Retired an old friend

 

This was is the steering wheel I've been using for the last 9 years. I bought this on Ebay, in 2003 for $50. It is from a special edition Saab 900, made by Momo, from 1983. I've seen one other person with this wheel in my life, and it was in a magazine.

It has lasted me for quite some time. The steering wheel is almost as old as I am! Anyhow the leather was getting really torn, and wasn't really working too well with my gloves. I began to search for a replacement.

I started searching on Craigslist, and found this. Its a 5Zigen N1R. It is supposed to be a pretty rare piece. The kid I bought it from wasn't too knowledgeable and probably wanted to get rid of it because he bought a Chinese copy Nardi. Anyhow, I bought it for $50. It was worth driving far and speaking with him (he wasn't very pleasant) just to score this deal! Anyhow I felt good about putting this wheel on my car, since its pretty vintage in itself. It is stamped "1993".

I found a great place for my now retired piece though. It took its rightful place in my man-cave among some of my other automotive treasures!

Using fire to bond metal to metal

I welded for the first time ever! Made my  new battery tray, and in the process Mr. Pfeiffer had me do most of it my myself. Also fixed the exhaust hanger, because for some reason I break a lot of exhausts. I'm pretty proud of myself because it doesn't look like one of Mark E's welds (think boogers) and I didn't hurt myself. Of course, Alex has a very expensive welder, and he set it up for me.

Third exhaust I've broken. Its not cracking here ever again.

Battery bracket!

Cooling Blues

The last track outing I had was a blast, but wasn't without its setbacks. Leaving my car in storage for the past 2  years definitely took its toll, and showed me what I needed to fix/improve on. It was my first time with my new suspension components, engine tune, and brakes.
 The issue with open track event was with my cooling system. I always bought parts that were overkill for the car, so that I could beat on it without any worries of breaking anything. My cooling system (minus the massive oil cooler) has always been "adequate" but for some reason, the car was overheating after about  3 consecutive laps at the Streets of Willow.

I was using an OEM 2-row, which up till this point, has been great. I still recommend one to anyone with an AE86. However, since the fluid was brown I wasn't sure if its condition or the fluid in the car. I decided to do a full flush on the system, and at the same time hunt for a new radiator

OEM 2-Row AE86 radiator, brass, with my Flex-A-Lite fans

There are actually several choices for performance radiators for the AE86. I specifically looked at 4 different ones: Griffin, Koyo, Chinese copies of Koyo (including Mishimoto), and OEM rebuilt.

The Griffin, as explored by this article (http://www.driftday.com/Griffin%20test.htm) seemed like the top choice for me. However, Griffin apparently doesn't stock this radiator, and I heard some horror stories about them sending out multiple radiators that simply didn't fit at all.

I considered an OEM rebuilt, from a local radiator shop. These shops seem to be dying, since most radiators these days are plastic. The one I spoke with has been around for a while, but the guy was kind of a jerk. He quoted me $80-$120 depending on what needed to be done. I always love customer stuff, so this stayed on my radar.

The Chinese copies have come a long way. You can find them on Ebay now for around $100. I've always stayed away from these though, as I always felt a bit uneasy about putting my car's safety as well as my own in their hands.

The last choice, the Koyo, was something I had pondered in the past. Luckily I found one for the right price. It wasn't my first choice, but considering their racing history and their attention to detail and quality, it became my choice.

Koyo, so fresh and so clean, right out of the box.

The radiator itself is pretty thick. Its 2-row, all aluminum. The first thing I noticed was the weight. It was a lot lighter than my brass 2-row. The construction was top notch. Fitment was a bit tight, but still went in without any real problems. I had to trim the upper radiator hose since the radiator neck is a tad bit closer to the engine due to the increased width. I installed my fans, and also noticed they are a lot closer to the water pump pulley than before.

OEM 2-row out...

New 2-row Koyo in!

After flushing the system the prior day with Johnny Mac (thanks again!), we found that a lot of the water was totally brown. We flushed out all the nasty brown water and replaced it with clean distilled water with some water wetter. With fresh water and a new radiator, I hope everything is now going to be alright. There's an Extreme Speed track event this weekend, so hopefully I'll get to test everything out!

After 3 weeks of long nights, coercing friends to help me by rewarding them with beer and pizza, the car got finished.

What got done:
Battle Version front tension rods with heim jointed lower control arm (Alex Pfeiffer)
Battle Version steering spacer with manual steering rack
Battle Version 50/50 4-link
Battle Version Alignment (Alex P again)
Hawk Blue racing pads, new brake master (Mark English)
Cusco RCA
New engine tune by SR Motorcars, thanks to Eric Rhee and Matt Perkins
New rear axle, bearing thanks to Blue Moon performance
New vinyl job, thanks to Matt Perkins and SR Motorcars (I'm sure Eric helped too)
New hatch paint job by R.Rabe body and paint

The car runs fantastic. Had it at auto-X and it was fine, but I'd really like to take it to a drift event. That will come soon.

Who wants to rent the balcony for a test day?

Ok so, I'm getting back into the swing of things. I haven't posted in soooo long, partially because the car has been down. But now its back, and in a big way. New transmission, new suspension parts, and new vinyl on the way. I'm going to begin updating this with everything I've done since two years ago, so for the 3 of you who are still reading this, there are a lot of updates coming!

Food Truck Meet

The new hot trendy trend appears to be food trucks. The idea is to sample new, tasty cuisine without the stuffy restraunt environment. Lately, some organizers have gotten together to combine the fanboy antics of import car meets with the fat kid antics of greasy food-off-trucks to make the latest craze in what to do on weeknights, the food truck meet.

Looks pretty tasty doesn't it? Well, you're going to have to wait in line.....

But if you're lucky, you run into old friends, like drifting Kat!

What my living room table usually looks like.

Cars and Coffee

Ok, so its been over a year since I've posted. A lot has happed since then, some good, some bad, and some life changing. One of those things is my addiction to Call of Duty but that's an entirely different story. Anyhow for years, I've been wanting to attend "Cars and Coffee" but could never drag myself out of bed early enough to do so. I finally was able to drag myself out of bed, and met up with Johny Mac to check this local favorite out. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun. I'll try to keep my photos of a slightly different variety, as people tend to post the same cars over and over again. Hopefully, my eye for car flavor isn't the norm.

Oh, and thanks to May I got a new camera for my birthday!

Mini. Very mini. the owner literally brought exactly what he needed for the meet, and that's it. Mostly because nothing else will fit inside the trunk.

I keep telling myself that someday, I'll own a 911. When I see fine examples like this 70's Carrera, I feel that day can't come soon enough. The hue of green, the classic lines, oh how have I survived without one?

I'm sure you've all seen Viper ACR's. Yes they're badass. Yes they have over 600 horsepower. What's more interesting is this cool sticker the owner had on the rear wing.

In my fantasy garage, I'm a private investigator. I've got a moustache. I've got an endless collection of Hawaiian shirts, and I basically cruise Hawaii all day chasin' tail and solving crimes. The last accessory needed for this lifestyle is the 308 GTS above.

I'm sure you see E46 M3's every day, but very few have the nice wheel fittment and heigh as this one.

Aother classic Carrerra, AC Cobra (kit car?) and an S2000. Such a nice variety.

I leave you with one of the nices restored interiors I saw that day.This was from inside a 1969 Shelby Cobra GT500, signed by the man himself. I guess I should have had Keiichi sign my dash when D1 still came here. Maybe next time!

My Helmet

Anybody that knows me understands that I'm a total racing gear whore. I love the baller stuff. Once you start doing enough track days you reason to yourself that its worth it to buy really good stuff, but part of the appeal is that you've got something cool, you can show it off.

I had been rocking an open faced helmet for a few years, and it had served me well. It was a great gift from my sister for Christmas about five years ago, and I wore it through most of my early years in road race and open track events. Even did 2 rounds of 24 Hours of LeMons in it! I was starting to want a closed face helmet to use at drift events since debris would always get in my eyes. I still use the open faced one for hot days, but decided to invest in something high quality and of a closed face design. Shortly there after, I purchased a Bell K1 Sport.

Ever since I became interested in world motor sports, I've been fascinated with driver's custom suits and helmets. I've always wanted something to help put me apart from the rest (how many G-Force white helmets do you see at the track?) and also something that was custom. I like to integrate styling from different car cultures, and often times look to things far from drifting and typical racing to get inspiration. I started looking around and ended up viewing some hot rod photos with pinstriping. The only helmets I saw were for bikers, and were essentially small, skull cap type helmets. This is when I decided that I wanted a pinstripe job as well as some sort of hot-rod influence on my motor sport helmet.

After lots of internet research, I found a sample photo of exactly what I wanted. That sample photo came from Sam Boeger's website, www.bogies.biz. She's an amazingly talented artist, and also in California. Check out her pinstriping photos to see what photo I'm talking about! Anyhow after a few emails back and fourth with a rough outline of what I was looking for, I had shipped the helmet to her and she began work. What you see is the finished product:

As you can see here, there's a fully detailed pinstriping job running over the top of the helmet with a pretty aggressive design.


After I saw it on her website, I knew I had to have this chick on my helmet. Part of its appeal to me is the hot-rod style, and also another influence came from drag racing. Drag-racing guys love to have chicks on their helmets. Its difficult to see, but the "tramp stamp" on her back says "The big Korean". Yeah, that's me.

You'll also notice the name near the front chin area. That's just straight up from racing. If you've got a custom helmet, its got to have your name on it somehow!

I also loved the color combination she used to achieve a sort of neon effect. It constrats nicely with a dark helmet. Now I've got to just get my iriduim visor and I'm done!

Anyhow come say "hi" sometime at a track event if you'd like to take a look at it. I highly recommend Sam's work to any of you out there looking for custom work on, well, just about anything! She does more than just pinstripe too, if you wanted something else done. Anyhow, I hope more of you start doing custom cool stuff too!

Reflection

So, 2009 is coming to a close. I wanted to take the time to reflect on a few things that happened through the year. For me, this year was pretty big in terms of my growth as an automotive enthusiast but more specifically, as a driver.

After spending the past 2-3 years concentrating solely on grip driving, I decided to embark on drifting a lot more about a year ago. I think I only did about 2 grip events this year, while all the rest were drifting events (easily 10 or more in total). I think I got a lot better throughout the year, thanks to help from people like Filipino Alex, Hawaiian Alex, Andy, Johnny Mac, Wes and of course Taka. With their confidence inspiring words (minus the Hawaiian, because he always tells me Corollas are "ghey" and I should buy a Z) I actually entered my first drifting competition. As you read in one of my older blogs I didn't do too well, but it certainly was a growing and learning experience for me. So much so that in my 2nd competition ever (at Primm) I placed 4th, which out of a field of about 10-12 driver's isn't too bad at all.

I also had a realization this year that I've never had before: I don't really need any more parts for my car right now. My car is pretty well built with the most tested and reliable parts in racing, and I have the best people in the industry to help me when I need it. My money hasn't been going towards specific parts, but only when things are in need of repair. With the money saved there, I can put it towards tires and events, which I did.

I finally got a tow vehicle, so I'm no longer so fatigued before and after events from driving a super loud, punishing, and super illegal vehicle. Towing is the bees knees for sure.

I also started realizing how lucky I am to have the above people to help me out. From reading Club4ag on a regular basis, I get frustrated with how the most unrespected, most unreliable people are giving the newbs information and opinions, and probably shaping their thoughts and beliefs. That's truly unfortunate, so I'm fortunate to have such well seasoned and educated friends help me on my journey. Not everybody has professional racing drivers, mechanics, fabricators and lunatics to shape their outlook and opinions on things (the lunatic is again, the Hawaiian).

So all in all, a pretty good 2009. I want a better showing in the next all AE86 drift comp that will hopefully happen next year, and I hope to break 1:30 at SOW too!

Hotties in NASCAR?

Ooohhhhweee its been a while since I updated this thing. The 4AG time attack was a few weeks ago, but beyond that, there hasn't really been anything automotive related going on with me. I've chosen to spend my time in another way, which has been quite awsome!

Anyhow, onto this week's big big story. Danica has finally signed with NASCAR. She'll be competing with Dale Earnhardt Jr's company, but will start in a lower league in order to earn her license to run with the big boys. There's a lot of controversy as to whether or not she'll be competative, and whether or not its a good career move. She's earing a pretty good salary and is relatively competative in INDY, but looking at other INDY driver's histories (whom have been better than her) you'll notice that none of them have done well. As a matter of fact, the only open wheel racer who has started to climb the ranks is Juan Pablo Montoya, but I consider him to be a different class of driver since he'd done Formula 1. Anyhow there's no doubt that Danica will continue to hog the limelight and plenty of redneck fanboys will think she's cute, but how well will it be recieved to have such a high profile female driver in NASCAR? I'm sure there's other women in NASCAR at the moment, but I don't and chanes are that you don't know who they are. Two things are certain, however. 1, Danica has some twangy redneck music now on her website (http://www.danicaracing.com0/ and 2, I will watch maybe 1 full lower league NASCAR race this year, just to see how she's doing.

Fantastic Video!

Club4AG Las Vegas drift event!!! from Robert Strohmeyer on Vimeo.

Live and Learn

I've had to put driving on the backburner. With Jesse's wedding and Jason's bachelor party, I didn't have much time to do any events, or any money to do them for that manner. Since those events passed (and were tons of fun!) I was able to concentrate on getting ready for the 4AG drift competition at Primm (stateline Nevada). I told Naoki I'd do it if he towed me, and he agreed.

The car was down for a bit because it simply wouldn't start. Eventually I traced it down to the starter, and luckily I had a spare I bought about 4 years ago. I knew I'd use it someday! Anyhow once I got it running, I changed the engine oil and filer and just loaded the car up.

The event was interesting for several reasons. First, its the second drift competition I'd ever done. Second, it was out of state. Third, I had some friends coming to visit me so it was certainly added pressure to do well.

As usual, we had 3 runs to get it right, and the best of those 3 runs would be our score. I hadn't quite gotten the course down consistently by then, but figured I had nothing to lose. My first two runs were crap, but the third run was okay. I didn't feel too good about any of my runs, but at least I connected the third one. Once the event ended, it turned out that Alex V and white boy Mark took first and second, with another guy I didn't know taking third. Then Taka and John told me I missed third place by a few fractions of a point. I wasn't upset at all, because its still only the 2nd competition I'd ever done.

Really though, how could I be upset? I had a fantastic time in Vegas on Saturday night, I got to hang out with my good friends, and had some amazing visitors as well.

After the comp, John rode with me and helped me work out the course. I ended up with this:


Can't bee too unhappy with the weekend :)

Another in car:

Auto Shows

I dug up this old video I took at the Tokyo Auto Salon a few years ago. They had shows every 30 minutes with cute dancing girls to kickoff the launch of 3 new Mitsubishi vehicles. Yet anothing that that is better in Japan: Auto Shows.

Motorcycle Heaven

So a few weeks ago, I decided to take a trip down to San Diego to visit my good friends, Sid and Desiree. After eating a wonderful Octoberfest lunch, Sid asked me if I'd like to tag along to visit a motorcycle junkyard. While I'm not as familiar with motorcycles as I am with cars, I'm always interested in anything mechanical, so I said I'd love to go! I had no idea what I was in for, but thought it would be an educational experience nevertheless. Here is a brief tour of Stockers!
To say they have exhausts is an understatement.

What's amazing is how well organized everything is. These bins have engine specific parts in them, and there are even some engines lying around, labled and all.

This bin had make and models specific parts in it, but I loved the carbs :)

Sid and his buddy were looking for a gas tank that they could use for a custom project. So, they looked....
....and looked. As you can see, they have a lot of gas tanks. As a matter of fact, they completely line the walls of the entire building.

They also have wheels. I can only imagine if there was an AE86 shop like this somewhere.

More neatly labeled parts bins.

Old school Harley. Maybe someday.

This is more like it!

Where do I begin...

This past month has to be the most stressful time I've had in quite a while. There's a large gap in my posts because I haven't been doing anything really automotive related, or at least motor sport or enhancement related. Instead, I've had crazy other things going on: I recently just moved, been having some lady problems, been trying to purchase a truck, and worst of all my daily driver started to have some issues. The other things aren't automotive related, so we'll just cover the daily driver since its the closest thing automotive I can write about, since I know you guys don't wanna hear about other lame crap going on.

As you can see in the photo above, the pulley is out of my 4-door, thanks to master technician English. Mr. English removed the pulley to find that the keyway is broken, along with the crank key and timing gear. Looks like the pulley bolt came loose at some point and caused havoc, and I've been driving it like this for lord knows how long. This was the biggest snag we ran into with the 4-door while attempting the timing belt change, as there were a few other surprises on the car as well. I guess 175K miles on a car can bring fourth some interesting things.

Luckily for me, I have great friends. I called around to a lot of my local Corolla brethren only to hear that while at one point they did own a replacement pulley which may have worked, they eventually discarded it. I actually used to have one as well before I threw mine away. One nice fellow, has been a photo contributor on here (Wes Hamachi) was kind enough to bring by a silvertop 20v pulley to see if it will work. Unfortunately, it did not. As you can see, the 4AF pulley on the left is shorter than the pulley on the right, (the 20v). It isn't just the number of grooves for the belt, but the spacing was different as well. I still appreciated the gesture, and took Wes out to eat (I owed him some money too from Vegas. Doesn't everybody?)

After realizing that my deadline was approaching (Mr. English wanted to have the car done by Thursday) I started calling around to local salvage yards that have parts ready to go. They all wanted around $75 for the pulley. While I could have easily driven down there to buy it and not broken a sweat doing it, instead I chose to hit up my local pick your part. The Stanton yard had about 4 different 4AF engines which were the exact ones I could use the pulley from. I also lucked out by finding one that had all of the drive belts already taken off making my job that much easier. After impacting the bolt and prying the pulley off, I left the yard taking some happiness in the fact that i saved about $50 on the pulley over going to the other "ready to go" salvage yard.

So now, the pulley is in Mr. English's hands. I'm moved in, and just bought a can opener today. Life seems to be looking up.

I'd like to try to end my blogs on a happy note, and I think we all know nothing makes me happier than AE86's! (except maybe titties)

Bums!

I'm totally not talking about those souls who've had society turn their back on them. Chances are, they may have not been smart enough to keep themselves clean or make sound financial decisions, but more than likely if they're going sailing in the deep ocean they'd bring a life vest.

I'm talking about the bums at drift events. There's lots of them. The idiots who don't bring tools, spares, or logical things that would more than likely make life easier for them or perhaps get them home.

I used to be all about helping people out, because "drifters" used to be part of a community of people who cared about each other, and who went out of their way to get each other home. You helped someone out when you could, because chances are they'd help you when you needed it. These days, there are more and more people who aren't capable to help anybody, because they can't help themselves. More and more losers who keep asking to borrow my tools. More and more losers to return them no longer functioning, more and more losers to repetitively ask to borrow the same things.

A few weeks ago, I was at a drift event. This kid in an old BMW asks to borrow my air compressor, and I generously let him. I think nothing of it. All I asked is that he return it when he's done. He does (or rather his friend does), then another pit neighbor asks to borrow it as well. He then informers me that its not working. I inspect it, and find that its broken. Seeing as how the second guy to use it couldn't even fire it up, I'm guessing it was the kid with the BMW. Not only were the prongs on the input unit itself bent, but he blew the fuse inside of it.

The reason why guy A sucks:

He broke my compressor and returned it hoping that I wouldn't notice. He left before I could say anything.

The reason why guy B sucks:

He's driving a $35K car but can't afford to bring an air compressor or jack.

Guy A, driving an old E30 BMW (which was basically stock) obviously isn't made of money, but came unprepared. Buy B, who has a lot more money, also came unprepared.

So you see, your financial status has nothing to do with it at all. Bottom line is, if you come to a toga party, bring a f*#@ing TOGA!

It'll never happen to me

I think this photo sort of speaks for itself. For those of you that don't know what this was from, Felipe Massa, a factory Ferrari Formula 1 driver, was recently struck by a stray suspension piece (a spring) during qualifying at the Hungaroring. He was traveling at 150mph. After being struck, he started to lose consciousness but not before applying some pressure to the brakes moments before he crashed into a tire barrier.

This is why I think people who question regulations on safety equipment are morons. Lots of people I run into (unfortunately because I happen to associate with dirty drift people) consistently complain about mandatory SA approved helmets, roll bars, nomex suits, side impact bars, and everything else that could potentially save your life or prevent serious injury. Felipe's incident should convince you that every piece of safety equipment you can use is well worth it. Put up with some discomfort and high cost to give yourself a chance in case something terrible does happen. Remember that most safety equipment isn't there to protect you from common happenings (you don't get hit in the face at 150mph by a spring, do you?), but there to prevent you from uncommon happenings. In cases like these, its always better to have it and never need it, then need it and not have it.

Mind you also, that Felipe Massa is wearing the most advanced, state of the art safety equipment yet it still can't totally prevent catastrophes. If this can happen to him, imagine what would have happened to you if you were wearing your lame helmet?

Formula D Las Vegas, 2009

I've been to every round of Formula D Las Vegas. Its an excuse to make a quick trip out of California and enjoy a nice weekend in sweltering heat, expensive strippers, and $4 steak dinners. This year was sans the expensive strippers, but it was certainly full of other exciting happenings.

First and foremost is the news that my friend Alex Pfeiffer is now driving for Tanaka racing in their insane Chevrolet Corvette. Alex tried out for them about a week ago and they immediately offered him the drive. I like many other people have been dying to see him get back in the driver's seat instead of forcing me to drink beer and watch Condorman every weekend. I think I may get a break because this bastard will be setting up the suspension on the car for the upcoming round. Anyhow, for his first time out in the car, he managed to qualify for the second day and even put up a good fight against Sam Hubinette in the Viper. All in all, not a bad first showing.


Another one of my friends who was driving this weekend was Joon, the great Korean hope. Since John Yim is retired and since I'm nowhere near being a professional (anything) Joon single handily carries the flag for all Korean drifters. This particular weekend was semi sweet for him. He qualified well, and even advanced to the round of best 16, where he eventually had to do battle with Tanner Foust. In the head of battle, Joon crashed on entry but after seeing his car in the pits afterwards, the damage didn't look too bad. I hope he can get it right in time for Washington!


Taka didn't have the best weekend either. On Friday practice, he broke an oil cooler and was forced to find a replacement on short notice (who the hell breaks an oil cooler?) but eventually made it back out. He ran quite well, and qualified somewhere around 16th or 17th. He met Ryan Turek in the first round of tandem, and unfortunately fell victim to the increasingly threatening Mobil 1 Solstice. Regardless, the fans still love him and were we see a girl getting Taka to sign her TRD shirt, where she also has Tommy Suell's signature.


Seeing Orido at a Formula D event was quite a surprise. He's one of the D1 celebrities whom I love to see even if he's not driving. The rumor was, he attended the event with the president of Japan's "other" drift series, MSC. If you're not familiar with MSC, I'd recommend going to youtube immediately and watching what they have to offer. I can only guess that their presence there means a possibility of an MSC/Formula D event in the near future. One can really only hope for such awesomeness.

The other cool part about Orido coming for this round, is that he played spotter for Ryuji Miki. It comes as no surprise then, that Ryuji Miki advanced to the finals and ended up finishing second overall that night. It goes to show you that with the right motivation and right coaching, chances of victory are far greater. Having somebody like Orido in your corner helps immensely. Surround yourself with winners and you'll start seeing results.

I also am happy that the man loves Bud Light.


While talking to Pfeiffer I also met this cute girl who has a similar taste in fashion as me!

Another year, another FD vegas trip. I didn't get to do the regular Vegas stuff this time around, so I guess I'll just have to wait till SEMA for debachery.

All photos courtesy of Wes Hamachi!
hamachiboysracing@yahoo.com