tuning | Diesel is for tractors

What? another new illness? Yes, well, maybe.

Tell me more!

Its something that plagues a huge number of the worlds population, in a variety of guises. Its been around a long time, but I’ve yet to find its true name, so let me discribe it to you and ask yourself if you possibly have it too.

It probably started for me when I was about 6 years old. My father allowed me to steer the car on a private road. I don’t know if it was an airborne illness or something that resulted after touching the cars controls, but that was when it began.

The next batch of symptoms were not noticed by family as anything abnormal. Posters began to appear on the walls of my room, mostly of Italian exotica. Toys were replaced with scale models. The tv shows I watched began to change from regular cartoons to ones with cars, examples such as Transformers & MASK, to anything that featured an engine – Night Rider, Steet Hawk, Magnum P.I, Airwolf, Automan, Hardcastle & McCormick, Miami Vice(although the parents didn’t know!) Dukes of Hazzard and the A-Team. There were more but I can’t remember the names.

Then it got worse. I started to go to local Rally events. My parents must have simply not wanted to admit I had this sickness, because the signs had become obvious. The sound of the neighbour starting his Sierra Cosworth. It drove all the other locals crazy, but I couldn’t get enough. Lying in bed at night as the same car would return from a night out, I could hear it approach from miles away. Each downshift, the gentle increase and decrease of revs while cornering, to the roar on the straights.

Sunday sports tv was replaced with F1. The collection of mags left in the house by my uncle we raided. I hit the jackpot…. mountains of issues of CAR magazine.

I started to watch, actually study, my Dad as he drove. I wanted to as good as he was. I listened to any conversation that had the slightest hint of petrol, hoping for tips or just cool car stories.

I would identify the make and model of every car I would see, thankfully all this was kept in my mind as I’m sure those around me would have had me committed. Instead of being angry when I spotted a car I didn’t know, I was delighted. It meant I had to go researching! All this in the days before the interwebs, it meant visiting the library, the newsagent and actually talking to people, face to face.

But things took a turn for the worse when a certain red beast, with “2 roundy triangles” under the bonnet, arrived from the land of the rising sun. Then the sickness turned into its most destructive form. Financial stage 3 sickness. First it was the initial cost of the car. Then the shipping and freight insurance. Then the flights to the UK to collect it and ferry back. The duty, the VRT, the insurance, the fuel. The large bill for the rebuild, the various bits and pieces it needed along the way. Then came the mods.

Oh the mods…… its by now that if you aren’t nodding with me, you are probably safe and disease free. So go away. If on the other hand, your smiling, knowing what its like to suffer, read on.

I find myself turning on the pc and immediately checking car sales sites & parts sites. Not just in Ireland, no, that would be too easy and probably not cost enough. Nope, the internet is a global market place, so I must use it to the full, along with my ever dwindling bank account. But its ok, I have an understanding woman in my life. She knows I have inner demons, which torment me, daily, hourly. She can read my body language from the other side of the room. She knows, really knows, when I have located the NEXT car. Or worse, when I have located that rare part, for the rare car, that I DON’T own….yet. Oh yes, B, you are a truly understanding woman and I am blessed to have you in my life.

What she doesn’t realise, is that I have slowly, over many years, been trying to nuture this disease in her also. Wicked? Wrong? Disgusting? Evil? yes, probably. But I know that if we both suffer the same sickness that it will ultimately bring us even closer together. When will I stop? When the day comes that she wakes me up, saying “I’ve just changed the injectors on my car and fitted the uprated fuel pump. Want to go for a spin to test it out?”

Any day now!

Thank you Dad for this sickness, and to my Mum for understanding, it has come to define me and is a part of my soul now, I’ll forever be grateful.

Yes, I’m a hungry thing most of the time. I like to try all kinds of food and will try anything once. Why not? Life is too short.

Japan. It was a place I dreamed of visiting for many, many years. My good friend Derrick and I had discussed the idea of moving to Japan, a lot. Having both experienced the fabulous gifts that Japan has granted us techie types, games, tv and hi-fi along with all things automotive, combined with a truly wonderful culture, we simply HAD to go there.

Plans were made to go once we finished college. The time came, I had missed out on some exams(due to being in hospital) and had to repeat a year. So, Derrick went on his own. Without going into all the boring details, I never moved there, something I truly regret. But, years passed and the time came to do a little back-packing. With my round-the-world ticket in one hand, and the well worn Lonely Planet guide in the other, off I went.

I wanted to see as much of Japan as possible. I didn’t just want to do the typical tourist things, I wanted to see the REAL Japan. I travelled from one place to the next, without a whole lot of research. All I can say, to anyone even remotely considering a visit to this magnificent country, DO IT! You won’t regret it.

I saw ancient castles, gardens, old towns, tiny villages in the hills. Ate food that I couldn’t pronounce and still, to this day, don’t know what it was. Drank local beers and Sake. Listened to young musicians outside the train station. Watched all the people hit the town in their cosplay type outfits. Visited an Onsen, bathed in hot sand. The list goes on and its all really fun stuff.

Like any self-respecting petrolhead, I had a few “must visit” car related places. I had to see at least one car manufacturing plant(don’t like calling them factories). A couple of tuning companies were on the list also. Among these comapanies was a tuner called Fujita Engineering Evolutional Development, or thankfully more commonly referred to as FEED.

The firm are among the most respected of Rotary Engine tuners in the world. If at this point you are asking “whats a rotary engine?” then you are in for a treat! Go to your favourite search engine and start educating yourself.

Being a rotary owner myself, I had of course plenty knowledge of the company. I had seen countless videos of cars they tuned, read(ok, looked at the pics) of numerous Japanese magazine articles, practically knew their parts catalogue inside out.

So, I had to go visit FEED. While visiting another good friend in Osaka(Hi Dave) I planned the visit with his help. It took a number of train journeys followed by an interesting taxi ride to get there.

Surrounded by fields, on the edge of the city, was not where I expected the place to be. The excitement as we pulled up outside the shop was akin to a small child at a huge toy shop. I didn’t know where to look first. The yard at the front was packed with all manner of rotary engined cars. Some were just for parts, some were mildly tuned road cars, some were full on show cars and one – was the companies all singing, all dancing, time attack and competition MONSTER! This was the exact car I had seen in so many of those videos and magazine features. Just wow.

I bounded into the store, probably looking like someone who had taken too many pills that day or drank a crate of energy drinks. Trophies stacked high, photos of events, staff, drivers, celebrities and of course, cars. Lots of cars.

I approached the counter and attempted to explain that I spoke almost no Japanese and wanted to buy parts. As I did this, I noticed a gentleman get up from his desk and leave the shop via a side door. He looked like the owner, whom I had seen in all those videos.

After much gesturing and very poor attempts at conversing, another man appeared. His English was better than my Japanese thankfully. He told me that this was where they worked on the cars and they didn’t have parts for sale. The parts place was in another location, a long way away. Damn. I was hoping to bring a few parts with me and save on international shipping. Ah well. The guy, Hitachi I think his name was?(sorry, I have a bad memory) could see the look of dissapointment on my face. I asked if it was ok to take some photographs of the various cars, and he was only too happy to oblige. Bonnets were opened, interesting parts pointed out and a ridiculous number of photos taken.

The time came to move on, so I asked him to call me a taxi home. “No, its ok. I drive” came the reply. Naturally I excepted and then he said 2 words which were to kick start one serious adventure – “which car?”

Now, let me point out that I am quite a shy, easy going and polite person. Yes, really. I didn’t want to put anyone out, but this was the chance of a life time. “Which is fastest?” I asked, having a damn good idea which one was. Before I knew it, my new hero was back with the keys to the MONSTER. The exact car that is the focal point of so many videos. Go on, check YouTube for Fujita Engineering, find a video, thats probably the car.

He climbed in, started flicking switches and noises began to emerge. I could hear a fuel pump whirring in the boot, some ticking noises, the smell of high octane fuel and the feeling of something epic about to happen. When he fired it up, I swear, I was a kid again. Even though the car was running, I still didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. Was I really about to get a taxi ride in THAT car?

I was beckoned into the weapon(well, car is nowhere near the reality) and buckled up the multi-point harness. He pointed at a number of unusual additions within the car, such as the digital readout showing the gear currently engaged. Because racecar.

We slowly edged out of the yard and onto a now, very narrow looking road. I noticed the edge of the road simply dropped suddenly down into the fields. I felt the suspension work over the slight bumps in the tarmac, suspension so stiff you could read a newspaper by driving over it. Slowly we increased speed, while he pointed out various temperature gauges and I understood we would have to wait until it was up to temp. We went from one tiny road to another and eventually onto a main, multi lane road. The temperature guages were now all up to correct operating temperatures, as indicated by a simply thumbs up from my hero. We approached a junction, and began slowing down, allowing the traffic to do their thing and the road to clear ahead. A lower gear was selected and I think a passing fighter jet then accidentally got caught on the roof of the car. We went into some kind of warp. The noise, the smell, the vibrations, the sheer overwhelming jolt of adrenaline. This couldn’t really be happening? As all things turned into a blur(no Your Honour, we were not speeding) I somehow noticed we had passed the train station, by some margin. I pointed back toward the station. My pilot nodded, dropped a couple of gears, stood on the brakes, we shed speed like we had dropped an anchor. The handbrake was pulled, the car put into a smoothly, expertly judged drift and we turned 180 degrees and back up the other side of the road. As we stopped at the station, the hordes of kids all began to frantically take pics. I looked over at my new best friend and said the only word of Japanese I knew to use in such a situation – subarashii!!! He smiled, nodded, we shook hands, I somehow managed to get my legs to work and got out. I waved goodbye and watched as the schoolkids snapped away at the rapidly dissapearing missile and the glorious noise it left in its wake. Looking at one kid beside me, I smiled and nodded as I spotted he was making a video of the whole thing, but quickly became truly angry with myself as I realised I hadn’t. What a fool! The experience of a lifetime and I didn’t have a video. Ah well, I still have the memories.

Thank you to my pilot that day. Thank you to the owner of the company, who I found out later, left the room as he didn’t speak English and was embarassed. I’m the one who should be embarassed, you should be proud to be the genius behind so many fantastic cars, engines and dreams. Thank you so much. That day will forever live with me. I vowed to create a replica(as best I could afford) of the car. The photo of the grey RX-7 you see at the top of the blog is that car, my car. Its a long way off the record setting beast I experienced that day, but it is my hommage to that car.

To anyone and everyone who has not been to Japan – please visit. The people of Japan are friendly, really friendly, genuinely friendly. They have pride in their country, their work, their history. They have given us petrolheads so much and continue to do so. Japan is a place of such wonder, a polar opposite of so many western countries, it has to be experienced to be believed.

And what an experience it will be, trust me.