This is how little work I’m doing to the Skyline. Other car blog guys are posting all sorts of awesome engine rebuilds and custom bodywork pictures.
(EDIT: I was trying to find this blog when I was writing this post, but then Anthony posted a comment here, so I found it without trying! Check out http://buildthreads.wordpress.com/ for a summary of the internet’s most interesting current builds)
I’ve been back in Australia for a short holiday since last week, and decided the other day to extend the trip until early this week.
Yep, this whole week has been posted from a non-JDM location. Sorry about that.
Also, since all of my equipment is back in Japan, and because I only made enough posts ahead of time to last until Friday, today will be one of the first completely non-original content posts on Noriyaro.
Oh, the horror.
Fortunately, we’re keeping it relevent! Remember this post about drifting on Tsukuba Circuit? I found the Youtube channel for Shun Akutsu, who was there that day with his Kunnyz aero-ed JZX100 Mark II.
Just after a minute in, you’ll see a black Skyline with white front aero slide past on turn one. After that, it turns into a roughly ten-pixel blob, but at least now I have evidence that I actually managed to link the final corner and manji the front straight.
Shun’s NSX drifter was having engine work done at the time this video was shot, so have a look at some of the other videos on his channel videos of that, like this one on Ebisu minami for some Honda V6 drifting exhaust music.
There might have to be a feature done on that car a bit later too…
The whole “low offset, dished chrome” thing was never going to last. The latest thing to run on your car over here in Japan is narrow fifteen-inch steel wheels.
Of course, it’s winter right now, snow is falling in the mountains, and those wheels have Bridgestone Blizzak studless snow tyres on them.
A “missile” car has a couple of definitions in Japan, depending in which context you’re talking. Usually it refers to a drift car that has been left close to standard externally, while still being heavily modified under the skin. Imagine the sort of thing a D1 driver would take up to the mountains for a bit of practice on weekends.
In the case of these cars however, it means that cost of tyres petrol, and entry fee for a track day combined should cost about as much as the car itself.
At this particular event at Nikko Circuit, four drivers showed up in missiles, and three of them were current D1 drivers, which meant the driving was sphincter-tigheningly close. The first two drivers here are Shinji Minowa in an R32 GTS-t, and this year’s D1GP Champion Daigo Saito in what is just barely recognisable as a JZX90 Mark II, running a very large turbo and 19-inch wheels and tyres left over from some of his slightly better looking JZX projects.