Category Archives: Cars

Lucky cat was watching over us tonight.

Seats are IN!!!

They feel sooo good. If anything I might lower them (I can go one notch lower on the side mounts). Better pics tomorrow!

EDIT – A few more pics of the seats in daylight:

Excuse the crappy shot!

Since this photo I’ve dropped the seats one notch down at the front (you can make out 3 holes in the photo) and the back of the side mounts and I’m sitting a lot lower now which feels a lot better (to me).

View from the boot. Those huge stickers are FIA stickers which I’ll leave on for now.

Today I was booked in at TOP-ONE to get a few things done.

– New Forge water bottle reservoir from Ian at Rennenhaus was fitted.
– Rear wheel well carpet put back in as the noise that the little rocks my tyres were picking up was giving me the shits.
– UNIbrace UB installed.
– Eurospec Auto titanium exhaust tips installed.
– Recaro pole positions.

Everything went well except for the Recaro seat install. I’m getting the seat bases modified so I’ll have to wait a little longer to get the seats in but for now here are some progress pics!

Milltek tips came off (excuse the filthy car!).

Ti tips went on.

Flimsy old bracing came off.

UNIbrace UB went on.

Also spotted this NSX at the workshop. Not how I’d do it, but I have a thing for NSX’s (I’m always checking them out on carsales!).

Yesterday Christina and I headed out to THE-LOWDOWN & JDMST EOMM which was held at Autotechnik Tuning out west. We took the GT-R and I quickly realised I had no DC to plug the sat-nav into (I’ve ripped it out and replaced it with a battery cut-out switch!) so I had to print out some directions from Google (haha). We got there at about 10AM and the meet was already filling up (I had a spot reserved for me luckily!).

The weather was absolutely perfect (so nice to have that warm sun on my back) and some of the cars that rolled in absolutely blew my mind. So many cars had great stance and I had to pinch myself a couple of times (couldn’t believe I was in Sydney!). BBQ was awesome and the vibe was great too.

The Fonz!

This pic is so good.

Old vs New.

Ryan from THE-LOWDOWN

So clean, great stance.

All photos above by Matt Mead at MOTORDRIVEN

For many more images from people with cameras on the day visit: http://forum.jdmstyletuning.com/showthread.php?t=27606

UNIbrace under-body brace for MKV Golf.

My UNIbrace under-body brace came in the other day. Check it out, looks rad huh?! I’m booked in on Wednesday next week to fit it up, as well as my Recaro seats (whoo hoo!).

Squeeky clean.

Despite a booked out schedule Dave from Reflect Effect came out today to detail the GT-R in preparation for this weekend’s JDMST EOMM. It’ll be the first time I take the GT-R to a meet in years. After the detail I couldn’t help but go for a drive… what a car. I’m so chuffed it’s mine!

Chinese dinner last night with the VWGolf.net.au crew.

Hmmm 500HP 4WD twin turbo Golf R32 or 500HP 4WD twin turbo R35 GT-R? As much as I think AP’s Golf is absolutely bonkers I’d still go for the GT-R (what a perfect daily it would make!).

Ah… track days.

Art.

Killer C63.

I was doing consistent 1.58’s all day and for the last session I grabbed an instructor and he helped me to nail two 1.57.2’s in a row. He said my turn-in was great but I need to unwind the wheel a little earlier on corner exits (ie: use the whole track).

I took the MKV out to Eastern Creek yesterday for a blat. I was pretty close to not going (bit broke atm and I’ve got a lot of stuff going on too) but after fitting up the Brembo BBK last week and a few gentle pushes from track day first timer Nath I couldn’t resist!

The gauges were awesome and as is the car can handle 5 hot laps before I would do a cool down lap and pit. I noticed a lot of people out there fanging their cars hard for 7-8 laps (ie: the whole session). I’d say they were doing harm to their cars but hey, no gauges, no worries I suppose!

Brakes were awesome too. ABS kicks in if I stab the brakes hard (and just doesn’t feel great) but I can modulate a lot more now. I can definitely pull the car up. The brakes faded a little bit but not much and at the end of the day I still have brakes (whereas last time I had mush).

My R888’s were great. Front drivers side tyre pressure post session was reading 37 and all other tyres were at 32 so I adjusted accordingly (lots of hard left turns at EC!).

DSG: I’ve learnt to never floor the accelerator pedal all the way down to avoid automatic down-shifting (there’s one extra little click of the pedal on DSG Golf’s). In one session I experimented with Auto/Sports mode and let the car upshift automatically for me once it hit redline. Each lap was 2 seconds slower this way. IE: Leaving it in manual mode and shifting up gears earlier (mid range is where the power is on my car) made for much faster lap times than driving it in auto mode.

Seats: I was pretty upset I didn’t have my seats in on the day. I really noticed how much I was moving around on the OEM seats and how much I had to brace the wheel to compensate the lack of support. Seats should be in soon though, can’t wait! :)

You can view a lot more images from the day here: www.vwgolf.net.au/showthread.php?1815-PICS-City-Performance-Track-Day-Eastern-Creek

Yesterday I gave in to opportunity (lol). I dropped in to V-Sport out at Arndell Park (next door to Eastern Creek raceway) to fit up Tendy’s “spare” set of Brembo brakes.

I’ve heard a bit about V-Sport through the Golf forums (all good things) and the guys were friendly and the workshop was super clean and full of EVO’s (boss drives an X and the rest were 6’s).

Crazy rally evo driven by “Samantha”.

Tendy (his car is sporting a new black roof) came along to introduce me right and to keep me company during the install (what a champ!).

They had a really nice display room chock full of race toys.

Drool. AP Racing pedals.

The boys got working on my car right away.

Goodridge lines.

Brakes fitted.

Old brakes weighed twice as much as the new set-up (despite the new set-up being larger!).

I also picked up these goodies. A decent tyre pressure gauge for track days and some aerocatch bonnet pins which I’ll get fitted up soon.

The brakes are amazing. Where the stock brake pedal had a lot of travel and felt like mush these Brembos feel the exact opposite. If anything the brakes feel exactly the same as my GT-R set-up. I’ve got a track day at Eastern Creek next Monday so I’ll put the brakes to the test then!

My Recaro Pole Positions which I sourced through Ian at Rennenhaus have landed. Unfortunately the side mounts which I need in order to get these babies installed are on back order and will take another 3 weeks to come so I’m going to have to sit tight. I’ve bought a pair but here’s a couple of shots of one of them:

The seats weigh a weenie 6.94kg each (excluding seat hardware which I will weigh up once it’s all here).