
Check out Pentroof's site to see more .
RAUH-Welt/RWB is probably the best known Porsche tuner in Japan and their cars always have a distinctive style combing both Japanese and Euro tuning elements. RAUH-Welt 911's are common sights on both the highways and the racing circuits of Japan. RWB even served as a technical consultant for the Wangan Midnight animated series.
I had the chance to see some of the RWB cars in action at Tsukuba last week at the TK Club grip/drift event and it was quite an experience. I had seen a lot of the cars in magazines before but this was my first chance to be up close and personal with them.
The best way to describe the style of the RWB cars is "radical but functional". While the double rear wing set up may look like overkill, you can bet that they are put to use on the back straight at Tsukuba or flying down the Aqualine.
Another RWB-tuned 911, this one is a little milder but was still a full circuit-bred machine.
Ready for battle. Note the air inlet in the rear quarter window.
Ultra-wide negative offset SSR Professors are RWB's wheel of choice. The massive Brembo brakes barely fit inside the 18" wheel. Tires are Advan A048, the most common tire seen at the circuit.
From this photo you can really see how extensive the body modification is. Look at the width of the rear fenders!
Porsche perfection?
This post wouldn't be complete without some action shots-
In the first hairpin.
At the corner exit. Naturally, the flat-six sound is wonderful.
Spitting flame.
On the front straight.
A 3rd RWB car.
One last shot pulling out of the first hairpin.
RAUH-Welt represents some of the best Porsche tuning on the planet. Look for more RWB coverage coming soon. For now you can check out a few more photos in the gallery right here .
In an effort to provide more content, I decided to start showcasing some of the interesting stuff I find for sale on Yahoo Japan Auctions. In case you have been living under a rock the past several years, YJA is basically the Ebay of Japan and there is always cool stuff to be found. Some of the big car blogs have the "Ebay Auction of the Day" or something similar, so I decided to do a Japanese version.
I don't know if it will be the YJA auction of the day or auction of the week but I will stay on the look out for good stuff and post it when I see it.
To start off we have this Nissan Crew sedan. You may have ridden in a Crew if you have ever used a taxi in Japan as the Crew along with the similar Toyota Comfort is almost exclusively used as a taxi or police car. Of course if this was a standard taxi-spec Crew I wouldn't be posting it right?
Nope, this one is far from normal. While only the TE37's and massive intercooler are noticeable from outside, everything changes when you open the hood.
You are looking at 650ps of GTR power. The 2.7L RB26 is from an R33 GTR and is fed by a single T51S turbine. Besides the engine work the car is also running a 5 speed manual transmission (RB25 tranny I'm guessing?), S13 suspension and R33 Brembo Brakes.
According to the auction the exhaust system is "full straight" so I can only imagine what this thing sounds like.
The price is not cheap at at about $14,000 US but I am sure the car cost far more than that to put together.
Check out the auction right here-
Abunai Deka was a Japanese cop show and later a series of movies that aired in the late 1980's. The show followed a pair of detectives who used unique methods to catch the bad guys and naturally found themselves precarious positions that lead to one of them having to jump into the window of a moving car.
The show is famous for its use of the Nissan Leopard as the detectives' main car. The Leopard is a relatively forgotten car that was sold in the United States as the Infiniti M30. The car is well known from its use in Abunai Deka though. I saw this show on cable TV here in Japan awhile ago and was quite entertained. From what I can see it appears that Detectives Takayama and Oshita rely on the J-Turn maneuver even more than Jim Rockford in the Rockford Files.
Luckily there is a totally awesome montage video featuring the Nissan Leopard from Abunai Deka in action. Of course the montage is set to some very "montage-ish" 80's music.
You might have a problem if you didn't feel the need to buy a used M30, some cool sun shades and a detachable red light after watching that.
Last weekend I found myself back at Tsukuba Circuit for the 5th round of the BE Circuit time attack series. It had rained steadily the day before so track conditions were less than ideal. There were no new record times set but there was still some great action on the track.
I didn't take a ton of photos this time as I wanted to relax a little bit just enjoy the event. The BE events are really starting to grow in popularity. The newest issue of Option2 Magazine has a several page article profiling the event and its main competitors.
Now a look at some of the on track action-
Naturally it was the VARIS MKSport Cyber Evo 5 that had the day's fastest lap times. Although it was not running as fast as it was last time, it still brought home a very respectable lap time of 57.180. I'm sure the loss of time can be attributed to the slippery track conditions. The BE events are run during the morning so the track did not have a good chance to dry up from the rain the night before.
Second fastest was the Technical Factory Hirano CP9A with a 57.863 lap.
The R Magic FD was back in action for this event, best lap time was a 58.192.
The ATTKD R32 was also back with a new front end and a different wheel set up. Fastest lap was a 58.465
Every time I see the Super Now FC I like it more and more. So simple, yet so so fast. What's even more impressive is that after a change of tires and removal of the GT wing, the car is driven to and from the track. Lap time was 58.687. A street-driven car that laps Tsukuba in 58 seconds. Awesome. Check out Super Now's site at http://www.supernow.co.jp/ , they even gave my site a shout-out.
The Crazy Shift MR2 has to be one of the most serious SW20's anywhere. Power output is about 470ps. This car has run in the 59 second range in the past. The Super GT-inspired aero looks the part as well.
"Under" Suzuki was out on the track dialing in his S15. He was running his new homemade front splitter but it was hanging a little too low and scraping on the track. He removed it and is now redesigning it for the next event. Lap time was 59.966.
The other MKSport CP9A was running just above the one minute mark.
S14 in the first hairpin. Lap time was a decent 1:02.750.
The monstrous GT wing on the back of this FD is pure business. This car was ran a best lap of 59.904.
The always fun to watch Scorch S15, begging for traction at the exit of every corner.
After the event we headed across the street to the small cafe that is a popular gathering spot for Tsukuba racers. As soon as you walk in, you are greeted by a massive plasma TV playing Option DVD's. A number of the racers were there having lunch and talking about the results and telling racing stories. It was such a great atmosphere and it's times like that that make me remember how much I love cars.
Check out the rest of the photos right here .
