GhettoRacer

Happy Holidays Everyone. I just got off the Japanese video Hot Version video shoot for American Touge 3 at Horse Thief Mile in Willow Springs. My daily driver/track beater was tested by Keiichi "Drift King" Tsichiya and received high praises from him. So I guess I do know a thing or two about tuning and driving perhaps. JIC Magic (Japanese suspension maker) had 996 Turbo as an entry. I thought it is worth noting that my ghetto POS got higher subjective score than the 996 Turbo did. That might be hard to believe for some Porsche fans... but... it is reality. :-)



Interestingly, my car received an unofficial score (because I was an exhibition car) of 95 from Tsichiya san. That is 2nd only to Prototype Racing's K20A Eaton M62 supercharged Lotus Elise. It also scored better than the 996 Turbo from JIC. Every single car on the list was super charged. My car has the smallest displacement at 1.6 liter and it is naturally aspirated. I tuned the car to 192 whp (dynojet 248c) on saturday on 91 octane pump gas. Tsuchiya raised his eye brows when I told him, yes you can rev it to 9800 rpm. B16A are torqueless wonders. All the hp comes from the high rpm.



More photos at the gallery: http://www.ejlin.com/gallery/view_al...tm-1206&page=1

__________________
AkMEE Engineering Est. 2004 http://www.akmee.com
SAE 192 whp 121 ft-lbs b16a. 100% bone stock JDM 10.4 CR long block, except for AKMEE valvetrain kit
R.CREW Racing - done 'mo ktwizzle than any shizzle
ex b16a.com owner (b16a fan since 1989)
94 EG6 Civic Si still sohc vtec aka project remix RIP 05/06
95 EG2 del Sol VTEC aka big red delly-o ---> time attack spec 2007
I LOVE TOKYO

Veloce Raptor

What?

GhettoRacer

Hot Version is very popular Japanese video... here is the information on American Touge 3 from them.

http://www.bestmotoringvideo.com/AT3/

Dinan was suppose to bring their E46 M3, and Stoptech a 2006 Z06. But neither showed...

Veloce Raptor

OK, are these drift cars or what? I still don't get it.

Z-man

What? I don't get it. He drove your car. He liked the way your car handled. That really has nothing to do with your 'droving' skills.

Did you take him out as a passenger?

-Z-man.

RedlineMan

Hey;

VERY serious language and communication barriers here, I'm-a-thinkin. Be patient fellas.

GhettoRacer

Obviously some people on this list haven't seen too much Japanese videos. Here's some info from wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touge_Racing

Touge (峠, tōge?) is a Japanese word literally meaning "pass." It refers to a mountain pass or any of the narrow, winding roads that can be found in and around the mountains of Japan and other geographically similar areas.

Placing a series of turns or bends in the steep roads that provide access to and from the high elevations of the mountains was intended to be a safety measure, usually to prevent commuters from reaching unstable speeds or creating excessive wear on the vehicles associated with them. It is therefore ironic that these same passes have become popular with street racers and motorsports enthusiasts in the last two decades, providing a dangerous and therefore challenging course where nightly competitions aren't unheard of.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Racing
o 1.1 Misconceptions
o 1.2 In The Media
* 2 External links
o 2.1 Racing links

[edit] Racing

For touge racing team battling, a race has 2 stages - an uphill and a downhill battle. One car leads the race during the uphill stage, with the second car leading the downhill. Because most touge races feature narrow tracks, passing/overtaking is extremely difficult and is sometimes impossible.

The lead car wins if the space/gap between the cars increases and the following car wins if the space/gap between the 2 stays the same or decreases from start to finish. Touge races start illegally when 1 car attempts to overtake another and the car in front will not let the car behind pass and speeds up. Also, in night races, the car behind will flash its headlights and the lead car will then speed up to begin the race. To win you must (if you are the following car); a)decrease or maintain the distance between you, or b)overtake the lead car.

If you are the lead car, you must; a)increase the distance between the 2, or b)lose the other car completely

-------------------------------------

So, Touge tuning is basically tuning your car for mountain driving. It is different than autox, road racing, drifting tuning... Lot of Japanese tuner shops make cars specifically for a video segment call Touge Showdown. American Touge is their attempt at a US version. The first one happend in Dec. 2004. And it is always done at Horse Thief Mile track at Willow Springs International Raceway in Southern California...

In AT1 it was Drift King (Keiichi Tsuchiya) and Max Orido (one of my favorite Japanese driver). In AT2 and AT3, it was DK and a pro Japanese drift driver named Kazama. So basically they each drive your car first, and give a subjective rating on how the car fares as a "Touge" car. Then the cars battle it up (taking turns do lead/follow). And who ever leads wins and advances... Until a car is declare the touge champ of the event.

As for how this relates to my own driving skills. Two years ago I brough anothe r Civic which received perfect ratingn of 100 from Drift King, and 97 from Orido. This year DK give my daily driver 95, and it could've been easily been a perfect score. I've also had Craig Stanton and Randy Pobst drove my cars in the past and they both loved it. I'm just saying the way I setup my cars seems to be on the right path.

}{arlequin

in rice-speak, it's an honor to have a talented, mildly-famous drover take your car out for a spin and tell you whether you spent/paid enough money to make a non-race car handle a bit *like* a race car. somewhat akin to having donohue, rohrl, or sideways-stefan taking your porsche for a spin and them telling you 'yeah, it handles nice'. to get any more out of it, you'd have to be familiar w/ tsuchiya (driver) who is a pretty funny character too, but you'd need a fwd import car to be familiar w/ him. (or follow japanese touring races)

GhettoRacer

Also consider that, every entry on the list is from a tuning shop and they had ample time to prepare for th event. They all had bigger displacements, and forced induction (SC, and turbo). My car is a little 1.6 liter naturally aspirated engine. I prepped my car in about 4 days, once I decided to try to enter it. Lot of parts didn't even arrive until 1 day before and I had to drive down from SF to LA. I did the NSX brake upgrade at 2 AM...

Veloce Raptor

LMAO....there it is.

GhettoRacer

attack of my fob grammer again? ^_^

Z-man

I know, I know - I'm just bustin' Ghetto Racer's chops...

As for drifting - I am familiar with the sport, and have a lot of respect for folks who can make a car dance on the edge of friction. Certainly not the fastest way around a racetrack, but definately a head-turning technique!

-Z-man.

Larry Herman

These are fancy street cars, tuned within a hair-breath of grenading. Racing them up and down a few mountain roads doesn't mean a whole lot in my book. Take them out on the track for 90 minutes straight and see which ones finish, and where. That means a lot more.

GhettoRacer

So quick to judge. lol. what makes you think some of these cars aren't circuit tuned?! The Mine's R34 Skyline is super fast for a fully street legal car. At the primedia time attack in nov. it was 5th overall. IMO it should've been classed in Limited AWD, not Unlimited AWD. Look at the lap times it is less than three seconds off a full World Challenge 996 Cup car which start its life as a purpose built track machine.



The RRE Evo's has done well in autox/road race too. The point is, road circuit tuning might not work well for Touge/mountain driving. Get the drift? Maybe if you try to be open minded you can learn something...

Why do people always have fear of the unknown, and always try to put down what they are not used to?

spazegun2213

hehe, congrats on the honor of having one of the best japanese drivers compliment your car! thats quite a feat. Being a young "ricer" myself I know all about best motoring, the Touge and stuff like that. Your lucking to be out on the west coast for that type of stuff, non of it happens over here

However, not many people a used to the japanese style of driving, with Touge's and Time Attacks (time trials to the rest of the world). so you might have to educate people a little about it. We are not adversed to learning, but most of the time we don't have the vocabulary to know what people are talking about.

Also, not to take the high and mights stand, but you really cannot compare your car vs a 996 turbo at all! The weight, power, layout, etc are all way to different, there is also drivers preference to the way a car is setup and how they drive.

Still, you must have one NICE Del Sol