Scooter day out

I found myself looking today through some pictures I took over the summer. It’s getting colder by the day here in Kyoto and I found these shots from a perfect late summer day a few months ago when a few of my friends and I gathered some scooters and rounded Biwako, the largest lake in Japan. While everyone else had a scooter of their own, I didn’t, so a friend kindly let me use his Zoomer for the day:

Along the way we stopped plenty of times to enjoy the scenery. While the southern most areas of the lake are not the best looking, once you get up more north the water quality goes way up and the lack of people make for some nice peace and quiet.

In a few places a few of us stopped and decided to jump in. A few miles on the scooter and you were dry, so we did it a few times:

Ramen for lunch. In the middle of nowhere it was actually hard to find a good place to grab a bite:

Of course the lowest scooter award went to Masa with his Honda Dio.

I tried giving it a ride, but even at my low 170lbs the tire would rub the entire time, but as you can see it’s rubbed clear through the fender and was rubbing frame when I was on it…….

In all, it took us 12 hours from start to finish to make the journey. Passing cars in the middle lane, running to the front of the line at a red light, lots of fun. I was considering getting a scooter for myself, but maybe I will wait now until it warms up a bit around here. That and I just picked up a 2nd car! More on that in another post.

A new face in town

Masa’s older brother just picked up a new toy. Super clean daily driven TE71 with full AE86 drivetrain running carbs. Music to the ears:

Do want!

It’s a long story…..

But you all have time, don’t you. So in late 2007, shortly before I moved to Japan, I helped long time friend Keith pick up a clean Cressida chassis that was local to me in Chicago. I knew the build was going to long, and done correctly so I have been following it closely. As soon as he got the car back to Minnesota, the tear down began:

Ryan, who now works out west at HotLine, made an amazing cage for the car. And you can see the MarkII front end coming along…..and oh hi cool Sparco 18s!

And of course the needed powers to make some of that smokey stuff out the rear end:

He got some fancy-smanshy fiberglass that nobody has ever seen since this picture! But thats ok, I’m not one for multicolored cars myself either:

Of course the interior got a tad on the crazy side too, full interior race cars….come on that just sounds funny folks!

A bit more fab work, included some custom pipe for the noise maker under the hood, and some custom pipe our front to push those pesky hay bales and Roto brothers out of the way:

Of course after all that hard work (over 2 years of it!) you gotta take the beast out for some testing. Amid some minor engine issues the car starting to get a good amount of track time, and more importantly Keith was getting seat time again!

Of course, I know your all wondering how this thing sounds. Wonder no more:

Congrats Keith, glad to see your project finally coming to an end…sort of. Can’t wait to see how she looks next spring after some shiny stuff and some final wrapping up of loose ends.

Back in action

So you may or may not have know, since I never posted it here. But I sold my NB earlier this year while in Chicago to long time driver pal, Phil.

It was really hard to let go, but it went to a good home and I was happy at the prospect of it being used again for what I built it for. Since it’s heyday a lot of the parts were sold of it, so getting her back into proper form was going to be no easy feat. No cage, bucket, front mount, or even wheels remotely cool. But in no time, she was back up and running strong.

I was super stoked to see it out again. Sure it was odd, but you know what…strange as it sounds…it was like seeing a child out on its own (not that I truly know how THAT feels) doing well. For reasons unknown however, the motor decided to let go soon after it got going again and it sat awhile longer again…

After a little break, Phil got her going again with a new (used) BP long block and some help from a few of those ever so down to help Chicago folk. And just in time for the last event of the ClubFR Season at USAIR thankfully.

It was also cool to see the 15×8 KF’s I originally sent back to Chicago for Simba‘s fit make their way onto my old car. Can’t wait to see the car after the planned work over winter, and maybe even the chance to drive her again at some point in the future! Keep the rubber side down Phill!

Some more Suzuka Twin

We had a 3 day weekend here last week so a few of us took advantage and headed to Suzuka Twin. Same ‘ole track, but still had plenty of fun and some good tandem with the 86 again. Car need more grip, and a tad more power…but not much.

RD.com reppin

I like that rear banner on your hard top! Thanks Jeff, best of luck at Irwindale!

Nice shots from a recent lot event at Irwindale via ThisisFLIK

7tuned feature

As a nice round up to the coverage of Ebisu 2 weeks ago, Adam at 7Tune has been nice enough to put together an article on the car. Plenty of good pics and words. Thanks again!

More G1

and of course, none of it mine! Thanks to Dino again for the snaps and words!

Welcome

you’ve got 2 tickets….

…to the gun show!

Some Ebisu video

Thanks to Russ at RE Xtreme for tossing this video together from the footage he took last weekend:

Man I need to go WAY faster!