I've been meaning to update this journal so much. A small update will have to do while I wait on some additional work to be scheduled (
).
Back in February I did a thing and wrecked this:
I screwed up my passenger side sideskirt. Wish I could say I was drifting through a parking lot entrance driveway on a dark and rainy night straight into a curb... But sadly, this happened on a night just as dark and rainy except that I simply just turned into a curb that went out further than I was expecting. One of those curving curbs where one side has a handicap ramp onto the pavement. I just didn't swing wide enough for the turn. I also got a slight crease/dent on my rocker panel where I guess the car fell onto the curb. Welp. The frame seems fine from some inspection, so it looks to have just been the rocker itself. Hopefully nothing serious and the car has driven fine since then. I don't have a photo yet of the new side but rest assured for I have since replaced it.
In the mean time, I also purchased and have yet to install a couple of engine related mods:
1. DeliciousTuning Flex Fuel Kit
2. JDL UEL catted headers (thanks @
Mchilese!)
Working on getting some time scheduled at a shop for install and tune. I'll be going to Ecutek and probably a custom tune.
Also, back in March and through April I had the fantastic opportunity to take a three-week vacation to Japan.
I'll have to circle back here and post more photos because I'm still going through many of them.
However, one of the highlights of my trip was easily getting to rent a genuine, JDM RHD 2017 86 through Toyota Rent-A-Car for a weekend. Funny story, it's the same one that @
yurikaze rented a few years back. I'm sure it had many tens of thousands more kilometers on it by the time I got to drive it.
The first day I had the 86 I got to visit Daikoku Parking Area. If you're not familiar with parking areas in Japan they're somewhat like rest stops you get in the US (similar idea to the ones off i5 and 101). However in my experience in Japan, some have cafes and other food establishments, and are typically located off toll roads/expressways, so they're more of a "premium" experience perhaps (maybe I'm wrong on that one, but it certainly felt that way).
I digress, though. The awesome part about visiting Daikoku, especially on a Friday night, is that it's a prime spot to see and really immerse yourself in Japanese car culture. I'm hesitant to specify it simply as "JDM car culture" because there weren't only JDM cars there and from what I've seen and heard there are often many other types of cars or other vehicles that hang out there.
As a pretty active "Instagrammer" when it comes to our cars, over the past year and a half or so I've taken it upon myself to follow a plethora of twin owners over in Japan. I don't know any Japanese, but occasionally I find someone who's able to communicate a bit with me in broken English. Well, about 6 months ago I messaged one of the guys I communicate with the most and told him I'd be visiting Japan on X dates and would have a car on a couple of those days. I then elaborated on some of the stuff I would like to do while renting the car, and he happily agreed so far in advance to meet with me!
Here are our cars at Daikoku:
I rented the black 86 and his 86 is the white one, of course.
What an amazing time. His written English is passable but not so much for his spoken English. But, that was perfectly okay! Both days that we met we were able to communicate via the Google Translate app on each of our phones for the several hours that we hung out. Occasionally we needed to re-phrase something and have it re-translated for it to make sense, but other than that it worked just fine.
The following day we met up in Takasaki at the local GR Garage (Gazoo Racing performance shop located at some Toyota dealers in Japan with all kinds of OEM and aftermarket performance parts). We then drove up to the "D'z Garage" (InitialD-themed cafe) at the base of Mt. Haruna (famous from InitialD and known in that series as Mt. Akina). We got to check out some awesome replica cars and RX7's at the cafe, and then headed up the mountain for a legit Japan touge journey!
D'z Garage:
Mt. Haruna:
Funnily enough, after Tsubasa (my friend) and I hung out, drove around, and ate a katsu curry lunch in a lakeside cafe, it began to snow! The morning and most of the day around there had been overcast and foggy/misty/slightly rainy. It began to rain fairly hard as we drove around the lake, and then it really began to snow; it was even cold enough that it wasn't melting on the ground.
Fortunately we both made it back down the mountain though, but.. wow... such an awesome experience that I'll never forget.
I have way more to post but it's 2:30AM and I just realized I should be responsible and get to sleep since I gotta be at work around 9am tomorrow
.
In the meantime, please check out my Instagram for more photos!
https://www.instagram.com/spike.86/