OEM Look LED Series 3 Headlights by VELENO! (@Tokyo Auto Salon 2024) - Part 2 (Q&A with Nakakuki-san)

 So as promised, I called up Nakakuki-san at Garage Chikara this past week to follow up on some questions I had, as well as several everyone was asking me, after my first post.

Question - this is too expensive! Why?

Answer - according to Nakakuki-san, those inquiring customers who have owned GT-Rs for awhile have all agreed that the pricing is fair or even inexpensive (note - I myself agree), with most of those who are complaining about the price being too high, either new GT-R owners or non-owners.  The price is high but on par with the OEM part; plus because of the limited numbers of the product being planned, there cannot be economies of scale like with an OEM company like Nissan.

Question - will this be available for vehicles in LHD countries?

Answer - the product/bulb already has the E-mark, if that helps; I did not get a direct answer but if your country requires, by law, the proper cut-mark (light pattern), I think it will depend on how many requests the company gets. This link has a nice diagram of the difference in light patterns.

Question - If your current headlamp housing is in good shape, why not just replace the current bulbs with LED bulbs?  

Answer - As you may know, the OEM Series 3 unit uses a D2 Xenon bulb for low beam and H1 for high beam.  However, in their research they could not find equivalent LED bulbs that satisfied their requirements. Also given the higher output of modern LEDs it is likely that you would want the lens to be precisely made in order to prevent excessive glare to oncoming traffic.

(see the Veleno IG page for the photo that shows how clean the cut line is)

Question - is it possible to buy the same new Veleno Mortale LED H11 bulbs and install in your current headlamp housings?

Answer - no, as the original housing is not designed for H/8H11 bulbs fitment.

Question - will there be a harness adaptor to allow use in Series 1 (Zenki), Series 2 (chuuki), as well as Series 3 (kohki) cars?

Answer - unsure about what method at the time of my call, but yes they will ensure the unit works with all variants of the BCNR33.

Question - where is the English language ordering website?

Answer - coming soon! (I will insert link here when it is up!)

Question - what is the origin story of this product?

Answer - it turns out that Matsuda-san and Nakakuki-san were at the 2022 Veleno end of year party (bonenkai) where they started to discuss how an LED product for their R33s would be a good thing.  They proposed the idea there to Veleno president Yumi-san, and one year later...  And meanwhile they also learned that the ballast units used in the Xenon D2 headlights are no longer available new.  Meaning that if the ballast unit dies, people have to find another source of lighting anyway (apparently this is happening on a frequent basis with Lancer Evos, which Nakakuki-san also services).  So further justification for this LED project.

Question - is this the same unit that Garage Active had advertised, briefly?

Answer - no. Apparently some guys from GA did make inquiries with Veleno to check this one out, however...right before that post was taken down...

Question - what about the R32 and R34 GT-Rs?

Answer - based on how well the 33 units have been received, they are in the planning stages for products for these cars as well.

Question - any other LED products for the 33 in the future?

Answer -  maybe...

Did I miss any? Let me know if any of you have any follow-up questions!

My First Visit to Trust Kikaku!

 So my friend Matt is a loyal customer of Trust Kikaku, and so of course when he announced a few months ago he was going to visit Japan, we agreed that we should drop in for a visit when he was here.

Flash forward a few months, along with a courtesy email to the staff at Trust Kikaku, and this past weekend I found myself driving up to TK - after having an interesting part installed at Nismo Omori Factory, which I will blog about in an upcoming post.

Pit stop for a quick lunch (for me!) on the way up!

This post will be photo heavy, since there is SO MUCH GOING at TK, rather than write about it, photos are way more efficient.  Thanks very much of course to Matt who kindly shared his photos with me and gave me free license to post the ones I liked!

Anyway, TK is located in Ibaraki Prefecture, away from the cities in the countryside and about an hour north of Tokyo, with nothing really except farms mostly so it was quite obvious when we had arrived:

Once we drove through the gates, and then parked in front what appeared to be the main building, we were immediately greeted by Hirano-san and of course Hannah! (famous from the TK YouTube videos, of course!) Unfortunately it was Abe-chan's (Hannah's side-kick in the videos) day off, so I guess we will have to meet him the next time we visit!

But yeah, from the outside it looks very factory. 
Note the USS auctions satellite antenna on the roof though!

THE Front Door...and they even have their own welcome mat...

Once ushered inside, we changed our shoes into guest slippers (Nismo brand, of course) and went to the second floor, which is their client/customer greeting area as well as their administrative operations area.

At the top of the staircase:

Hannah proudly pointed out they have GT-R emblems from EVERY generation of GT-R!

And:

And:

Once the formal introductions and courtesies were over, Hannah offered to take us for a tour. I said "sure" figuring we would be done in 10 minutes. How wrong I was...

That is a manual transmission Nissan X-Trail on sale for 980,000 yen!

And as we moved down the row, the first of many R33 GT-Rs I saw in various states of condition.

This one looked to be in good condition, but we were told the underside was rusted!

This one had been sold to a lucky buyer in the USA!

So while this blog is R33 centric, of course I saw some other interesting cars there too.

R31 Skyline, and 4 door R34, both sold

We then turned around back towards the main building...

And started to check out the row of cars parked along the side of the building. Apparently, these are in the process of being inspected to determine whether they will be parted out or sold as used cars.

Altia aero kit version, anyone?

The price reflects its relative rarity

And of course more R33 GT-Rs.

With the Type R Integra in front

Looking back towards where we started the tour, you can see at least ONE car that will be parted out...

Now here is the real hairdresser's car. Anyone who says the Roadster/Miata is a hairdresser's car is wrong. That is a man's car in my book, such a fun car to drive.  Sadly, this Z34 is not exactly what I would call fun...

After walking another 100 meters or so, we turned the corner to the back of the main building, where I found this:

Better hurry guys, THIS ONE is a beautiful MNP car with only 2000 kms! The stitching on the seats looked brand new, never mind the rest of the interior.  Even R34 and R32 owner Matt was impressed enough to take a photo!

We also found these 3 rarities - a dark blue BNR32 on BCNR33 wheels, this white R30, and yes that is a white BNR34 V-Spec II

Hannah and Matt were discussing how the pearl white BNR34s suffer from different rates of white paint fading - the lower plastic was a bit more yellow than the body.

260RS Stagea too!

We also found this completely stripped out Z32 that was filled up with "garbage" parts. Of course I couldn't resist taking a look, and found some pretty cool parts and accessories in the mess. If I had more time I think I could have taken home some useful things.

This is I think when Hannah realized that I'm not exactly a normal person...

It was at this point where Hannah decided to show us something which would end up blowing me away in the sheer scale of it all...

That's right, row upon row of cars. What kind of cars?

Mostly Nissans...

I guess TK think that the future is bright for demand in R34 sedans and non-GTR coupes...

We didn't even bother walking around much here. Why should we? I guess the R34 fan could walk around and find some cool things - for example, I found a few manual transmission R34 sedans, and spoiler-less coupes (which confirmed my thinking that the R34 coupe looks weird without a wing of ANY type). So after about 5 minutes we headed back and this time walked through their factory/warehouse.

The warehouse has everything car related you can think of. First we saw a lot of parts stripped from cars that were going to be thrown away.

Yes, I am looking for ANYTHING I can take back with me... sadly nothing R33 related here

Sure this is R33 related but kind of hard to walk out the door with this.

On the other hand....

Look closer and it's not for a BCNR33

Those are crates of engines! Not just RBs but also an SR20!

And yes, even some special customer cars before they get shipped out - those that they will NOT leave outside... this Z-tune fendered BNR34, this R35 GT-R Nismo, and an Evo X.

This is their "studio" where they take photos of all the stuff they put on Yahoo Auctions:

With the tour done, they kindly invited us back upstairs for a short break and some tea.

At this point, I was content to say our goodbyes, however there was one more thing Hannah and Hirano-san wanted to show us - their new PR office!

In the employee parking lot right outside their PR office, I found this - 

Someone has great taste, obviously...and strangely the employees do not buy cars from the company.

And actually, it wasn't just the office they wanted to show us, but their silver YouTube placque!!

Can't remember if it was for 100,000 viewers or 1M views, but...impressive nonetheless! Well done guys!

As we were about to drive away, Hannah was kind enough to pretend to be interested in my car.

Hannah laughing at me for spending so much money on the car...

Admiring Cesar's handcrafted interior

It was then that TK's video editor, Suzuki-san, another car-crazy guy, came out to check out my car as well. And he REALLY knew his stuff about the R33, even though he drives a slammed out 86! He knew, for example, where to check for rust spots, and asked about what clutch the car had, etc. 

Here, the young ones get excited about the classic Skyline afterburners. Maybe I will make it 
onto TK's Facebook page?

Anyway, thank you very much to Hannah, Hirano-san, Suzuki-san and the rest of the TK staff who welcomed us and took so much time out of their day to entertain us.  Great people, an interesting business, and a lifeline for many of us looking for that rare or hard to find part.  

Thank you again! I look forward to seeing you guys again sometime soon!

Custom Car Covers - Thank you Bitelblack!

So while I was overseas and my car was at Nismo Omori Factory, our friend Dino recommended I reach out to his friends at Bitelblack Cover Car Custom and inquire about a custom car cover.

I know - I have a fully covered and insulated garage - why would I need a cover? Well, if you have OCD tendencies like me, the answer is - to keep the dust off so the car always looks 100% super clean, of course.

Yes, I could alway buy a cover in Japan, but nothing I found really fit the bill -  they are either super expensive and do not fit snugly,  designed for outdoor use, or they are cheap and do not fit well either.  I wanted something strictly for indoor use, and so I was looking for a stretchy kind of lightweight material that would show off the car's curves. Did not have to be waterproof, or protect from UV, etc. 

If you check out the link above, you can see that Bitelblack does some pretty crazy car covers, with some printing stuff onto the car cover itself like headlight, windshield, etc. to make it look like the car itself! (which I was not interested in, obviously - keep it simple!)

Anyway, once I got back, shortly thereafter this arrived:

Opening it up, I found this:

I had ordered one in grey, and one in black, with the black supposedly being the more premium cloth. The other option I had asked for was the R33 GTR logo on the front and back, where the actual badges are, as well as the Skyline lettering on the trunk valance and the ClubR33 logo on the side to replicate placement on the rear quarter window of our Club sticker, as many of our club members have done.

I first used some quick detailer to remove all the dust that had built up over the last 2 weeks since I got the car back:

Unretouched photo taken with my Sony Xperia 1 iii. 

Yes, I am enjoying the camera feature on this phone. Much harder than on the iPhone to get a great photo, because very little correction by the software

Then, I tried on the grey one.

Very nice fit! And thin enough to see details like the outlines of the headlights, etc.

So I thought the SKYLINE lettering (in the correct font too!) might be a nice touch...

And the Club logo is spot on perfectly replicated!

Except unfortunately not located exactly where I wanted.

Then, the black one.

Due to the color, can't see the detail outlines as well

Unfortunately it also had the same problem with the Club logo being located not exactly where I wanted.

And I guess I should have asked for the SKYLINE lettering to be closer to the background color... or maybe just in outline form?

In addition to these minor issues, I also noticed that the GT-R logo font was slightly off. Take a look at this LED sign I have in my garage, made by Kusaka Engineering. You can study the small differences amongst the 32, 33 and 34 logos - once you memorize you can be a true nerd like me. 

So, given the very competitive pricing, I have to say I am fairly happy, even though the product could be better.  I think if the Club decides they want to offer this to members I can measure how much the logos should be shifted up and forward, and I can also try to educate Bitelblack on the proper log. As for the thickness, I really could not tell the difference.

This is how the backside of the cloth looks btw.

Meanwhile, these color coordinated carry/storage bags were a nice touch:

What to do you all think?