Drive

OK, first nice weather since picking up the car, here’s first beauty shot. I need to get PhotoChop so I can clone out those poles in back. Kinda weird having a car that gets looks and comments from normal folks and even chicks, not just Toyota geeks. Thanks Mitch for the quickie wash last night, it managed to stay pretty clean till I took this. Got a chance to get a little spirited into some turns and that brought an instant grin to my face. It’s been kind of frustrating having to restrain from pushing the engine, but this finally gave me a taste of what the car is about, and it’s yummy! Speaking of the engine, keeping it down makes me sad. The engine note is not very nice down low, I know it’s a four cylinder, but even so it sounds pretty buzzy, I think an exhaust well help.

I spent much of this weekend driving, and it was enjoyable. Saturday cruised out to Windward side. Skies were ugly, but that was alright. Hit Norfolks and 13 Turns, fun! I was moments too late to catch H-3, it got closed down just as I got to the on-ramp, bummer. Break for dinner, thanks Chef Keiko, hope you find another good cook, the hokke was good!

Then dropped by Mitch’s where he did his thing. People must call him the crazy car washing guy. We decided to check out the unsanctioned car “cruise” near the NEX. I’d actually heard mention of this elsewhere, but Mitch had actually gone a couple times before. Seems every Saturday night various groups of cars gather in the parking lots in the area. Largely import tuner boys.

I parked the FR-S in an area removed from any other group and Mitch and I took a seat at an outdoor table to watch the antics. At around midnight they rolledout and hit the freeway heading Ewa. They then exit on the new offramp after Kunia and jump back on town bound. We tagged along on the tail end. I didn’t want to get mixed into things, I was there just to watch. Sure enough there was shenanigans. They would form rolling blockades and slow down where upon a couple cars would then take off in a race. I’m sure the Popo are well aware that this goes on, but I guess there’s only so much they can do. We passed one solo bike officer parked on the side of freeway running his lights. Guess he was making his presence known, kinda a way to say hey, don’t be stupid, we know you guys are out here. I guess one idiot in a 4th gen Supra didn’t get the message. I saw his headlights closing on us from behind fast, I’m sure he was exceeding 100 mph, quickly followed by the solo bike. The officers unhappyness was quite apparent in the berating we could hear when we passed where the Supra finally pulled over. We bailed when we got to Mitch’s offramp.

It was interesting to see, I guess this is some of what the Oahu “street scene” is. I wonder where the heck the kids get all the money for this. Anyway, no plans to get involved with this for me!

The ticker has now just clocked over 300 miles and beginning to get to know the car more. I think the only thing so far that’s kind of bothering me is how soft the clutch is. The engagement point seems to be pretty high and I haven’t gotten the hang of it. The 6 speed is nice, 5th gear is actually 1:1 ratio that I would normally find in 4th, so that makes gears 1-4 closer. Maybe not good for 0-60 times as you’ll probably run out of 2nd and have to shift again to get to 60, but good for what this car is really meant to do, and to keep the small displacement 4 cylinder in happier revs. When I autocrossed my Corollas, I always wished for a lower 2nd because the 4AGE is quite the torque-less wonder, it liked to be wound up. This 6 speed should help with that. The action of the shifter has seemed to smoothened up, it’s feeling pretty decent now.

Esthetically the car is nice, there are a few things I don’t care for. I mentioed earlier that I think the side view mirrors are kinda too chunky. I don’t care for how the rims look, I’m going to paint them and maybe that will help. The high mount stop light I think is quite ugly on it’s alien stalks, but you only really see that from inside. The radio antenna is also pretty ugly, I plan to change that to a shark fin style soon.

Anyway, I’m loving the car. Soon I will be able to really drive it, and I’m looking forward to running it at auto-cross. I think I may sign up for the upcoming driving class too now that I have a worthy car!