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!