R's Meeting 2022 - Part 1 - Chronologically Taken Photos

Trying something new with my photos for this post!

So of course, the reason why I needed my car road-legal again quickly, was to be able to drive it to this year's R's Meeting put on by GT-R Magazine (and sponsored in part by Nissan as well).  Hence the Tomica-like transport I wrote about last time.

Anyway, once I got the car safely back home I was still split about going.   I usually don't like going to these meetings because there are so many cars and so you have to park far away, and I always worry about my car being out of sight.  I mean think about it - the world's biggest GT-R meet is a great place for criminal types to come check out which cars they can steal next, right?

So I called in a few favors to make sure that I received the proper VIP entry and parking pass (Sponsor) and thus was convinced to take the GT-R down to Fuji.  As a result, I found myself driving down with Dino at 0600 this morning to Fuji Speedway.  I am sure he takes better pictures - check out his IG for more photos - but once we arrived, I took some photos as well.

This time however instead of focusing on one car or product, I want to just simply upload the photos I took and perhaps share what I was thinking as I took them. So here goes...

Here is where I parked. Bad photo, but immediately to the right is the Nismo booth. And yes that Ochiai-san watching me as I turn around to take this photo. 

Meanwhile, someone else is taking a close look at my car already...

Right across was the Top Secret booth, where I spotted my first tuner R33:

Since the hood wasn't opened up yet - we got there before the area was open to the public, I walked back to the Nismo booth, to check out their usual cars:

But then I remembered that social media had blown up on the Built By Legends R33 at Mine's so I took a quick stroll down to their booth, ignoring the other booths. And came across some fans who had managed to gain early entry and were looking closely at the BBL car.

I also noticed it had this shorty type antenna. Mmm, not my cup of tea, I prefer the OEM in my car with its lower profile when not in use.

Here is another shot of the trunk underside:

All dry carbon!

And of course have to check out the engine!

Interestingly, not the usual purple blue Mine's covers but a bespoke green

Dry carbon hood and lip spoiler too!

Here is Mr. Dalle Carbonare in action:

I thought this was cute. A good idea, especially since fuse box covers with the "GT-R" on it are really hard to find.

Obviously good for a car going overseas. Want to make sure you can quickly change the oil each time without having to contact Mine's

Interesting. OEM Plenum in that same green color.

Seats are Alcantara Recaros in a similar shade of green...

One last shot of the entire car...

And then I heard DCD ask me what I thought of this BBL key

My answer - Ok, I guess?

I was more interested in this interior cleaning cloth Mine's was offering. Some kind of super plush Alcantara, I guess?

Now we're talking - check out the Mine's tower bar. Which, I learned later my new friend David later purchased one!

Speaking of friends, always nice to run into Adam, who runs an almost identical KR4 series 3 R33 GT-R! If you have seen me on Facebook you may remember a post where both our cars were featured.

And yes, we belong to the same exclusive ClubR33 owners club!

And after the obligatory selfie, it was back to checking out more cars:

The guys at Tomei seemed a bit busy so we left them alone. But then I ran into the Global Auto booth:

How about a close up of the badge?

Some rear shots

Another angle, trying to avoid the shadows to no avail.

Now here is an interesting machine. Yes, a huge single turbo...

But then looking inside - that is an R35 GT-R wheel with shift paddles  - but check out that gear box linkage??!!!

And in the trunk, this:

Fast and Furious, I guess?

We then headed over (no pun intended) to NaPrec, or Nagoya Precision, who specialize in engine head work. Probably the best in the business here in Japan, as all the famous tuners outsource the headwork of their blueprint engines to them.

Here is a close-up

And Dino checking out the 3 kinds of headwork they do: "full squish", "half circle" and "full circle" - in a future post I will go into more detail, they had a board up with some interesting graphics.

It was about this time that Dino started complaining that I was ruining his rhythm due to our conversing and so rather than risk more complaining, I struck out on my own to check out the cars assembled in the adjacent parking lot.  These cars are NOT parked in general parking, but are the cars selected by GT-R Magazine to be photographed professionally by the magazine in order to end up in their periodic "Owner's File" dedicated issue.

Here is the first one that caught my eye. I guess 33s being less expensive than 34s means younger people are buying them? And they are more expressive?

I sure hope those are stickers than can be peeled off to reveal that nice Midnight Purple paint?

This super clean silver one had some NICE wheels...

Nice! An Autech! and a Hakosuka right behind it.

Interesting Top Secret car, if it really is one. Color and wheels...

There seemed to be a lot more 33s that before, too.

You can see that white 32 getting ready to be photographed on the right, while the traffic of people arriving but being forced to drive around the backside of the track to remote parking, pass by in the background.

Speaking of which, here is Dino again showing us how long that line of recent arrivals stretches towards a backside parking lot.

Anyway, enough photos for today. It is now 2300 and I am dead tired. More photos tomorrow, in the same stream of consciousness/wandering order!

What's This Weird Sound??

So check this out:

So what does this sound like? Initially I thought that this was my fuel pump going bad.  And it's hard to say where the sound is coming from in this video, although to me it seemed to be coming from behind the rear seats.  Thus, fuel pump? After all the pump was replaced back in 2007 with the Mine's engine, surely after 15 years it could be failing?

Well, turns out that I was wrong. Because the sound is coming from the Tomei fuel pump regulator.

This thing. I don't have video but once I had someone turn on the ignition with the hood open, it was clear where the noise was coming from.

A bit of research reveals that with this fuel regulator, it tends to lose the pressure in the fuel system that is always there - about 2kg worth - over time. So after a couple of weeks of not using the car, the pump effectively has to prime the fuel system and thus you get that noise.

So the way to fix this problem is to start up the car every week! Give me an excuse to drive the car around and this should no longer be an issue! But has anyone else encountered this problem? Please comment and let me know, including if you have a solution to this! Thanks!!

Oh No! Brake Judder? Well... (at Mine's again)

 So a quick update everyone.

Today, took a quick drive to Mine's with Dino who was scheduled to do a photo shoot there for a very special engine build - which I might talk about more at some point.

But following up on my last post about my car being the world's first with R35 size carbon ceramic brakes, one of the comments I had heard (from Ochiai-san at Nismo) was that a slight brake judder could be detected.  Curious, because it hadn't really bothered me before, I had Dino do the driving down.

On my drive home from Nismo last time, for some reason I felt like whatever Ochiai-san had done to try to reduce the judder, had somehow made the brakes a bit mushy in initial application. But, I was very wrong, as Dino showed me several times on the way down.  He reported initial bite to be fantastic, and enjoyed himself by slamming on the brakes and watching my head flail forward several times. What a jerk lol. But he also reported some judder as well.

Sorry for the blurred photo.

Once at Mine's he was bothered enough by the judder that he was wondering if it might be an alignment problem, or even the discs being different weights.

So of course, I had Nakayama-san test drive the car to see what he thought. My guess is Nakayama-san has more seat time in second gen GT-Rs than Dino does so...

The man himself, behind the wheel. What an honor!

And of course, when the car left, somehow my Sony Xperia 1 mark iii took this photo, which I loved enough to change the header photo of this blog!

I guess I got lucky as I played with the zoom because with the fixed lens it looked like this:

Anyway, he was back in about 10 minutes.

And reported that first, yes there was some judder but it was not a big problem.  It is not an alignment problem, nor a brake rotor weight issue.  Simply, the Pagid RSC1 pads (which Lamborghini and Ferrari use in their cars with carbon ceramic brakes) in use are super grippy, which is resulting in the awesome initial bite. But because of the drilled rotors, Nakayama-san thinks that the holes (which are likely unnecessary in the first place) might be causing the pads to wear a bit unevenly given the high friction of the pads, hence the judder.  But, he mentioned that compared to their demo car, or other race spec vehicles, this level of judder was mild. So if I want to reduce the judder he recommended I go with a softer brake pad.

I think since it doesn't bother me (and when I drove back I didn't even notice again) I think I will keep these Pagids.  The actual initial bite is fantastic, and I prefer having that as these brakes are supposed to be high performance. 

What do you guys think?

BTW, while there we looked at the engine bay and made some plans on some future upgrades.  I can't wait!

Another World's First! (Mine's Visit, Part 3)

 So take a close look at this. 

Specifically, the brake rotor.

Yes my friends, it is a carbon ceramic rotor! As you saw from the Speedhunters post (note, I wrote this article and the SH post at about the same time, hence a lot of repetition between the articles), I just got these installed at Mine's during my visit there, and let me tell you - they are absolutely fantastic! A game changer.  Basically, all of my mods I think have been evolutionary in nature - one dimensional. So improve engine breathability or exhaust for more power; or increase body rigidity to make handling better; or improve the interior to modernize.

But this is the first mod I can recall, that improves handling, acceleration, AND braking. So perhaps a revolutionary mod?

So here is the background - it took over a year from inception to delivery, but it was well worth it.  A fellow R33 GT-R owner (Matt J) - crazy machine, more modded than mine - in the UK told me he was running carbon ceramic disks (his sizes are 343 and 330, I think). Naturally, I had been toying with grabbing some R35 Spec V carbon ceramic rotors I had seen on Yahoo Auctions, but everyone I talked to - Nismo guys included - recommended against it.  Apparently the Spec V rotors were not as good as they could be? Apparently they are noisy and require warming up before they start biting well. 

It was at this time that Matt let me know that he had gotten carbon ceramic rotors for his R33 from Simon at Midland Brakes, and was kind enough to e-introduce me to Simon.  Simon claimed his company could produce a bespoke set of carbon ceramic rotors in any size up to 420mm, so naturally it meant I could keep the R35 calipers on my car, and simply have him reproduce the steel rotors in carbon ceramic.  Truth be told, I was not confident that the rotors would arrive and would bolt right up to my existing R35 rotor hats, so I also asked him to make me a custom set of rotor hats as well, and to have them all assembled together so I wouldn't have to bother doing so.

Anyway, here are some photos Simon sent me during the build. First, he showed me what was happening with the rotor hats:

Then he sent me photos of the carbon ceramic rotors being made:

Once complete, he wanted to show me how light these rotors were, so Simon sent me the following as well:

Weight of rotors on scale, in kg. Front:

Rear:

And then of course with the rotor hats fitted. Front:

Rear:

Front on top of rear, showing the backside of the rear rotor which works with the R33 parking brake! (It's not a steel ring like that I had Ninomiya-san insert when I first got the R35 brakes fitted. Can't believe it's been 10 years since I got the R35 brakes...) 

Flash forward and just a few weeks before I was set to go to Mine's for the new Silence-VX Titan III exhaust install, the rotors arrived in the mail. Perfect timing!  I was planning on doing the install myself, but figured I'd take them down to Mine's to see what Nakayama-san thought.

When I dropped the car off and showed him the rotors, he was a bit skeptical.  He had dealt with UK companies before and apparently the quality was hit and miss (and unfortunately that has been my experience as well - even with parts from so called well known Skyline shops...who I will not name here).  Nevertheless he agreed to see if he could install the carbon ceramics.  I was half expecting a call with bad news - "sorry they don't fit" - but that call never came.

Rather, when I picked up the car after the install of the exhaust, R35 injectors and R35 AFMs, the first words out of Nakayama-san's mouth were - "where did you get these rotors again? Can you introduce us to him?" 

In other words, the guys at Mine's were very impressed.  Indeed, Niikura-san magically appeared and also started asking me who made them, where the company was located, how much, etc. And that after Nakayama-san had fitted them and broken them in, given Nakayama-san's rave reviews, he had also driven my car to see how they were - and pronounced them spectacular (although now, he could feel that my car was having some torque steer! Nakayama-san told me later this is a common issue on 33s)!  Nakayama-san agreed, saying these were the best they had ever come across, as they were always testing carbon ceramic rotors but had never found a set they liked.  He told me he had weighed the stock R35 rotors and hats, which came in at about 13kgs, but these carbon ceramics with hats were only 6kgs, resulting in unsprung weight loss of about 7kg per corner! 6kgs is lighter than the steel OEM R33 GTR Brembo rotors, which I think weighed about 9kgs each!

As I described in the Speedhunters post, I initially thought that I would have to lower the spring rates for the Ohlins coilovers, but Nakayama-san assured me they were fine as is. And after having now gotten used to how the car is, I have to agree. However the benefits of the reduced unsprung weight continue to impress me - the handling is light, yet communicative; with reduced rolling resistance the car accelerates now with a new fury, making it easy to get wheelspin in second and third gears, in addition to quicker starts from stop. As for braking, if there was any small complaint, it would be that these don't have the quick initial bite that I recall the old steel rotors having, but it is still very close.  And this is something I will work on improving, hopefully with some assistance from Simon and Mine's.

Incidentally, the guys at Mine's weren't the only pros who were impressed. When I dropped off my car Nismo Omori Factory right before year end, I had Ochiai-san drive my car and he was similarly impressed, although he said he could feel a slight judder - but nothing that further breaking in would not fix.  Otherwise, he said he was surprised at how natural the brakes felt, and how stopping power seemed to be without issue. 

So next steps... honestly not much more I can do with the brakes (except maybe experiment with different brake fluids) but Nakayama-san did hint he had a few more tricks up his sleeve that he promised would make my car even more responsive than it is currently.  Even though he told me my car is now "scary fast" and I have to agree with that assessment.

There is also the issue of having enough mods to do that are Speedhunters worthy, but I will worry about that when the time comes.