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.

Hutt Valley Autocross

June 28th, 2015

Having driven the AZ1 for a little over a month now, it was time to learn more about what the car could really do.

I found an autocross event not too far from me here in Wellington, and decided to give it a go.  It would be a good test to see how the car handles, and also what I should upgrade.

To learn the most about your car, you have to race it.  The nearest track is 2 hours away, and I didn't really feel that such a small, under-powered car would be as fun there.  It wasn't built for battling Skylines on the Wangan.  I figured an autocross course was where it would really shine.

I drove out to Upper Hutt to meet up with 31 other racers around 7:30am.  Once the cones were all laid out, we were allowed a practice lap, and then 3 timed runs to determine who qualified for the shoot-out.  The variety of cars there was amazing.  Skylines, drift cars, huge V8 muscle cars, raced-out Imprezas, an MR2 with a 400+hp supercharged V6.  There were a handful of newcomers, but a lot of seasoned locals.  As people started up their beastly racecars, I started to feel out of place.

The driver of the Subaru above offered to give me a ride so I could get more familiar with the course before driving it in my own car.

Cage, racing buckets, 5-point harness, the whole shebang.  I stepped out with absolute certainty that there was no way the little AZ1 could do it.  Would I even have the courage to attempt the course at that speed?  Would I understeer right off the road?  Surely I brought the wrong car.

Nope.  This was the perfect car.

Ok, so during my practice run I almost spun the thing, but man what a rush!  I'd driven it on some winding roads in the area and had the feeling that it understeered a bit too much.  I started thinking, "maybe the tires are too skinny" and "maybe it's just too light up front."  Those are both probably true, but understeer it did not.  Turns out, I just hadn't been going fast enough!

It's 63hp of rage propelled the car into second gear, where I kept it pinned to 9000 rpms until the straightaway ended.

I nudged the wheel to the right to set up for the turn, and the rear end broke free.  The car dove left and I cleared the first cone.  Before gaining traction again, I flicked it between 2 more gates and stomped on the brakes.  The back hairpin was brutal and narrow.  Even in the AZ1 it felt like I was using the entire width of the road.

The whole way back, it was like playing a video game.  Understeer and oversteer became a choice.  My foot was planted, so all I had to do was aim.

So much fun.  This car is a blast to drive.  Sure, it could use 3x the power, stiffer suspension, better brakes, and wider tires... but holy cow what a fun car!

In the end, I placed around 18th out of 32.  Not too shabby, but the most rewarding part of this event wasn't beating a few Skylines (ok that felt awesome).  I think the highlight was feeling like I'd finally found a community of like-minded people on the other side of the world that loved cars and racing as much as I do.

That.. and telling someone that the car had a 657cc engine in it and him replying "oh, a big block!"

Here's a video of my best run (also the run where my camera rolled around under my feet):

https://vimeo.com/131997305

Putting it all back together

June 14th, 2015

It took a while to get back to work on the car, but I finally found some time over the weekend to sort it all out.  I lost count of how many times I hit my head!

First order of business: more things needed to come off before I could make sure the HVAC would fit.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work when it was mounted on the inside of the dash.

The cables that connected the a/c slider, and the slider that changed where the air came from were either too long or too short, so I swapped them.

Mounting it on the outside was a whole lot easier/stronger, and I was able to hook up the heat controls and a/c slider.  The bottom one, I'll have to change manually until I find a long enough cable.

This has seriously been the most complicated job I've done in a long time.

Since everything was taken apart, I figured it was a good time to wrap a few parts in suede.

If anyone is curious, I'm using this stretchy, self-adhesive suede from an ebay seller called spicygoods.

The suede accents should class it up a bit, and they go with the knew steering wheel:

And a few more suede pieces for good measure:

From the combination of a smaller steering wheel, a shaved seat, and relocation of the HVAC, the interior feels so much more roomy.  I've entered the car in a local autocross on the 28th, so we'll see how it goes!

Sparco

June 1st, 2015

The new steering wheel arrived!

I measured the Momo that is already in the car and it was about 340-350mm wide.

I decided that a 300mm wheel would be a substantial difference without going so small that it would affect the steering.

This suede-covered Sparco feels great!

More photos to come!