Parts order came promptly from Summit Racing. In the order was exhaust parts, and the ARP extended length wheel studs. After much digging around & asking at local parts shop to look up the measurements, I figured the ARP stud set listed for Celica was a good match. The key thing is to find a good size for the knurl since these are press fit. The Celica ones here were just slightly bigger in diameter. The whole reason for this is with alloy rims, the stock studs are just barely long enough, as seen here with my old rims. 
Looks a little iffy, but it just makes the general rule of thumb that there should be as much thread engaged as the stud is thick. Now the deal is the new FX came with some nice Rays rims, but it’s sizing required the use of spacers on the back. I think I mentioned before that we discovered that the rear wheels were being held on by only two threads. This was no exageration, two revolutions and the lug nuts were off. 
Pretty lucky there wasn’t a disaster. Yikes! Continue reading ‘Studly’
Update on car work. I spent last weekend working on the intake of the FX. If you remember, I’d complained about the gutless low end during the SCCA Test&Tune, so I figured I’d check out the intake system. My guess was something was wrong with the TVIS system. TVIS stand for Toyota Variable Induction System. Each cylinder has a pair of intake runners and the TVIS is a set of butterflies that close off one set at low rpms. What this is doing is tuning the intake size. At low rpms, since the pistons are moving slower and sucking slower, closing half the runners you get a narrower intake tube, increasing the air velocity getting better mixing and charging of the cylinder. Once the rpms get high, the piston speeds are high and sucking in faster, the narrow intake becomes a restriction so opening up the second set lets in more air. When you’ve got it floored and the throttle wide open, you can actually hear when this happens. Toyota put this into the GE performance engine cars during the 80’s, and then it went away in the 90’s. It’s come back in a different form in Lexus’ with ACIS, kind of similar concept, but it varies the length of the intake. Continue reading ‘Sucky Sucky’
Wednesday Feb 27
Leave work early and arrive at HNL interisland terminals. 4:15PM in the middle of work week finds easy parking in the interisland structure. No lines at all at check-in or security. Arrive at Hawaiian Airlines’ boarding area. The sun is dipping down and creating “god” beams in the sky. I am heading to Hilo, Hawaii for an install at the Hilo Hawaiian hotel. The flight is uneventful, the unflight mag is same from a few weeks ago, I’ve already read about the night surfing with Fabio’s co-worker, about the guy in Volcano growing wasabi. We arrive and I step out of the aircraft and my first thought is, was Hilo always stinky? Continue reading ‘The Green Hell’
Okay, to start, this isn’t an FTP thread…
Got back in to Sapporo last evening -Â just barely.Â
Friday was clear in Sapporo, but cold. We caught the highway bus to Niseko Annupuri Resort (2180 yen PP) via Otaru (not the Nakayama-touge route). The weather in Niseko was overcast with the portent of snowfall. After checking in to the Northern Resort Annupuri and attempting to find somewhere for lunch, we walked down to the ski center for lunch at the cafeteria. I had a Hamburger with pilaf for 1100 yen. The meat slab was good and big (A-), but the “pilaf” (C-) was just rice with a hint of butter and frozen mixed vegetables mixed in (peas, carrots, corn). Back at the hotel, we were picked up by Minami-san of Niseko Adventure Center for a snowshoe tour. He drove us over to the gondola in a Toyota Hiace and out came the poles and Atlas snowshoes. The poles were mystery ski poles, so were of a fixed length which I thought were too long, even if the session was to be all downhill. We caught the gondola up to the top station, where it was snowing nicely. Continue reading ‘White Hell’
Arr! That’s it, next season I’m forgoing the midseason Whistler and saving up for Japan. With the exchange rate tanking as it has, might as well go somewhere with a high percentage of powder poaching. So far, my midseason Whistler trips have been a little dissapointing. Not to say I didn’t enjoy them, like they say, a bad day of boarding is better than any day at work. And we had some quite good riding. But I want to experience some real, true powder. Not the week old settled stuff some woman called powder. If anything, I think I’ve consistently had more fun on our early season quickies. No crowds all around, and our luck with weather has been pretty good.
So Dave, after reading your posts, I’m going to put aside for the Japan fund now.
Caught the bus out to Sapporo Kokusai yesterday. It was clear and sunny as was the day before. I still managed to find some untracked riding in the center bowl and in the secret trees, but it was settled, old powder – fun, but not wonderful. The sunny-side faces were windpacked and had a melt-crust, but the sheltered sides were fine. I took a break and had a “pizza-nan” and coffee set (750 yen) at the little snack shop at the top of the gondola (they used to be down midway by the slow old pair lifts, but moved to a more accessible location). I had a little incident with the paper tube of sugar for my coffee. While shaking it gently from the end to clear some air space to tear it, the paper disintegrated – sending granulated sugar everywhere. Darned those foreigners! Don’t they know how to open a paper tube of sugar? Lucily nobody saw me do this, and I managed to clean it all up. Food was more snack-sized. Probably a bit pricy for what I got. (B) The clear sky had turned a little hazy by the time I got done with lunch. A hint of snow began to fall. On the bus ride home, the haze in the sky was becoming more pronounced – snow was on the way. Dinner was sausage, kraut, some kind of gratin thing, and sauerbraten at a German restaurant. Had a good hefe-weisen too… can’t recall the name right now… Georg Someone & Sohn… All the food was really good (A, except the sauerbraten which was an A-). Around 7000 yen for everything including beer, dessert and coffee. Continue reading ‘Feast or Famine’
The brake parts I ordered came in. Discovered I ordered the wrong front EBC rotors, or perhaps it was a subconscious desiscion to upgrade? What happened is I ordered the later year ones, which are larger. The good thing is that if you order the same later year calipers, they bolt right up to the older hubs. The only thing is you need to either modify or remove the dust shields. IÂ removing them is the easiest to do. Cut with Dremel and wrench it off.
Okay, I found it. The Indian restaurant in Sapporo run by Indian nationals! They have a tandoor! They make mango lassis! Taj Mahal on the B1 level of Sapporo Factory mall, on the Northeast side. I even got to order in English! We ordered samosas, lamb biriyani, and chicken tikka masala. It was all very good. The nan that came with the chicken was enormous and slathered in melted butter. The lassis and samosas were around $5 each, and the entrees were around $10 each, so the total was around $35 or so for two. The entrees included the rice or nan, so those didn’t have to be ordered ala carte. They had chana masala – I was torn between that and the chicken. I’ll just have to go back!
Highly recommended
Four out of four grinning monkeys
In anticipation of some B/C work in Niseko, we went to Takino Suzuran park in Southeast Sapporo on Saturday to try out snowshoeing. We caught the subway down to Makomanai and got on the same bus line that heads to the Geijitsu no Mori (art/sculpture garden). Takino is a Natonal-Government-run park offering various activities year-round. In winter there are XC ski trails, a tiny one-lift ski/board slope, a tube/sled park, and snowshoe trails. The snow as coming down pretty heavy in the morning. There was easily 10-15cm of unsettled fall overnight. The snowshoe and poles were free. They had pretty nice hardware – Tubbs shoes and BD poles! Continue reading ‘Stay out of the Moors…’