Coilovers!

November 8th, 2015

One of my favorite upgrades to a car is the suspension.  It completely transforms it, and I couldn't wait to install the Silk Road coilovers.  But first, I had to do the obligatory "parts laid out on the floor" photo:

I've been waiting so long to install these!  Here they are outside of the boxes:

The brakes, tires and turbo upgrades will have to wait a little bit longer.  Once the suspension is in, I can have the tires installed and everything aligned at the same time.

With a big new breaker bar and some ratcheting box-end wrenches, I was ready to swap them!

The struts had been replaced before with "New SR" which are made by KYB in Japan.  The stock ride is pretty comfortable, but way too high (am I crazy??) and not quite stiff enough for my tastes.

So in order to have more control of the situation, I went with Silk Road coilovers.  They're pretty exotic and really high quality.  It always feels nice to have new parts in your old car.

Adjustments galore!

Mmmm shiny.  I love it!  What I love more is the new, aggressive stance:

That looks so much better than before (see above photo of the breaker bar for wheel arch gap).  As the suspension settles, it's getting lower and lower.  I may raise it up a bit, and I'm chatting with a local company about having custom springs made for it.  The 4k front / 5k rear are way too stiff for the crappy New Zealand streets.  On smooth roads though, it's responsive and flat.  I'm really excited to finally be working on improving the performance of this car!

NEWS!!!!!!!!!!

October 21st, 2015

Ok, this is exciting!!!!

It suddenly appeared at the front desk of my work.  No name on the packing slip, and the phone number written down was missing a digit.  Somehow the New Zealand customs people let it coast through.  Those little mistakes saved me over $1k in GST fees.  Thank you News!!

The Hitachi HT-07 4A, in all it's insanely small glory.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, really... but it's super tiny.  The only thing funnier is the size of the headers:

Aren't these just the cutest car parts you've ever seen??  Anyway, I originally wanted to have a shop install everything to get before and after dyno runs, and also for tuning.  However, the ecu already has a map on it that works with the turbo, so all I would have to do is install the turbo and adjust the boost.  Seems simple enough that I may try it myself, but who knows what path I'll take in the next few months.  Stay tuned!

Silk Road Coilovers

October 14th, 2015

This is exciting....

Brakes and Bushings!

October 1st, 2015

While I wait for suspension and a new turbo to arrive, I wrote to Soichiro at Monster Sport who managed to find some engine mounts and suspension bushings for me!

The car doesn't have that many miles on it, but rubber degrades over 23 years.  My engine moves around a lot, and the suspension could use a little more stiffness.  Why not swap them all with performance replacements??

These should be awesome!  In the end, it'll be like a brand new car.  Here is the invoice I was sent, just for reference:

And if I'm making the car faster and handle better, I needed some better brakes:

I went with some Dixcel slotted rotors all around.  I hadn't heard of Dixcel, but it came up on a few AZ-1 build blogs in Japan, so they can't be that bad.  They'll at least be an improvement over stock.  Now I just need some pads.

Turbos and Tires

September 25th, 2015

Yokohama Advan Neovas!

I received my front tires from Rakuten (http://global.rakuten.com/en/) in Japan, and now I'm just waiting on the rears to come in.  Here are the sizes I went with:

Front - 165/55R14

Rear - 185/50R15

The car came with staggered wheels so I figured I'd stick to that.  I originally ordered some Silverstone "road legal race tires" for the rear in 195s, but it stuck out from the body just a bit too much, and I'm not ready to go widebody yet.  As you can see:

They would have looked AMAZING, but they can't stick out past the body, so I had to go a size smaller.  They'll still be huge, don't you worry.  Having matching Advan Neovas front and rear makes more sense anyway.  I won't be able to have them fitted until after this last autocross race, but installing the tires and suspension at the same time to get everything aligned once sounds better.

I received an email today back from Kiichiro at News, saying he received the spare ECU and is tuning it now.  I had decided that since I needed a completely new exhaust anyway, I might as well buy the headers they make.  Here's what Kiichiro has to say about the HT-07 turbo I'm ordering:

ECU has arrived. Immediately, I will custom.
For turbo questions,Maximum boost of HT-07 is 150Kpa. The commonly used, it is 130Kpa.Westgate type is adjustable actuator. It is set to about 90Kpa.Boost adjustment of, please use the boost controller.The adjustment in the actuator, gate opens in medium rpm, it will power down.To select the exhaust manifold, it is a good choice. To boost becomes faster, it will be better even at high rpm.


For reference, 130kpa equals 1.3bar, which is around 18.8 pounds of boost.  It sounds insane, and I can't wait to transform this car into a beast!

Autozam Autocross!

August 30th, 2015

Taking a step back to the last autocross!

I learn more about this car every time I race it.  Throwing a car sideways is the best way to figure out how it handles, and what it needs to go faster.  In my case, I've known it needs suspension, tires, brakes, etc etc for a while, but haven't been able to order any parts until now.  Unfortunately I don't think anything more than tires will be upgraded before the next race.

My times are improving slowly, but I feel like I'm already coming close to the car's limits.  Tires are the biggest factor, so I've found some YOKOHAMA ADVAN Neova AD07 165/55R14 for the fronts.  Unfortunately, they don't sell this size in New Zealand, so I've had to ship them from Japan.

All good!  The car will love some sticky rubber.  Here's an AWESOME video taken by someone at the autocross:

Big News!

September 4th, 2015

After waiting way too long to hear back from one company about Silk Road coilovers, I decided to just shoot an email to Silk Road directly.  They got right back to me, saying that they don't sell parts straight to individuals, but that I could buy them through a company called Streeter Corporation.  It's run by this Australian living in Japan named Jesse, who is able to export parts and take care of everything via paypal.  He replied within a few hours, and it was awesome to deal with someone who didn't require translation (as fun as that is).

After about a week of chatting back and forth, Jesse informed me that Silk Road could not do spring rates lower than 4k, so I went with 4k front / 5k rear.  My only real reference for spring rates is a Best Motoring video of an AZ1 with 4k front /6k rear, and it looked way too stiff:

https://youtu.be/CiONW1ULqzc?t=2m36s

Hopefully 5k in the rear will be more comfortable, but still stiff enough to perform well at the autocross.  So once that was all settled, I sent Jesse the money and he placed the order!  In about a month, he should receive the coilovers from Silk Road, and ship them over to me.

With suspension taken care of, it was time to think about tires.  The wheels I have on there now are 15x6 in the rear and 14x5.5 in the front.  These Nankangs aren't cutting it, and stickier rubber is a must if I want to improve my times.  My current tires are:

Front - 155/55R14

Rear - 165/50R15

Ridiculously tiny... but could I fit bigger tires?  I drove over to some buddies' place who just installed a hoist in their garage (amazing!) and we decided to take a look.

All of the tires are stretched, and I think it's because fitment down there is insanely tight.  I'll see if the coilovers change this, but it doesn't seem like I have much room to work with, especially in the front.  I'll do some research and experimenting and report back.  In the meantime, here's a sweet Cappuccino!

Touge Friends

August 25th, 2015

I haven't really done much to the car, but I wanted to write an update anyway. Only a few days left until the next autocross, and I've been trying to decide what to do with the car ever since the last one! Time really flies.

Most of my progress has been doing research.  I sent off emails to half a dozen companies in Japan to find out what my options were.  The biggest critique people had at the last autocross was that my car rolled too much.  "Get some coilovers and sticky tires!"  Ok, what can I buy?  A quick scroll through www.jauce.com pulled up a few choices.

The cheapest is Navic (far right), which I had actually heard of from a Best Motoring video.  They're a respectable company, but the spring rates they use are way too stiff.  Great for racing, but not for the roads around here.  Next up are the blue and yellow ones, a company called Rice Rocket.  They make body kits, along with other ricey parts.  The spring rate is good, but I just can't trust a company called Rice Rocket.

It's also important to pick someone that specializes in one part of the car.  Brembo does great brakes, and that's it.  Recaro does seats.  If a company makes tons of parts for tons of cars, you have to question the quality.  Which parts were their specialty and which were skimped on?  So my choices at the moment are between Aragosta (orange and black) and Silk Road (silver and gold).  Both are super high quality products, huge in Japan, and used in racing.  I've contacted a guy about more information on some Silk Road coilovers, so we'll see what happens.

For power, I originally thought of Monster Sport (previously Suzuki Sport).  They had a larger turbo with an ecu called an F90 kit for the AZ1 which gave it approximately 90hp.  I wrote them a few emails, but they no longer carry it.  I checked with some Cappuccino guys to see if I could use an ecu from their cars, but it wouldn't work.  Monster Sport said the wiring harness and sensors were different, even though they shared the same engine.  After a bit of searching, and a few hours on youtube, I wrote an email to a company called Take Off.  They replied saying that they no longer make parts for the AZ1 (at this point I'm wondering whether or not I should have just bought a Cappuccino instead), but they know of another company called News that still makes things for it.

DO THEY EVER!  These guys make all kinds of performance stuff for it!  They seem to love the F6A engine.  Anyway, I wrote to them immediately and here was their response:

Hi Sam,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I have two types of upgrade turbocharger and it has the ECU to match them.
RHB31 turbo, and HT-07 turbo.
RH31 Turbo, Max power 120ps, / torque 13kg
HT-07 Turbo, Max power 140ps / torque 16kg

Parts for AZ-1, we have a lot.
Exhaust headers, high profile camshaft, valve spring, lightweight retainer,
forged oversize piston, high-capacity oil pump, etc.

AZ-1 is a fun car and please enjoy.

Regards,
Kiichiro Suga

About 10 emails back and forth later, I decided the best route to go was to keep it simple with just the turbo upgrade, and not dump crazy money into a complete engine rebuild.  Here's what I'll be ordering: the HT-07 A/R9 turbo, ecu, #9 spark plugs, 300cc fuel injectors as recommended by Kiichiro, and a new aluminum radiator.  Anything more and I'd need an oil pump, oil cooler, and a full exhaust.  Here's the list he sent me with prices:

They require you to send in your original ecu so they can modify it, so I bought a spare used one on an auction.  Whenever that arrives, I'll send it over to News and await a big boosty snail in the mail!  The only thing I've really done TO the car in the last month was put a sticker on the window:

I have a few more surprises waiting to be installed, but those will have to wait until next time!

More Racing!

July 26th, 2015

Another beautiful day for autocross!

I'm really starting to get the hang of this car.  Unfortunately I haven't had the time to buy any upgrades for it.  As you can see in the photo above, the stock suspension can only be pushed so far.  The front inside wheel is an inch off the ground, and you could fit a baby in that wheel-well gap!

I'm almost certain I won't have any modifications done on the car before next month's autocross, but it's still a blast to try and master control of your own car.  At the moment I have my eyes set on wider rims, stickier tires, a set of coilovers (Aragosta seems like the best), and even a Monster Sport F100 turbo kit, if I can get it to work.  About 30% increase in power would be terrifying!  >:]

Organizing

July 19th, 2015

If you've been following me so far, you know the interior has been in disarray with a jumbled mess of wires all over the place.  I decided that before my next autocross event, I'd clean  it all up and mount the boost gauge again.

When I relocated the HVAC panel, there was this support beam left there.  It's not really supporting anything at the moment, but instead of removing it, I just bolted the gauge to it.  My knee doesn't block it in this spot, so as long as the gas-engine is in the car and it has a turbo, this will do nicely.

I also decided to take the passenger seat out.  The seat probably only weighs 2kg, but any little bit of weight should help.  Because racecar!

Suede all the things

July 5th, 2015

I just can't leave cars alone.

As I've done to my last few cars, I wanted to wrap a few interior pieces in the Autozam with suede.  I get this self-adhesive stuff from a guy in Korea and it's pretty fun to work with.

As I started removing the plastic interior panels, I gained even more respect for Suzuki/Mazda.  When they built this car, they really wanted something as light as possible.  Every piece is as thin as possible.  Super flimsy, but it's all you need!

This piece in particular was a huge pain.  Apart from a Toyota Sera glove box, these B-pillars were the most complicated I've had to deal with.

It's important to leave yourself a lot of extra suede on the sides just in case.  Wrapping interiors has become a kind of meditation for me.  That's part of the reason I like it.  That and it makes the car feel a little more classy.

The rest of the pieces were pretty straight-forward.

Why leave it plain plastic when you can have suede??

Sure I'm adding a little weight, but it feels much nicer inside.

Even if I'm not changing something, I love to take apart cars just to find out more about them.

The deeper in you go, the more you understand the designers.  Especially on such a rare car like this, I'm amazed at all the bespoke parts.

I even found this:

Super Car Inspection!  Glad to see it was taken care of.  I have a feeling the oil was changed right before they shipped it from Japan.

I also started taking off the tint.  It's been impossible to see out of the back, and this should lighten up the interior a bit.  More on that next time.