What's left..

After many late nights, i'm still not finished. I'm so tired right now that I can't really think straight. I decided to drop off the car at Long Beach instead of taking it back with me so i can work on it. Which I initially was planning to do. But my judgement was so clouded that I thought that I need a only a few things done. Now I regret my actions after I realize that there may be more that needs to be done. Oh well I'm pretty sure i can get it done we'll see. At least I passed tech with these items:

Battery kill switch activated with

a pull cable.

Tow hooks of the Home Depot variety

Made sometime to swap out the fuel pump swapped out the fuel pump to a 1JZ pump. For that extra bit of confidence

Added the cock crotch strap, my least favorite item.

Thanks to Steve @ SRMotorcars and Henry S. for helping me out with dyno time and tune. The day before the event.

This week...

Elections are over and we have spoken. Congratulations President- Elect Obama for a well fought campaign. In other news, just been doing alot of work on the car. Little by little it's all coming together.

Fitted the dash

Some trimming was required to coerce the pieces in place.

Some new changes in management was in order

Out: HKS F-Con unit, it's probably older than some of you. But it still works as long as you keep around 10 PSI. But it's so difficult to resist the dark side of boost.

In: AEM stand alone, it's what I install as a part time job. Why did it take me 3 years to finally do my own car?

New seating arrangements

Old: Cobra Kevlar Sebring seat. Yes this seat is pretty old too. Unfortunately, it doesn't comform to current FIA standards so it must be sent out to pasture. It's served me well for the past 8 years and will be missed.

In: Cobra Suzuka seat that complies with FIA regulations. Besides Recaro, I consider Cobra having seats that best fit me. When choosing your seat don't let your choices come down to brand name, cause who cares what kind of seat you have, if you're the one that's uncomfortable.

Added this cool battery box.

We now have life!

A couple of keystrokes we made fire!

All it takes is a leaky water pump to bring back down. Really dumb but these things happen when I reuse parts.

One thing really useful about a non running Volvo Wagon is that it makes for great storage when rebuilding the other car.

The choice is yours

You can get with this or you can get with that. Today is election day, let's exercise our rights as citizens to get the vote out. I know this isn't car related but it something I think people have continued to take for granted. I've voted since I was 18 and years later i'm still voting. I'm not saying who you should vote. I just believe as citizens this is a privilege just like driving is a privilege. Can you believe some people think driving is a right. Anyways all I say is this if you didn't vote last election, you have no right to complain.

Monkey Bars by Battle Version

Picked up the pile from Alex P. this weekend. Alex P. besides being a former Formula D judge and currenly back in the driver seat as a drift competitor, is also fabricator extrodinaire and owner of the Battle Version company. Since I had to have a legal cage installed, I pretty much already had great trust in him to get the cage done. As much as I already hate installing extra weight on the car, it's a requirement for racing. Does this mean I'm a racer now?

Here's a couple of photos of the cage.

Rather than try and save some cash and reuse use the previous roll bar setup from TechnoSquare, I went ahead and had him build a whole new hoop, using the old one as a template.

According to Alex, he hasn't seen anyone use this configuration of door bars. So he claims it to an original design and thus be his signature door bars. It will make entry and exit of the vehicle a less painful experience on the butt.

I also made time to drop in the engine and remove the HVAC system off the car. Sigh, as much as I hate removing it it's a necessity to drop the weight down, and i was just hella lazy to do it. Though it didn't feel like much weight was removed just alot of work to do it. With winter approaching, going to track days are going to be much colder.

Go visit Alex's site BattleVersion for more info on his parts or if you need a cool cage like mine.

Learning more about Project 740

It's been a tad busy lately, but I took some time to actually look the new project. But now let's take the grand tour of our Project 740.

Right now it doesn't start so a charge of the battery was in order. Let's make it a quicky.


During the battery charge stage let's look at our engine bay.


Unfortunately, I didn't do that great of a job cleaning the engine bay, it's still dirty. Looks like there's maybe quite a few leaks that'll be fun to hunt around the source.

Here's the mighty turbo, all bow down to the sacred snail.

Enough let's finally look what's inside the car.


It's very roomy inside. Almost cavernous from this view.


Beautiful black leather adorn these seats, they spared no expense here. You may see in the above picture. These are spiders webs that are all over the place. It might be time for a bug bomb.


Ahh yes, heated seats that's luxury. Never had a car with heated seats before.



Going back to the reason why this thing didn't start. Upon furthur investigation, I didnt' get a spark so it will come down to possibly bad sensor or maybe coil, let's pray that it's not an ecu. That will have to be checked out at another time.

I need some more time to complete the other project.

Check my flickr site for more photos of the brick.

The 740 considered the home away from home.

The cool guys at Jalopnik have compiled a list of cars you can live in if your home gets possessed, or you get the boot. Oddly enough they also chose the vehicle I picked up to go racing with, Volvo 740 wagon , it's even in the same color, just not as clean. I hope it's not a sign of things to come. To view the list click here.

[Source: Jalopnik]

Japanese Classic Car Show 2008

As enthusiasm grows in this community so does number of cars that attend these events. From it's humble beginnings at the Queen Mary park area to it's new spot at the Hidden Valley Park in Irvine California. Yes the same spot where they have the California Truck Jam. Anyways let's enjoy some pics I took at the event.

The original GS-R, Integra got nothing on this thing. BTW if you're wondering it's a Japan spec 1973 Mitsubishi Galant FTO.

Even after battling hard yesterday at Formula D Irwindale, Hiro S. and Taka A. made time to visit JCCS. Greeting all the fan boys in attendance.

Some needs to tell this guy that the show is for classics. Where do these S13 owners come from?

Mazda R100 is something I don't see everyday, especially super clean ones.

My favorite wheel of all time do you know what it is?

A Datsun RL411 and according to the owner, there are very few left.

Toyota Crown that's been under the knife and turned into a hot rod by Mooneyes, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I didn't take quite as many photos, cause it was hot and I had to leave early.

But for more information on next years event. Visit their website.

For more pics click here.

Somewhere in Torrance: The Toyota Museum

In a city not too far from me there's a unmarked warehouse that houses quite a few interesting vehicles from Toyota. Last week I was fortunate to tour the facilities. I was here a few years ago but didn't have a camera capture these Toyota moments. This time I was prepared, let's take a look.

Toyota's first imported cars. The Toyopet Crown full restored to it's original glory and very rare I might add.

Toyota's first imported van aka Toyota Van. I'm curious why they didn't put name until the next generation van, the Previa. This one above is equipped with an ice cooler/ ice maker.

The FJ series vehicles, in my opinion, one of the best 4WDs to ever come out at the time.

An old IMSA GTP race car, Formula Atlantic, and Champ car, put out to pasture in the Toyota Museum.

Toyota Crown, I swear this looks like a knock off of an american domestic, heck the Toyopets kinda remind me of early 50's Chevy's. And people whine about the chinese copying things.

Unfortunately, the point and shoot's battery took a dump and cut short the photos.

The museum isn't open to the public, only by invitation/ reservation. If you're a Toyota person, or just have a fascination of all things car this is one of the places you should visit. Thanks to toyotageek for the invite.

Here's the link for the rest of the pics here.

Project:740 #1 This is only the beginning pain will soon follow

Yesterday, I was tricked into buying this brick. A 1990 Volvo 740 wagon, with turbo and intercooler.

It's a non running pile, but it was purchased with very little moola.

I decided to bring the car in for a pressure was cause it's a massed quite a follow of friends of the 8 legged variety yuck.

There are quite a few things going thru my head on the possiblities of this car. Should I join the lemon heads in the 24 Hours of LeMons again? Maybe try out for the Grassrootsmotorsport $200x challenge? I'll be posting it's progress, whenever I get off my lazy ass to work on it. But for now let me dig a hole for Pro Am and 4AG time attack.

Down but not out.

A computer geek I am not. Unfortunately, I screwed up my computer and corrupted a bunch of files to the point it doesn't boot up anymore. So I haven't been able to put up anything. What's even more annoying is I have to grab all my files, reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything, dammit this is horrible. Anyways here's something which was forwarded to me and I thought was ridiculously cool. 1979 MG Midget that's been subjected to the Japanese rules of style. Sporting flares, wheels, and even engine from Japan. It's up for sale on ebay so if you so desire a euro car with an asian influence this might be the beast for you.

Here's the ebay link. Good luck.

A little bit of Italy

After attending my first Monterey Historics race, I began a curiosity of European cars. No not them supercars that you either love or hate. But cars that never shared the limelight with their supercar brethren. This led me here to Eddins Moto. The owners been tweaking around with Italian cars for 30 years, though it looks like he dabbles in anything European. From Appias (say what?), Ferrari, to Maseratic and everything else in between. The website has many write ups of cars he's worked on at the shop. He also has cars for sale if you're going for a different car from you typical Porsche or Benz. They're up in Berkley, so next time I'm up in nor cal, I'll have to visit his shop. But that's after I rummage through Hasselgren's trash for some parts.

Here's a link to his website.

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Another one bites the dust

Hmm I wonder if it's me or coincidence. It seems that every time I contemplate going to a Formula 1 race they decide to give it the boot. It seems that the 2009 Canadian Grand Prix will not happen. First was U.S. Grand Prix and now Canada. Which is sad, this means there's no North American Formula 1 race. I wonder if I decide to attend Singapore Grand Prix will they cancel it? Hopefully all this is temporary and Formula 1 will return to North America.

Source: F1-Live

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I Way: Best simulator out?

I never been much of a video game geek unless it came to racing simulators.  Even then I can't really spend the money when I can go out and do the real thing, which is stupid since it's probably cheaper than going out on track.  But during my endless waste of scouring the internet, I came across this video of a simulator which looks fantastic.  Unfortunately, it's in France, yes home of the Eiffel Tower and french toast.  Located in the city Lyon, I Way is like a spa for guys.  Espcially gear heads, with an emphasis in racing.  Inside you'll find racing simulators for Formula 1, Rally, and endurance racing.  But rather sit in a seat with steering wheel, the patron is seated in full size racing machines that are operated with hydrualics that i've only seen on flight simulators.  There's also a full bar and spa which you can relax after a hard day at the simulator. 

For more information, visit their website

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