Bored @ Work

This morning I was really bored, and decided to make a motivational poster. Thanks to Mike Self and his great talent for photography. This was taken at the 4AG challenge at Willow Springs International raceway (aka Big Willow). The unknown R33 GTR being chased by Toyota Corolla in Levin form. Driven by Mitsu of Mitsu's Garage. Thanks to all who particiated. No Skylines were harmed during the event, except for a bruised driver's ego.

West Coast Z Nationals

When Spring rolls around, so do the Zs. This past weekend was the annual West Coast Z Nationals, hosted by Motorsport Auto. I don't know which was the hotter, the cars or the weather. It was a great show of all kinds of Zs from very original stock cars, to Japan wannabes to out of the box thinking. I do love this show due to the uniqueness on how each owner represents their vehicle.


Some nice original example

A very unique rear engine rear drive Z. Powered by a Maxima VQ. A work in progress.

Some may see a rust bucket, but I see a survivor. Though I don't know how much longer it'll last.

Toyota 7MGTE powered Z.




Many twins were out were roaming the show.

Tastefully done cars to represent the Japanese market, they just need the steering on the other side to complete the transformation.


The 260Z, a rare but never fully embraced model of the Z. This was the smallest group at the show, but they did have cool a Japan FairladyZ equipped with the G nose option.

Probably the most unique engine i've seen at the whole show. Twin cam twin turbo L series engine. What makes this possible is the use of chopped up KA24DE cylinder heads. An engineering marvel IMO.

Yet another Nissan using Toyota parts. Roof spoiler from an MA60 Supra on a 280Z.

Z owner's rendition of the Mach 5.


Drag race Z31.


I didn't take too many pictures of the Z32 or Z33 models, so I just took group pictures.

Nissan Motorsport brought out their former IMSA race car. Very cool to see.Nissan also brought out their GTR. Soon to be reigning terror on the streets. This was my first time to actually look at this car up close. Very impressive, now if only Nissan will let me have the keys for a day.



There was a plethora of wheels from new school to old school.


Maybe the rarest wheel for a early Z owner. Z432 optional magnesium wheels. Please leave your flares at home. If you still don't know, it's the one in the center.

The Z, a classic that has made it's mark in America. It's good to see examples that have continued to defy the years, except for that orange one. For more pictures of the event click here.

It's one of them weeks.

A week later I have nothing to show. I've been pretty busy working on different projects for the car lately. So I haven't have much time to add content. Please forgive as show season is upon me and things must be completed before then.


Trying to turn this bundle of wire harness.


Into something I can use for the standalone I picked up a 1 year ago. Yeah i've been putting it off for a long time.


Started to give the car some color.


Just completed assembly of another transmission that I broke a while back. More on that at a later date.

Picked up another front bumper for cool guy look. Let's hope we don't break this one. Yeah right.



Swung by the West Coast Z Nationals to snap a couple of photos. Give me some time and I'll get the photos up soon.

Tune Up Time

The car's been suffering from an intermittent misfire for the past few months. Usually it wasn't that big of a problem just happened randomly. This past Easter event, it got really bad so I decided it was time for a tune up.

Popping off the distributor cap, I noticed oil inside. Bingo. The leaky distributor, which I got from my neighbor, was enough to seep oil towards the #4 contact causing my nasty misfire. Being 20+ years old the seals are worn and a rebuild is in order.

Luckily I have a spare distributor rebuild kit from KBox engineering. I think these guys first started doing stuff for the AW11 MR2 chassis. Since 4AGE parts are shared between chassis', their distributor rebuild kit was a natural for AE86 distributor. Their service is top notch definitely an excellent place to do business with.

Here's what you get when you received the kit. New bearing, shaft seal, cap o-ring, electrical plug o-ring, distributor o-ring, and roll pin.

I also picked a gear kit from Herb @ Cabe Toyota. Besides the gear being completely worn out. Damage will most likely occur when drilling the old roll pin unless you're really careful.

Both kits came with a pin for the distributor drive gear. I had used the roll pin provided by Kbox on my stock car. This time I will use the factory pin for the race car.
Before we begin let's adhere to the disclaimer.

Drill out the head of the pin, then use a hammer and punch to bang out the rest of the pin. Once removed, the gear should slide right off. Before removing make sure you mark the position of gear's timing divit in relation to the shaft. It's the divit that you use when lining up the distributor to make sure it's at TDC. If it's not installed correctly, your timing marks will be incorrectly lined up.
Here's the distributor disassembled and ready for rebuild.
Here's the leaky culprit. Pretty much all the rubber was hardened and disintegrated when I removed it.
Everything installed and almost ready to go back into the engine.

If you're like me and rather save couple bucks on a rebuilt distributor. The KBox kit is an excellent kit for the do it yourselfer.

Formula D Long Beach 2008

It's been a while since I was a Long Beach for a motorsports event. Back when Long Beach Grand Prix when Champ Car was still Indycar World Series. Where I was rooting for Marlboro and Team Penske, even though I didn't event smoke. This past weekend I went for a visit to Long Beach for Round 1 of Formula D. I've been too many west coast events, but yet I never went to Long beach. Looking at the schedule, I didn't feel like going in and standing around for hours to see a 2 hour competition.
I had arrived there around noon time to catch the last half of the qualify session. Unfortunately, the Corolla hero Toshiki Yoshioka didn't make the cut. Qualifying 18th, missing the next round by 2 spots.

Taka and Seigo looking discussing life as a drifter? Unfortunately they didn't make the cut to move to the top
Hayashida checking out the qualifying session.
After qualify we met with a few friends working the event, but decided it would be best to cool down at Rockbottom restaurant, which is a pretty good place to eat and have a good brew.


Titan toothpicks and a red lager. What better way to enjoy Long Beach. We kept cool and our tummies full until we were ready to head back to see the top 16 battle.



I brought my point and shoot Olympus camera for all the shots, which really sucks cause I didn't know how to use it to my advantage. And add insult to injury, the battery decided to go at the start of the top 8 round.

I didn't see the end cause I had a premenition that Sam would come in first, he usually does. 2nd place would go to Forsburg, Tanner coming in at 3rd with Mohan in 4th. Boy was I wrong, after reading everythingdrift.com Damn I guess should stick it out next time, with drifting it's always anybodys game.

I think the topper for that event was Kyle Mohan. I remember when that guy was rocking the 1st gen RX7 at the drift days. And yeah he still killed it with that car. For a privateer to come up and lay the smack down to some of these competitiors a much bigger budget and horsepower to a fourth place finish is awesome. He's worked really hard to get where he's at right now and deserves it. Probably more if his transmission didn't go out. Congratulations!


Here's a couple of pics I took of the event here.

Driver Seat 911 GT3 RS

I was sent this link a while back and thought it's one of the best sites i've seen yet. If you love the sound of an all motor Porsche or just have a driver's view of Weissach track in the cockpit of a Porsche GT3 RS then this place is a must. It takes time for the video to load but it's all worth it. 56k people you'll need to steal the neighbors wireless to view this, but make this the last thing you see before you get busted.

Click here or the picture above.

What's in your Garage?

I came across this blog called Garage Envy. And yes you will be in envy when you see some of these garages that are featured on this site, I know I am. I can only dream to have a garage like that. But in reality I just need to clean out the garage and sell all the junk that's in there, yeah right. One man's junk is another man's treasure.