Japanese Buick Couture

[toycoma 0]

this thing is going to be so sweet once it is done. top notch work.

[BudgetVIP 0]

Car is looking great Keith. It's always nice to have a garage like that to work in. Decided on a color yet?

[Keith 0]

There are a couple BMW & Toyota colors I'd seriously consider had Ameen not painted his car the color it is.

 

Pretty sure I know what I'm doing but I'm keeping my mouth shut until it's painted. No promises until then.

[ameenit 0]

the work done to it and this car are AWESOME!!!

 

cant wait to see it when its painted..

[Mitch 0]

You're car and you build are Inspiring good Sir!

 

 

Keep it up, need to see this run

[Keith 0]

Couple more things crossed off the list...

 

Been procrastinating with getting the diff properly sorted out. Like most anything else, once I dug in it wasn't really that bad. Took longer to track down a inch-lb torque wrench for pinion preload than anything else. New pinion seal, side shaft seals, Marlin Crawler solid pinion spacer and some new shims to get the backlash set correctly.

 

 

After the bash bar was wrapped up, I finished trimming the bumper and mounted up the oil cooler so everything fit together nicely. I don't love that it's kind of hanging off the edge like that but I don't have many other options. I don't want it sandwiched between the IC & radiator. Worst case, it's pretty easy to move a line and bypass if it gets whacked.

 

Then sprayed the brake & seat brackets, found some matching hardware and got it all mounted up.

 

Have to swap covers on the diff, mount that up and then hitting the track Thurs afternoon.

[yoshi 0]

Awesome car, awesome garage...

 

 

[BudgetVIP 0]

It's coming together nice. What you could do with the cooler is turn it flat so the lines face the wheel and then ad a sort of box to channel air over the top of the cooler and put a small efan underneath to pull air through. Kinda like this:

[Keith 0]

Hit the track for more shakedowns last week. I had one injector wire that was being a little intermittent quite a while ago, all of a sudden last week it got really touchy. That combined with my driveshaft rubbing the chassis and more charging issues made for a pretty uneventful session.

 

 

 

So I finally bought a butane powered soldering iron which actually works opposed to the electric crap. Fixed the injector wire and the put in all new coilpack plugs as they can't just be depinned (different plug design). Spaced down the nose of the diff and the carrier bearing on the driveshaft until I get a 1 piece at some point.

 

Got some new rear rotors, painted the calipers and ordered the most aggressive street rear pads I could find for a Cressida. Thanks to Touge Factory as usual.

 

 

Got a fancy helmet hook for the cage.

 

Then loaded her up this morning to go to a nearby lot they use for autox.

 

No problems today. It's damned fast.

[freedoms 0]

Respect!

[mr2thomas 0]

what a boss.

what size angle and tubing did you use for your bash bar?

[Keith 0]

Standard rollcage stuff - 1.5" x .095. Angle bar is some thickish stuff I had laying around since I ran out of tubing.

[mr2thomas 0]

oh alright. ill probably get some 1/4" stuff for mine. i wonder if that is strong enough for aluminum.

What machine are you using on all your fab stuff? i saw a weld pak 100 in one of your pictures so i assumed some small stuff was flux cored but the welds looked too good to be flux core

[toji004 0]

everything aboot this build/car/garage is ....just right.simply great.wow.

[Keith 0]

oh alright. ill probably get some 1/4" stuff for mine. i wonder if that is strong enough for aluminum.

What machine are you using on all your fab stuff? i saw a weld pak 100 in one of your pictures so i assumed some small stuff was flux cored but the welds looked too good to be flux core

 

Aluminum? I wouldn't use aluminum.

 

I don't weld unfortunately. The cage and all of the stuff up until last month was done by friend Ryan with his Miller. Not sure on model but it's good size. He does the fab stuff at Hotline now (JTP's shop). The little weldpak 100 is my other friend's machine, that was used for the bashbar and the misc stuff we did a few weeks ago. He's been using it forever so he's pretty handy with it.

[Tavar246 0]

looking good!!!

[blackers10 0]

man this build is crazy

especially for a drift car

suppose its the difference between the boys and girls and the REAL drift cars

[ameenit 0]

i think there should be a new rule implemented on this site..

 

if your car is this awesome, videos are mandatory..

 

WHERE ARE THE VIDS MAN?!

[Keith 0]

Oh hello awesome roof wing.

 

 

 

Maxxis love.

 

And some Advorks for temp spares.

[Tavar246 0]

hmmm so are you keeping your old wheels? heheh

[Keith 0]

HOLY HELL I HAD FUN YESTERDAY.

 

This may get long...

 

After 4-5 "testing" events late last fall and this spring, the time finally came for a real event. The car was at a point where I was finding nothing else wrong after brief shakedowns. I needed to take it to the track and thoroughly thrash it to see what happened.

 

Chris & I hauled the car out to USAIR early Saturday in hopes of unloading and getting set up early like we usually can. Unfortunately they had a supermoto event going on which ran fairly late. Didn't get unloaded until around 7, then we proceeded to set up our spot. I had swapped from my poorly chosen 215/40/18 fronts to 225/40/18 MAZ1. Fenders were close as is so we ended up doing some jack handle rolling that night. Had to ziptie up some wiring as I finally got the DEFI tach hooked up as well.

 

 

Yours truly...and why I'm usually the one holding a camera.

 

Locked down the pit and proceeded to drink way too many gin/tonics with everyone. Hadn't seen most of the guys since last fall as I never made it to Chicago this winter. Had a great time.

 

 

Sunday came soon. Had some terrible free breakfast at the orgy hotel. Ran around and took some pics since I knew I wouldn't be doing much of that during the day. Had our driver's meeting. Then took the car out and ran a bunch of laps just getting reacquainted with the track in my own car, getting the drivetrain up to temp, etc. Then I stopped being a baby and drove it.

 

 

 

First half of the day went pretty well. Had some rubbing issues up front with the fender and fender well to deal with. Replaced a bad coolant hose clamp. Worked through the rear brakes being all new and unpredictable as they finally bedded in. Had some definite rust to shake off as the car felt rock solid and stable through corners sometimes and other times it seemed to want to spin really easily. Mostly driver issues but the suspension is still a work in progress. Other than Stance/SerialNine coilovers and SerialNine solid subframe bushings, everything else is stock. That will change soon enough. I think the RCAs will make a big difference in my ability to control transitions more effectively but I learned how to work the car throughout the day.

 

After a couple hours I was anxious to start driving with people, it's what I missed most. Had tons of fun with the 2-5 car groups with a lot of clean runs. Simba gave me a little love tap when Leigh brake checked me. I was running on 215 DZ101 in the rear for the last half of the day. lol. It was predictable but felt like I had 800hp. Wasn't getting much acceleration. Will need to get some more wheels soon.

 

AJ & I had a great run with him super close. Of course this pic doesn't really show that.

 

 

Me backing off after Leigh went offroading. Dude drove most of the event with no PS. Skills.

 

 

We had three video cameras going much of the day. Should be able to scavenge some decent footage I hope.

 

With this in the bag, I feel like I'm back after two years. Seems like an appropriate time to thank a lot of people that helped so much with this build.

 

T H A N K Y O U

Rob - Buying the car in my absence.

Ryan - Rollcage/Wiring/misc fab. Two things that are 80% of this car.

Jeff - Bodywork/misc fab/future paint

Dave & Touge Factory/Stance crew - You guys are the best.

Mark - JZX wiring master. PFC hookup.

Gerard @ SerialNine- Making it easier for the Cressida to look and feel good.

My TMFO pals for the support.

JZXProject & Ziptied for the lovers, haters and help.

 

More to come.

 

DRIFTING!

[Keith 0]

In car with my crappy video camera. This was early in the day and you can see me fighting the car a bit.

http://vimeo.com/11827225

 

And a video a friend made. Me in the first part and tandem in the last part.

http://vimeo.com/11828631

 

And another pic.

[Mo 0]

Nothin but love from me. Sick ass fucking ride.

[ameenit 0]

CAR.SOUNDS.AWESOME!!!

[driftaholic 0]

Ilia told me about your car a long time ago. It took until now for me to figure out that this thread and that car were one and the same. fucking tittys man.