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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#153421 2019-02-02 21:36 |
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The Rise of The Silver Queen
At last, the final piece of my Evo's upgrade list has arrived!
The final figures of the build is staggering as well!  (well, as if 394 BHP isn't astonishing enough for a quarter century old car.....) And once again I tested it on touge roads....but I'm not alone this time!  So without further ado, let's jump into the update! [28 Jan 2019] Paycheck time! It is a good thing I receive V$750/week at the moment, since it certainly helps me on tuning the Evo and more importantly, keeps me and my Evo moving easily
 And oh, I'm still considering getting a solid jo at the moment, but I might decide it when I'm back to Tsukuba. Although if I choose to be a chauffeur/driver for hire, I might start at May since I have something planned for it at April......Well, let's see what fate has in store.Speaking of coming back, I realize my time in Tokyo is almost up and Tsukuba Circuit has been opened again, as well as the University. This means it's time to go home soon and get back to the realm of work life again. I could opted to live in Tokyo and get job easily, but this means my time for trackdays is very, very limited, and though I also love touge drives so much, I do realize that this can be rather dangerous and in one unfortunate event I might crash with nobody helping me, and I might be found bathing in blood waiting for my death inside the Evo (If I go alone that is, otherwise at least someone will help me). And though my time in Tokyo is very, very lovely, as people always say, there's no place like home (unless if you consider your home as a hellhole). I plan to come back at 8 or 9 Feb. And oh, thorough my times in Tokyo I still keep in touch with my friends at Tsukuba, mainly Rantaro (the owner of the Merc II, which is a Mark II GX70 with Merc front-end conversion. Click here to see how it looks) and Ryuji (owner of a Jagermeister-orange M3 E46. Click here to see how it looks, along with some other nice cars). Ryuji and his little sister will be likely come back from Australia the same time as I come back to Tsukuba, meanwhile Rantaro and his GF has came back from Okinawa at 27 Jan. With Muza(Niatross) currently owning two European cars, I told Rantaro about Muza's M3 E46 and A5 since Rantaro is a fan of Euro cars. And as I expected Rantaro was fangirling over them!  He also appreciated the colour choice of the M3 as well as wondering how the A5 looks gorgeous while wearing a wheel it wasn't designed for (a set of Nismo LMGT1s. I'm not kidding, check out his RP!). Meanwhile, Ryuji also shared some pics of bulky but gorgeous Australian muscle cars to me. He also rented one, a Holden Commodore VF. He was so impressed with how it goes and actually wished to get one and import it back to Japan. But since he found out that it's thirstier than his M3, he dropped the plan. Ah, what could have been...........But of course, before I come back to Tsukuba, I wanted to do some stuff with the WestKyo boys first. Don't worry, you'll know it soon....... [31 Jan 2019] THE FINAL UPGRADES HAS ARRIVED! To remind you again on what are those final upgrades, I bought the complete assembly of HKS GTII-8262 turbochargers and Hypertune 77mm intake manifold. Finally they arrived at WestKyo's garage doorstep at midday while I was going to help Marc(Macaron_moon) tinkering with his Evo X. Speaking of which, I assume Marc is going to do somethinng very, very big with his Evo X. After all, it hasn't hit the road in more than three months........if it's not waiting for a humongous list of upgrades then I don't know what is currently happening.
Speaking of Evo X, I lamented in the previous update that Evo X's 4B11T engine didn't see as much motorsport life as the 4G63 did. It turns out that some national level rally championships has a class called Proto class. Basically the class consist of any kind of cars that has Evo X's 4B11T engine and drivetrain sitting inside. It's a bit like Super GT's Mother Chassis (MC) rule for GT300 class, where you can build practically anything with Nissan VK56DE engine in it. So far there are only two MC cars built, they're Toyota 86 MC and Lotus Evora MC. Interestngly, Subaru has a BRZ that follows original GT300 rule instead of the MC rule, so retaining it's boxer engine. As for the Proto cars, you can make it yourself as well, but there are already a lot of builders that can fullfill the demand. Some of them are Dytko Sport, Evolve Motorsport and Heuvel Motorsport. But in case of Evolve, somehow they used Subaru EJ20 units instead of Mitsu 4B11T. Dytko's builds are the most famous ones, mostly using VW Polo or Peugeot 208 bodies. Remember the Lancer R they made some time ago? Yep, that's a Proto car too as well as their demo car. Sadly, you can't bring them outside national championships as they don't comform to any of FIA's Group R rule for national, continental or international championship rule including WRC. But performance wise, they should be on par with R5 rally cars if not slightly faster, since basically most Proto cars has R5 platform (which is small, light and nimble) and R4 engine (which is actually bigger than R5). Anyway, moving on to my Silver Queen. After the parts has arrived and we prepared our tools, we decided to work on my Evo first. So I backed up my Evo into the working bay. Man, working on my car here is so fun and easy, I wonder if I can live moments like this again.  Then we proceed to dismantle the car's front part again to allow the engine crane to pick the engine easily. Tthis way we can disassemble the engine while we're sitting and talking about stuff while having some cans of coffee. All we need to make sure is if we can put it back correctly in the car later.....and of course not damaging the engine in the process. This might sound so easy but believe me, it's not really that easy
 I also did some setup while installing the parts. Thankfully I ordered the heavy duty actuators along with the turbo assembly, so adjusting the turbo is easier than before. Also with stronger stroker kit installed, I can safely increase the boost without worrying if my engine will turn into a box of molotovs on the run. Some time ago I read that (a)Turns out stock 4G63 block of the 90s can be fed with up to 16 psi of boost instead of 13 psi that I read back then, and (b)4G63's achilles heels is it's conrod and piston, which under hardcore usage might bent or even snap, so it's advisable to get stroker kit, which I already did. With this in mind, I set the boost to exactly 1 bar (roughly 14,7 psi) to keep the block healthy while letting it receive more air.
5 hours later, the job was done. Could be done in 3 hours if we didn't chatter about motorsport or life to be honest, but hey, social interaction is a part of car culture after all The fact that I was blasting and singing to Taeko Ohnuki's "4.00 am" might also do with it....citypop is life man! We moved on to work on Marc's car as the day goes on. I told Marc about the Proto rally car rules and joked on him that we should pull out the 4B11T and built a kei-car based Proto car if the Evo X is damaged beyond repair should he crash it. Marc retaliates with a sonorous "NO!! That's not going to happen!" At the end of the day, I listed the stock parts for sale. I listed the stock IHI turbo for sale at V$2800. Ii think they can still stand some abuse by others despite what I said at the end of last update, and after all I haven't reverted the boost setting so it's a bit of plus point. As for the stock intake manifold, I listed them for V$640. I do aware there could be cheaper aftermarket intake manifolds and I even found one back then, but then most of them looks dubious......they looked like they're made of plastics Ii'm confident enough to sell mine with a bit higher price tag sine obviously it's a factory original.I also remembered something: I need to dyno the car again to see how the tune affected on-paper results. Well, that can be done tomorrow.......... [01 Feb 2019] The first month of the year has been passed with a lot of fond memories for me and significant developments for the Silver Queen. It is time to see how far it's been going on it's final form. At 9 am after Muza and AJ(RocketBunnyS13) went off to work, I left the garage keys to Marc and went off downtown for another dyno session at ProMods. It's a cold, cloudy morning, so I took my jacket with me. Eh, spring will come soon anyway. Also somehow rush hour isn't really over as I went there, making the journey a bit uuncomfortable......before the final upgrades I said that the Evo deliver huge surge of power at lower gears. Now the Silver Queen outright punched my face and chest upon launch, and when I didn't really pay attention 2nd gear already felt like warping to another dimension. "Calm your foot down you greedy boy!" I shouted to myself. Probably that's what the Silver Queen thought as well.
Upon my arrival, one of the ProMods crew welcomed me and directed me to their dyno. Somewhat I got lucky I could park my Evo without making a mess inside. Let the examination begin!  Shortly after, the sonorous sound of the 4G63 engine fills the garage. Now it sound like a big box of angry hornets owned by an eccentric madman, with turbo whistles and fiery backfires filling in between, making the sight looked like one of the most unholy orchestra performance ever seen. But all of this was worth it when the result came out:
 MAN WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT.
HOLY NUMBER NINES MAN I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS. 445 BRAKE HORSEPOWER!! More than enough to follow that damn train beat the Evo FQ-440! Also already enters the Group B territory! I cheered in both ecstasy and disbelief while thinking "Is this my brain on extra-strong coffee or what?". The crew looked excited and glad at the results as well, then we talked a bit on what I've done to it. But then it looks like they tried to wake the greedy madman in me when they jokingly asked: "Why not round it to 450?" I duly answered, half-conscious on what I did said: "Yap good idea!" So they actually did it. All they do was readjusting the exhaust cam, but they guarantee the result will be exactly as guaranteed. I also told them about the face-punching acceleration, so they also shorten the transmission's final gear to compensate the torque effect as well as to make it even faster on top end.  With the tuning done, the Evo had another dyno run and the madman's orchestra was back on business. The result is, again, unbelievable:  The difference is, it's unbelieveable not on how powerful it is now, but on how actually they prove their claim of 450 bhp output and just how precise it is. I was so impressed I want to buy them beer and coffee, but turns out they already have their own supply, so I simply high-fived everyone in the crew and thanked the for the work they've done.
I returned to WestKyo garage later that day via the industrial route. I supposed to come back straight to the garage, but midway through the trip I spotted something similar. Aren't those the lowriders from about a week ago? They were parked outside a supermarket, so I decided to find out by parking beside them.
  A moment later, the owners came back from shopping. One of them wore a green hoodie, while one of them wears a blue shirt. Upon eye contact I slowly apporach them.  "Excuse me for my rudeness, are these your cars?" I asked to them.
"Well yes, what's wrong? You got a problem with us?" Said the green hoodie guy in a bit of grunt. "Wait nonono! I've just happened to see these a week ago. They look awesome!" "....aaah I see." "I mean, it's rare to see an American car here, let alone classic ones" "Honestly there are some in Tokyo, but yeah outside Tokyo there aren't many. I can tell you're not from here" "Exactly! I live in Tsukuba, and I'm here in Tokyo for holidays though I'm going to come back soon" "Oh Tsukuba you say? My cousin lives there y'know. I used to live with him in my high school days. Sometimes I visit him at summer" "With this car?" "With this car, yep" "Awesome man! Clearly you've maintained this car very well, looks factory fresh!" "Oh thank you, safe to say maintaining and modifying this car is a form of art. That's why they're unique" The green hoodie guy is Juuichi (32), or 'Joey' as his community called him. He owns the green Impala, and he imported it himself from his earnings from his job as a music store and a small recording studio owner at Roppongi. Oh yeah, mind you, physical music collection is actually still a thing in Japan, since people here still insists on collectibility and originality of musical products. As you expected, he prefres hip-hop, rap and all their subgenres and he's keen on seeing the local and Asian scene growing up. He's a big fan of Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, as well as Snoop Dogg and Cent. He said he didn't really enjoy the modern US scene at the moment, so it's a perfect moment to look at other scenes around the world.  The one with blue shirt is Joey's work partner and studio assistant, Noriki (29). When I asked why he chose to import a Buick Century among anything else, he simply answered he wants something unusual and wants to make it something groundbreaking. Personally, I think he did those gracefully: He transformed something normally unappreciated by common Americans into a eye-catching road yacht. Also, due to their preferences, cost and maintainability, they decided to install airbags instead of hydraulics, as well as not modding their engine and simply keping it as fresh as possible.
 We exchanged contacts after I grabbed some pics under their permit, and went back to the garage. And when I arrived at the garage, I immediately asked Muza something. "Ey Muza, what time do you come back from work tomorrow?" "I think I can come back at 4pm, what's the matter" "You want to do some evening cruise?" [02 Feb 2019] Earlier I said I wanted to do some stuff with the WestKyo boys. Well, this is one of them: A mass touge session. Yesterday I told Muza about Otarumi touge, the place when I tested the Evo after it has stroker kit and cams installed. I offered Muza and AJ to tag along, and thankfully they agreed to go there at 6pm. Muza wants to stay sharp in his M3 E46 which has recently receiving a micro diet. This might become the last touge for it as well since he planned to turn it into a track car. Meanwhile AJ have to use his fresh, stock S2000. After all, from all of his cars, his S15 isn't working yet, he recently crashed his S14, and he doesn't want to see his Civic FC1 suffered the same fate, leaving only the S2000 to ride on.
"But look at the bright side AJ, time for a new hair-do!" I jokingly cheer him up AJ doesn't seem to mind, after all fresh mountain air is fresh and good for your mind. How to keep your face features intact on high speed is another issue though. Nevertheless AJ still decides to have his roof down for the ride. After leaving the keys to Marc again, we set off.We arrived at the touge at 7.30pm, just in time for sunset. Perhaps this would be the most breathtaking view we've experienced on a touge session. We took a rest for a while as we made our final preparation. By the way, the ProMods guys has succesfully soften a bit of it's acceleration it seems, the punch now felt less intense. 
  After a short briefing, we set off to attack the touge route. But to be honest I'm rather worried about AJ, since the S2K is famous for oversteering at most times thanks to it's narrow width, and the cause of AJ's crash is.....he went sideways at high speed. Tbf he was avoiding a dog, but still, this should be taken as a precaution.
  We flew around the first corner in a breeze. Two sonorous inline 4 engine provides two treble mixes and one inline 6 engine plays the baritone voice for a calm sunset drive. 
  And then the road throws some sequences of chicane to us. I and Muza decided to grip it through and swinged our cars smoothly. 
 I'm sure AJ prioritizes gripping too, after all his car is still in stock condition. But then as I predicted his car rebelled and decided to go sideways. Thankfully AJ can control it with so much focus. Gotta stay sharp and fearless after the crash I see......but the fact that he was able to keep up with more powerful cars while being sideways in a bone stock car is more awesome to behold.
 Some corners later, it looks like the drifting syndrome is infectious as Muza somehow pulled a huge drift with his E46, full pro style. And this was done while going uphill. It is helpful that there was only a smidge of traffic at the moment, otherwise we might end as a huge pile of wreckage......
 I'd really like to join the sideways bros aswell, but uhh....my Evo's so grippy it doesn't really like going sideways. I'm not Tommi Makkinen anyway heheh.  A moment later we found a huge road shoulder to turn around. We decided to go back for the downhill session. 
  We started storming the first corner like a rollercoaster. Once again I and Muza goes for the full grip policy, while AJ also tried to but nevertheless his car protested against it. Another slide for AJ, then.
  The Evo attacks the corner in a flash after the upgrades, but the brakes felt a bit squeaky at the moment. Might be because it still uses OEM-size disc and 4-pots at the front. I want to change them but I'll do this at Ttsukuba I guess. Meanwhile surprisingly AJ still able to catch up. The S2K is remarkable that it once held the record for the most horsepower per capacity in litres,roughly 125 BHP/litre. It was broken 7-8 years later by Ferrari 458. Just think about it, it took 8 years and a Ferrari to break a record held by a plucky Honda. That's quite a huge feat indeed.
 It looks like Muza can't hold himself from going sideways though, or it's just his BMW wanted to do so. But it looks graceful going sideways.  Finally we reached the starting point again, and we decided to come back downtown. I and AJ came off the touge tidily and quickly, and Muza came out with a bang and flurry of oversteer. That's how you say goodbye to a touge yeah!
  We finally arrived at downtown as night comes. Saturday nigt here is quite crowded with traffic and people everywhere moving on to celebrate the temporary freedom from the work life. Our cars attracted attetions from passer-bys, either from the looks or the sound. Muza's M3 catched a lot of eyes at traffic lights, but it's AJ's S2K that steal the most looks from the local girls as he's driving a convertible with roof down, revealing his good looks
So it's true that a convertible will attract girls easily. Now I wonder if AJ has a GF already? I mean, he could pick up a girl right now!
  There are a lot of cafes here, but we decided tp just have coffee and ramen at the garage. So we decided to keep going towards a bridge. 
  "Man, I wish I can cross this bridge everyday. Feels like a bridge to heaven" "That's why you need to stay here bro" "Nah man, but maybe one day. Work and trackday called again" 
  But then the chatter stopped as near the end of the bridge there was a drunk driver in a Prius darting his way towards us. In a bit of panic we tried to make our way out from the situation. I simply add more throttle as I'm sure I'll make it in time, and fortunately my calculation is correct. Muza and AJ swerved to the right lane, but unfortunatley Muza judged his move a bit late and I saw the Prius took a bit of his front bumper from the side mirrors. AJ is okay though. Instinctively we made our way out from the scene by driving a bit faster.
We then stop in a car park and we checked Muza's M3 bumper. "Just a bit of scratch, no problem. I still can keep on running." But just how bad is it? You might find it out at Muza's RP update. So let's see how my wallet survived this week.........
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) |
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