Initial D is addictive

[Darius2250]

Thanks Shadow I will do that

[bluemax_1]

Hey!!! Zombiebaby, you've got a modded '94 VR-4 too? Cool! Is that a thumbnail photo of your car? Haha! Funny, mine's red too! Don't like it being red though. Attracts way too much attention. Maybe someday I'll paint it black.

Thing is though, I haven't yet spent any money on aesthetic mods and I guess painting it would be considered an aesthetic mod. Performance mods only please. I'm one of those people who finds it hard to justify spending money on something just to look good w/o any performance benefits. Can't understand why someone would want to spend a couple grand on 20" chrome rims that are super heavy and kill acceleration and handling.

Hope you're not a straight line only racer. Do you drift your VR-4?
I like the way mine's tuned. Neutral handling and it drifts well at high speeds. In the process of taking it up to the 600+ hp range.

Heheh, as for ricers and stuff, I've got a good buddy who's a ricer to the hilt, but doesn't know it or think of himself as one. Typical, Honda Prelude, non-VTEC, big noisy exhaust which does nothing for performance, lowered to the bump stops, hood pins and all the other looks only mods. Doesn't consider himself a ricer only because he doesn't have stickers all over the friggin car. painted it matte black because he read an article in SCC that said matte black is cool and intimidating.

Sheesh... he's always trying to give ME advice on what I should do/get for my car. All sorts of typical clueless ricer stuff like, "Hey, how about checking out Nismo stuff?" uh... Nismo = Nissan Motorsports. "Oh well what about looking at Stillen?" uhh... yet again, Stillen specializes mostly in Nissans. "Hey I heard Mugen is really good" uhh.... yeah, for Hondas. It's almost hysterically funny how he tries to sound like he's up on tuning and current info but has absolutely no clue. he's a good buddy otherwise though, so I don't have the heart to break it to him. Maybe one of these days, I'll tell him to go check out this really funny site called riceboy.net or whatever it is. Maybe he'll finally get a clue when he sees ricers being made fun of and what constitutes a ricer.

[strakka]

LOL thats pretty funny........ anyways not to say that integras or RSX are bad things but here theres way to many of them. seriously its as if the integra is the only car you can get....... yeah then the stupid riceboys (i saw one ricegirl but she was ok i guess didnt try to make her car super loud) go and get some crazy paint job on them, and a 4' muffler..... and when you talk to them they think there some sorta takumi or something..... really pisses me off.... oh and they go around changing lanes every second..... one of these days im going to drive up to them and yell my head off.......HEHEHE.....

hey zombie i hate the buzz too! i dunno i use to like it but now i hear it soo much that whenever i hear it i get pissed off......

[nrmcj]

=) sweet… lol, shadowmage, im only 18… just a couple weeks ago… dun got my own car yet, and I don’t think im gonna put down the cash for a used one… might as well save and buy a nice one a little bit later on. I dunno why everyone rags on 4 cylinder cars…. =\ sure, they’re low displacement, sure a bottle of pop has more litres (), and yeah, all the kids with sunfires and cavaliers give us them such a bad name… loud, rumbly exhaust sitting on a bone stock, yellow economy car…. A lot of my friends have civics and paseos with LOUD exhausts… and well, I cant say I hate that… makes a nice sound, and the buzzing isnt all that bad…

anyway… yeh, I know 4 cylinder cars are looked down upon… but there are some pretty damn amazing 4-bangers around… 240 hp out of a naturally aspirating (sp?) S2K engine… celica GT-S engine puts out about 210+ after a few modifications, namely the supercharger… and that’s pretty quick in a 2500 pound car… I consider myself a ricer, even though people hate them… cuz the first thing I do when I get my car (celi gts… *pray pray pray*) is put a bodykit on it and an APR wing, and a new exhaust system… so yeah, call me rice, cuz part of the fun is being hated (wouldn’t you agree?)

heh, Im glad im not as bad as bluemax’s friend there tho… at least I know which companies make stuff for what… ^_^

dammit strakka.. i envy you.. you live in rice-town east, and you dont like it.... ><" it hurts to live here man! all the trucks and stuff, omg... and the white dudes that try waaaay too hard, with their tauruses and cavaliers with bright green paint jobs...

[bluemax_1]

Actually, wasn't trying to give the impression that I don't like 4-bangers. Hey, I like the Mini Cooper and that's a REALLY small 4-banger, not to mention my winter car's a VW Golf. The Celica is also a really nice car and can be tuned for very good handling. And hey, the 4G63 is a 2 liter 4 and it's a great engine, so's the SR20DET, not to mention all WRC cars use 2 liter inline 4's.

It's just that I'm not a big fan of people who mod cars in ways that negatively affect performance. Hey, if people like to 'pretty up' their cars, different strokes for different folks, but it bugs me when they stick on a muffler with a tip big enough for small dogs to crawl into even though it does practically nothing for performance for most small NA engines. And it's even worse when they come blatting down the roads in residential areas late at night, revving the engine to try to show off the 'performance' (like when I'm trying to sleep).

Integras and RSX's are nice too, but for crying out loud, those transformer bot bodykits that make 'em look like they're either going to sprout laser cannons and legs or take off with rocket thrusters into the wild blue yonder... talk about blatant misuse of urethane. OK, OK, I can't say that I haven't/won't do mods that change the way a car looks externally, but only if they add a tangible increase in performance. I have no problems with wings if they're there to add downforce but there are so many wing kits out there that would cause aerodynamic lift instead of downforce. My buddies and I (the ones who really know what's up) find those incredibly amusing. The only reason they're so common is because the people who actually buy them rarely go fast enough to really destabilize the car.

Watch how most ricers drive, the very antithesis of performance driving. Where performance drivers strive to smooth all inputs to maintain balance at the edge of adhesion and performance, ricers drive very erratically and with sudden movements. All caused by the lack of performance of the cars they drive. A well-tuned car can provide more than enough g-force for a sustained duration to tire out any driver, but ricers tend to drive cars without much ability in that department so they tend to do silly things like accelerate very jerkily darting in and out of traffic to generate higher g-forces for short spans of time. They rarely have enough skill to control the car at near maximum lateral g for more than fractions of seconds. They also tend to brake and then floor it since their cars usually accelerate best under 40 mph. And yes, the buddy of mine with the Prelude does all these things while thinking he's a great driver with awesome control because he generates high g's for fractions of a second.

[mpbiv]

Originally posted by Pie
=) sweet… lol, shadowmage, im only 18… just a couple weeks ago… dun got my own car yet, and I don’t think im gonna put down the cash for a used one… might as well save and buy a nice one a little bit later on. I dunno why everyone rags on 4 cylinder cars…. =\ sure, they’re low displacement, sure a bottle of pop has more litres ()

I agree nothing wrong with 4cyls. As long as everything is in good taste. BTW, my 4cyl has more displacement than a 2L bottle of soda

To be exact it is 2.5L with the current NA engine, and will be at least 2.2L with my next engine but probably still 2.5L and forced induction to boot. Then again my car is not an import, its an 80's FWD Dodge.

Only problem is most of FWD dodge crowd gets looked down upon by the import people because we drive domestics, and by the V8 RWD crowd because we like our 4cyls

[nrmcj]

damn... well, i know i dont stand a chance against bluemax, but i gotta but in my 2 cents anyway... ^_^ (not trying to argue, cuz i'd get destroyed... but just wanna ask a couple things)... so a couple questions:

1. massively oversized piping and wide open flow mufflers wont do much for a 1.8L engine... but... im friends with one of the owners of a tuning shop here (a crappy one tho)... and he's tested a celica with a TRD exhaust to have about 9 hp more at *high* rpm... somewhere around 6,900... it's a loud exhaust, no doubt... but not as loud as some of the no-name brands... something like this would be helping performance, despite the ricey noise it makes, right? im not all that confident in the quality of his dyno... so im askin you

2. about the bodykits, yeah, to each his own.. *eyes the overdone blitz bodykit*... but about the wings... im not talking about the huge, plastic double decker wings that are purely for looks, but what about wings by APR? i believe they sponser a lot of drag racing and touring car drivers, and well, they just look credible to me... also, im thinking they would help on a FWD car, because at higher speeds, the downward slope at the back of the car will generate a low pressure area, if im not mistaken, and decrease the stability of the car. this can be remedied by a wing, which would be more useful at higher speeds rather than for drag racing, as it would not be useful at lower speeds, but not quite detrimental (sp)... is my thinking correct?

3. yes, i admit it.. i do enjoy *liberal* use of the gas pedal, but not as often as many people.. i would think my driving's pretty good.. and i was wondering.. on a rather tight and twisted road, and lets just say *someone* was going at a higher speed than normal, it would be unavoidable to drive in a slightly jerky manner...? the only way to correct and make the movements smoother would be to know the road well and drive by lines, as opposed to simply jerking the steering wheel back and forth.. rite?

i think i've found a new source of automotive knowledge... hehe, leaching bluemax's skills!!

link to Toms toyota chaser, with an APR wing... bluemax, if it's not too much trouble... can you check out the Vspec II wing made for the celica.. and tell me your honest opinion on it's functionality? thanks.
http://www.aprperformance.com/images...1_chaser03.jpg
http://www.aprperformance.com/produc...=v-spec_type-2

*edit: mpbiv, hehe, as long as it's not a cavalier or sunfire decked out with the maddest bodykit and wake-the-dead exhaust...
what is it, btw? lol

[strakka]

LOL there goes pie with his mad long reply skillz again LOL

anyways .... i have just seen the ugliest thing everybuilt.... well atleast to my knowledge this thing is sooo bad it could probably make you go blind if you stared at it for too long.... LOL have any of you seen FF b4?? well this cavalier tried to do the greeen eclipse body look on it..... it might have looked a bit better ...... IF HE HADN'T MADE THE GREEN LOOK LIKE PUSE!!! ugh it was disgusting.... soo bright it could blind you but when you looked at it it was puse colour.... (oh for you who dont know what a puse looks like.... imagine lime green but 10X lighter .... wait it more like puke but 10X lighter and more disgusting)

does anyone know what type of wing keisuke's FD has?? its pretty big looking but its really well for preformance ....

[bluemax_1]

Heheh, pretty funny pie, but yeah, you've got me, a larger diameter than stock pipe can help even small displacement engines. The difference really is in ratios between a 1.8 or 2.0 liter NA and a 3.0 or higher forced induction. A lot of NA 4-bangers have exhausts with diameters something pretty small like 1.3" - 1.75" and they tend to have kinks in them that reduce airflow. They would benefit by going up to about 2" - 2.5" mandrel bent to improve the airflow.

However, a 3.5 inch exhaust with a 4 - 5 inch tip is not only overkill for a 2 liter or under NA engine, it actually reduces performance. Putting pipes that large on an engine without the need for that much unrestricted airflow will reduce the low end torque more than it would increase high end hp. That's why people should learn what they're doing to figure out how to best tune a particular car as opposed to just thinking, "Hey, those massive hp cars use huge exhaust systems so they must be good for my car too"

As for wings, as I've said, I don't have a problem with functional ones. It's just the absurdly styled urethane wings that upon closer inspection, turn out to cause aerodynamic lift. At slow speeds, it doesn't matter but at high speeds, they make the car unstable. Fortunately, most of the people who have these kinds of wings never really go fast enough to be in serious danger (they'ld much rather cruise at slower speeds to show off all the bling bling on their cars).

As far as drag racing goes, wings don't really help FF cars. They can help FR and 4wd cars but only at the much higher hp and speed range. The average street class car is not going to be see much advantage in having a rear wing because by the time they're going fast enough for the downforce to be sufficient, chances are, they won't be spinning the wheels anymore. Good wings are great for autocross and circuit racing though. The apr VspecII that the link shows should be a decent functional wing. My favorite types though are the carbon fibre aero cross section wings that they use for JGTC racing. There are quite a few companies that have them and the main thing about these wings is that they are aerodynamically correct, i.e. the cross section looks like an inverted aeroplane wing (with more 3-d shaping to take into account crosswind and lateral airflow).

As for the whole driving style and technique thing goes, what I was trying to explain might be a litle difficult to grasp until you get to sit in a car and compare the two, but basically, on a road course with lots of turns, a good driver can spend a lot of time close to the limits of the tires' grip, but a poorly skilled driver doesn't have anywhere near the skill needed to drive on the edge, so they tend to spend most of the time well under the grip limits and occasionally from making sudden inputs, they come very close to the grip limits (and sometimes exceed them) they think that they're good drivers because they approach the grip limits during these short moments of maneuvering. Of course, knowledge of the road ahead makes a difference but the difference in driving technique is more fundamental, and distinct.

If you were to chart the lateral acceleration as they take a corner at speed from entry to apex to exit, they might only come close to the maximum lateral g's for a small amount of time, and the graph tends to have peaks occasionally approaching these limits usually near the apex, along with many valleys where they are nowhere near the grip potential (generally at entry and exit). A good driver though will spend much of the time near the limits of the cars lateral acceleration potential. At the very edge, you need very smooth controlled inputs to steering and throttle to avoid pushing the car over the edge. The erratic and exaggerated inputs of the amateur would definitely have the car out of control at those speeds, but they never go that fast. As I've said, they only approach the limits of grip momentarily and spend most of their time way below that threshold.

They like the feeling of g's but realize they don't have enough skill to drive at that level so instead of practicing to develop their skills ricers will 'learn' a different way of driving which causes wild swings in g's from acceleration and cornering. Simple example would be a corner 'like' an on ramp or off ramp. (I say 'like' an on ramp or off ramp because doing this on a public road is obviously illegal) A good driver will gauge the radius of the turn and know how fast he can go into it, maintaining the car's balance and speed through the whole turn. A ricer though, would brake more than necessary entering the turn and then floor it as they come fully into the turn accelerating until they feel or think the car is about to slide and then backing off the throttle. The reason for driving like this is to exaggerate the g's first from deceleration, then acceleration, and then briefly from lateral acceleration. This by the way, is exactly what my friend with the Prelude does when trying to show off his 'skills' as a driver.

Since this is an Initial D thread, it's pertinent to point out that a good driver sitting in a car with a ricer behind the wheel will get the crap scared out of him and a ricer sitting in a car with a good driver behind the wheel will in turn get the crap scared out of them, but for different reasons. As Takumi experienced when riding with Iketani for the first time, the terror for a good driver comes from realizing that the ricer has very poor control of the car and whenever they approach the grip limits, they are also very close to losing control of the car. The terror for the ricer riding shotgun with a good driver comes from cornering speeds and entry speeds far higher than they would ever consider since they instinctively recoqnize that if they were entering the corner at those speeds, they would almost certainly be headed for a potentially disastrous wreck.

I had another friend, the one who first introduced me to Initial D in fact who wasn't a ricer but was still like Itsuki in the passenger seat. He'ld start yelling when I headed for a corner at a speed he was sure was way too fast. Even after riding with me for quite a while, and becoming familiar with my driving, he would still get white knuckled when I headed for a corner at speed.

Whoops... got a little carried away here. Sorry for the incredibly long post

[nrmcj]

aw man.. i think i get a longass post down, and even getting a rise out of strakka, and you come along and own me again... lol

crazy... im happy that u confirmed the stuff that i had a notion of, so now im set in my knowledge, and not gonna say anything stupid by accident ^_^ thanks!

lol, for that whole driving thing, i went to vancouver for a week, and sat in my friends prelude for a total of over 2 hours each day... he drives pretty fast... well everyone there does, but it scared the crap outta me for a while... especially when he goes up this narrow, twisty-ass road with a limit of 30 KpH... trying to get the car to shift to Vtec cams in third gear... scare the living crap outta me... i'd say he's a pretty good driver, cuz there's none of that brake/floor it crap..

funny thing is, after sittin in a 200 hp sport compact, i come back to edmonton used to quicker speeds in a low slung car... i so drive my 98 subaru wagon down to my friends house, and what's that weird.. squealing sound i hear every time i take a sharp right or left..?! @_@ turns out i was taking turns too fast, and every time i touched the gas in the middle of a turn the front tires would lose it... **sigh** 3600 pound wagons suck

...what car do you drive, btw..?

[bluemax_1]

I've got 2. At the moment, I'm still driving my winter car VW Golf. Not that it isn't a fun car, but I'm TRYING to be patient till the other one gets back from the shop, what with all this nice weather. The other car is a'94 Mitsu 3000GT VR-4 modded for neutral handling and high speed drift. Right now, it's at the shop,... well a buddy's garage anyway, getting the engine rebuilt to put in new rods, forged pistons etc. etc. It'll take a little while, step by step, but when it's all done. It should be in the 600 hp range.

Doesn't take much hp to have fun and drift on a downhill. Unfortunately, that require hills. When I moved here to Michigan. Imagine my suprise in finding out just how flat this place is!

The thing that sucks though is I'm putting in all that because I was forced to rebuild the engine. There's a lesson in here about trusting regular shops with a tuned/modified high hp car. I took the car to a shop to have the lower control arm and outer tie rod end replaced 'cuz I didn't have the tools to do it myself and while the car was at the shop, someone there thrashed it while taking it out for a spin. They ended up spinning a rod bearing and the damn thing is the shop says, "Oh, we don't do that with customer's cars. We didn't do it, it was probably a pre-existing problem." and it's difficult for me to prove it. But damn, I know that car and how else do you explain the fact that there was NOTHING wrong with the engine when I took it in and when I went to pick it up, starting the car made the engine rattle!(rod knock)

I know my car and I recorded the mileage and gas before taking it in. While at the shop, they went through a 1/4 tank of gas and put 18 miles on the tach. There is no way to burn that much gas in 18 miles unless you have your foot to the floor. The car has a 20 gallon tank! That's 5 gallons in 18 miles or roughly 3.6 mpg. The only time the car burns gas like that is when the throttle is to the floor. You know what the shop owner's response was when I pointed this out? "Oh,.... well... er... we occasionally leave the engine running while we're fixing a car." What!!! why the hell would you leave the engine running while fixing the car? While it was at the shop, I also had them put in new gaskets. There's no reason to run the engine while changing control arms and the outer tie rod, and you definitely don't want the engine running when you change the gaskets! What a bunch of bull!!!

Suffice it to say, I am taking legal action against the shop, but it's taking a while and like I said, it's difficult to prove that the shop did it. My advice to anyone with a high performance car is, either take your car ONLY to someone you know for a fact you can trust with it (There are no import tuner shops in hicksville Kalamazoo, MI), or get a damn datalogger with timecode so you can take it to court if you need to and say, "Hah!!! Look here, the date and time shows it was under your care when the engine was overreved repeatedly and the datalogger shows, maximum throttle position here, here, here and here..."

P.S. sorry for ranting, but this has been quite a sore spot for me recently

[ShadowMage]

bluemax - ok...I've got a few questions for ya. hehe If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? And how did you get to know so much about cars? I, unfortunately, am very lacking in knowledge of cars. hehe I mean I know a little but...dang no where near the level I'd like to be. (1. I don't have the financial freedom to buy a separate car and mod it and 2. because of the aforementioned reason, I've been apprehensive to mod the car I currently own because it's my daily driver. i.e. if I screw it up I have no transportation) I guess the best course would be to start reading up on all that I can (tuning mags, books, etc.) then later on start modding.... LOL Oh well maybe someday I'll get there...till then I can dream Initial D dreams. LOL

[bluemax_1]

I guess I have to 'fess up huh? Yes, I'm another 'old geezer' on this forum. I'm 31.

As to gaining knowledge about cars, as with all things, it begins with the interest followed by the desire to learn as much as possible. Helps that I've known quite a few people in different kinds of racing and have done it myself My 2 favorite types of racing are rallying and Japanese street racing and gymkhana, mostly because the cars used in them are attainable for normal people. You might have to save for a bit before getting one but it isn't like an F1, Indy car or Nascar that you can't buy or drive on the road. Also, the abovementioned racing types I favor have 2 things in common. They have direct bearing on driving fast with a normal car (somewhat normal ) and they involve drifting.

I started learning how to drift because I knew guys who did amateur rallying and my high school buds and I would take our Dad's cars out after a rainstorm and go looking for either open construction sites or dirt roads, to learn drifting in the mud. After getting the car all muddied up of course, if it was my Dad's car, we'd take it to one of my other 2 friends' houses to wash it off first and if it was their Dad's car, we'd go to mine Funny how our dad's never figured it out when they saw us washing off someone else's muddy car. Well, when I got my own car, I really started getting into it. Anyway, as you can tell from my age, that was quite a while back, and I'm still in love with it

As for financial freedom. Well, hmmm... sometimes some sacrifices have to be made. For example, just found out I need MORE parts for the VR-4 so I'm selling off more of the micro cars to compensate.

My advice to anyone who wants to learn more about cars or anything else for that matter, start by reading up as much as you can, then try to find people who are already into it and learn from them I've had many different interests over the course of my still young life and have no doubts I will develop even more.

[strakka]

hey i saw some gymkhana racing while i was in japan last summer..... well for time i was in japan atleast..... it wasnt inperson cuz you just cant do those things but you cant get any of that over here so that was the first time i ever saw it..... yeah i didnt notice it until my brother started to translate what they were saying on TV for me ..... hehehe...

man pie you getting schooled on the long posts here... LOL.... for car info i usually get some japanese magnazine from my brothers closet(sp??) cuz all the chinese mags are usually useless.... IE there for chinese ricers...... sometimes they have a good chinese mag its called.... its called..... oh man i forget but i will find out for you guys this weekend when i go to the book store....

[mpbiv]

Bluemax: sorry to hear about your car

Thats pretty much why I stick to doing my own work now. Only things I don't do on my own car is body work, alignments, and tires because I don't have that kind of equipment. But anything from engine swaps, wiring, brakes, suspension etc is fair game.

For me the easiest way to learn about cars is to jump in headfirst and get my hands greasy. I feel over the few years I have been driving (about 6 years now) that I have learned quite a lot this way.

I also was heavily involved in my college's Formula SAE group my first two years of college, where I picked up even more information. Anyone in college interested in learning about racing and cars should probably start here if your school has such a program