Real Life TOMICA Transporter?

So I goofed.  I forgot to have my GT-R undergo the annual "shaken" process back in June.  Normally, I would simply drive my car to the nearest dealership and have them take care of the shaken required various checks, tax payments, etc. but given my position at work, I decided that from a compliance perspective, it simply was not appropriate for me to engage in non-legal behavior. Especially involving a Nissan vehicle.

As a result, I called around and found an alternative way to get my car to a dealer - by special transport of course.  In the past the transporters I have used were gigantic but uncovered.  Perhaps this is special compared to transport services outside of Japan, but in Japan these flatbed types are often used for cars with low ground clearance - hence you see a lot of sports cars and expensive vehicles being transported this way. Sucks when it rains though, like this incident four years ago.

From an older post - http://www.r33gt-r.com/2018/09/electrical-gremlinargh.html

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover upon meeting up with the driver at the prearranged spot in my neighborhood, that this transport looked a bit different.

Note the interior lights as well as the open right side. Interesting!

And yes it started raining on this day too...

So having the driver pull the car onto the loader was one thing but... does it bother you that the red third brake light looks more red than the afterburners? Or is this a function of the camera? Remind me to check next time...

Anyway when I asked the driver about the transporter style, he told me that normally this transporter was used to haul race cars and special cars such as development mules, prototypes, and demo cars.  Hence the covered construction.  Yes, I got lucky!

So I then stepped back and let him do his thing:

Note the use of flat wooden boards prior to the ramps

Fits perfectly

So check out this video clip. Love the engine rev!

Then it was a matter of getting everything tied down securely. I guess compared to race cars and secret prototypes my car isn't a big deal.

Once secured, the entire platform moved up onto the bed of the truck.

Yeah, hard to see so I took this video of the hoist up and then the sides getting locked up.

So what do you guys think? Gigantic TOMICA, right? On the other hand I don't expect to always get this kind of treatment, but wow this was special. 

Problem Getting Car Ready for Shaken (Quickly Resolved)

Now this was unexpected...

A few days after I dropped the car off, and a couple of days before Nismo was getting ready to send my car to get shaken'd I got the following photos sent to me from Ochiai-san.

Hmm looks a bit dark on one side...

Interesting. Didn't know light was measured not in Lumens but in Hecto Candela for Shaken purposes

Yep, all that work to try to modernize the headlights and the right side bulb (showing a brightness of 71 hecto candela in the above photo) dies on me. Great.

Since I wasn't going to bother scrambling to find the exact replacement (Philips D2S/R bulb, 6200K, 3300lms - and no longer made!) nor was I going to pay an excessive amount of money for OEM (you know, I still have those bulbs somewhere...), I asked them to get something nearly equivalent in the aftermarket.

So they went ahead and got these.

From: SphereLight Website

So that's one problem (cheaply) solved. Hopefully.

What else?

Well, the HKS catalyzer. When taking your car in for Shaken, if you are running a non OEM catalytic converter, you need to have the paperwork from the parts manufacturer demonstrating that this part passes regulations. As I forgot to include this in the paperwork I left at Nismo, I had to scramble at home when I got the call and PDF it to them.

Looks like this - as you can see it has all the gas readings to show it actually reduces hydrocarbons...

This is actually for my old Apex'i one.

And then photos of how it's to look when properly installed.

The good news I got however is that the car passed Shaken and the guy didn't even bother to ask for this paperwork... oh well...

One more thing - I realized that I am getting a LOT of things done this time - but each item I have decided to do after lots of research and thinking (and budgeting, of course). So going forward, instead of showing everyone what I did when I picked up the car (which would be a very long post), I will be posting on the blog for each item I am getting done, and then when I pick up the car hopefully showing with photographs of the items on the car.

That should allow me to post more often, and in more detail! Next post coming soon!

One More Trip to Nismo Omori Factory... (Is this becoming an addiction?!)

So despite having had my car at Nismo Omori for a few months (conveniently while my house was being rebuilt) last year and getting the Nismo Omori Factory Chassis Refresh done, upon getting the car home earlier this year I realized there were a few more things I had to get done.

Ok... truth is I had to let my wallet recover for a few months before allowing them to do any more work!

This time, being that the car's bi-annual shaken is due in June, and in order to keep the car street legal, I decided to go ahead and have Nismo Omori take care of it this year. Turns out they are much closer in both distance and time to my house than Nissan Prince Tokyo Motorsports Factory as well as BeAmbitious, both places where I have had the shaken done before.  The fees and taxes are the same whoever does the work.  More importantly, I wanted Nismo to take care of a few things I didn't have the budget for last time.

Was nice to get the car out of the garage! Note the slightly overcast skies... better hurry before it rains!

First order of business - tires. Yes, ever since getting new tires back when I had the R35 brakes installed by Ninomiya-san at BeAmbitious back in November 2011(!!), I've had these Yokohama AD-08Rs.  Without even looking at the code on the sidewall, that means these tires are at least 9 years old!

Definitely time to change out for new tires. Stay tuned for what I decided to get!

Second, time to send in the Ohlins DFV (now called Road and Track) to be rebuilt (every 20,000km or 2 years). Last time I had them rebuilt was back in 2016.  This is actually fairly inexpensive, because I have chosen to keep everything the same, just renewed. Given the Chassis Refresh, I wanted to make sure that EVERYTHING - tires, coilovers, and bushes - are all new. I was suitably impressed with the result after the Chassis Refresh, but can't wait to experience how the car is when everything suspension related is new!

So those of you who are Nismo fans know that Nismo released their own Ohlins DFV coilovers back in March.  As far as I can tell, the only big difference to the original Ohlins spec is that the Nismo spec is a bit softer and thus a bit more street oriented (Nismo:  8.0(F)/8.0(R) kgf/mm; Ohlins original: 9.0(F)/8.0(R) kgf/mm).  I doubt I'll feel that much of a difference...

Parked and next in line for service - note the plastic cover on the steering wheel. Wouldn't want to get grease on the leather!

Weird how the color is different from inside at this angle...

What else? Well there are a few other things that need to be taken care of. Since they predict I will get the car back around the end of July (!), I will discuss some of those items in my upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

Biannual "Shaken" and Öhlins DFV Rebuild, Part 1

So the same Sunday I visited Nissan Prince to pick up some parts and replace the under bonnet insulation, afterwards I drove over to drop off my car with Ninomiya-san at his shop, BeAmbitious, in Yokohama near my house.  He is the only tuner/mechanic I've found who's been willing to do stuff most shops here in Japan won't.  For example, he had no problems (and even fixed an issue with the UK made brackets) installing the R35 brakes on my car (this was after Nissan Prince, Three-H, and even Mine's refused to install them), as well as the BNR34 diffuser install (again coming up with custom brackets).

This time, I asked him to take care of the bi-annual "shaken" - the road-worthiness "inspection" + plus tax payment required for all street legal cars in Japan and then, as Dino had agreed with me when he drove my car, to have the Öhlins DFV coil-overs rebuilt.

The shaken is something that HAS to be done, by law... unfortunately, the stringent rules means that, for any car that is moderately tuned, unless you leave your car with someone who knows a few tricks, or is required to be scrupulously honest and "by the book" (i.e. a dealership), your car will fail and be "mandated" to have expensive repairs done to make it "roadworthy" again.

Because Ninomiya-san has a long history of working on race and drift cars, he knows how to "massage" them to get them road legal.  For example, I'm pretty sure (and he agrees) the Tomei ExPreme titanium exhaust, as fitted on my car, is too loud to be road legal. And yet he apparently has a special exhaust insert which he uses to muffle the sound to legal levels. For cars that are lowered, there are ways from setting coil-overs to their highest setting, to over-inflating the tires, etc., to ensure the car has 9cm between its lowest point and the road. In any case, I can trust him to get the car to pass shaken with minimum hassle and fuss.

Also, I figured that, since the car would be with him, I would leave my old Nismo S-Tunes shocks with him (that I did not throw out), so he could put those on the car while he sent the Öhlins in to be rebuilt. Even though I don't drive my GT-R as much as I used to, as I have mentioned earlier I had recently begun noticing that the ride seemed a bit too stiff, with the coil overs not responding quickly enough.

As a refresher, here is the link to when I first had these Öhlins installed, as well as the propaganda from Öhlins  (Japan) as to what makes them better than the average aftermarket coilover. And here is what Öhlins (Sweden) says (they are now called their "Road & Track" model).  These following two diagrams, both taken from the English language website, demonstrate the difference:

 From the Öhlins website -  "Without DFV, the oil cannot flow through the piston quickly enough on the rebound stroke after a bump, so the tyre is not able to stay in contact with the road.

From the Öhlins website: "The DFV valve opens, letting the oil flow quicker though the piston on the rebound stroke after hitting a bump, enabling the tyre to stay in contact with the road."

When I first had the DFVs installed, even though they were pre-used the car would glide over small imperfections... and now, on the same settings, I seem to feel imperfections more, and at speed sometimes the rebound clearly doesn't react as quickly as it should, meaning the car bounces fairly hard.

Also, since the model I have was released, there have been some improvements Öhlins has made to the DFV model. Or rather, it appears that they now offer a "rubber bushing upper mount" model in addition to the standard "pillow ball upper mount" model which is what mine are.

So I left the car with Ninomiya-san asking him to take care of everything, the shaken as well as getting the Öhlins rebuilt with those rubber bushings...

The following Friday, Ninomiya-san called me, with the shaken already done!

Another customer car that was there... a race ready Chaser.

But when I went to pick up the car, he had some stories:

First, my car on the height adjustable Öhlins, set at their highest setting, only resulted in 8.5+cm off the ground.  So, he had to install the S-Tunes, which apparently cleared 9.0cm.

Second, my car was failed because the window film on the driver's side window was not clear enough(!) When I had the rear window and quarters tinted with dark film, I also had anti-UV film applied to the passenger and driver's side windows.  I did not recall what percentage of light they let in but compared to the rears the sides were relatively clear.  It turns out that the legal limit is 70%... that is 70% or more of the light has to be let through.  For some reason, the passenger side film DID let in exactly 70% and is thus legal... but the driver's side film let in only 69.5%!!!  Ninomiya-san thinks this is probably from all the usage (opening/closing) that the driver's side window which may have added minute scratches which then caused the difference.  The solution was to have the tint stripped off at the inspections center.  This however is a blessing in disguise as I will explain in an upcoming post.

Otherwise, he had no problems at the shaken center with the Tomei exhaust, or the Getrag conversion, or even the darkly tinted rear windows.

So, I paid the fees (about $1000 US for the shaken process), and drove home with the car temporarily on the S-Tunes... and it was weird... I'll blog about that in my next post.

A JDM Modernization - The Road Flare

Those of you who have imported a used JDM spec car from Japan have probably seen this, usually located on the side kick panel on the passenger side:

Yes, it's a road flare. Required by Japanese law to be installed on each car, and something inspected at the biannual "shaken" inspection (required to keep the car registered).

I discovered from some internet research that, while each car must have one on board, no one really bothers to check the expiration date.  This is probably why when I pulled mine out the other day, I realized to my horror that, as you can see, the flare's "use by" date was April 2009!

Although, I'm not too sure flares can go stale?

In any case, a regular flare is only about 600 yen, and sold pretty much at all gas stations and car parts stores nationwide. So it would be easy to replace, but then I wouldn't be posting this.

What I found is this following - an LED flare!  And for not much more either, about 1000 yen.

Uses 9 LEDs, with 3 different mounting methods (for trucks, cars and kei- cars)
Clearly labelled as "compliant with Ministry of Transport safety regulations"

Hard to believe, but this is Shaken-compliant. According to the manufacturer, this LED version has several advantages over the standard flare:

1.) LED light stays on for over 20 hours, versus 5 minutes for a standard flare
2.) just twist the bottom to turn on. No need to remove the cap and ignite the fuse
3.) with battery changes, basically lasts forever. Standard flare - only 4 years
4.) waterproof in normal use, and in the rain. Standard flare - easily extinguished
5.) safe to use, just turn on. Standard flare, you run risk of secondary burns.
6.) LED produces no smoke, can use in tunnels. Smoke in flare can be an obstacle
7.) LED not regulated, while flares are subject to the Explosives Control Act.

Also - they don't mention that it has a magnetic base, so you could have it stuck to your car rather than thrown onto the road somewhere... although that presents another issue, you have to remember to turn it off when you are done, you can't just leave it to burn out!

With no expiration date, I'll only have to worry about the batteries - although the obvious question here is - why haven't car manufacturers made a rechargeable LED flare that plugs into its own exclusive outlet in the car?

The other worry is, can the LED be BRIGHTER than the flare? I mean, that's the real issue, right? I mean this photo doesn't really inspire much confidence...

from http://mimmim.net/r56-bmw-mini/20111124/5635/

Although this manufacturer explanation appears to make it sound like it would work:

Finally, I've never heard of a flare going off by itself and catching fire, but to me it seems possible with a chemically based one. An LED one should be safer...anyway installation, of course is easy:

For those who want to see the clip clearly

Just stick in the clip!

In any case apologies for the short post. I do have a few other projects waiting in the wings...just got an interesting email today on a custom part I've been waiting on... they tell me it will be ready by mid August...before then will have a few other items to post, too! Stay tuned...

Update #2 from Mine's...

So got an update from Mine's earlier today. Turns out, the problem was not one burst hose but two! Not sure exactly which hoses (they were behind the engine), but likely due to normal wear and tear? Or is something else to blame? I'll find out when I pick up the car hopefully later this week.

I had also mentioned when I dropped the car off, to Nakayama-san, that my car's exhaust stunk.  In fact it was overpoweringly bad. Mine's is reporting that this is because the catalytic converter (Apex'i Super Catalyzer) is dead.  I suspected this, in fact, and was thinking about getting another one to replace it.

from Apex'i website - http://www.apexi.co.jp/products/exhaust/cata.html

The Apex'i replaced the OEM one that was on the car when I bought it. This was a couple of years even before I had the Mine's engine put it, circa early 2006.

At the time, in my research I found that the Apex'i was the best catalytic converter because it had the lowest cell per square inch (cpsi) of only 130 cpsi - most other catalytic converters were in the 200 range (OEM is 400) and therefore more constrictive.

However, I always believed that catalytic converters pretty much lasted the entire life of the car, although now I suspect that is only true if your car is not highly tuned.

But a relief the smell wasn't necessarily caused by the engine. I've asked Mine's to go ahead and install a new catalytic converter - they've recommended an R33 GT-R specific one by HKS, which happens to be the one I was looking at anyway. Hopefully they will have photos of the old one for me to see how badly it had degraded.

The HKS one has 150 psi so a slight increase, however their website claims that their catalyzers have "high purification performance" - so something to look forward to, if true.  And if for some reason the HKS fails or dies in the future, at least its replacement cost is not as much as the Apex'i.

From: http://car.indac.jp/product_shousai.asp?hin=10123126012

In any case, as Mine's has the car for a few more days,  I've decided to ask them to do a full check of the car, in order to see if there are any other parts that could be suspect.  I'll post what (if anything) they find.  Hopefully this whole incident was just a wake up call for me to pay more attention to my car!

Stay tuned...

CUSCO Tension Rod Bar Installed/Impressions

So the other day, I realized I was over due for "shaken" - the biannual road inspection regime in Japan that is supposedly designed to get dangerous cars off the road, but in reality is a way to incentivize people to buy new cars due to the sometimes crazy costs associated with "repairing" cars to bring them up to standards (yes there is some price gouging). So in other words, the typical person goes to the dealership and either comes out with a few thousand dollar repair bill, or a new car.

In my case, as is common with people who are not interested in playing such a game, one can go to your local trusted mechanic who knows the rules and how to get around them... cheaply.  I took my car to BeAmbitious (same shop which did the installation of the R35 Brembos, rear BNR34 diffuser, S15 trunk brace, Nagisa brace, Tomei ExPreme titanium muffler, etc.) and had Ninomiya-san there take care of getting my car properly "shakened" (he told me: had to raise the ride height of the car, special bung for the Tomei muffler, etc.).

While the car was with him, I decided to have him install the final external body stiffening part I could find: the CUSCO Tension Rod Bar.  I had meant to do this myself, along with an oil change, but laziness dictated otherwise.

Here are some photos from the CUSCO website, to show you what they look like:

Courtesy of CUSCO

The Bar looked like this when it arrived:

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the bar installed, because I didn't do the work. I did find this  photo on Minkara, you can see how the blue bar bolts onto the inside each of the tension rod mounting points (so in effect, connects the two sides together).

Courtesy:　http://minkara.carview.co.jp/en/userid/178485/car/68462/4485982/parts.aspx

The description from the CUSCO website states: "The Tension Rod Bar is made from 22mm steel pipe that enhances chassis stiffness, rigidity and stabilizes alignment."  Ok sure, whatever.   I was not expecting much, if anything, after all of my body stiffening projects.  Further, the Minkara poster also stated he could not feel a difference (although he admits he added these when he changed his tension rods).

So, what are my impressions?  To be honest, I think there is a very slight improvement in how the car's steering feels upon turning, as well as the car's response.  That is, on center feel is still somewhat numb (compared to my recent drive in an NSX - and this is the Holy Grail for me), but moving the steering wheel to begin a turn, feels more direct, and the response feels more immediate (so is this an "enhancement of chassis stiffness, rigidity and stabilizes alignment"??).  As a result, the car feels a touch more nimble, which is a good thing in my book.  But I still want more feedback on-center, I was hoping this Tension Bar would help, but all it did was to further highlight it!

 But for the price, a worthwhile mod. Your results may vary, indeed I may be suffering from a placebo effect! I am now beginning to wonder if it might be worth getting my car spot welded in a few strategic places, but I have to research whether the pros outweigh the cons for that. I realize that spot welding probably won't make the car feel like an NSX, but at the same time am curious as to what would happen in terms of how the car feels.

Getting ready for Shaken (last belated post) and changing out my wheels

Anyone who's owned a car in Japan knows about the bi-annual (every two years) Shaken （車検）(mandatory safety inspection)process. What a farce, and a pain.

At its core, you have to pay various taxes, based on the size of the car and its engine size. Then, mandatory insurance in case you hit someone. Then, the car has to be in "safe operating condition" - which really is a chance for dealerships and repairshops to get rich doing minor work that normally would not cause a car to blow up on the road. Like mis-aimed headlights or old wiper blades. Or wheels and tires that stick out past the fenderwells (this is illegal in Japan).

So I found myself at the Camp Zama auto shop on Saturday, with my good friend DCD. Apparently he's somewhat known in the rice rocket world for his work taking photos of certain flashy J-cars. Whatever. Talk about exploiting a niche! Lucky bastard!

Anyway DCD had offered to come with me to change out the wheels and tires of my car, back to the standard 17in alloys, with new tires (the superb Dunlop Star Specs). As Alex had already taken the tires off for his son to use (my donation), all we had to do was to install the new tires and balance the wheels!

Here is my car in the shop, right before we changed the wheels.






Once we had the car up, I started cleaning the underside (phone call to Nissan and they told me that they do this for the Shaken!). Meanwhile, DCD and Alex decreed that, the rubber strip I had added to the front spoiler was a hazard as it was hanging off a bit, so they proceeded to remove it.




I next decided to wash the car - what the heck. After I pulled the car back inside and started to towel dry it off, it hit me - why not use compressed air to PROPERLY dry the car?

Then DCD discovered the air hose was good for cleaning interiors, too! Here he is, hard at work...






On Saturday, took my car to a local shaken specialist. Unfortunately, they decreed that my front pipe was too big - the ground clearance was LESS than the required 9cm... so on Sunday, went to Yokota base to borrow a standard front pipe from my friend James, and drove back to the shop in the Toyota Cresta they lent to me so they could install the standard pipe. Talk about a real hassle. The shop also said the left front CV boot was torn, necessitating replacement (which they did).

Picked up the car last night - all in all, a relatively good experience, as I'm pretty sure I saved lots of $$$$ in the process! But this weekend, I'll have to put the Mine's front pipe back on...