Tracks, Go Karts and Belly Buttons...

Well it has been quite sometime anything has been updated around here... here's another short update of what we have been doing for the past months or so :P

Last weekend (9th June), Hau finished rebuilding William's Time Attack FD3S... now the car is pumping out 455hp on the wheel.

 The new heart not only looks amazing, it has the punch as well :)

TurboSmart Wastegate ensures the boost is constant at 1.27 bar :P

With the RE-Amemiya SuperG front cowl, this machine looks menacing >)

 The interior fits it's purpose

With the engine and the chassis ready to go, on sunday 9th Hau and the crew decided to test and setup the car onsite at Sepang....

It was a closed event, track day organize by the peeps from across the causeway...

Of course coming all the way from the causeway, only fully loaded and serious track junkies made the trip... the pits were littered with beauties :D

I always have a soft spot for a beautiful clean R33 GTR :)

 There were also this immaculately beautiful FC3S coming all the way north here :)

RE-Amemiya front cowl, R-Magic rear spoiler.... this car is a thing of beauty ^^

This track monster also took the opportunity to do some track test...

There's no luxurious creature comfort here, everything has been stripped and ready to race... it even has its own air jack!!! o.O

Beautiful madness fills its rear end :)

And that glorious V-12 is just so addictive going at full throttle :)

Even when it keeps on hitting the rev limiter running on the speed limiter going out of the pits, everyone appreciates the social contribution this beast is making in its attempt to motivate our lives :P

But at track side, everything is business as usual :)

Here Alex is doing some fine tuning of the aerodynamics :P

And I'm making sure the GT-Wing stays clean for better airflow :P

Just to make sure that 455whp is no dyno cheat :P

Putting some racing octane booster to a full tank of Shell V-Power >)

Unfortunately, as powerful as she is... she decided that her Transmission taste like chocolate candy :P

After just 3 quick lap, the 1st and 5th gear has been completely chewed up >.<

While our FC friend from across the causeway ran out to the gravel trap on his first attemp... unfortunately he most probably went out too fast that the gravel destroyed some of his front electronic wirings and punch a hole in his power steering cooler...

Luckily we were able to disconnect the battery in time before she went up in flame... she was already burning some wires when she came into the pits >.<

So that was the end for the RX-7 rotaries for the day, sadly quite short and sad ending adventure T.T

But despite the disappointment of the Gear Box eating Rotary Monster and the gravel trap loving FC3S, William still had his trusty old FairLadyZ to play around with until the end of the session :P

But that was it for us for the track day session, with a bleeding gear box and overheating FairLady we all set back our equipment back to home base.

The FD3S gear box has been swapped with the racing dog box, and the FairLady oil and water heat exchanger has been swapped out with a double oil cooler... we'll just have to wait to see the result for the next track day :)

This is the short video compilation of the track day event for those who are more interested in moving graphics than reading an article of broken english :P

After that eventful track day, we Shuzoku RedSuns had a Go Kart Grand Prix to claim bragging rights :P

The Go-Kart track is at CyberJaya, night event, and some safety briefing for all the noobs :P

But before we went out to track we tried to install the GoPro camera on Keisuke's helmet, unfortunately either his helmet or his neck is too cheap :P the GoPro just wouldn't stick >.<

So eventually we installed the GoPro on my helmet.... unfortunately I had the slowest GoKart in the field T.T so the video just ended up showing how everyone smoked me on the straights T.T

The only way I could passed someone was passing the cannon fodder groups (there were other guys on the track besides us :P) or hope that they disturb the others line so bad that I could take them on and run off before they recover >.<

I even pitted in again asking for a different Go-Kart, unfortunately the organizer seems rather annoyed at the request >.<

So the 40 minutes of Go-Kart Grand Prix for me ended up at the bottom end of the spectrum... feeling the disagreeable disappointment to be at the receiving end of the unfair advantage T.T

Fortunately our most 'Poyo' former champion also had his fair share of unfair advantage and he was way down the ladder... stripping him off his bragging rights and handing it over to the over joyed Keisuke, who along with KeKe and Dzulq had the lucky straw of getting the fast karts :P

The only consolation I could bring back from that nightmare was that throughout that 40 minutes is that only once I was overtaken under braking at the corner... done none other by Keisuke, who dived bombed into my inside and forced me to changed line mid corner... it was a reckless overtaking maneuver but pulled off with extreme skill that I cannot have any other word for it except : "Somebody needs to punch him in the face xD"

Overall it was a fun motoring experience, with our group obviously accumulating quite an experience in Go-Karting that any other team that joined the track became cannon fodders and were butchered by our ego boosting race :P

The bragging rights was amplified at our post race ceremony :P

Then just this week we had the Japan Super GT at Sepang, I didn't noticed the GT was coming but fortunately my elder brother had a couple of free grandstand tickets :D

Since he have no interest in motoring I took the honour of attending the GT race that weekend >)

But it seems here in Malaysia, there's probably only 2% of the people who attend the GT has any remote interest in the GT race.. the rest of the statistics were only there for the Festivities, AutoShow, or just downright Perverts >(

Since it was the Japan SuperGT, belly buttons were aplenty :P

 

If there were anything to do with Japanese cultures these kind of people are always not far behind, Cosplayers... not that I'm complaining :P

The AutoShow was one of the main attractions...

 From Classics....

To DeLorean :D

 Legends were also present...

Ford GT40 with Gulf Livery :D

 Kei-Cars were also present...

 

Along with lots and lots of Porsche... This is a 911 997...

 

Porsche Cayman S...

 911 991 Carrera S

 911 997 GT3 RS4.0

 911 991...

 Classic Porsche which I dont recall which one :P

 911 997...

 Yes... even Porsche cannot escape the curse of Itasha :P

Other supercars were aplenty as well...

As well as other legends :)

No Autoshow these days will be complete without having these around :P

Akrapovich were also present to show off their work of art :)

As well as the cheese eating French... they created the FWD and now they are cursed to be stuck with it until the end of time xD

The race result can be taken from here:

http://www.supergt.net/pages/pg:race/device:pc/ln:en/year:2013/round:3/gt_class:gt500/menu:3/result_menu:race/result_menu_2:total

But a quick result is that the Calsonic GTR won the GT500, with Denso Kobelco SC430 coming in second and RayBrig HSV-010 in third.

While the GT300 was won by ARTA CR-Z GT, with 2nd goes to Mugen CR-Z GT and 3rd is Gainer Dixel SLS...

Throughout the race I had no idea what was happening, as obviously Sepang Internation Circuit has fallen into neglect...

The only screen that was working was at the podium side, the rest, was out of commission... even the speakers were barely audible with all the echo....

It seems they only maintain the VIP club area at the paddock area, just to make sure those elite few people are happy, while we the mere mortals should just shut up and watch mindlessly as the cars fly by with no idea what so ever is happening in the race >(

Even the belly buttons couldn't save the situation and I was rather furious at such negligence and sloppy track management... they seem to be only interested in cashing in the belly buttons but not at preparing, and presenting a proper race >(  

Sometime being the Retard is a good thing :P but even those cute global temperature warmers could not save the event from being nothing but just a show for perverts and... who else? o.O

So I left the track disappointed, luckily I had the ticket free.... I don't think I'll ever buy a Super GT tickets again after this year, SIC seems not even remotely interested in presenting the race to the crowd but just having the race as a reason to put up all those price bloated stands and belly button shows >(

Sepang Time To Attack

Well I've finally found the time to sit and write down our first time attack experience last 16th Dec.

Our day started rather early, I was already at the workshop at 8am to help Hau load up the 2 time attack machines...

Using a very modern car carrier, the carrier lower the whole carriage on the ground and the car would easily just drive on the carriage. Very convenient for these very low cars :)

The trip to Sepang was uneventful, except for the build up of time attack machines prowling the streets... all heading for one destination... Sepang.

The excitement was building up... cars of all sorts were participating in the whole event, not only the time attack event, the gymkhana, the COTY, the track day and also the ridiculous Epic Stance >.<

Although the Epic Stance being ridiculous is subjective based on one own's perspective, my view of the whole stance notion still stands :P

 Amazing cars showed up for the day :)

GTRs were abundant at Sepang o.O

 Despite being priced almost 1/2 million Ringgit, they're everywhere... it probably rained GTR the other night :P

Even exotics one like this beautiful example.... fully carbon fibre clad, even the interior is pure carbon fibre goodie :P

The GTR doesnt look out of place being beside that Ferrari F430 :P

Even rare exotics like this very fast type-writing machine was present... the MP4-12C :P

And a very rare NSX type R, street legal and too beautiful to be abused at the track :P

For the time attack event itself, our mechanic Hau has entered 2 FD3S to compete. Both in different categories but with almost similar mods, producing around 360-380 whp :)

This beautiful orange FD competes in the Super Street Turbo Category. The only thing that makes it street legal is that it still has a plate number :P everything else is extreme track focus in every sense xD

And this white FD is Hau's personal demo track car... its competing in the Time Attack Machine Category. Considering it is competing in the Time Attack Machine Category... it is quite modestly modded for the category, so this car still have not seen its last evolution yet :P

Hau was not just supporting those 2 track machines, but also lending a helping hand to the Wing Hin TRD team that is competing their street legal FT86 in the Street RWD NA category :)

 Hau giving a helping hand in installing the transponder on the FT86 :)

The FT86 engine are still stock, it only has a modded throttle body & exhaust. The main mods comes from their FT86 track car's suspension components which this street legal FT86 borrowed for the day :)

During the open track day event in the morning we were able to hitch a shotgun ride in the Orange FD3S with its driver warming up for the time attack... he was already clocking incredible time then... 2:35 sec was mighty impressive :)

But he was having some brake issue from the morning session, it seems the turbine got so hot that it literally cooked the brake fluid. With the master pump and reservoir being close to the turbine he could only register 3-5 laps before his brakes evaporated :P

Obviously some heat shielding would need to be install in the near future, other than that the car performed exceptionally well... although he did accidentally ran over the kerbs so violently that made his front wheel alignment somewhat toed out a little >.<

Next they went for the scrutineering and prepared for the time attack proper.

Contestant lining up to test the transponder prior to the start of the time attack

Sadly, our camera ran out of juice just as we hit afternoon and the time attack session :P

The plight of being poor >.<

We had no pictures or videos other than the morning session T.T

During the first session the orange FD3S clocked a best time of 2:31.... which was extremely fast o.O

But the time was only good enough for 2nd in the category...

The white FD3S with no ABS overcooked the first corner in its session and almost crashed before setting any lap time :P

Fortunately Ah Chong (the FD3S driver) was able to recover and set a modest lap time of 1:44s... which was amazingly at the time was good for 2nd in the category o.O

The floorpan of the FD became so hot that it literally burned Ah Chong's racing shoe... so even the track car has some serious heat management issue and will have to undergo some major heat shielding.... not only that, the BOV seems to be not working... which may cause some damage to the turbine as we found it spitting oil from the air intake filter o.O

But then as the 4th Group session was about to went underway the heavens opened up, which cause the NA categories cars to compete in the wet.

The Wing Hin TRD FT86 only managed a time of 3:01... which was amazing considering the conditions, and that time was also good for a 2nd place in category :P

So it seems we were in good shape, with all 3 cars in the podium... with the orange FD3S and the FT86 in position to strike at the top step :D

But as we prepare for the 2nd session, which we plan to sneak in as the white FD3S driver, the heavens opened up again, but this time it rained so heavily that the track had to be closed.

So they were no longer running according to the timetable, so me and Keisuke slipped away and tried to charged our pathetic camera with an in car charger...

While we were enjoying the radio and cool AC after the very hot day, and pouring rain outside... we missed the 2nd session!!! >.<

The most crucial 30 min of our day was missed with us enjoying Adele music in a Honda CITY!!! xD

When we came back they already went on track and came in just as the session finished xD

Sadly with the wet track, and us having no rain tires for the FD... Ah Chong could not better his time, as well as the orange FD and the FT86...

But the orange FD and FT86 posted a time in the 1st session that was competitive enough to secure them 2nd place in their category, but for Ah Chong... his time fell to being 4th, just outside the podium :(

In the evening, we packed up the cars in the rain and went back to the garage... with lessons learnt and new zeal to pursue in this rather addictive time attack event :D

I was somewhat bitten by the time attack bug as well, and as we chatted into the night with Hau and the others... we came up with the idea to revive the Old Lady.... prepping her for time attack duties, but since Hau already has a customer competing in the street turbo class... I'll try my luck in the NA category :)

But all those are still just wishful dream, since Trouble is still not complete... but hopefully next year I can truly join the time attack not as spectator... but as a contestant looking for that one magical lap :D

Below is the vid of half the day videos and pics T.T

The official report for the time attack event is here :

zerotohundred.com