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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#152908 2019-01-14 17:54 |
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Urban Touring
Tokyo in the start of the year is sooo crowded it's quite unbelievable!
This caused some problem to me and some of the Westkyo crew when rolling downtown. But then, we found a slice of motoring heaven  Also, time to order the upgrade I (and perhaps y'all) always been waiting for...... So let's jump into the RP then!  (WARNING: MAXIMUM PHOTOBOMB INCOMING) [07 Jan 2019] Paycheck time! Yup, another V$655 safely landed in my pocket. Also, at this point I put up all the stock transmission parts I removed for sale. This includes the stock LSD and the OS Giken clutch. Since there weren't that many parts that has been removed, and some were'nt in fresh condition, I can only hope much to sell them to be honest. But then there were also some parts that is quite fresh such as the gear synchros and the OS Giken clutch. I put everything on Tokyo and Tsukuba car forums for sale at a grand total of V$4500. I should admit that's a lot of dama-I mean loss, but eh, I need money after all.
In the meantime, I and the crew had been looking on various used car delaer websites. Surprisingly, there are alot of top stuff up for sale for cheap. I think I should get one too........but only after the Evo has received all the upgrades I planned for it  Don't worry, I've got a huge plans for the project car, even bigger than the Evo I should say (after all, the Evo is a daily). Oh yah, at this point originally I should've already came back to Tsukuba, but as I said in my last update since all business in Tsukuba started at the end of the month (some even started at the start of February), I've decided to extend my holiday here to wait. After all I'm sure Tsukuba Circuit has a lot of snow at the moment, preventing any trackdays to happen unless you're a world rally racer or an absolute madman  This will be convenient for car tuning too since deliveries to Tokyo are faster as I've found out.[11 Jan 2019] At this point all of my parts I put up for sale has been sold for V$4500. Selling them in Tokyo forums helps a lot as turns out there are still a lot of older Evo enthusiasts. Life and economy here moves very quickly to be honest, I'm deeply amazed while trying to keep up. Speed is truly a very, very essential part of modern Japanese lifestyle nowadays, though this apparently leads to higher individual stress level, a huge decline of newborns each year as no one seems interested or commited enough to have a family (yes, I know, quite ridiculous and appaling) and increasing number of deaths with various causes.
But what's more appaling is strangely, Japanese youths these days doesn't really want to own a car despite the speedy daily life. To be fair, they've been enjoying public transportation so much since they're all comfortable and on time, and most of them are either very active students with studies and organizational activities here and there, they almost don't have time to enjoy themselves, or a bunch of shut-ins who prefer to stay inside so they can binge on anime/games/idol groups/all of them. The manufacturers, despite creating modern tuner cars (the GT-R, the 86 and BRZ, the new Supra, the new S660, the new Copen, modern day Civics, etc etc etc), somehow also failed to convince them to at least like them. Well yeah, they're too expensive for youths, I know. The point is, where are the similar passions that we have, and why it doesn't infect them? Where did the dream of owning supercars or modifying your very own car go? Who would keep the tuning and motorsport industry alive? Alright, enough questioning and mourning, we've been going off-track. The reason I include it here is because I and Westkyo boys also talked about this over the week. With the discussion over at Thursday, we had one huge resolve: To keep the car culture alive by improving our cars, have a lot of meetings and when we have a family, spread the car culture spirit to them. Oh yeah, during the course of the week, I've been receiving initial requests of document translations, Muza(Niatross) is shopping more parts for his cars while using his M3 E46 as his daily, Marc(Macaron_moon) went to Nagoya for a while to collect parts for his Evo (he came back at Sunday), Rifky(Shez) still binges on used car websites for another project car while finishing the papers for his AE86 while AJ(RocketBunnyS13) tuned almost all of his cars in between his job as lawyer (or something similar, I can't remember exactly). In particular, he's on the process of reviving his S15's SR20DET, which, as you might know from my 2nd to last update and AJ's last update, blew its turbo off and turns itself into an SR20DE. As for me, it's time to put on a big action for my Evo. With only engine upgrades remaining and finally I have enough money for it, I decided to buy one thing that I (and perhaps you) always wanted: Tomei 2.2L stroker kit! "But Smoke, there's also Tomei and HKS 2.3L stroker kits, why don't you pick them instead?" I'd say no, I'm afraid the power jump will be too far to handle (the HKS kit can produce over 500+ BHP. Great for racing but overkill for daily purposes imo). Fortunately Nengun has discount on those, and I opted to buy them with conrod bearings set to match the kit and increase engine strength. This bring the price to V$4162. I also bought Nagoya Precision/NAPREC Big Valves kit at Nengun to improve combustion process since they're cheap. At V$397 they're a sure-fire way to extract more power from the 4G63 engine. Had I bought the HKS 2.3L strokers, combined with the big valves they might produce over 600 BHP. Damn, my Evo could turn itself into a box of molotovs by that point. Now we're moving from the block to the head areas. To improve engine reliability and power output a bit further, I also bought TODA High Stopper Head Gasket also at Nengun for V$218. I opted for the one with thickness of 1.5mm and bore of 86.5mm, since I picked the stroker kit with 86mm bore which increases the capacity to 2183cc, I almost forgto to mention. To top it off, I bought new set of Tomei ProCams, both in/ex at 270/270 (originally I was going for 280/280 but I think it'll be overkill after the big valves installation). They're sold for V$267 each, bringing the set cost to V$534. They can produce moe power compared to it's sibling, the Tomei PonCams, but the ProCams requires it's own pulley, valve springs, and retainer set, so I bought them as well, with the pulley costing at V$ 156 each, springs costing at V$221, and the retainer set at V$384. Additionally, I'm a bit afraid the timing belt can snap anytime due to age and uh, it looks dull, so I bought a new one, which is GReddy Timing Belt for V$139. Not only it's designed for high power usage, it looks cool as well Wew boi, that's a lot of damage over my wallet. But heck, this time, it'll be very, very, very worth it as I can feel the effect directly Oh yah, a bit of fun fact: While browsing for car parts, I found out that my Evo's silver colour is called Queen's Silver per Mitsubishi's Car Colour Database. Funnily enough there's a brand of chocolate bars here in Indonesia that is called Silver Queen. They're rather expensive but tastes very good. [12 Jan 2019] It's weekend time! AJ went off earlier to work, so there's only me, Muza and Rifky. Muza was also going to get some food for everyone and some more parts for his Supra. But beforehand, he washed and polished his M3 E46. Dang, it looks like a proper museum piece that came into the roads now.
 "Hey Muza, are you going downtown?" I talked to him as he steeped outside the garage. "Yeah, what's the matter? You in?" He answered. "Yep. I found a nice sushi parlor in Shibuya some time ago, thought you might want to try it" "Hmmm sounds good. Mind if I have my parts in your Evo?" "It's okay. And oh, I want to grab some cans of coffee in Akibahara, they rarely appear elsewhere" "Rarely elsewhere? I see, it's interesting. I think I should grab some" "Yeah, you should, I recommend it. Comes in a lot of flavours too" So we set off to downtown Tokyo that morning, leaving the garage key to Rifky. 
 To communicate with each other, I and Muza used handsfree phones. Before we hit the highway there's a small hill before us. "Muza I just remembered something. Will your carbon lip be fine over ramps?" "Eh don't worry, I've used them everyday and it hasn't been damaged once" "Ah silly me, I forgot it's your daily. Carry on, mine will be fine too" Then we hit the highway to he-I mean, Tokyo. 
 One traffic jam and some hours later, we arrived in Tokyo near the Wangan Line. Muza's E46 feels like home here. Even if he didn't fully open the tap, it always wants to unleash it's power and run away while echoing the raspy inline 6 tune. I really love to admire it while trying to keep up.
 It's going to be a rather long trip, but thankfully I've got myself some proper music to enjoy the road ahead
 Finally, we arrived at downtown Tokyo. First, we decided to look for more Supra parts in the corners of the city. It's weekend time so the city is noticeably crowded, but looks like there's something else going on.......
 ......it looks like there's some kind of festival going on at the city center. A lot of traffic has to be moved away from there.  Thankfully though Muza's first destination is a bit further off the city center. Once we found suitable parking spots, we parted our ways. Muza went off to get some parts while I look for foods around the spot. The sushi parlor by the way is at the other side of the city.
 Shopping done, we continued our trip to the sushi parlor for lunchtime. It's roughly a 10 minute trip normally, but it's sooo crowded we were crawling along for 20 minutes. But then, when we arrived to the sushi parlor I mentioned earlier, there's a familiar sight for both of us. A white Civic FC1, lowered as hell. But the thing is, it had different wheels than we usually know.
"Hey Muza, is that what I think it is?" "I'm pretty sure. But why a TE37?" "Changed his wheels perhaps?" "Is he inside the car or what?" "Nah I bet he has lunch too. Let's get in anyway I'm hungry"  We subtly parked behind the Civic, in case of we guessed it wwrong. I parked right behind him, and since there's a small pathway between my Evo and the next lot, Muza parked at a nearby barbershop. Then we walked together inside the Sushi parlor.
 And our guesses is right: It's AJ's Civic! AJ himself was going to take his first munch, still fresh from his office with suits on (but not with his vest, he left it in the car). Apparently he has finished working while we were shopping so he got a lot of spare time.
 "Yooo AJ didn't expect you to be here!" I greeted him as I sit beside him.
"Oh hey Edo! And Muza too! What are you guys doing in Shibuya?" Asked AJ, surprised to be able to bump over us here. "Ah, I'm assisting Muza with his shopping," I explained. "The streets is crowded man!" "Yeah, there's a festival at the city center. It's a good thing I was able to get off from work early today" "Oh yah, since when you changed the wheels?" Muza asked "An hour ago," said AJ. "Got a good deal for TE37s. Let me guess, shopping for your Supra?" "Yup. Edo has done his yesterday" We settled down for a while and eat sushi together, as well bought some more sushi and onigiri to be eaten at the garage. Lunch done, we moved on to Akibahara to find some additional goodies we can get on plus to get some stocks of limited UCC Coffee cans. AJ liked it too the last time I offered one to him after the CR-X deal was sealed, so he agreed to came along. We are now communicating through group phone call. After a huge fight against traffic and weaving around pedestrians, we arrived at Akibahara. Just like Shibuya, it was soooo crowded..... 
  ......and there are also a similar festival near downtown so some roads are closed for the day. I and AJ had to turn around with a multi-million point turn since it's rather cramped, and Muza went into the Akibahara UDX parking only to find out it's full. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of traffic around so it was less hectic than we imagined.
  Oh yah, I also would like to talk about just how low AJ's Civic is, and somehow it didn't scrape anything or affected the handling of the car. I swear that suspension setting AJ has on his Civic is pure magic. And it's fast too: I never imagine there are people who mod the internals of the FC1 until now. The figures are respectable as well, with AJ's Civic pumpng out 233 BHP thanks to exhaust and ECU tune. Not in the league of modern Type-Rs yet, but certainly passed Type-Rs of the past. Also, it's a tourer sedan made for comfort, so AJ can blast across cities quickly without worrying about swollen muscles after the drive.
Also, you can find more of his other builds HERE! We settled down for another time and looking at our maps to find an alternative way around Akibahara.  We indeed found one, but now comes a new problem: It was extremely narrow, it looks like it's designed for kei cars and bikes. My Evo might have made it through but certainly not Muza and AJ's cars.
 "Wait wait wait back off back off!" "Wait but why?" "Our cars won't make it through!" "Try yours!" "Get off the car and see it for yourself!"  We parked our cars elsewhere and walked down the road. "Damn, it's so tiny and narrow!" AJ lamented. "Told you, our mirrors and doors won't survive if we get through. Not even considering the angry mob who'll come against us......" "Dude I wish I got a kei car" said Muza. I and AJ nods in agreement. "Well perhaps we would be crushed in highways but heck we can have our personal go-karts everywhere!" I added. And thus, the conversation direction turned from the narrow roads to kei car ownership along the trip.  (man I wish for a kei car on SLRR)
It's actually a good thing we came down this place walking, because turns out we can get boxes of UCC Coffe cans here! We're set for.....a week, at least. Coffee business done, we went off Akibahara. 
  Half an hour later, we're in Shinjuku. We decided to settle down again after the rather stressful trip since traffic finally died down. We found a cheap parking tower there, so we proceeded to get in.
 As we get up the building, it's clear that the upper floors were rarely habited and in a state of disrepair with graffitis and metal fencing everywhere. It feels like a private parking to us. We decided to explore the place for a while since we have the full freedom for that floor.
  And long before we know it, Muza told us he's going to use the freedom opportunity to the max. "You know what? On times like these there's only one appropriate thing to do in a RWD car" "What is i-oooooh I get it!" "You guys park your cars somewhere and watch me spread the Bavarian cream everywhere" "Alright, chief, we'll get some popcorns as well" (there were none, though) I and AJ proceed to park at a nearby lot. 
 And then, the fragance of burnt rubber and the harmony of the inline 6 orchestra filled the building, followed by flashes of the Phoenix Yellow colour. It was a pretty sight to behold that afternoon. Muza danced with his M3 E46 and used it to the full effect, it's like listening an original score to an action movie. Not gonna lie this makes me want to drift as well! But then I remembered that my Evo is AWD and grippy........
   Rubber roasting session done, Muza parked his M3 E46, followed by I and AJ cheering on him. It looks indefatigable, still looks fresh and flexing, barely sweating after the impromptu drifting session. Damn, if only we have the money to rent a floor of parking tower, this is definitely how we use it for!
 A bit more exploration and I found a way to the rooftop parking lot. I decided to get up first to see what's up there. 
 Up there were some more fences, a water tower, a huge graffitti, a electrical supply tower, and nothing else. Freedom is even more real here. "The rooftop is free from anything, get up here man. Fresh air everywhere!" Muza is the next one to get into the rooftop....in a pretty spectacular way. It's not Muza if he doesn't get into the rooftop sideways! 
 And finally it's AJ's turn. I'm still surprised that nothing scrapes off his Civic when he make his way upwards!. 
 The air is sooo fresh, crisp, cool, almost unpolluted up here. And we can also see planes flying from and to Narita and Haneda airport from here as well. We spot planes while having some snacks and sipping coffee cans until sunset arrives, but before we come back to the garage we took some commemorative shot over the graffitti nearby. I wonder how whoever made it made this thing?
  The urban tour today is just worth it! I really should do this again with the entire crew another time. [14 Jan 2019] Paycheck time! Another V$655 safely landed in my pocket. I'm going to need it badly to recover from the first shopping spree I mentioned earlier. But hey, look at the positive side, it's only a bit more to go until the Evo upgrade list is complete and I can get another car!
Oh my god I've lost count on how many hours I needed to do this update and how many pics I ended up using. I swear this is the longest update I've ever done so far! But anyway let's check out how did my wallet survive: That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
(either here or one of the WestKyo boys RPs) This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-01-15 00:30, ago) |
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