Hybrid Racing

Feature Car Friday: USDM FD2 Civic Type R

TypeOne — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:35:11 +0000

I know what you’re thinking… a “USDM” FD2 is an oxymoron in the world of Honda tuners. But is it possible? I met Yuichi Kimoto, a Honda enthusiast from Tsu-shi, Mie, Japan last year and I was really surprised at the work he has put into his 2008 Civic Type R. I’m sure those who are reading this already know, but in case you don’t the Civic Type R was never offered in America. Instead, we get the watered down “Si” model which not only comes with a different drivetrain, suspension and interior, but it also comes to our shores looking significantly different than it does anywhere else in the world.

The headlights, bumper, fenders, rear lights…ect are all different in Japan. The JDM FD2 Civic Type R body conversion is pretty popular over here in America, (for good reason because it is beautiful) but have you ever thought about if the USDM conversions are popular in Japan? The short answer is yes, and Kimoto san’s FD2 is a fine example of that.

Starting out as a sacred Japanese market FD2 Civic Type R, Yuichi wanted to change it up a bit and decided to do the USDM Civic Si (09+) conversion. With all of the parts sourced through a USDM parts dealer in Japan, Yuichi went to work. As you can tell from the pictures, it doesn’t look much different than something you’d see at a local car meet in the USA. Granted the black Regamasters and red Type R Brembos set it apart but it looks pretty much like a slightly modded Civic Si.

The rear end was subjected to the same treatment, a USDM trunk lid and tail lights were swapped out for their OE counterparts.

A pair of Spoon aero mirrors were added in place of the stock parts.

A Yuichi has had a few different sets of wheels on this car but he has stuck with the a set of traditional Japanese wheels, Desmond Regamasters.

Look close and you’ll see just about the only factory body panel left. The rear FD2 Type R bumper. I don’t blame him, the FA5′s flat rear bumper isn’t as good looking at the JDM version.

NGR quick release, hub and steering wheel were swapped out in place of the factory unit. He has also recovered the dashboard in a dark gray suede… something that might not be hugely popular in the USA, but unique for sure.

Sabelt harnesses take place of the factory belts.

The USDM conversion wouldn’t be complete without an authentic Civic Si gauge cluster.

Even though the US spec K20Z3 valve cover is silver, Yuichi decided to keep things clean and simple and had the valve cover painted Nighthawk black pearl.

USDM goodies from us as well as PWJDM can be found under the hood.

USDM or not, Mugen mufflers are always a great choice.

The must have USDM stickers!

We commend Yuichi for sharing the passion for his Honda just like we do and we can’t wait to see what other mods he has in store. Even though it may be something we are all familiar with it will certainly be a rare sight in Japan. Check out the complete mod list below! If you’d like to have your car featured on our site, feel free to send your submission to info@hybrid-racing.com!

'08 FD2 Civic Type-R

Exterior

USDM FA5 '09 Civic SI SDN Conversion

（Front bumper, Hood, Fender, Headlights, Taillights, Trunk, Sideskirts, Rear wing)

HOP OEM Splashguard

HOP OEM Foglamp

HOP OEM DRL

Headlights SMART HID6000k，Foglamp SMART HID3000k

etc:LED lamps

Rolled fenders

Interior

Suede covered dashboard (color:dark gray）, A, B, C Pillar（color：black）

Password:JDM Stainless Steel Shift Knob Type I.I (Honda / Acura)

HOP OEM '09 CIVIC SI gauge cluster

NRG shortboss

NRG 2.5GEN quick release (carbonblack）

NRG steering

Carrozzeria navigation system

Diamond audio D661 speakers

Alpine V12series amp

Rockford punch series woofer 25cm×2

2.5inch Sabelt harness

Mounted battery relocated in trunk

Password:JDM Battery Tie Down

Suspension

Buddy Club Racing Spec coilovers

Custom RSR Spring rates

DME camber kit rear

Beaks bar

Brakes

MUGEN stainless brake lines

Endless MX72pad

DIXCEL Hardening slotted brake rotors

Under the hood

K20A FD2 CTR OEM

Hybrid Racing Slim Oil Cap

Hybrid Racing Liquid Filled Fuel Pressure Gauge

Hybrid Racing Fuel rail

Hybrid Racing Shifter Cable Bushings

Hybrid Racing Reservoir Cover

Password:JDM Dry Carbon Fiber Cooling Plate

Password:JDM Dry Carbon Fiber ECU Over-Cover

Password:JDM Dry Carbon Fiber Fuse Box Over-Cover

Password:JDM Dry Carbon Fiber PowerChamber Intake

Password:JDM Dry Carbon Fiber Spark Plug Cover

SKUNK2 Racing　Fender Washers

SKUNK2 Racing　Low-Profile Valve Cover Hardware

SKUNK2 Racing　Radiator Caps

NRG　Fender Washers

NRG　Hood damper

The matte black paint the intake manifold

Painted in Nighthawk Black Pearl head cover

MUGEN sports muffler

Wheels and tires

Desmond Rega Master 18×8.5 +35

215/35/18 Nitto NT555

The post Feature Car Friday: USDM FD2 Civic Type R appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Feature Car Friday: Mad Max EM1

TypeOne — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:05:22 +0000

Every time I see Michael Hack’s EM1 I always think of the black Ford Falcon that Mel Gibson’s character drove in the famous move “Mad Max.” I guess it’s also a coincidence that it too is from Australia. It’s not often you see cars like this being built in a home garage and as far as I have seen, none coming from down under. Mike has owned this car for over 8 years and it has certainly been through it’s fair share of phases. Not only has the car seen different styles and parts, but it has also been through five engines including the K24 power plant that it holds now. Once the last setup, a built B20 VTEC with ITB’s developed gearbox issues, he decided it was time to spring for the K-series engine swap. Some time later after getting in touch with me, we set him up with a turn key package that would not only make the swap easy, but allow his car to get back to doing what it did best… race.

Once the parts showed up, Mike got to work on the swap while also doing other aero and suspension / brake mods. Mike mentioned that “the car is almost 100% DIY (apart from tuning) by myself with some help from my dad,” and that he wouldn’t have it any other way. Issues with his last mechanic really pushed him to do as much of the work as possible. It gave him a lot of first hand experience which not only helped with knowledge of of the car, but it also meant that he was able to repair the car himself saving time and money.

Mikes K24A3 engine

Custom made aluminum wing supports allow the wing to connect directly to the chassis of the car. Bolting a wing directly to trunk lids allow the downforce to be absorbed by the body panels and isn’t an efficient way of transferring the force to the chassis.

A front splitter is made from a simple sheet of plywood.

Once together Mikes took the car to MSC Performance in Melbourne Australia and had the car tuned. It pumped out 140kw at the wheels (roughly 180whp) and weighs in 964kg (2125lbs.) It doesn’t seem like much but Mike assures that the car is extremely quick and powerful enough to pump out great lap times. He has finished within the top 5 times of each track event he has attended although he is still working on and tuning the car.

Enjoy the pictures of Michael’s car and if you want to follow his build, check it out here. We applaud his ambition and hope that he continues to work on his car as much as he can… doing this stuff in his garage at home.

With more track events booked for 2013, Mike plans to get back to the track and continue to refine his setup. We look forward to seeing more!

Engine:

- K24a3 with stock stock internals
- ITR 50 degree VTC gear
- DC5R 6 speed Box
- GearX complete Short ratio gearset
- Wavtrack LSD
- ORC clutch
- ERLS s2000 oil pump kit
- JDMyard custom sump baffle
- RBC intake Manifold bored to match 70mm TB
- Hybrid racing 70mm TB
- Hybrid Racing CAI
- Hybrid racing Kswap headers
- Custom 3″ straight through Exhaust
- Hybrid Racing chain tensioner
- Hybrid racing Kswap wire harness
- Hybrid Racing fuel rail,
- Hybrid Racing Kswap fuel line kit
- FIC 650 injectors
- Hybrid Racing Monoblock fuel pressure regulator
- Russel Fuel pressure Gauge
- Walbro 255lph fuel pump
- Hybrid racing Alternator relocate/air con delete kit
- Hybrid racing Kswap radiator
- Hybrid Racing Radiator hoses
- Hybrid Racing Slim line oil cap
- Hybrid Racing braided clutch line
- Hondata Kpro ECU
- Hybrid Racing Engine Mounts
- Mfactory Oil Cooler kit
- Circuit Hero Chain guide
- Circuit Hero plug cover
- P2R IM gasket
- P2R TB gasket
- Carbing Radiator cooling plate
- Power steering deleted
- HAMP oil filter
- Mugen thermostat
- ENDYNE oil catch can
- Bolt Boys Kseries Hex head bolt kit
- TEGIWA anodized black rocker cover nuts and brushed washers

Suspension:

- Buddyclub Racing spec Coil overs
- Hardrace Front + Rear camber arms
- Hardrace rear toe adjuster arms
- Hardrace spherical bearing rear trailing arm bushings
- Hardrace Bushings replacing OEM where possible
- Hardrace steering rack bushings
- Hardrace ITR front lower control arms
- ITR front forks
- DC2 front swaybar
- Hardrace front sway bar endlinks
- Hardrace front roll centre adjusters
- Function 7 rear swaybar brace
- Function 7 RCA
- Function 7 rear sway bar adjustable endlinks
- EK9 Rear swaybar
- DC2R front strut-bar
- PasswordJDM rear trunk brace
- ITR steering rack

Brakes:

- Spoon DC2R Twin block front callipers
- Ferodo Ds2500 pads
- Fastbrakes 282mm blank front rotors
- Goodridge braided brake lines
- EK9 master cylinder
- EK9 Brake booster
- Stock rear brakes with OEM brake pads
- ABS system deleted
- Motul RBF 600 brake fluid

Interior:

- Custom Chromoly half cage
- Hybrid racing gear knob
- Hybrid racing shifter box
- Hybrid Racing shifter cables
- Bride Zeta 3 drivers seat
- Bride seat rail
- Willans 6pt harness
- Spoon steering wheel hub
- Nardi 350mm deep corn wheel
- EK9 Pedals
- EK9 cluster
- Carbing Dead pedal
- Carbing heel adjustment plate
- Autometer Pro comp oil pressure gauge
- Autometer Pro comp oil temp gauge
- Autometer Pro comp Water temp gauge
- Autometer Pro comp Vac gauge
- Deka ext12 lightweight battery (4kg)
- Pivot volt stabiliser
- Password JDM CF fuel tank cover

Wheels and Tires:

- Front: 6uL 15×9 with Hoosier R6 225/45/15
- Rear: 6uL 15×8 with Hoosier R6 225/45/15
- H&R 10mm spacers up front
- H&R 5mm spacers at rear
- ARP extended wheel studs

Exterior:

- DIY front splitter setup
- JDMyard splitter brackets
- TopOne front canards
- DIY rear diffuser
- DIY cut front fenders
- APR GT300 wing DIY custom mounted directly to chassis inside trunk
- PasswordJDM CF headlight blockoffs
- Lexen windows all round (except front windscreen)
- PCI 5″ alloy sideskirts
- CF trunk lid
- Seibon CF Hood
- Aerocatch hood pins
- FRP rear flares
- APR CF mirrors
- spoon windscreen wipers

Stereo:
- Egg.

Sponsors:

Hybrid Racing, HardRace Suspension Australia, MSC, and a special thanks to JDMYard.

Want your car featured? Send us your submissions here.

-David

The post Feature Car Friday: Mad Max EM1 appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Eight: We came, we saw, we conqured…

TypeOne — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:20:38 +0000

So the time has come for out last real day in the glorious country of Japan. It was truly an honor to meet all of the people we did, not only as an enthusiast but because it has created new friendships. I hope that I will get the chance to fly back to Japan in 2014 to see all of my friends as well as meet many new ones.

We start our day in the mountains of Nikko which is about an hour NW of Motegi.

This was right below my bedroom and like this time, sleeping with the windows open wasn’t bad. Not only was it cold outside, but the noise from the water rushing in the creek was soothing.

We packed up and headed down for breakfast. Like the previous night, the food at this place was amazing. I don’t really know what most of this stuff is but it was all fantastic.

We also had fresh rolls and a few different types of jams. This type of bread might not look like anything special, but it’s not really easy to find in Japan.

American problems right here. I wear a size 13 shoe so needless to say, JDM slippers don’t really fit.

You can get a feel for the type of bed and breakfast that we stayed in. It looked to be in a pretty normal looking suburban neighborhood, albeit in the country.

We loaded up the DC5 again and headed down into town. We stopped to fill up before getting on the road back to Tokyo and the mountain view in this particular morning was really cool.

As the fog rolled in, we rolled out on our way back to the big city.

Japanglish is always around, you just have to look closely some times to find it.

New drive badge and a smiley face over the plate cap. haha

Nissan Wingroad.

JDM emergency telephone sign, complete with a running man.

Subaru Exiga that is proudly displaying the emissions and efficiency stickers on the back glass. These stickers aren’t state required so the owner has put them on to show how efficient their car is. Maybe this is the JDM version of the people that feel it’s necessary to display the diameter of their wheels on the exterior of their rides. Gotta love Japan.

This is a pretty interesting picture. First you have the funeral and flower truck barreling down the highway, which I find weird because you rarely see ANY sort of car or truck on the road in America with the word “funeral” on it. Other than a Hurst that belongs to a funeral home of course… but I’ve never seen like a casket company driving around. Anyway, the second thing might require you to click on the picture and check out the other truck. Not only does it look like there is a skeleton next to the drivers face, it also looks like he is screaming. I don’t know what that’s about… haha

On our way back to Tim’s place in Chiba, I spotted this crazy looking Kei car. The back of it says “High Way Killer.” I’m not sure what that means but it was certainly ugly.

It did have some gnarly looking window visors… although it seems to limit the use of the window a bit.

Another R34 Skyline sedan in traffic. I think this was number 4-5 for the trip.

We stopped by Super VivaHome to get some misc stuff as we would be working on Tim’s DC5.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Subarus even though this one appeared to be stock.

After we left VivaHome Tim took us to this crazy store that sold all kinds of stuff. They had thousands of movies, comics, clothes, jewelry, shoes, hats… models, toys.. anything and everything. The model selection of this place was massive and I gathered some of my favorites. I tried to get a few but sadly I just didn’t have the room in my suitcase. This place also buys stuff so to all of you Americans reading this, bring you USDM stuff to Japan and they will buy it! haha

Once we got back to Tim’s place we did a little bit of driveway wrenching. Tim wanted more HR goodies for his DC5 so we brought over a bore matched RBC intake manifold, fuel rail, fuel pressure gauge and one of our 70mm throttle bodies for him. We left last day of our trip open so we could install these parts for him and as soon as we got back to Chiba, we did.

About 45 or so minutes later the stock PRB intake manifold was ready to come off.

In true garage work fashion, we took a break after pulling the manifold off to grab some food. Since Tim’s wife took the Odyssey we walked down the street to a legit Japanese Chinese food restaurant. Tim warned us it wasn’t the best food ever but it was our best option. I ate spicy tofo for the first time and I can confirm that it looks just about as good as it tastes. It wasn’t for me.

After eating, drinking, resting and talking we decided to get back to work as the sun was going down and we had dinner scheduled for later that evening.

Once the manifold was on it was time to button up everything else. The biggest challenge was getting the factory elbow over our giant throttle body… Tim uses a Mugen air box and finding a larger elbow in Japan turned out to be much more difficult than we thought.

The sun set on our last evening in Japan and Tim and his family took Will and I to this really cool restaurant with fish under the floor. We were to cool all of our meats and vegetables boiling broth… probably one of the best meals of the trip. It was great!

After dinner Tim and I did a little street tuning in his DC5 and this was the shot I took with my phone before I walked into the hotel. The vacuum hose on the intake manifold didn’t reach and the blue tubing was all we had to work with at the time. It was replaced with a rubber one when the stores opened back up.

The next morning Will and I packed our stuff up and took the elevator up to he top floor of our hotel to check out the view. It would be the last day that we spend in this wonderful nation which was somewhat saddening. We checked out of our hotel and bought two tickets to take the bus to Narita which is where our plane would depart from. The ride wasn’t long… maybe 40 or so minutes. Once we arrived to the airport, we checked our bags and chilled out at our terminal.

This was the last picture I took, sitting near our terminal… waiting for the plane that would take us back to California.

When I woke up that morning, I started the timer on my phone… I would turn it off once I got home. After everything, the 3 planes, traveling 8000 or so miles, 24 hours later we arrived back in Louisiana. It was surreal and I had an urge to go back immediately. My overall experience was amazing and I can’t thank the people we met enough for their hospitality and friendliness. Being the first time I have ever traveled outside of the United States, it was great to see how people live and how we are all similar and different.

As it turns out, (speaking for myself) we are pretty similar. Maybe not in how accomplish things but where our passion is. From K-Tech to Seeker and BYS, we are all brought together as not only manufactures but as enthusiasts. Even one of the most challenging language barriers couldn’t stop us from talking about how much we love and enjoy tuning our Honda cars. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about… the love. I know right now Honda has been getting a bad wrap for their lifeless and stingy Civic Si and the lack of anything legitimately sporty in their lineup, but we aren’t the only ones that feel like this. Suzuki San from Back Yard Special said it best when we asked him what he thought about the direction of Honda, his response was “you have to have faith.” Words spoken by a true legend and someone that has seen more of the comapny than most of us ever will. He has been around through it all and will continue to carry on through the good times and the bad.

I’m trying to not write a book as I know people tend to lose interest but I must send a special thanks to my good friend Tim Denley for accompanying us on this journey. Without him it wouldn’t have been possible and it means a lot to us that he was able to come along. Thank you to Hikari, Tim’s wife, for allowing him to come with us and be away from his family for most of the trip. I know that is a huge deal and I’m glad that we also got to spend some time with them and their wonderful children. I hope that one day they venture to our city so I can return the favor.

This won’t be the last post from Japan, but it will conclude the series of articles about our trip. I may have to dig through my coverage to see if there are more random pictures that I can post up, and I probably will.

In any case, if anyone reading has the chance to visit Japan, I encourage you to. But don’t just go to Tokyo or the big cities… take a trip outside and into the mountains and countryside. It’s an entirely different world and you might find it better than the hustle and bustle of the city. Book a night in a traditional Japanese bed and breakfast… take a bath outdoors on the side of a mountain. Hybrid Racing will be back in Japan in the coming years, and I’m sure I’ll have my camera ready to capture that adventure too. To everyone that actually reads this blog, thank you… I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have writing them.

Thanks again for reading.

David C

Hybrid Racing

The post Japan Day Eight: We came, we saw, we conqured… appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Seven, Part Three: Twin Ring Motegi

TypeOne — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:59:45 +0000

We make our way through the Collection Hall and to the room that hold some classic and significant cars in the history of Honda.

This is an old Honda fold up scooter. If you’ve been reading all of the blogs, this might look familiar because Suzuki-San from Back Yard Special has one of these sitting in the front window of his shop.

Brand new Honda Beat.

It was cool to see all of these cars in brand new condition.

Oh yes.

This thing is beautiful… and perfect.

One of the first fuel cell cars that Honda released back in the early 2000′s. Technology learned from this car was used to develop the newer FCX Concept (shown in the previous blog) and ultimately the FCX Clarity that was leased in California.

A slightly blurry picture of the revolutionary Honda Insight.

This is the Honda EV Plus which was made for a few years in the late 90′s (97-99 I believe.) This was the first production EV car that had batteries that didn’t contain lead. Only a few hundred were sold and the project was canceled upon the release of the Insight in early 2000.

One of the first Civic’s produced and known for it’s fuel economy in the mid 1970′s. This is a 1974 model which is has slightly different bumpers and side mirrors than the US model.

This is a really cool display of the Honda CVCC engine which stands for “Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion. This engine put emphasis on burning lean which would not only improve fuel economy but it would also reduce the amount of toxic emissions. If I recall correctly, the first variant of this engine was used partly in the N600. Granted it was a much smaller version but the evolution of the CVCC came from that.

One of my favorite cars in the museum was this red Honda Ballade Sports CR-X. We know it simply as the Honda CR-X.

The plaid style interior of this car was awesome looking. I wish I could have taken better pictures of it.

Such a great looking little car and not to mention, this one was nearly brand new.

This is a first generation Honda City, I’m not sure exactly what year, but early 80′s though.

Another awesome time capsule. A third generation Civic hatchback in all of it’s 1980′s glory.

I don’t think I would do it, but the the silver bumpers on this car look great. It’s just interesting to see that Honda chose to paint the front and rear bumpers silver and yet, leave the sides all blue. Either way, the condition of this car is impeccable. You can tell it has lived it’s entire life indoors.

This particular model is the Civic 25i. If it doesn’t ring any bells, you can find this car in the used car section of Gran Turismo 4.

This is a first generation Honda Civic RS.

I can’t help but to relate this car to the newest generation Honda Fit RS. Of course we won’t get it in America, but in Japan the Fit RS is offered in this same color with the emblem looking very similar as well. Look back to when we visited SEEKER and you can see Teraoka-San’s car. If they are related in some way, that is pretty cool.

This is a first generation Honda Accord. When Honda developed the Accord, it was originally set to be designed like a Ford Mustang as Soichiro Honda enjoyed the sportiness and power. However with the sucess that the Civic had, Honda decided to focus the Accord similar to that of the Civic. They equipped it with their new CVCC engine and kept shooting for fuel economy and efficiency.

This is a Honda 1300 from the late 1960′s. This car came before the Accord and was really build to compete with other auto manufacturers in Japan like Nissan and Toyota.

It was the largest car Honda had built at the time, you can tell what it was going for as it looks similar to a Datsun 510 sedan.

This is a Honda 1300 S Coupe. It reminds me of the early Toyota cars from the late 60′s but ironically enough, Soichiro Honda owned and a Pontiac Firebird and loved the front end design. So when time came to design the 1300 S Coupe, you can see a little bit of Pontiac’s design work incorporated into the front grill.

Sadly… I lack front shots of this car. The Honda Quint. It was marketed as an upscale version of the Civic and offered a 5 door chassis. This car was never offered in America.

Technically… this car is the predecessor to the Honda Integra.

A first generation Honda Prelude.

A first generation Honda Quint Integra. We know it as the first generation Acura Integra. This car was only offered in America as a hatchback, but the Japanese market got the hatchback as well as a 4 door sedan.

This is a very rare car as it was only made in 1985 and then I believe the name was changed to just, Honda Integra.

First generation Honda Legend, it was also the first Honda to ever offer a v6 engine throughout the worldwide market.

You can see the Quint Integra in the back ground.

A line of pastel colored Honda classics.

Honda 1300′s and a small utility pickup.

First generation Honda Life.

The next generation Honda S800 convertible, this is the successor to the S600 which is located downstairs in the main lobby of the Collection Hall.

The inside of this car was super nice given it’s old age. It also had a tick over 38,000kms on the odometer.

This is an extremely rare Honda S600 Coupe. Over the 3 years that Honda made the S600 only 1800 coupes were built.

This is a cool little Honda utility vehicle. I imagine it was used mainly on farms or rice fields.

Here is a terrible picture of some of the Honda power equipment that was on display. I’ll be honest… I didn’t really look at it.

It turns out I didn’t take any good pictures of the CB7 Accord wagon that was next to the NSX-R. You might be able to spot it in some of the back ground pictures. I did notice that this was on the dashboard though… pretty interesting considering that all of these were made in Ohio and shipped to Japan.

Japan Day Seven, Part Two: Twin Ring Motegi

TypeOne — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:29:08 +0000

We’re still at the Honda Collection Hall on the grounds of Twin Ring Motegi and now we head into the section of the building that houses some of Honda’s historical racing cars. I found this picture of the lower floor and though it would be nice to show it first.

We move into the room with all of the racing cars… I’ll be honest, some of the pictures might be a little blurry, I apparently can’t take pictures indoors and I didn’t realize some of them were blurry until I went through them. My apologies.

One of the early Honda F1 engines… I believe this was from the early 1960′s.

The injection on this thing is pretty wild. I’m not sure what the hoses are but they appear to be some sort of fuel or air lines.

A close up pictures of the air inlets. It’s neat to see this sort of stuff that was made over 50 years ago.

This is the Cooper T53 Climax. One of the first rear engine cars in F1.

I took some pictures of the large photos hanging on the walls.

I grabbed one of the documents they had when we walked in and I brought it back to America with me. I found it and then realized that the pictures on the wall were also on the handout. So I scanned it so you can read the stories behind these cars and the images.

You can see the Cooper (pictured above) int he bottom corner of the article.

Take some time to read through it… it’s pretty cool. Honda-San was a true perfectionist.

Funny to see these cars with modern batteries in them, and the bosozok-ish style exhaust.

So. Many. Exhaust. Pipes.

Another Medusa looking exhaust setup. I bet these engines sound like Jesus screaming through a megaphone.

The rear sections of these cars look so cool while also being extremely terrifying.

1968 Honda RA301

RA301′s side-rear exhaust setup. Another gnarly creation from the engineers… How could you cove this up, it looks so amazing!

No, these won’t fit on your EG. ^_^

This was one of the first cars in F1 that ran a fitted rear wing.

A rear shot of the RA301.

Want to listen to what these things sound like? No problem… just used this sound board. Yes, I listened to them and yes, they howl they put out rivals any v10-v12 in the world. Check out the bottom right selections, you can listen Ayrton Senna’s F1 car starting up and revving. uhhhhh!

1988 Honda RA168A engine. 680bhp, over 14,000 rpm.

This thing is pretty intense looking. It’s also cool to see F1 going back to the turbo charged engines for the 2013 season.

This is a cool cut-away of an older F1 engine, not really sure which one.

Moving on to the more modern F1 cars.

One expensive line of F1 cars. I wonder how many of these have engines…

This is an early 2000′s F1 car… I think the notes say 2002.

It’s amazing to see what 40 years of innovation and technology will do. What will F1 cars look like in 2043?

This is something that was chilling to see. Ayrton Senna’s F1 cars from the early 90′s. He drove these before leaving McLaren/Honda for Williams/Renault. You can see the images of him hanging on the wall behind them. Senna was killed in 1994 after his steering column broke in his Williams/Renault FW16 and sent him crashing into a wall at 200mph.

This is one of the engines that would have been used to power Senna’s Honda/McLaren F1 car. A variant of the RA122E, this motor pumps out more then 850bhp and turns more than 15,000 rpm.

Here is a car that most of the readers are familiar with. This is a Group A spec Civic Si, 1989.

Check out the air jack nozzle!

Center lug Mugen M5 variants? Yes please! Check out the “show car” stamp on the lip of the rim.. haha

Fuel cell cover

I love the decal scene, it really looks good, even in 2013.

The famous, Beams Racing DC5 Type R… fitted with lovely Mugen parts.

Check out the fog lights mounted inside of the bumper, and the Mugen emblem painted into the grill mesh.

Still running OEM door panels!

A slightly blurry picture of the beautiful Mugen MF10s mounted on this thing. Look at the faded out logo on the Brembo caliper… likely from the crazy heat these thing saw while its days on the race track.

I debated posting this picture… I don’t want people to start drilling holes in what looks like Vision MC mirrors because they saw it on this actual DC5 race car. In all seriousness, I wasn’t sure what this was for… but if you pay close attention to the picture below, you’ll see that there are lights in these holes. I’m not sure what they are for, but I imagine it has to be something to do with visibility for night racing.

Mugen side skirts, wheels, and rear wing… all in lovely, functional racing fashion.

Can you spot the fuel door filler cap?

Air jack nozzle cleverly located through the reverse light.

Race car exhaust and you can see part of the rear air jack.

I need this in my office! Notice the green lights in the driver mirror.

This was one of the more extremely modified race cars in the building. The fact that it’s an Accord makes it even cooler.

Air ducts coming into the cabin to cool the driver. Also, notice the crazy tint on the windshield. It covers nearly the entire glass.

The car was sectioned off, and you couldn’t get any closer than the first shot. This car was way too cool to just look at from 10ft away, so I stepped over the barrier and had to snap some pics of the inside. Check out the patches stuck to the dash and all of the weird knobs and levers on the center tunnel… which is made from carbon… lol

This thing was just awesome looking.

This Raybrig NSX wasn’t too bad either.

Mmmm.

A small section for the Indy series cars.

Honda’s Indy V8 motor. I saw one of these at the Peterson Automotive Museum in California a couple of years ago.

The other one I saw looked… just like this one.

Another picture hanging on the wall in the Indy section.

Ruben Barrichello’s 2007 Honda EarthDreams F1 car. The livery on this car was awesome… look below.

I’m not sure who all of these people are, but it could be people involved in the F1 program perhaps?

Check out all of the carbon fiber, and the thin, flat braces that connect to the suspension. They have come a long way since the 1960′s.

Carbon fiber everywhere…

Looking out of the window, you can see the circuit beyond the tree line.

We were done with the racing cars, and the next room over houses all of their racing motorcycles. Since Honda started building bicycles, scooters and motorcycles before cars, it was only fitting to take a walk through this section before moving on. I’m not a huge motorcycle person, I don’t know much about them and have very little interest in them so my coverage of this will be sparse.

Race bikes for days in this place.

Not only are there hundreds of Honda motorcycles in here, there is also a vast collection of other manufacturers. I guess any bikes that they deem significant they just get and put them up here. This is an old Harley Davidson.

MV Agusta

Maserati

We head to the next level to check out some serious MotoGP bikes, and then make our way into the Honda passenger car section.

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, and look over our other blog entries.

As always, thanks for reading and check back next week!

David

The post Japan Day Seven, Part Two: Twin Ring Motegi appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Seven, Part One: Twin Ring Motegi

TypeOne — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 22:38:41 +0000

I’ll start off the first entry of the new year with pictures of me creeping on people standing on the sidewalks.

We were pretty high up and since it was so effin hot in the room we had to sleep with the window open. The street lights make sounds for the blind people walking so it was dinging all night. If you look at the different color lines on the sidewalk, that is so blind people can cross the street and know which direction they are going. Right after I put my camera down a guy with a cane came walking down the line and he used it to stop and wait for the sounds and then walked across the street with everyone else.

We stayed at the Utsunomiya Port Hotel, near the train station.

You can see the large station in the distance.

Our room was really spacious. You could walk between the beds and didn’t have to carry luggage one piece at a time through the doorway.

Our room was also equipped with a state of the art control system. What we have here is AC controls, 1, 2, 3 and 4, AM/FM radio, alarm clock and one outlet for each bed. -__-

Well… good to know.

We headed downstairs and to the train station to get some breakfast. On the way we walked through this park area… apparently it’s a Jiaozi (Pot sticker) park. They serve all sorts as well had some Japanese anime statues for kids to play with.

Can you find the Pokemon?

I have no idea what this is.

A place to stick your face… inside of a Pot Sticker’s mouth.

Don’t judge us.

Come here and get all of the pot stickers that you can eat.

Looking behind us, you can see the Port Hotel.

Pictures of famous Japanese people that have been here.

Ready to go! Only like $6 to get a tray!

Sumo statue.

Godzilla!!!!

Pot sticker anime guy statue.

We made it into the station and found a place to get some grub. I was also thinking about going to J!NS for some stuff. haha

Cheese Garden perhaps?

Tim went into Newdays to get some gum.

We ate and headed back to the hotel to gather our things. We would be checking out and then driving out to Nikko tonight after we left Twin Ring Motegi. This chick set up a stand an all and was playing the guitar as people walked by.

Fire?

R34 Skyline sedan.

We grabbed our gear, checked out of the room and then went down to get the DC5.

A few minutes later the DC5 emerged from the garage door.

FD non-Type R Civic in traffic.

Beauty to all the people.

Mazda Axela

After leaving the hotel we noticed a pretty loud rattle coming from under the hood of the DC5. Upon further inspection it turns out some bolts on the exhaust manifold heat shield had managed to wiggle themselves out. So we headed to the closest Honda dealership to get some replacement bolts.

In the back of the service dept I spotted a Honda Inspire with the JDM front bumper and grill.

Insight with a Mugen wing!

Newest and previous generation Honda Fit’s. The white RS was brand new.

This dealership was also a Mugen factory shop. Meaning that if you bought a Mugen edition CR-Z or the Mugen RR, ect you would bring it here to have the Mugen mechanics come and service them.

If you wanted a little model of the car you just bought, they have them here. Of course, they are all stupid little N Boxes and other Honda cars that no one cares about.

I took a ton of these brochures. haha

While Will and I were inside snooping around, Tim came in and told us that the service dept wouldn’t help with bolts and that he couldn’t buy any. They suggested we go to the hardware store. -__-

You can see the Honda engineering plant in the distance.

Who says all cars in Japan are small? This is proof that they have land yachts just like in America.

We went into the largest store that I have been in since I arrived to Japan. This place was about the size of a normal Home Depot or Wal-Mart. They sold everything here… except food.

Driver badges everywhere!

JDM dog coat? We managed to find some bolts and head back outside to fix the rattle.

We drove by the parking lot of the Honda engineering building and peeped in to see all of the employee’s cars.

We passed another Showa factory.

So many Honda cars on the road! We love it!

We were getting out of the city and saw more of this, as well as American style homes.

We were getting closer to Motegi but this huge truck wasn’t helping us get there any faster.

Bamboo!

More rice fields and hills were around here. I don’t think it was as nice as Nagoya but the weather was certainly better.

These guys were repairing the side of the hill… I guess it came crumbling down.

We are getting into the town of Motegi.

Coco!

Getting closer!!!

Lunch break!

We have arrived!!

I have included an aerial layout of the track for those that aren’t familiar with the facility. Twin Ring is not just a racing circuit, it’s also home to the Honda Collection Hall, which stores many of the most significant historic achievements by Honda Motor Company. For those that want to brush up on Twin Ring history and knowledge, check this out. In short, TRM was built by Honda in the late 90′s to bring the Indy Car series to Japan. They also use the track to hold their own testing and development, just like Suzuka. The track also has a cafe, kids park, karting track as well as a super kart track.

We rolled in to the main gate.

Tim got us park tickets passes so we headed to the collection hall!

This looked like a motorcycle track.

Inside of the gates the roads are pretty long. This is certainly the largest racing facility I have ever been to in my life. It’s massive.

This is right in the front near the super speedway and main grandstands.

We parked and walked into the Honda Collection Hall which is where we decided to go first. I didn’t take any pictures of the front of the building because I wasn’t sure how cool they were about photography.

Once we knew they were cool about taking pictures, I started snapping away. Right when you walk in, you’ll see some of the first machines that Honda ever built.

As it says, this is a 1924 race car, named the Curtis Special. It is powered by an air craft engine and was built by the founder of Honda, Soichiro Honda.

This beautiful Honda S500 was also on display in the main hall. This was Honda’s first production sports car and grandpa to the Honda S2000.

This also one of Honda’s first racing cars build by himself in the early 20th century.

After looking at the cars in the main room, we moved to the right where all of the major historical advancements in Honda’s robotic technology. The Honda FCX Concept was also on display in the back.

It might be hard to see without clicking on the pictures, so I’ll type the year. These project started in the early 1980′s.

1980

1987

1988

1991

1992

1993

I took a few more pictures of this one than the others because of the shear craziness of how it was put together.

This thing was creepy looking… Honda must have been inspired by Robo Cop’s ED 209.

It also looks really, really heavy.

1995

1997

2000

Finally, the latest generation Asimo. It’s funny how you can look at the robots and translate their manufacturing into a generation of cars. The 2000 series robots remind me of the first Honda Insight.

This is a table demonstrating the difference in materials that have played a part in the evolution of their robot technology. Left was steel, middle was aluminum, on the right was magnesium.

The Honda FCX Concept car.

I’m not sure if this is a functioning concept, if it is it certainly isn’t street legal. The headlights and most of the interior were for show only.

The craftsmanship on the inside was great, too bad all of their production cars don’t come with amount of detail.

Cafe and the library to the left.

Before we went upstairs we wanted to check out the ASIMO demo show that was about to start. In the mean time, we went to the little library and looked through some of the books.

This book was for EG Civic’s and showcased some of the aftermarket parts that were available for these cars in the early 90′s.

JDM books are weird. They read them back to front.

Hey, we’ve been there. It didn’t look much different. ^_^

Vision parts. I remember a time when solid amber Vision corner lights were the thing to have and were extremely expensive. Now you can get fake ones for $10. -__-

These were some of the popular wheels for the EG Civic, they listed them out like a catalog.

We attended a cool ASIMO demo show, along with 30 other small school children.

After the show, we headed upstairs and discovered the JGTC special exhibit.

This NSX was pretty gnarly… twin turbo over 700hp.

You can see the exhaust as well as the waste gate dump tubes.

VTEC Twin Turbo… said by Honda only once in history.

Notice the side stickers, the man himself Tsuchiya himself piloted this car back in the 90′s.

The engine compartment in this car was super compact. The giant air scoop took up most of the bay.

This is what a diffuser should look like.

My favorite one out of the bunch… the famous Castrol NSX. I don’t know how many laps I’ve done in this thing on Gran Turismo. haha

JGTC cars use Takata harnesses. It’s only logical that street cars do as well. ^_^

Some of most famous drivers had their helmets on display.

Next week we go deeper into the Honda Collections Hall and look at some of the most factory and pristine original cars I’ve ever seen.

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, and if you missed any of the last entries, check them out here.

Thanks for looking!

David

The post Japan Day Seven, Part One: Twin Ring Motegi appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Six, Part Two: Tsukuba Circuit

TypeOne — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:00:27 +0000

Continuing from last week’s coverage of Tsukuba Circuit…

This is the R34 Skyline sedan I was talking about… man it was slow.

The girl racer with the blue DC5 was getting ready to go back out for another session.

Highest Run…

So as I was walking I spotted this Euro R Accord that appeared out of nowhere. I started snapping some pics and the guy turns around.

LOL ^_^

SEEKER CR-Z and more cars out on the track.

Getting ready to go out and hammer out more laps.

Kuniyuki San from K+ UP.

The S14 Silvia that was out drifting… looks like it’s all stock except for an air filter.

We walked back towards the back of the track and saw Tim talking with the EG6 guy.

He was cool enough to pose for a serious picture.

Most of the cars were cooling off as it was a seriously hot day.

This EK was super nice.

I love Mugen DC5 parts.

Will wanted to sit in the SEEKER bucket seat to find out how small it was. Yea… they’re pretty small.

Everyone had awesome helmets…

K&N filter!!

We walked backed to Tim’s car and the guys with the EK9′s came over and were talking with him. They wanted to try out the shifter, so Tim let them get in and run through the gears. They said they wished their EK9s felt like that… haha.

All of these guys were really cool and I hope to keep in touch with all of them.

We made our way to the end of the track and climbed up on a small hill that over looks the track.

Another group was about to get out and run.

Looking to the left you can see over the barrier to turn 8 of the full Tsukuba circuit, too bad they had motorcycles out that day.

This Evo was wicked…

There was also an FC RX7 vert out running too.

We started roaming around the out skirts of the property for JDM treasures.

I guess these were old paddocks or something. They had big gates in front of them and nothing really interesting inside.

JDM little tikes car… looks like it needs a tune up.

This place has been around since the 60′s, there was bound to be some junk laying around.

We walked back so we could walk around to the main entrance of the facility.

This was going to be the last session of the day so Tim suited up and got in line.

More EK9 love.

Two championship white DC5s… both pre-face lift and face lift version.

I can’t get enough of this S2000. The color is just amazing in the sun.

This S2000 was odd looking… The front canards just looked out of place, although it looked to have a J’s Racing exhaust.

This car didn’t move at all since we got there and it was still parked when we left. Not sure what was going on with it but I liked it… I’ve always been a fan of S13′s.

Not complete without the JDM dildo shift knob.

We were walking up the road to the main road.

Apparently some of the foam has escaped the track. Probably from cars smashing into the barriers.

Car too low to unload off the flat bed? No problem.

Miata ducked off in the corner.

We wondered through the parking lots and ended up in the middle of the tack. There we found this little museum holding motorcycle gear.

Tsukuba is also huge on motorcycle racing, not just cars.

This is part of the circle track located on the inside of the facility.

We were walking towards turn 4. On the other side of the hill on our right is turn 1.

Old paddocks… I guess these are more for bikes and such as you wouldn’t be able to get on to the main track from here.

The Dunlop tire! Turn 6 of the main track!

You can see turn 4 in the distance!

We saw this beat up RX7 sitting in the parking lot.

I looked like it was broken and had been sitting here for a while.

We walked back to the front in attempts to get into the main track area. But since there was an even going on, we couldn’t get in without tickets or some sort of passes. So we decided to go across the street and check out a DC2 that we saw.

We go into this place called RACIN PLAZA MECCA which was right across the street from the main entrance.

To give you an idea where we had walked, check out the aerial view. The place at the top left was RACIN PLAZA MECCA.

They had the garage door up and were working on an old BMW as we walked by.

We were going to come back and check out the white DC2 on CE28s shortly… in the meantime we went into the store.

This place was really cool… you can tell that it has been here a while and they have seen some stuff. They sold almost anything that you could forget to bring with you, or break at a track day.

Numbers.

Miscellaneous cooling stuff.

Lug nuts, keys and other wheel related parts.

Steering parts…

Racing gloves.

Pretty cool Team 5Zigen racing suit.

Shelves full of Wako’s oil.

I bought some Tsukuba junk and then we walked around the corner to look at the DC2. One of the guys started talking to us and we asked if we could see the cars in the shop. This thing was nuts.

I guess they were restoring this old BMW.

Formula race car.

There was another old racing car in another bay… looks like a Lotus Europa. After talking with one of the younger mechanics that spoke Japanglish, we told him we were looking for Honda cars, and then I said K20A and his face lit up. He yelled to the other guy in the shop and then mumbled that they had a K20A engine for sale. Naturally, my expectations were low but they were super cool and keen on showing us the motor. So we followed them into the back of their shop to what looked like storage units.

This was a cool old Suzuki Forsa racer we walked by on our way to the unit. Now, this guy told us he had a K20A motor for sale… that was about all we could understand. Once we got to the unit, he pulled out a huge roll of keys and slide the door open.

FD2 Type R One make race version. This car was push away, just sitting in the storage unit.

This is the K20A that he was talking about. This motor had 4000 kms on it, brand new. It was a spare engine to this race car. How much? They wanted about $2300 for it.

This car was stuffed in here. There were more wheels and tires than anything… We asked if they could pull the car out as he said it was for sale as well, but there was just too much stuff in the way.

Spare FD2 bumpers hang from the ceiling.

Spare FD2 fenders, and other random parts were lining this unit.

So after looking at that FD2 for a few mins, we asked if they had anything older… say… EK or EG parts around in any of these units. He obliged and told us to follow him.

Crazy old JDM bus, just hanging out.

The he opens this unit. EK4 SiR and EF8 racers…He mentioned that they wanted to sell the bumper and the hood off the EK. The price that he was asking was just too much to buy and bring home.

More wheels and tires… These were sets of TE37s.

The EK4 had one of the super rare Mugen fuel cell covers in the back!

It was an EK4 chassis with a B16B motor. Awesome!

I wish we had more time to spend here and especially Tim, but since he was back at the track racing, we couldn’t really talk to them about the cars. In any case, these were amazing looking cars to have stored away in these little units.

We left the Mecca Racing Plaza before and headed back to the track. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had taken pictures of this car in Tokyo. It was a stock Fit RS with some anime graphics on it.

This purple DC5 showed up while we were out wandering around. The car looked great, but I feel like purple and red don’t really mix. In any case, it’s a DC5 Type R… it’s cool.

Everyone was packing up and since I was tired of carrying around the huge box of Awesome Sauce that we brought, we handed it out to everyone. After a hot day sweating at the race track it was only fitting to freshen up with some sauce.

This guy was so cool he let Will and I take his FD2 out for a spin. Granted it was in the back area but hey… I drove a track prepped FD2, at Tsukuba Circuit. This only salitified the fact that I must own one of these cars.

Then it was Will’s turn. He fits into that Recaro /ASM bucket much better than I did. -__- After beating the FD2 up and down the back of the lot, the track guys ran out and yelled at us… so we pulled back in and helped Tim pack up.

They all parked together.

We hooked these chicks up with some awesome sauce and some fliers. They approved!

So many cool helmets.

More of the awesome Evo wagon. This guy ended up filling it with a tent, a table, chairs, all of his gear… ect.

AP Racing BBK and CE28s. You can’t go wrong.

Teroaka San got out of his racing suit and came by Tim and I to chat. This guy was so cool… really, one of the best people in the industry. I can’t express my gratitude towards these guys enough.

Our buddy with the FD2 stopped by on his way out to say Sayōnara!

Omino San was packing the CR-Z up tight but there is always room for HR stickers!

The SEEKER S2000 was also packed full of gear.

Can’t forget to re-adjust your wing for the street.

This Altezza had a ton of work, but stock brakes… kinda weird considering that minivans run Brembos over here. haha

We walked back to the car and as everyone was talking we asked if we could get a group shot of everyone before we went home. I hope some of them will be reading this blog!

Thanks to everyone that stuck around to hang out with us after the track day! ( 話をしていただきありがとうございます！それは素晴らしい経験でした！)

私達にあなたの連絡先情報を送信してください！

The event at Tsukuba was amazing to say the least. The chance to get to see some of the cars we dream about on the track and talk with the people that own and drive them was also something I wasn’t prepared for. If you look through all of these pictures, not one car was brought in on a trailer. Every one of these cars was driven there and for most of them, it’s their every day driver. I’ll never forget the time we spent walking around the track and wandering around the property.

The sun went down shortly after I took the last picture and it is even blurry… So we headed on to our hotel in Utsunomiya.

On the way in we spotted a huge Tamiya sign and the 8 year old in all of us came screaming out. After we all shouted “turn around!” we would get to check out the inside of a JDM hobby store.

Tons of models filled the shelves of this place. It was awesome.

You can see how deep this place went.They literally had all kinds of models, RC cars and even die cast cars.

Helicopters and planes

All sorts of accessories and replacement parts.

Larger scale RC stuff.

InitialD models!

Die cast models of all varieties like Nascars, Skylines and even some American muscle cars.

I’m a huge Back To the Future nerd so this was probably one of the best things in the store.It was also expensive.

You can’t have a scale model town without Godzilla.

More models… these were mostly VIP cars.

I wish I could have filled my suitcase with some of these things and since I’m not ashamed to admit it, I do build models when I have free time. I’ve been doing it all my life and it’s something I really enjoy.

This was a probably the funniest and most random thing that happened to us while we were in Japan. It’s probably 7pm in the middle of nowhere Japan and we are in a hobby store run by an old lady. Well, in the back of the store, you could rent Air Soft guns and buy the pellets to shoot at targets. Since guns are illegal in Japan, they get pretty creative about how to make the fake guns look real.

Will and Tim decided it was worth the few dollars to shoot Air Soft guns so the lady weighed out the pellets.

She was showing us how to load them up.

You can see the targets in the back corner. It was like an old shelf with plastic dishes resting on them.

Will’s pistol wasn’t working right, mainly because none of us paid attention to the lady as she filled up the guns with CO2.

So after wasting most of the CO2 in the can, we asked the lady how to do it and then the funniest thing in the world happened. She picked up these guns and starting blasting them down the range. Granted they aren’t real guns, but the vision of this old Japanese lady holding these huge ass guns was more than we could handle. Maybe it was all the sun, or perhaps we were losing our minds… either way, we laughed so hard at this, Will fell on the floor.

We stopped to eat dinner before getting to the hotel and the whole trip, Tim was talking about this food called Hamburg. Yes, I know what you’re thinking… sounds like Hamburger? Yea… it does, and the whole time Tim would tell us it wasn’t like a hamburger… it was different. So, we gave in and indulged him.

We got fried pieces of chicken and a potato slices for an appetizer. I didn’t manage to take a picture of our hamburg, but basically… its a freaking hamburger with no bun, on a hot plate served with vegetables and rice. Literally the same thing as a hamburger with no bun.

After dinner we headed out to the car and I spotted this GC8 Impreza. I could do without the graphics and million lights bolted to the front of it, but it was kinda cool looking.

We made it to the hotel and Tim drove his DC5 into another sketchy ass parking-elevator-thing. We headed into the room which was also 9,000,000*f and went to sleep.

The next blog will be out next year where we will visit Twin Ring Motegi as well as the Honda Collection Hall!

Don’t forget to like us and share our blog on Facebook!

Have a great Holiday and New Year, thanks for reading!

David C

The post Japan Day Six, Part Two: Tsukuba Circuit appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Six, Part One: Tsukuba Circuit

TypeOne — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:31:21 +0000

I might sound like a broken record, but this is going to be the largest, most picture heavy entry yet. Over 170 pictures and it’s only going to be part of what we experienced at Tsukuba. With that said, I’ll pick up where we left off after visiting K-TECH Engine Service.

It was an early morning for us, we had to be down stairs to meet with Tim around 5am as Tsukuba was about 2.5 hours north of our hotel and getting to the track day before the drivers meeting was paramount. We would be staying north of Tokyo in Utsunomiya, Japan which would get us closer to the Honda Collection Hall at Twin Ring Motegi which we would be headed to the following day. Tim showed up at the hotel a little later than planned as he had something important come up at work that he needed to handle. Since we were taking the DC5 not only to the racetrack, we were also traveling further north so with all of the racing gear in the back, we left our suitcases with the front desk as we would be returning to Chiba in a few days.

On the way out of Tokyo the traffic sucked. It seemed like it took forever to just get out of the city onto the open road.I snapped some pictures of this VW wagon in the meantime.

Daihatsu Move. If you have ever played any of the older Gran Truismo games, you hate this car.

Within a matter of seconds all of these scooter guys came flying down the center of traffic. People riding these things are no joke, it seemed like they don’t even care about getting run over.

We were rolling close to 60mph and these scooter guys were cruising with us.

Subaru R2, something most people in the US will never see or hear about.

Honda Mobilio Spike.

Another Fit Shuttle. I don’t know how I feel about these things. Yea, they are cool… but they are also kinda ugly. Normal Fit’s are better proportioned I think.

Getting into the town there more cool signs to read. Golf Partner.

We were thinking about staying at the Hotel Do Do… but decided not to.

The land flattened out and rice fields starting showing up everywhere.

I think this is Mt Tsukuba in the distance.

JDM road construction. Naturally, the road poles are held up by orange caution monkeys.

This was like some sort of vegetable highway or something, I’m not totally sure but I remember Tim talking about it.I have no idea what that could even be… haha

It’s pretty empty out here… much different than the hustle of the cities.

We aren’t far away from the track now.

I don’t know what the hell this thing is, but it was pulling out of the seicomart.

We were certainly heading in the right direction, tuner cars started popping up.

There it is! You can see the Autobacs tower in the distance!

Down the street from Tsukuba, there are a few shops and parking lots that are filled with awesome cars. We explore some of these later, but in the meantime check out this row of Skylines and what looks like a DC2 with a Mugen rear wing.

A little blurry, but it was the best one that I took while driving by the main grandstands.

We had to follow the road down and take a few right turns to get to the back of the track. Tim would be racing on Tsukuba Circuit 1000 which is located on the back section of the facility.

You can see the TS 1000 located in the red box. Considerably shorter and slower than the main track, but still very technical. Tim said a sub 40 second lap at this track was extremely fast.

We arrived late and had missed the drivers meeting so we had to hurry to get set up and check in.

We pulled through the parking lot and found a spot next to this guy with the silver FD2. Tim knew him and mentioned that he has driven this car around the track before.

This car was super clean and functional. Later in the day I actually took this car on a little joy ride around the parking lots. We would have been able to race had we attended the drivers meeting, but it’s ok, I wanted to be a fly on the wall and just take in the full experience.

This place was an FD2 haven… they were everywhere and certainly the most popular car here. We will start off the count, this is #2.

Mostly stock FD2 Type R, #3.

I hoped up on the hill when I heard engines roar, and started snapping pictures. Please forgive the scattered layout of this blog as I’m uploading them in the order that I took them for continuity.There were a few FN2′s here as well.

Track prepped DC2 Type R.

Black FD2 Type R, #4.

The star of the event was on the track as well. The SEEKER built S2000 was laying down some fast laps as Teroaka San was dialing in the suspension.

Looking over my shoulder you could see the parking lot of this place was filled with Honda’s. I took nearly 1000 pictures this day.

This EVO IX was loud and judging by the fireballs blowing out of the exhaust, pretty fast.

FD2 Type R, #5. This thing was covered in stickers for no apparent reason. It wasn’t a factory SEEKER car, just one of their customers.

FD2 Type R, #6.

One of the fastest cars of the day… DC5 Type R. This thing was serious.

A better picture of this FD2.

Beautiful DB8 Type R on bronze CE28s and TE37s.

DAP Civic SiR EK4.

Captiva blue Civic SiR EG6. This car also had a K-TECH balanced engine.

FD2 Civic Type R (Mugen RR edition), #7…

More shots of Teroaka San dialing in the S2000.

Came in a little too hot on this turn and ended up spinning it. I wish I had a more powerful lens as this made for a really cool shot.

We pulled the plate off of Tim’s DC5, cleaned it up and as he was checking the tire pressure, I was taking pictures. ^_^

FD2 Civic Type R, #8. This one also with many SEEKER parts and a nice set of Volk RE30s.

SEEKER carbon front lip.

This car was rad. One of the best looking at the event.

Once Tim got set up I went walking around the pits to check out the cars.

A group of DC5 drivers, including that gnarly yellow one parked over here. They unloaded all of their stuff from their cars and set up a tent. We forgot ours. -__-

Blue DC5 Recaro anyone?

I talked to this guy, well, Tim talked to this guy for me for a little while and he was super cool.

Water in the headlight…

This is the same EK9 from SEEKER’s shop. The owner of this car was also super cool.

FD2 Civic Type R, #9. Like the other FD2 this car was covered in vinyl… Now, I’m not sure many will agree with me, but if you saw this car at a car show or event in the US… it would kill. It really makes you believe that it is associated with FEEL’S, but it doesn’t. I don’t think this car was particularly fast on the track given the amount of stickers it had on it. But in any case, it’s an FD2 and it’s still cool.

I’m always a fan of blue wheels.

So. Many. Stickers. Not to mention the terrible looking aero… (even though it’s Bomex.) Oh well, still FD2.. still cool.

In line waiting to get on to the track.

This CR-Z was awesome looking even with the reverse stagger wheels and tires…

This Mugen RR was dope, although I don’t know why anyone would put those tail lights on it. -__-

The RR was also sporting the new Volk Racing G25 wheels.

Why own a naturally aspirated S15 Silvia?! I can appreciate the effort, but c’mon… these things need to be turbocharged.

I didn’t see this thing out on the track, I guess it was just a spectator’s ride. Like the Daihatsu. Move, the Suzuki Cappuccino was one of the my least favorite cars in Gran Turismo. haha

Teroaka San offering tips on suspension setup. This is one of the things that really sets the SEEKER guys apart from the other tuning companies. These guys will help you set your car up correctly, and Teroaka San will even drive your car and tell you what feels wrong and how to drive it. He was all over the place during the event.

This beautiful Championship white DC5 drove by me on it’s way to the starting line. The Mugen wing is a nice touch on even a stock looking car.

Odd how circuit is spelled, “CiRCUiT.”

I’ve got more pictures of this thing coming later on. You can it has been on the track getting hammered for a long time… haha

The paddock area was for members of the track and who ever wanted to pay for it. SEEKER had a stall over here with all of their gear in it.

Today’s track map.

This Move was actually pretty cool. Crazy loud and filled with a million roll bars.

I feel like this car was always out on the track because every time I would go by the fences to watch it was out there.

Another blue, bone stock DC5 Type R. <3

Two pretty cool tuned vans. The one on the right was actually owned by the guy hosting this track day. It has some pretty huge Brembo brakes. haha

Aside from Honda’s there were a few Toyota Altezzas here for the track day. The orange one in the distance was super tuned and quite fast.

This Kouki S14 Silvia also did a lot of laps. He was drifting most of the time which was awesome to watch.

JDM Toyota Altezza, complete with JDM stickers.

Teroaka San was back at the paddock taking a seat and having a drink before he got back into the S2000. You can see Omino San in the background cleaning a helmet or something.

I didn’t realize it at the time but this is the same blue DC5 from SEEKER’s shop. Yes, this girl was tightening the lugs, yes it is her car, yes she was racing it. Awesome.

I walked over to Teroaka San and he offered to show me this FD2. He said it had a K-TECH built engine. (FD2 Type R, #10)

The motor in this car was a full original rebuild.

Awesome!

To the left is Haga Kuniyuki, owner of K+UP Racing. He also sells Type R cars which he mentioned he does exports. Check out his site, www.TypeR.jp.The guy in the background with the helmet on was the owner of the SEEKER S2000.

EK9′s in line ready to do battle!

I’m sad that I forgot this guys name because he was so cool, but in this pic he had just come in from a hot lap and was opening his hood to let it cool down.

FN2 cooling down after a session.

I walked back to the paddock and observed Ko Omino checking on the S2000 after it had been out for a few laps.

K-TECH / TODA built engine collaboration was powering this monster.

Ko was pulling the catch can out to clean it.

I would normally begin this sentence with, “I’m not a fan of different colored engine bays,” but in the case of this AP2, it looks good. The yellow and orange work with each other and I think it lends to the cool factor of this car.

Can’t forget to safety wire your oil filter.

The owner was getting ready to go back out for another session.

More talking and discussion from the men at SEEKER.

I could get pretty close to the track from here so I snap a few pics of some cars as they cam around the last turn. This S15 was… different.

Look closely and you’ll see the brake ducts stuck inside of the C-WEST bumper.

This R34 Skyline sedan was not only the slowest car of the day, it was also non-turbo and equipped with an automatic gearbox. I give this guy kudos for going out there and hammering the shit out of it anyway.

EVO X battle!

Another picture of this DC5 lifting the inside wheel.

Turbo Altezza and an EVO IX wagon were fighting it out as well. The evo was super fast and had a set of huge AP Racing brakes on it. Every turn it was burping fire.

A better shot of the front. The award for the fastest most practical track day car goes to this thing. Not only was is super fast, this guy brought so much shit with him to the track it was crazy. More on this later.

A pic of the other side of the paddock. Notice the Z33 Fairlady Z…

Time for another session.

#26, (SEEKER Ap2) currently fastest lap of the day.

Another black FD2 Type R, #11.

Super duper clean R32 GTR parked out near the road. Why this thing wasn’t on the track… I’ll never know.

This S2000 came in from a session and the brake pads were damn near on fire. You can see the smoke coming off of them.

A winning line up of Type R blood.

More spectators.

The silver FD2 next to Tim’s DC5 had the hood opened so I snapped a few pics of the bay…

Apparently this car is serviced at Type One.

The guys were doing more fine tuning on the AP2′s suspension.

The S14 was out throwing down some smooth slides.

The EK9′s were back out at it.

More of the JDM-ish FD2.

Tim had finally made it out onto the track and was putting out some pretty good times.

Tim was fast, but that EVO would catch him on the straight.

The blue DC5 was out as well.

DC2 and DB8 action!

Cool down time as it was almost lunch time.

I forgot all about this Prelude until I went back through the pictures. This car was actually very cool, and being that I’m not really a huge Accord/Prelude guy it really surprised me.

The engine mods looked relatively simple but the overall appearance was really nice.

I tried to steal one of these but it wouldn’t fit in my suitcase.

I went back to the EG6 to check it out.

K-TECH balanced engine. We spoke with the owner and told him he needed a K series engine and he said he doesn’t need more power, he needs to learn how to drive better. Well played sir.

I don’t know what is up with the colored vinyl at the bottom of the headlight but I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that would trade FA5 front ends with him.

Smoke break!

Our prototype shifter being abused… all day by Tim’s massive Australian arms.

Once the track cleared up, we had a small window to do ride along. You can’t come to Tsukuba and not go for a ride!

Then it was my turn.

It was really cool to go out and feel how the car handled at the limits. You could feel the DC5 rotate in the turns which is much different than the FD2. Tim prefers the DC5 handling characteristics over the FD2 for that reason… the FD2 has a lot of understeer.

Meanwhile, the SEEKER S2000 was getting lined up for a photo shoot. After it did about 90 laps, of course.

The yellow monster DC5 was cooling down. I’m not sure what was done to this thing but it was serious.

The guy with the EK4 was back by his car so we walked over to chat with him.

The car was all stock motor wise, but it did have some suspension and brake work.

We hooked this guy up with some Awesome Sauce and stickers for being so cool!

Back to this DC2 that had been cooling off… This car was racing with 3 different drivers so Tim and I think they had to have been running an endurance team, all getting a feel for the car.

Pretty standard minus the cage and seats.

J’s Racing intake and what looks to be a stock B18 header covered with heat wrap. This car has definitely seen better days.

Towards the end of the day they posted up the stats of the lap day. Tim ended up with the 17th fastest time of the day, not bad considering his car is stock with the exception of a Mugen airbox, Fujisubo exhaust, seeker aluminum radiator, brake lines, pads and coilovers. 2nd is the yellow DC5 and 1st is the SEEKER S2000 which is almost breaking the 40 second barrier.

Check back next week for part two of the Tsukuba track day as we take a hike and uncover some jewels hidden outside of the gates.

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, and if that is where you saw this post, share it!

Thanks for reading!

David

The post Japan Day Six, Part One: Tsukuba Circuit appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Five: K-Tech Engine Service

TypeOne — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:10:28 +0000

This is going to be an extremely long blog so take some time to look through the pictures and read the text as there is a great deal of information.

I woke up this morning extremely excited about our plans as we were going to visit two places that are rich in Honda history and special for their own reasons. Since we spent most of the previous day hanging out with Teraoka San and Omino San from SEEKER, we didn’t have a chance to make it to Spoon before they closed. So naturally, the first item on our agenda was to locate and consume breakfast food that didn’t come from a bowl or consist of rice.

We made our way downstairs and headed to the building across from the Makuhari convention center as we were told there would be places to eat there. Tim was coming to meet us shortly so we didn’t have much time to walk around. Luckily there was a cafe which had croissants for breakfast with egg and sausage.

This stuff was made fresh to order and was cheap… good deal if you ask me. However in true Japanese fashion, the eggs were served cold… which is really different as it isn’t something I would normally eat for breakfast. In any case, it was quite good and Will managed to get the worlds hottest cup of tea which would have certainly killed him if he tried to drink it as served.

We met up with Tim after breakfast and headed out. I spotted this old Nissan Cube pulling in the parking area.

Tim picked us up in his Odyssey, which looks freaking sweet with the optional Modulo aero kit and wheels. It’s a shame we never got this version in the USA.

The inside of this thing had a fold down HDTV and tons of other cool stuff you’d think a van should have.

We had to head back to his house to get the DC5, then we would be off to Spoon. We passed some JDM road workers on the way. haha

I saw a lot of weird crap while I was in Japan and this is one of them. I don’t know what the hell that sticker is… but it certainly can’t be good.

A few blocks away from Tim’s house this late model DB8 Type R just sits. Tim said that he have never seen it move…

I got out and snapped a few pictures of this thing as it was too mint.

The mileage on this thing was low… around 40k.

We grabbed the DC5 and headed out into the heart of Tokyo on the way to Spoon. I spotted this cool 4dr Skyline R34.

I didn’t really see many Skylines during my stay. I guess being in the American car scene the R34 Skyline GT-R is like the ultimate Japanese tuner car, but short of the black one I saw on the trailer heading into Tokyo I really didn’t see any other R34s. I guess they are just as rare as all of the other cars that we Americans think are still roaming the streets of Japan.

The buildings in this area were really cool, some were far more modern than others.

This tuned EVO flew by us in traffic. Cool looking car but I still don’t care for tinted tail lights… no matter what sort of the car they are on.

We made our way to Spoon and had to park like 7 blocks away because all of the lots were full. After we parked I walked by this truck and noticed this sticker. As I was taking the picture these Japanese guys were screaming at us. Tim started talking to them and he said they asked why I was taking a picture of their truck. He explained that it said Fucker Sports Club, which sounds ridiculous in English and a picture was necessary.

We are only a few blocks away from Spoon head quarters now. The streets look pretty traditional.

CoCoLo… you know, hair cuts.

Modern fashion.

Yes, Hairs Glamour.

More cool buildings and garage doors.

Being that we were so close to Spoon, we figured it would be best to stop and grab a drink and use the rest room. I was so excited to talk to the guys at Spoon, peeing on myself would have probably given the wrong impression.

JDM cigarettes.

Don’t leave home without them.

More comics…

Now I know this seems sketchy but bear with me for a second. I had to take a picture of this because I don’t think anyone would believe me when I explained it. I wasn’t surprised at the… uhh.. hole in the ground, but I was more amazed at how small this room is. My shoulders were literally touching both sides. Thankfully this was my first and last experience with the JDM toilet.

How can you resist these hot meat filled buns? Actually… I think this one had pizza in it. Either way… amazing stuff right here.

Honda International Seminar is next door to Spoon. Coincidence? Not related to Honda of Japan? Who knows, but thought it was interesting anyway.

We made it!

I swear it was like that when we walked up. These guys must have known we were coming! I guess I’ll take the time now to give you the back story on our visit to Spoon. After talking with Seeker and Tim, they both expressed that the guys at Spoon were probably going to be pretty cold to us. They aren’t interested in talking to people… about anything. They aren’t very helpful and they may not even be willing to let us in. It was worth a try, and since we traveled 9,500 miles, you can’t NOT try to get into Spoon.

Anyway, Tim poked his head in the office door and mentioned that we would like to come in and look around and that we knew Teraoka San from Seeker. They agreed and opened the door.

An AP1 S2000 was sitting in their showroom. You can see this car from the street… it was really nice.

Of course, a Spoon steering wheel would be fitted to the AP1.

A K20A engine sitting quietly in their hallway.

Boxes of Momo wheels stacked up. I assume these are all Spoon wheels made by Momo.

Their offices aren’t super big, but you can tell they get work done. It was extremely quiet in this place and all of the workers seemed to be middle aged.

Pretty cool racing helmets sitting on the counter. I wonder how many of these guys actually go out and race?

We walked in and they were boxing up orders which I assume are shipments going to customers or vendors around the world.Their old school Civic race car was stuffed away in the corner.

Spoon parts.

CR93′s anyone? Most of the upper level was filled with them… I personally don’t care for the way they look. For their sake, I hope many don’t share the same opinion as me because they had a LOT of them.

What are these guys doing with Acura ZDX emblems..? Weird.

Crappy picture, but you get the idea. Spoon seat in the inside of this old Civic race car. Looks like fire suppression and a neat little roll cage.

Center lock wheels on a Civic…? Yes please!

Shelves of spoon parts in boxes. These parts have to be assembled somewhere else… there was simply no room for any of this stuff to be built here. Unless they do assembly and manufacturing on the top two floors… but I doubt it. We talked to the guy in glasses for a few minutes, ( I can’t remember his name) and Tim told him what we did and why we were in Japan. He mentioned that they had completed a few K series swaps in a few EK9s but didn’t do it regularly. I then asked if I could buy one of their windshield banners and have him sign it as a memento to my trip. He then said that I would have to purchase one from one of their vendors and that he couldn’t help me.

*BEGIN RANT*

Now, I know we aren’t as big as Spoon in the terms of employees, sales or even as a retailer/dealer… but if someone traveled 9,500 miles away and walked into my shop, I’d probably take them out to dinner and seriously hook them up with HR gear. I guess hospitality and interest in our customer base is more important to us than it is to them. Needless to say, after that… we left. Maybe I’m over reacting, but I was disappointed. Truly and honestly let down as an enthusiast. I remember before I could even drive, reading magazines with Spoon cars featured, and playing video games with their shop race cars. To finally get to meet some of the guys affiliated with them and see their place only to have them tell me I can’t buy a sticker was pretty shitty.

*END RANT*

Oh well… we carry on to K-TECH.

On the way to K-TECH we passed this nice late model FD2 Type R. I can’t get enough of these cars.

I then spotted this silver EK9 with stickers all over it.

Check out the yellow sticker on the quarter glass. Nikko circuit… that is a pretty hardcore grass roots track a few hours north of Tokyo. Also well known for drifting.

I saw this white Ferreri GTO on the back of a Ferrari / Isuzu truck. Pretty cool.

Nerima BMW.Dealerships like this in the USA are like 10000x larger.

K-TECH is about an hour away from SEEKER and Spoon.

A Honda Oritha work vehicle. I’d like to have one of these over in the USA as it’s basically an EK wagon.

I saw a fairly large amount of Japanglish while I was there and I had to snap a picture of this. I guess the question mark would confuse people, so they left it out.

I know there is at least one thing in America that isn’t larger than in Japan… Road signs. These people do it right.

There are also a large amount of what we call, sketchy hotels. Go here if you want to bang someone that you can’t bang at home. I was also told they also offer covers for your license plates so no one can see where you are from. -__-

Yellow Hat auto parts store. Kinda like Autobacs… Not nearly as cool.

FT-86 in the parking lot with tuner stickers on it.

Photo-bombed an FN2 as we passed through an intersection. Looks like it is driving on a set of Volk RE30s.

Finally! We arrived to one of the most surprising destinations of our trip. K-TECH Engine Service. (http://www.k-techeng.net)

This building was built recently for Kawashima San and I can promise you haven’t seen many shops like this, it is also his home.

He likes dogs… awesome!

Kawashima San came outside quickly to greet us. After we introduced ourselves, Tim mentioned that we had installed our DC5 shifter into his car the day before. Kawashima San was interested in testing it out… he called it “maniac,” just as SEEKER did the day before. He also said it was nice to see such an improvement over the stock part which is known to be unreliable.

One of the first things that I noticed about Kawashima San was these rad toe socks. I had to snap a secret shot of them. ^_^

Time to go into the shop, and of course, remove out shoes and put on slippers. That’s what you normally do in your garage right? haha

Kawashima San’s S2000 was sitting beautifully in his garage. More on this thing later.

In addition to being his garage, this is also where he does his dyno tuning. You can see ventilation system that sucks out all of the toxic fumes from the room while the car is running.

Right away I noticed this K20A motor on an engine stand. This is actually the engine out of the Mugen RR that was sitting outside of SEEKER’s shop. It’s getting a full K-TECH built engine. Mmm.. sounds cheap. >_<

I’ve never seen this until I came to Japan. I first noticed it on the car at SEEKER. Safety wired oil filter… pretty hardcore.

You know the expression, “so clean you could eat off it”…? As cliche as it sounds, it was true. This place was immaculate. The cleanest, most organized workshop I have ever been to.

SEEKER has their own engine cart.

The man’s work area where he specs out his crankshafts, cams and bearings…ect

Empty shelves waiting to be filled with the variety of parts that make up a K-TECH engine build.

A B16 motor being built for a customer.

You can see all of the parts laid out perfectly, waiting to be assembled.

Another spotless table. This one had a rubber pad on it to protect the parts that were set on it.

This shelf was filled with an F20C in pieces. Pretty gnarly stuff.

This one was filled with the usual stuff. Flash-Pro’s, Spoon and Toda pistons, tons of OEM Honda parts and South Pole hats.

Every master must have the right tools for the job. I can tell you that Kawashima San wasn’t missing anything.

Even the trash can vacuum were clean. haha

I don’t know what the signs said on the doors, but there was more magical stuff behind them.

So clean it made me sick! You can’t call this a garage… it’s a laboratory.

Every tool, stand, cart, stool and part has a specific place.

Each individual engine type had it’s own drawer for specific gaskets, plugs and miscellaneous parts.

K-TECH pistons and rods are laid out in these bamboo trays before he specs them out and assembled them.

Specifically numbered valves in a custom JDM holder.

He took us into one of the rooms where he does his cylinder head porting and polishing. He showed us his cool little trick light bulb / vacuum that sucks all of the metal dust up so it doesn’t rest on anything else in the room, nor will it find way into the cracks and crevices of the head.

We got a demonstration as Kawashima San went to town and cleaned up the ports on this cylinder head.

In the next room he had his parts washer and sink. This guy is old school, and not only was he a professor at one of the engineering labs for Honda technicians, he has a son that helps him build engines. He said his son has been working with him for a few years and the ONLY thing he is allowed to do is wash and clean engine parts. Not only that, but he isn’t allowed to carry any part to the wash room. It must be placed on it’s specific cart and wheeled in. It’s small things like this that just blew my mind… he is like a Honda engine sensei.

He also demonstrated how he keeps the floor spotless by squirting a drop of oil on it.You can BARELY see the dot of oil… but it’s there. lol

Not sure what was in the spray can, but it cleaned up the oil and left a squeaky clean surface.

I spotted a K-TECH header in bubble wrap above the porting room.

OEM Honda K20 piston next to a K-TECH piston. He designs and engineers all of his own parts.

Kawashima San was showing us how he inspects engine bearings and can tell if they have been installed correctly.

He then showed us how he specs out bearings and measures cranks. Granted Kawashima San doesn’t speak English, so like always, we were talking through Tim.

Here he is showing us the equipment he uses to calibrate his torque wrenches before they touch any bolt. He will calibrate them every single time the settings need to change.

Like Suzuki San of BYS, Kawashima San loves dogs and has an affinity for Dachshunds.

We sat down with him and discussed engine design and had him tell us more about where he started and where he came from. He said that his family has always been involved with Honda and that growing up he had a love for the mechanical parts, engines mainly. He had no interests in anything else except building engines and making parts for them. He worked with the Mugen team that was responsible for building the formula engines in the 80′s and 90′s. He also mentioned that he has never had a single engine that he has built fail from construction error. Engines that he built back in the 90′s are still in cars running today.

He also mentioned something that was interesting… he only uses K20 engines. He refuses to build K24s. He doesn’t like the stroke of the K24 and says it’s not the best engine to use. I know that is going to turn a lot of heads but this is what makes Japanese tuners different than us in America. He builds K20 engines for efficiency and maximum power and torque using as many OEM Honda parts as possible. He isn’t interested in making 300whp, but real, useable power that you can keep for an extended amount of time. Out of all of the parts used on his engines, only the pistons, rods and camshafts are aftermarket and that he only uses TODA cams.

A ballpark number to have a K-TECH built engine, which is the full on original engine with his parts is about $25,000-$30,000. He does not sell his parts separately… if you want his internals, he is the only person that can install them. A motor to that spec will produce roughly 240-250whp and keeps the stock intake manifold, stock throttle body… ect

He opened up his program that would simulate stress on the rods at any particular RPM. I will admit that most of the stuff he was explaining was over my head, as I’m not an engine builder, but interesting nonetheless.He did mention that he only builds used engines and does not like to start with new ones. He says the used engines although may have more miles, they have already been heat cycled so the metal won’t contract and expand as much as a new engine block does.

We talked about power bands and such. He explained how he tunes his cars and how he tunes car for the track. Maximum torque after you shift he says is the key.

Kawashima San pulled out one of his S2000 headers, same as the one we saw on the shelf at SEEKER the other day. He was going into detail about the construction of them and that they are all hand made by a friend of his who is tragically sick with cancer. He has been making headers and fabricating his entire life and that he would have his friend make them until he wasn’t able to. It’s almost like a fine swordsmirth, taking an insane amount of hours and years of skill to make these. I don’t care what kind of factory you have, you can’t mass produce anything like this and now you know why they cost around $4,000 each. Is it worth the performance gain you might ask? I will say that it is certainly worth it to some… not to everyone.

Each section of this header is composed of multiple pieces. You can see the seams where the pieces are welded together and then smoothed on the inside for perfect flow. Why not just use a normal tube…? There is a reason.

On the right you have a normal piece of exhaust tubing, on the left you have a normal pie cut section that you’d find in a high quality exhaust. The center half cut is a cast piece made specifically for the K-TECH/SEEKER headers. By casting each piece, they can control the thickness and then polish the inside and outside. Once they are polished up, the halves are then welded together to create a perfectly contoured bend that is not only the same ID but the reduced thickness of the metal makes the part extremely light. It’s things like this that set most American tuners apart from Japanese as I find it hard to believe that many (if any) would be willing to spend $4,000 on a header…even if it promised to make the most power of any header in the world. Only a handful of these headers are sold each year and I don’t think any of them make their way to the USA.

I picked up the completely constructed S2000 header and literally weighed half as much as a normal stainless header.

Kawashima San was nice enough to open up his S2000 and show us what it is all about. Notice the stripe on the valve cover. The K-TECH engines all have a special valve cover, hand painted for the owner. Each series of engine has a different color stripe on it. In the case of an engine made with TODA parts, it will have a red stripe. The silver stripe means the engine has been overhauled and balanced by K-TECH. Then finally the gold-ish stripe means that the engine is a complete K-TECH original, built for the customer to specific specs. I think the stripe on his valve cover was black… not sure what the significance is.

Volk Racing RE30 wheels over a set of Spoon brakes.

The wide fenders on this S2000 are almost unnoticeable, but they have certainly been widened. The rear bumper has also been molded to incorporate the body line… I wouldn’t expect anything less from Kawashima San. I also found it odd that the dirtiest thing in this garage was his car and that’s because he goes out and drives this thing around town. We told him we were going to Tsukuba the following day and he laughed, then said he hasn’t been there in 30 years. He doesn’t need to race as his customers are always bringing his engines.

It was truly an honor to meet Makato Kawashima… a true tuning legend. This guy turned our day around and blew us away with his hospitality, knowledge and experience that most of us will never accumulate in our lifetime. This guy has devoted his life to the pursuit of creating the best possible engines and when I asked him what his goal is… his response was, “to be known as the best Honda engine builder in the world.” With his experience, attention to detail and a background in engineering I have no doubt that he is on his way. After the personal disappointment I experienced at Spoon, the few hours we spent talking with Kawashima San made the entire trip worth it.

I wasn’t going to mention it, but when it was time to leave his laboratory, we bowed at his feet, because if anyone deserves it… it’s this man.

After hanging out with Kawashima San all day and having our minds blown, we stopped on the way back to the hotel to eat some grub. We must have still been in awe from K-TECH as eating at this placed seemed like a good idea. I’m not sure if it is traditional, but it seemed like all of the places we went to you had to yell at the waiter/waitress to let them know you needed something. So people were in this joint yelling up a storm… and since I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I assumed it was bad.

I don’t know what this place was called.. but it wasn’t good. It was super sketchy and thankfully I didn’t get sick from eating it.

The sun was going down and traffic was terrible heading back into Tokyo. I saw this giant parking lot full of Mini’s and a lowered Toyota pickup. haha

I’ll leave you guys with a picture of a house with clouds on it and a cool picture of a laundry mat.

Check back with us next week as we visit the world famous Tsukuba Circuit for a track day with our friends in Japan. As always, thanks for reading and be sure to share this post and like us on Facebook!!

-David

The post Japan Day Five: K-Tech Engine Service appeared first on Hybrid Racing.

Japan Day Four: SEEKER

TypeOne — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:39:37 +0000

As the sun went down we headed into the outskirts of Tokyo. I didn’t attempt to take any pictures while driving because they would have all ended up useless anyway.

After driving for a few hours the DC5 was running low on fuel so we decided to stop off at another rest area to fill up and grab some dinner. We rolled in and parked next to this wicked looking Toyota Levin track car. This thing looked like something you’d see in an old Option video tearing up a mountain pass.

Throughout my stay in Japan, I had people asking me if I was going to eat at McDonald’s. I’m not a huge McDonald’s fan here in the USA so naturally I didn’t plan on eating it in Japan. However after a few days of eating only bowls of noodle soup, an American hamburger sounded great. We walked in and while there were other various places to eat we walked up and ordered some burgers… well… Tim did… I just pointed to what I wanted.

The menu looks similar to the one in America.

This lady was confused as to why I was taking pictures of people standing in line. Like always, I smiled and giggled and then she smiled and walked off.

We got simple quarter pounders with fries, and I got a small box of nuggets as everyone was curious if they were the same as well. The verdict is in… it tastes the same. It was just as good as the food over here, albeit constructed with more care. We also all agreed that the nuggets tasted exactly the same. There was an interested menu choice called the teriyaki burger, Tim advised me to stay away from it and like always, I took his word.

With our stomach’s filled with McDonald’s we walked out to the parking lot and there were some weird looking cars outside. I have no idea what this thing is… some sort of Toyota. There was also a gathering of drift cars but it was too sketchy to take pictures, I didn’t want to get shot… or… stabbed with a sword. Tim mentioned most of the drift cars were from Yokohama which was fairly far away so they had to be meeting up to go slide somewhere.

I did manage to snap a picture of this R33 Skyline which had a sticker on the back that said “troublemaker.”

We made it back to the car and stopped to fuel up and then headed into Tokyo.

A few hours later we made it to Chiba and to the Tokyo Bay Makuhari Hotel; if anyone has ever been to TAS (Tokyo Auto Salon) this is the hotel that is across the street from the convention center.

If I have any serious complaints about my stay in Japan is how HOT it is in every single building. I’m not joking when I say that the hotel hallways are at least 90*f. It was so extremely hot that just standing in the hallway would cause you to sweat. Will and I had to navigate through the hotel not knowing how to speak or read anything and for the most part it wasn’t difficult as most people at the hotel could speak and understand SOME English… however, when we arrived to our room it was a blistering 89*f inside. I turned the thermostat all the way down and nothing happened. It was like there was one single AC unit for the whole building cooling all of the rooms, the air was barely blowing out of the vent.

So I had to call down stairs to the front desk and talk to receptionist like a child to get them to understand that it wasn’t working. My Japanglish wasn’t cutting it and needless to say, we sweated our asses off that night.

The next morning we cleaned up and went downstairs to meet Tim as he was coming to pick us up. Before we left we sent a huge package to his house which had some of our parts, as well as stickers and Awesome Sauce to hand out.

… but it’s ok to smoke while standing?

2004-ish Honda Ediux.

Nissan Stagea perhaps?

A few minutes later we heard the rumble of Tim’s DC5 coming down the street, I love his car.

We packed in and headed to Tim’s house to grab the package that was to be delivered that morning.

Chiba was a nice place… somewhat crowded and cramped but a very nice, clean place.

JDM ambulances.

We got to Tim’s house, waiting a while for the package and then after it finally arrived we headed into Tokyo on our first stop which was SEEKER. Although it’s a small shop, you can’t miss a parking lot like this.

DC5, EK9, FD2, EG6, DC5 and a Mugen RR FD2… a parking lot full of JDM Honda superstars.

Blue on blue DC5 with Volk RE30s.

Super clean EK9 on staggered CE28′s and C-West front bumper.

The famous SEEKER demo Civic FD2. Unfortunately the engine had been pulled out so we didn’t have a change to go for a ride in this beast.

The SEEKER demo EG6. If anyone watches the Japanese Togue battle videos, but this is the car that Orido crashes into the tree. Check out that video here.

A customers Mugen Civic RR. This thing was here for a K-TECH engine which, if you don’t know what that is, you will shortly.

Cool looking wheels…? Nope. Curbed checked all the way around. >_< Not on a Mugen RR!!

SEEKER demo CR-Z. This is really one of the few CR-Z’s I actually like. Some of the body kits and aero parts out there for these cars just don’t look right… but SEEKER’s lip kit get’s it right.

I love the center exit exhaust setup.

Spoon calipers and Volk Racing G2 wheels.

Tim’s awesome DC5.

This is Ryo Teraoka’s, the founder and owner of SEEKER, daily driver… a new Honda Fit RS.

We walked around and I spotted Ko Omino doing some work on a customer EG6.

This was a fairly clean EG6… Spoon SW388′s and a Mugen exhaust. I don’t care for the clear corner lights and projector headlights, but hey… it’s Japan.

Boxes of awesome parts waiting to be installed on a customer’s car.

You can see how close the garage is to the street… I literally almost got ran over by a dozen people on bicycles after taking this picture.

With one garage bay and one small office full of parts, SEEKER is the quintessential Japanese Tuner.

With parts, books and magazines stacked up, you can tell that the guys from SEEKER do work.

Who says parts can’t be art? I have never seen a nicer header in my years of being in this business. These headers are hand built by a guy that has been making headers for most of his life. With a combined effort from K-TECH and SEEKER these are not only some of the highest quality parts I’ve ever seen, they are also some of the most expensive. In some cases, these headers can cost upwards of $3000 each.Think it just looks like any other hand made header? We will get into more detail in next weeks blog when we visit one of the worlds top Honda engine builder and tuner, K-TECH.

Another exhaust manifold made by SEEKER and K-TECH. The craftsmanship on these parts are just amazing…

Spoon Rigid Collars were found on the lower shelf. Teraoka San said these were really good parts and recommends them to his customers.

More SEEKER parts and Takata belts…

SEEKER parts as well as various other bits.

SEEKER Clutch kits.

SEEKER oil caps, seat belt clips and badges… we will have all of these bits in stock soon, so if you, or anyone you know wants SEEKER goods… email us Sales@hybrid-racing.com. We offer the full line of SEEKER goods.

Team SEEKER shirt with all of their affiliates listed. We got a few.

This is the K-TECH built engine out of the SEEKER FD2. I believe this motor was going into the Mugen RR that was parked outside.

Omino San was finished up with the EG6 and it was time to pull Tim’s DC5 in for a fluid change. In two days we would go to Tsukuba 1000 circuit so it was time Tim put fresh oils in his car before he hammered the shit out of it.

We also installed our newest shifter for the DC5, which Tim used during our stay in Japan.

The man himself, Ryo Teraoka testing out the shifter for himself. He liked it and was impressed by the feel. It was called something similar to what Suzuki San at BYS said, “maniac.” He did suggest that we make the springs slightly softer for the Japanese market as their arms would get tired from shifting. ^_^ I guess our American arms are too big… haha

Motul and Omega oils are found in this place… not much else.

All of the tools you need and nothing you don’t. Because of the limited space these guys have to be very picky about the stuff they keep inside.

We had Teraoka San and Omino San sign some of their catalogs for us. Sadly this is where my coverage gets spotty because I was using two different cameras and I left some of the pictures on a card in Japan… SO… until I have that card back, this will be about it. I will post another update on SEEKER’s shop when I get more images.

The guys offered to show us the EG6 so we went outside to check it out. I loved the front fenders on this car… you can tell they are widened a bit but it doesn’t look over the top.

The 17×9 inch front wheels certainly don’t look out of place when combined with the C-WEST bumper and widen fenders. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but the door skin was raised up as well to help with the lines of the wide front fenders. I have more pictures of it on my other camera card.

The inside of the car is all business.

Like I mentioned before, I have more pictures of SEEKER, but none that are in my possession. I’ll post more up once I can, and I want to thank Ryo and Ko for being so cool and open to us coming in and hanging out. We also had a chance to talk with them a lot about their company and where they feel like Honda is going. Once I get more interesting things to look at, I’ll post it all up.

It was time to head back to the hotel as we had to get up early the next morning to visit K-TECH as well as stop by for a visit at Spoon. On the way our we drove by TypeOne which is the installer and tuner garage for Spoon. Sadly they had been doing renovations to the facility for the last few weeks and were closed while we were there so we didn’t have a chance to stop in.

Across the street was another garage with a nice STi poking out of the bay door.

These guys reminded me of Initial D. haha

A nice Supra Turbo that I saw sitting in traffic.

Another huge Honda Dream motorcycle dealership.

He spotted me as I was snapping away. I could be paparazzi, but too bad most of the pictures would blurry. -__-

Further down the street I spotted Spoon headquarters. We will visit here the following morning and didn’t know we would be in for an unexpected surprise.

JDM scooter gang!

Skyline R33 GT-R.

We pulled up to eat dinner and I spotted this in the back of the parking lot. WTF! A suburban! Check out the cool JDM sidemarkers and notice how it almost doesn’t fit into the parking spot.I couldn’t imagine driving this thing around on the streets… you’d run into everything.

We are at Saizeriya… I have no idea how to say it, but it was like JDM-Italian-ish food.

While we were eating it started pouring outside and I thought that it was interesting, but practical, that there was a specific bicycle parking area.

More Japanese animation on signs… I love it.

That is it for this week… we headed back to the room to sweat more. Tim and I ended up doing some street tuning on his car and I drove the DC5 around Tokyo bay a bit. It was totally illegal but worth it!!

For more information regarding SEEKER parts, shoot us an email: Sales@hybrid-racing.com

-David

The post Japan Day Four: SEEKER appeared first on Hybrid Racing.