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I know my 7's Day post was kind of lame in the sense that i really didn't have many pictures of the other RX-7's that actually showed up to the event. So to give you a better look at what went down that day, check out the below video made by my friends at Flipzco, which was shot completely on a GoPro so the quality is not as great as some others out there, but still the video is quite good nonetheless.



There's another video coming out shortly made by a professional videographer which was hired to capture the event for us, so stay tuned. Once it's released i'll post it up!

7/7/2016

When someone says 7's Day, you automatically think of 大黒, it doesn't matter what part of the world you're from. 7's Day is the most anticipated article on Speedhunters for me. It's the one article i look forward to reading all year because the gathering of RX-7 owners on this day in Japan is legendary. Although i've come to see that Rinku 7's Day is perhaps the more organized and well attended event, 7's Day on 7/7 is the more well known one outside of Japan. All previous years on 7's Day, all we did to celebrate would be to share a picture of our RX-7's and drool over all the pictures other people posted. But late last year, a few buddies of mine, Edwin, Prav, and Ted, decided it was time we had a proper 7's Day here in NYC. It would be the first of it's kind in our area, or possibly in the U.S. that we know of.

The long awaited day arrived and the plan was to meet at our usual spot on 28th and 11th. The guys coming in from Jersey decided to meet up at a gas station right before Holland Tunnel.



In case you were wondering, yes, that's a 3-rotor in that 1st Gen!


From there we traveled in together. Man, hearing the sounds of the rotary engine echo through the tunnels is nirvana.

Photo by John Mascarvinas


Photo by JLiu Photography


The best part about 7's Day is seeing all the RX-7's together, and when we pulled into our meeting spot, we were not disappointed. A lot more RX-7s showed up than we had expected. There were even guys coming from Boston and Albany, NY to attend.

Photo by JLiu Photography


Unfortunately, i didn't get to meet as many new people as i would've liked as i spent the whole time hanging out with people i already knew. But what can i say, if your friends have cars like Phil's RE-Amemiya AC037 FD, you would know what i mean!

Photo by JLiu Photography


Photo by Emil Blanco


We're lucky to have so many photographer friends who are willing to come to our gatherings to capture the memories on our behalf. Since their photos are 100x better than any i could've taken, i am mostly using their photos for this entry.

Photo by JLiu Photography


Photo by @d.blackman


The plan was to do two separate cruises, but we ended up not being able to go through Times Square because of a BLM protest/rally. We ended up doing a loop down West Side Highway, through Battery Tunnel, and up the FDR for only a short distance.

Photo by Prime NYC


Being able to cruise the streets of NYC with a bunch of RX-7's was truly a magical moment. RX-7's in America are already so rare as is, but having over 20 of them in one of the greatest cities of the world, not normally known for cars, made 7's Day the event of the year.

Photo by @d.blackman


We ended the cruise downtown by City Hall, where we said our final goodbye's and the cars started dispersing.



All-in-all we had an amazing night that will be hard to forget. Granted, it was a little messy at times with people not knowing where we were going and some people getting lost or separated from the rest of the group, but being able to look to the left, right, back and in front and only seeing RX-7s made it all worth it. Although we didn't manage to get a picture with all the cars, we did get a group shot of all the people, which in the the end, is what these gatherings are really about right?

Photo by Prime NYC


For more coverage of 7's Day NYC, be sure to check out PRIME NYC, which Edwin and Prav run, and also happens to be the guys who organized this event: http://primenyc.co/7s-day-nyc-rotary-revival/

July 3rd 2016

The first big event of the year was the Import Expo x Clean Culture Race, Drift, and Show at Pocono Raceway. This was a unique event as it wasn't just a car show, but also included a trackday as well as a drift expo. We woke up bright and early and met up at the gas station, our favorite early morning meeting spot:



Since both kids wanted to tag along, Naomi had to ride in Jesse's BRZ and Isaac stayed with me:





Although we tried arriving early, we got stuck in a traffic jam at the gate to the track:



We were supposed to get there earlier before the show cars showed up since we had a driver's meeting, but we ended up getting lumped in together with everyone else so we ended up being late.

Pulling into the garages:




After getting situated we rushed over to attend the driver's meeting so we could figure out what was going on. The plan was to have a total of 4 thirty minute sessions over the course of the day, with the track being shared with drifters. The beginner group, which all of us were apart of, were up first.



Since we got in late, we ended up missing the first half of the first session because we still had to get teched







Once we finished teching, Jesse and i jumped in and went out for our first run. I had an instructor with me on the first run so he could guide me through the course as i had never run this configuration before. It was a pretty small section with a large part of it being the bank of the Nascar oval.



It was really strange to be back out on track again after my incident in 2014, but at the same time, the car felt so at home on track.



The FD is one of those cars that feels so clunky on the street but so alive on the track. Everything feels tighter and smoother. The engine especially feels so smooth as you rev it through the gears. Even the suspension is tighter and stable as you carve through each corner. The upgraded SS tires really helped build my confidence as not only did it not slide once, it didn't even chirp! Talk about serious grip. The best part of the track day was being able to drive around with other FD's, including Ted and Albert:



Thank goodness for all the awesome photographers who captured the day for us drivers!





The best part of this kind of event was that there was always something to do. If we weren't driving, we were checking out the drifters or the cars in the car show. Although i didn't get any good footage of the drifters, i did snap a few pics of the cars from the show:



I will always love the R34. To me, the R34 is the epitome of the GTR style. Granted the R35 trumps all in the performance category, the R34 captures both the style and performance we've come to love about the GTR chassis. The R34 will live on as the legend of the GTR family.





Isaac had the most fun of all. Not only did he finally get to see in person two of his favorite cars:

Lamborghini Aventador


BMW i8


He even got to sit in a real drift car!


He's really developed an interest in drifting. He was willing to sit on the bleachers and watch the drifters out on track for an hour straight. Normally he's bugging me to leave but this time it was me who had to drag him back to the garages.

All in all, it was a great event with lots to do and see. To me, it is the ideal event because i get to do what i love most, hit the track, and there's lots to see when i'm not driving. I really hope more people put together events like this instead of just the standard car show which gets old really quick.



I can't wait for this event to come around again next year!

May/June 2016

With two events lined up for early July, I had two months to finish up some of the mods i had been planning since the winter. First up were some much needed tow hooks:



I finally bit the bullet and ordered the RE-Amemiya front tow hook to replace my home made mount for the Takata tow strap. I'm still planning to use my tow strap, but at least i have a proper mount for it now. As for the rear, for an unknown reason, the stock tow hook in the rear was missing. Apparently a lot of U.S. FD's don't come with them. Instead of buying the OEM one first then buying the RE-Amemiya tow hook extension, i decided to buy the SuperNow replacement hook which is much longer than the OEM one.

With one of the two upcoming events being a track day, i knew i needed to secure some grippier compound tires. Tires being so expensive, i decided to try seeking out a sponsorship deal. In the end i got Toyo Tires to give me a partial sponsorship which includes discounted tires in exchange for running a pair of decals, posting with their tags on Instagram, and attending 4 shows per year. Considering tires are so expensive and they need to be replaced every so often, this was better than nothing. I ended up going with staggered sizes, 265/35 Front and 295/30 Rear:



Man do i love the look and smell of new tires! These Toyo R888s were super beefy. I expected the rear to get filled out more, but i didn't expect the front 265's to look so much fuller as well, especially since they're the same size as my Bridgestones which looked somewhat stretched.



I have been wanting to install a harness for the longest time, especially since i installed my Bride VIOS 3, but the lack of a harness bar has kept me from getting any. For a long time i debated between the RE-Amemiya harness/strut bar, a full cage, and a roll bar. The main thing that kept me from getting the RE-Amemiya harness bar, was 1. it was expensive considering all you get is a metal bar and 2. you don't get any rollover protection which is a super rare scenario, but remains a possibility, and with a harness installed, you have no way of ducking in the event the roof caves in. As for the roll cage, while i loved the look of it and all the added protection it offered, i wasn't quite ready to strip out my interior yet as my car was still primarily a street car. In the end, i opted for a roll bar because it looked cool, offered added protection, and gave me the ability to add a harness.



After looking at a few roll bars, i ended up going with the Samberg Performance although it was one of the more expensive models available. My main reasons for choosing it was the look, the lack of bolt on bars, allowed me to retain my rear bins, and the fact they bolted to the rear strut towers. I also chose to add the optional diagonal cross bar because it made the car look that much cooler from the outside. Instead of getting it powdercoated, i opted to paint it myself with Metalcast blue because i wanted to retain the rugged metal finish.



As you can see the finish is see through so you can still see the metal finish underneath. Unfortunately the day i sprayed it was kind of hot so the finish didn't come out very smooth, but it wasn't so bad that i felt the need to redo it all again. I also sprayed the shock tower mounts with a metallic grey paint:



As with anything i do for this car, it's far from perfect but i'm still happy with the way it turned out





With the roll bar installed, i really feel like my interior is close to completion. Now i just need to decide on which harness to get!

The last piece of the puzzle was the rear end of the car. Ever since i saw the Daisuke-san's Ready Go Next Time Attack FD, i've been wanting to try cutting some vents with the rear bumper. In addition, i've been meaning to fix up and reinstall my RE-Amemiya LED taillights and with the ability to run the reverse lights in the taillight housing, i saw an opportunity to eliminate the stock reverse lights.



My original plan was to paint the rear bumper with real paint but i ended up running out of time so i ended up plastidipping it again. Here's a picture of the reverse lights wired up in the RE-Amemiya taillight housing:



The one and only time i got pulled over after i built my car the first time was because my car was missing a third brake light, so one of the requirements for putting the RE tails back in was to find an alternative solution for the third brake light.



I ordered a generic LED bar from Amazon and i reused the OEM harness so it could be plug and play just like stock. Since the holes in the bumper would show the rear support beam, i decided to paint the beam black. I considered various positions for the third brake light such as right underneath the taillight housing, the middle of the taillight housing itself, and also right above the license plate. In the end, i found a place to hide the bar but still make it usable. I'll share a pic of where the LED bar ended up in my next post so stay tuned!

Besides prepping my own car for the upcoming track day at Pocono Raceway, i also helped Ted with some last minute work like his Toyo Tires banner since he also got a partial sponsorship with Toyo..



And with that, we were ready to go! Stay tuned for the highlights of the summer so far!