Fuji Speedway! No problems! 富士スピードウェイ無事走行！

No problems! The car and the new engine performed perfectly. Although I ran S-tires, which did not provide the best of grip and so it was not my best driving. However, I have a new personal record for speed - 260kph!
無事走行しました！新マインズ改エンジンは抜群です！自分の新記録最高速度：260km! しかし、Sタイヤではなくラジアルタイヤを履いて走ったので、自分の走りにちょっと不満あります。

At speed (my car on the LEFT, bad photo...)


Sunako-jukucho and my friend Nick about to go for a ride...


Also have new video of Sunako-jukucho driving (with Nick in the passenger seat)!
静画は近日投稿します。動画はどうぞー砂子塾長と僕の友達Nickさん。




Interestingly, Sunako-san said he felt the car lacked midrange torque, specifically between 4000-5000 rpm (I never noticed). So I took the car to Mine's for the after track day oil change, and mentioned this - and Niikura-san said, if that's what Sunako-san's thinking, then of course we'll take care of it!

砂子塾長がエンジンの弱点を解釈し、僕に説明していただきました。中低トルクがない！4000-5000回転では「バーン！」とこないと。これをマインズに伝えたら、新倉社長が：「砂子ちゃんがそういうなら、改善します！」など言ってくれました！

Tired:

(photo courtesy of Nick Martin)

Of course, the prize ceremony at the end was fun, too!
触ったいけない！と｡｡｡


And the next day, I swung by Nissan Prince Tokyo to get some air put BACK in my tires (which I had deflated as the heat of running the track causes the tires to expand). Thank you Honda-san!
日産プリンス東京モータスポーツ室の本田さんにまたお世話になりました！


Thank you everyone at SSCT.
SSCTの皆さん、お疲れ様でした！

S-Tires no Good!.このS-タイヤではサーキット走行は無理だろ！

This is the front left tire. See how it's worn out? Compare with next image, which is the right rear. Both of course are Yokohama A048s. Great tires.
左フロントSタイヤです。もうみぞが残ってませんね。次の写真と比較してください。両方はもちろんヨコハマタイヤのA048。とても良いタイヤです




So, I will have to do the track day at Fuji with the radial tires I have on the car now, Bridgestone RE-01Rs.
なので、残念ながら、今はいてるラジアル、ブリッヂストンポテンザRE-01Rで富士で走行するしかないな。

Daikoku Futo Night

Apologize for the low quality pics. Am working on getting a better camera...

Dino's car:


Good shot of my engine, with the Garage Defend GT Cooling Panel:


Me and two new friends from Spain - Rene (Tsuchiya-kun on the GTROC forum) and his friend David). These guys are in Japan on vacation, and rented a Nissan El Grande just to come to Daikoku Futo this evening. And convinced their wives to come too. Wow.


Miguel's 86. Now THAT is an ENGINE!!


Something about the alternator wires...Adam, Tom and Miguel work on the 86.


Tom's (tom80) Supra.


Good to see you guys again - Miguel, his buddy - "Extreme," Dino, his brother, the two guys from Yokota - James and Dillon, Tom, Adam, and the people from Spain. Hope everyone made it home ok.

Mine's - ALMOST done - but meanwhile. マインズ： もうちょっとで完璧に完成だね

We are quite not finished, but at least the engine runs very, very well! Yay! I picked the car up on Sunday - the O2 sensor was replaced, and the engine runs very smoothly, with no overheating. Yes, the idle is a bit rough compard to a normal engine, but otherwise, the response of the engine is fantastic, as is the power - wheel slip in second and third (it was raining, but...)

Anyway - the only thing now I am waiting for from Mine's are new engine covers - the ones fitted to my engine have a sheen to them, so they look pretty bad (e.g. the photo for the plastic oil filler cap - you can definitely see the sheen from improper painting).

Anyway - had an itch to do something - take a look at some of the photos here. I spent this evening changing 1) the GT-R badge for a new one, 2) changing my GReddy carbon fiber radiator cooling panel for a Garage Defend carbon fiber radiator cooling panel, and 3) changed the plastic oil filler cap with a billet aluminum NISMO version (thanks Mo for your generosity!).

New (left) and Old (right):




I was planning on keeping the old one for track days, but as it's somewhat of a pain to access, may just order another new one for back up.

GReddy Panel:




Garage Defend Panel




I plan to test and see if the Garage Defend panel is any better than the GReddy one, which is a design similar to Mine's and it seems everyone else. The theory with everyone else is that the half design lets hot air out on the sides. If that is correct, then I may change back to the GReddy one for the summers.

Plastic Oil Filler Cap:
プラスチックオイルキャップ


Nismo Aluminum Billet Oil Cap:
ニスモアルミ製オイルキャップ：


Here, I will probably keep the Aluminum one for looks only - for track days and days I will take the car in for service, will probably switch to the plastic one for ease of use.
展示のためだけに使います。走行会とか修理に出すときは、使いやすいプラスチックのキャップに再び交換。

Before:


After:


The end result:


Here is a better picture of before:
外したエンブレムです。画像をクリックしたら、どんなに劣化してるかよく分かります。

Two very cool photos

In keeping with the R33 GTR theme, I present:




and



copyright twinturbo.net (thanks!)

from what I gather, some folks from twinturbo.net were recently granted special access to Nissan's car storage facility in Zama. These were just two of the cars there.

More photos from the UK GTR guys! My car at Mine's!

Thanks Steve for the photos!! (Mo, still waiting for yours!)

These were taken when they visited Mine's and found my car on the lift, being worked on.

1) From underneath, looking from back to front:


2) From underneath, a look at the HKS Kansai carbon fiber undertray:


3) Some of the UK guys with the Mine's guys:


From left to right: Graeme, Yonezawa-san, Mo, Nakayama-san, and Steve.

my 15 minutes? how come I have no photos of me and my car??

Because of a request by a motorsport journalist in the UK (Andy English), found this old photo of me and my car. I was contacted because I had met motor journalist Peter Lyon a few weeks ago at Daikoku Futo, a parking lot in the Yokohama area where various sports cars congregate on occasion. At that time, Peter and some other journalists were in Japan to talk to people who owned Skyline GT-Rs. I was the only R33 in the group (the other 3 cars were R34s), so naturally attracted some attention. Anyway, Mr. English, who is at a leading UK newspaper got my name from Peter, and asked me to talk about the GT-R, and have a photo ready of me and my car. Because I was late in finding this, the paper might use a more recent photo of me in the new GT-R from this blog... Oh well.

Anyway, I had to dig into my hard drive to find this... This was taken at the Tsukuba Circuit at a Skyline Sports Car Club Tokyo track day, about two years ago. Note the lack of modification to the car, as evidenced by the standard suspension and lack of carbon fiber in the rear wing.



Here is another photo of me on the race track, this time at Fuji Speedway, about to get into the car as event organizer (and fellow R33 GT-R owner) Honda-san looks on.


Talking to Nissan mechanic Yamada-san about the tires getting too hot for the track.


Finally, just a picture of the car I took when waiting to pick up the girlfriend.