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When the ladies fix my car

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

This past weekend, some of the Drifting Pretty ladies gathered in my garage to log more hours working on cars.  Just a few weeks ago the ladies were at Temple City Auto Repair installing new coilovers on Cathy’s S14 & learning how to use power tools!  This time, the guinea pig was my race car.  A brake system install & wheel re-facing were on the agenda.

Each of my students showed up right on time and ready to work.  With the increasing popularity of our twitter account, I tweeted the play-by-play of our tech day.  For you, here are the play-by-plays (taken with my iPhone):

10AM: we take an inventory of the Stop Tech big brake kit we’ll be installing, elect project managers and go over functions of each part

(more…)

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Show Stopper

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

I’m a big Danity Kane fan.  The group was popular around the same time my Drifting career peaked.  I was enjoying life at the track and then these gals came out with this song about girls cruising in their candy ride, called “Show Stopper“.  Finally a song about ladies in THEIR sweet ride.  Now why am I even talking about this?  I was thinking of what to title this post…I’m writing about a baby who stole the show at Easter and my dusty race car that I am slowly shining back up–both are show stoppers right?  And then the song comes to mind and I have to listen to it!

The Baby Who Stole the Show
I had the opportunity to borrow a pro-level Canon lens over the weekend.  (a 35mm 1.4 L-series for you photogs).  I didn’t have any photoshoots setup for the weekend, that’s until Easter dinner started!  Our friends, Steve & Jenny (the same couple from the engagement photoshoot) were at Easter dinner.  They brought their adorable son.  The rest speaks for itself.  Here are some test shots with the show stopper:

Dusty Show Stopper
I’ve been hard at work doing accounting side jobs to fund the repair of my race car.  I sat there in the garage tonight, staring at my car, searching for one original piece of the car.  There isn’t any.  I started in 1997 and here it is, 14 years later, and I’m still NOT done with the car!  I’ve changed everything from the bulbs inside my gauge cluster, to the tail-lights (3 times) to the lugnuts, to the glass on my quarter panel, to the hinges on my door…wait the door has been changed too!  I can’t find much of anything “stock.”  What a show stopper my car was and still is.  I love that I could keep going 14 years later with just as much interest as I had before.  I’m going to be a senior citizen and still be tinkering with my show stopper!!!

I could write on and on and about my car, but that will be another time.  Perhaps in a book or screenplay (I’m not joking).  The ladies of Drifting Pretty will be working on the ol’ drift machine with me this weekend.  Its going to be a blast.

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Broken Pipes & Sweet Emails

Monday, July 14th, 2003

13,358 miles. So I’ve been driving around with a leaky downpipe for exactly a month now. The stud on my turbo outlet pipe is still broken. I’m going to take my car to Gushi Auto on Wednesday to have them fix it.

I think I might have figured out the problem with my muffler. It seems that my new Trust Downpipe is the culprit. The Trust downpipe is sold to “fit” on both the S13 AND S14. They aren’t the same downpipes though. The S13 one needs an extra bracket to connect to the mount in front of the cat, meow. And its not there!!! How stupid is that. Don’t get a trust downpipe, they’re just trouble.  I’m going to try out a 5Zigen downpipe, which is 70mm and is made especially for the S13.  My Trust is 80mm, but I think I’m missing the bottom end power that the stock downpipe used to give me.

I’ll be driving at Drift Day 7 at California Speedway. Its going to be so hot.  Also, I’m going to Buttonwillow in the beginning of August for a Drift Association event, its a training session for instructors.   I’m going to go there to practice my krispy kremes and racing line.

I’ve decided that I’m going to just replace my stock brake master cylinder with another stock one and rebuild my calipers. I have the Z brakes, but I have no time or money to get lines, rotors, redrill the rotors etc.   I plan to go 5-lug towards the Fall, after my bday (hopefully I’ll have money then to buy my new work wheels). So right now I’m going to concentrate on selling my extra parts (bumper, bov, wing, etc. ~they’re on my bbs if you’d like to check em’ out) so I can go pick up my Bride seats. They’ve been callin’ out to me for months.

I’ve been receiving so many nice emails from people who read me & Benson’s article in Drifting Magazine (presented by Import Racer). Thank you again, your comments are so inspiring and thoughtful~*the emails are what keeps my love for my car & drifting alive.~*Well happy tuning and drifting.

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Dyno Results for Power Pages

Sunday, June 22nd, 2003

12,918 miles. Its been a while since I’ve written! I dynoed my car at XS Engineering on the 13th. My car was a “test car” for a Import Tuner’s “Power Pages.” (Big “THANK YOU” to Scott Tsuneishi for the opportunity!!!)  They put my muffler and intake back to stock and dynoed my car. Then they added the parts and kept dynoing after every new part. Results are as follows:

  • Stock Blk Top SR20DET with KA muffler & Airbox =  166 hp
  • Blitz LM Air Filter +2 hp
  • 5Zigen Border Max Exhaust System +17hp (!!!)
  • Trust 80mm Downpipe +3hp
  • Best run at 189.50 hp to the (cute) wheels.

Next week or so I’m going back for some more dyno runs. I’ll let you know when the cute magazine comes out.

I got the Falken ST-115’s (235/40/ZR17), thanks to Ben (he gave me the tires he won at Drift Showoff 🙂 thanks baby). So far they’re gripping really well, considering my road rage and all the rain we’ve been getting these past few days.

One of the screws on myturbo outlet pipe broke AND the bracket on the downpipe so does not line up with my muffler. This is what is so annoying about car stuff!!! So now I have a major exhaust leak and I had to raise my car 3/4″ cuz my mufflerwas hanging way low. Things never seem to fit. I found out that all the clunking noises I was hearingaround my front driver’s side wheel was a combo of my coilover, inner tie-rod, and my brake pads! I got my inner tie-rod fixed, but the brake pad is still moving and the coilover is still mysteriously clunking.Drama Drama.

~*So I’ve run into money money problems, surprised?  My Bride Seats are in, I want to upgrade to 5-lug and get rims already, I want a new paint job, and I want a FMIC. I have a bunch of my stufffor sale to raise money for my new things. I put up my Bomex wing and ebay took it (along with ALL the other auctions of people selling Bomex aero) down and claimed we were selling copies. W T F!!!!Sue me Bomex, my wing is real. The things I’m selling include my 91+ bumper w/JDM turn signals, BOV, Bomex, wing, stock tailights, and some other goodies. They’re on my message board right now, and I’ll have them up on ebay soon.

I’m going to Frisco for the Drift Day 6, but I’m probably not going to be driving up there. Can we say rental? I’ll be staffing at the registration table and instructing crazy boys at the skid pad probably. Well, happy drifting and I’ll see youin a few ;).

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DUH.

Wednesday, June 5th, 2002

Came home from work today, I tightened the battery terminals and the 180SXxy fired up. DUH!  That’s like tech 101. 

Had dinner with my Cartune Boy Eddy and the love of my lyfe Benson. I drove them, my first drive around town. :). It was nice, I wasn’t used to her yet at all, but give me a month and I’ll be kickin ass left and right. I stayed at Benson’s house again and I plan to drive home home tomorrow.

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the car goes home and breaks.

Tuesday, June 4th, 2002

Well, I got a new job today! Now I can spend more time down here at home with Kris, my car, and Benson Love. After my interview for my new job I bounced over to Cartune. Life sucks without a car, but being bussed around by SileightyMania is a real treat ;). That sucker had to take me to work, take me to my interview, pick up my daughter, and take me to Cartune hahhahaa. That’s love 🙂

I went to check on my car.  We put the Blitz FATT turbo timer in and mounted my cute Blitz boost gauge in a cute pod. Everyone is calling me ricey for having a pod, but I like it. I drove my baby around, boy what a difference some minor adjustments did. Last time I drove her (on June 2nd) she felt so fragile and unpredictable, but I was driving her around the parking lot and she warmed up to me. I didn’t expect it, but today they said I could drive home! I jumped back into the 180SXxy and tried to turn around by making a 3-point turn and my clutch pedal jammed. FUCK. Master clutch cylinder? I popped my hood and there was barely any fluid in there, I swear that sucker was full on Sunday. We checked out the hard clutch lines along the firewall and they were leaking. Aaron and Benson love tightened the lines for me, they were just not tightened good enough. Then they saw coolant leaking from the heater hose going into the firewall.

Drama, it was almost 12am and I had Kris, I bounced home with Benson’s car and put Kris to bed.

Benson did come home an hour later with my car! When he pulled into the garage the car totally turned the fuck off and didn’t want to start again. All the power was cut. I didn’t worry, it sounded like either a batter prob or they wired the turbo timer funny. We went to sleep and I didn’t care about that problem, cuz the 180SXxy was home.

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new SR…new problems

Monday, June 3rd, 2002

Another lonely day without the 180SXxy. I had to unfuckingfortunately work all damn day. I missed Kristy all weekend too, Benson got Kris and brought us to his place. He went to Cartune to check my car out and work on it a lil’ bit. They were changing my oilpan gasket. Also, they got my BOV flange welded ;), and found some vac lines that weren’t connected, and some wires that were loose. They test drove the car again today and said that it was running way better, and boosting strong, stronger than sileightymania’s  (of course!).

 They’re going to bleed the brakes and the clutch tomorrow. Then hopefully I can go test her out again and maybe drive more than just around the parking lot. All I know is that she’s very fragile right now and I just have to fine tune everything. I need some time to get to know her again as well. I have to figure out how the hell to work on an SR too! I’m going to study the vac line diagram, cuz those suckers always give problems. Wish the 180SXxy the best of health!

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Its alive.

Sunday, June 2nd, 2002

Wiring day! Dr. Hutchingson & Dr. SileightyMania were the attending doctors. We got a late start, around lunchtime. What a pretty beauty, the SR looked like my car came with it in there.

I dug through the box of goodies I salvaged off my clip and found some airhorns and threw them on my car.  Now people better get the hell out of my way!

We changed my coolant reservoir, and finally the doctors were both there, ready to wire. While they wired, I changed my gauge cluster, yes again! I put in the one from my clip…so now I can actually keep track of the total kilometers that are on my engine. Also, I busted a scavenger hunt to find this really cute fog light switch that 180SX’s come with. Also, I had blow off valve drama, I forgot that I needed to weld the flange onto the pipe for my Greddy Type-S, so I borrowed some old ass HKS one from the shop. Also, during the wiring, Jason (the sweety mechanic) finished changing my brake pedal. Hours and hours went by. I swear it was like waiting in a waiting room for someone to get out of surgery.

10 1/2 hours later at 10:30pm, the wires were connected, the pedals were in, the fluids were in, and and all the lines were secured, the moment of truth (as Reggie said) came to. “Who wants to start it?” No one raised their hand, hahahha. I made Jason start it. 5,4,3,2,1 it started on the first crank. I was so happy! IT’s ALIVE! We made sure there was enough coolant, the thermostat opened and we added more and more coolant. It was time to test drive. Jason test drove it around the parking lot first. Then it was my turn…the 180SXxy sounded like a monster, OMG, it felt so foreign to me. The clutch pedal was odd and so were the brakes.  The clutch caught at the top and the brakes were hard as a rock. I was not happy about that. The shitty old HKS BOV was non-adjustable, it was making my car konk the hell out.

I drove around the parking lot, scared as hell. I didn’t want to bone out, I just drove nice . I got up to 30-40mph and shift to second, I felt and clutch grab, very nice ;). The motor only has 30,000 miles, so the clutch shoud be good! I didn’t try to boost it, I want to drive it easy for a week. When I got back I told the boys about the pedals and we examined everything again. Some vac hoses weren’t connected and some brake lines weren’t on good. The oil pan started to leak too, just a little bit. The gasket got messed up during shipping my clip (this is to be expected).

We adjusted my TPS sensor, advanced my timing, tightened clamps, secured hoses and tried to drive her again, but she kept conkin out. Oh my gut…it was 12pm and I just wanted to go home and sleep. You can’t expect everything to be A-OK on your 1st test drive after a swap. I was concerned, but not worried. Our diagnosis of the situation: bleed the master slave cylinder, bleed the brake system, check all vac lines and clamps, change the oil pan gasket, put my BOV on, and check it out then. I went home lonely, I really missed my car. But, I better not rush things, or they won’t get done right. I just want to bring her home soon.

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Engine swap day.

Saturday, June 1st, 2002

Yes, today was the day. I got to Cartune around 12pm. I brought the 180SXxy in, thinking I could watch the surgery…but the Cartune boys kicked me out and told me to go eat some lunch and relax and don’t worry about it. I was nervous and my tummy was aching, so I just said, “I trust you boys!” After I had a 2 hour lunch, I made a run to Pep Boys and got some radiator hoses, cute oil, new fuel filter, and some hose clamps. I dropped the parts off at Cartune and there was the 180SXxy, heartless, hanging over a pool of sludge, radiator fluid, and dirty oil, wow my old engine was dirty hahhahahaa. The ol’ KA was out and she was awaiting her new heart. What a sight! I saw that and thought, OMG what am I doing to my poor car! It finally hit me, this is way major. Hahhaa. I left the shop to get my mind off the whole drama, went down to Torrance and chilled down there all day. They called me around 5pm to tell me the SR was in and that it was ready to be wired. SileightyMania love took me up to touge that night to make me feel better. It worked, some ricer with a brand new bimmer smashed into the wall, what an ass. But anyways…I should be happy about my swap, but I’m kinda nervous and worried that something might go wrong. I trust my Cartune boys, so we’ll check it out first thing in the morning!

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On the cusp of a swap and so not ready.

Saturday, May 25th, 2002

Day 51, yes, I’m writing to tell you the date has been set! Saturday, June 1st is my swap. I have encountered numerous problems, i.e., money, parts, politics, etc. A few things I’m trippin about. . .
#1 My ACT clutch is out of stock, everywhere
#2 I don’t have enough money to buy everything (who does?)
#3 I don’t have a boost gauge
#4 I don’t have the pedals or master clutch cylinder yet (this swap is also an automatic-to-manual tranny swap!)
#5 I don’t have a shift knob

Hahahhaa I’m a drama mama. On top of that I haven’t bought any hoses or belts. I’m going to work like a busy bee, make that money, and get all these problems fixed and bought by next Saturday. There is an AutoX the following weekend (June 8th), if the 180SXxy is in running order, then I’m bringin her to test out my new power & suspension. California Speedway here I come. I was just thinking…I’m NOT the only girl with an SR, but at least I’m going to use it on the track. Other girls get an SR for import showoff or just to have; I bought my SR for all those reasons AND for the purpose of racing.  It makes me mad when guys tell me “you’re not the only girl with an SR,” but hellllooo I have a way better reason than they do to have one.

When I should install my LSD (found a viscous one at Cartune)? I feel a new survey comin up.  Benson love wants me to wait and learn how to drift really good with an open diff, THEN put the LSD in. I’m not sure, but I know its burning a hole in whatever  and I want to put it on already…I mean damn if you bought it already then might as well use, right?  Oh yes, I just typed the infamous “might-as-well” line.  That always comes out of your mouth when you’re building a car… 

Anyways, you don’t buy cute car parts for them to just sit there in the garage, you want to use them right away…otherwise they’ll feel wasted haha.  Right?  Maybe.  We’ll see, first thing is first, gotta get my swap on.  Wish me luck, I think I’m going to need it.

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