donderdag 10 juli 2008

Chp6 - Starting it up…

As the sun came up the guys had already begun stripping the fronts of both cars. In the meanwhile Yoshua was picking up the 3UZFE engine. It was going to be a beast. Hiroki started working on getting the supra front end off and Rob started checking some catalogs for some nice exterior parts for the car. “Hey Hiroki, what kind of look are we going for?” Rob asked seeing a couple different styles, “I think Yoshua wanted a GT look” Hiroki said “kind of like the Top secret cars.” “I think the vertex bumper looks good for upfront, maybe we can widen the front fenders some, kind of like the r32 rear fenders, just not that wide. For the back we can modify the supra fenders by widening them, and use a Varis rear bumper with a Varis diffuser custom fit. We can use a Carbon fiber GT wing from Top secret. The wheels depend on the colors. But this is what I think would look good.” “That does sound good” Hiroki said and laughed, “But it costs a fortune!”
They waited and looked some more until Yoshua finally came back with the engine. He came back with a lot more though. He came inside, “Hey guys, can you give me a hand?” De van was loaded with stuff. He got the 3UZ-FE engine, turbo’s, intercoolers, pistons, cams, sequential gearbox, etc. Basically everything needed to build the mechanical parts of the car. After all the stuff was inside they were going to try to put the engine in the supra. The engine bay needed some modifying but it would fit eventually…

Weeks went by and the car was coming together fast, as was the shop. They had cleaned it and dressed it up some more. They also made a nice Logo and Name sign on the side of the building. It had Garage Redox in a green font with white and black outlining. The logo consisted of 2 coilovers melting together, also containing green, white, and black. These were the new shop colors. It was no surprise then that the car was going to contain these colors as well. Some clear headlights and half red half white tails where fitted. There was decided on a pearl white paint job, royal green Work emotion XD-9 19 inch wheels in the front and 20 inch wheels in the back, and some black accent pieces. The body parts had arrived and were fitted, and the fenders had been modified. The car was basically done. The engine consisted of 2 HKS GT Ball-Bearing Turbos, custom titanium exhaust, cleaned and fine tuned heads, and bottom end en lots and lots of other interesting parts. Almost everything inside and outside of the engine is replaced or fine tuned.

“Ready to start?” Yoshua said and turned the key before the rest could answer. The car fired up immediately and sounded like an earth quake. After some fine tuning to the ignition and the fuel computers the car was ready for a test drive. Yoshua took the soapra and the others their own cars. As they got to the highway the real test could begin. Rob pulled up next to yoshua knowing he didn’t have a chance but wanted to see what it could do. After honking three times the cars rushed away. Well, one did, the other looked like it was standing still compared to the almighty soapra. Rob got an amazing feeling. “Wow, I worked on that…”

Chp5 - Fishy business…

A couple of days after the talk Yoshua called Hiroki. “Hey, I found a place” a very excited Yoshua said. “Clear your schedules and cancel your jobs and meet me at the apartment this evening.” He said and he hung up. Hiroki happily quit his job and drove off to find Rob. As Hiroki arrived at the warehouse Rob knew the time had come. He had discussed his leave with his boss before and as Hiroki turned off his car rob went to his boss and said goodbye. They both got in their cars and drove straight to the apartment. Yoshua was already there, a big smile on his face. “Finally” he said, he jumped into the passenger seat of the Levin and closed the door. “Head towards the harbor” he said and off they went. The thought of working at a shop gave Rob a nice feeling. He finally got what he wanted. As they arrived at the harbor, Yoshua pointed at an old medium sized warehouse and said “welcome to Redox garage”. They both laughed and stopped in front of the building. It was probably 30 or 40 years old and stood in the fishermans part of the harbor. It was steel, but still in a pretty good state. It had a raised floor with a sloped entrance on one side of the building and some unloading docks for trucks on the other side. As the three entered the building, Yoshua started explaining and pointing all over the place. “The office is going to be up there” he said as he pointed up to a small office sized space up on the main entrance side of the building. “It’s the best place to be, some what quiet and I can still keep an eye out on the work floor because of the big windows.” Then he moved over to the first of the 4 unloading docks. “We can put car lifts in these docks. This way we don’t have to do too much to the building. It’s easy because you can drive the car on the lift from the outside when the door is open and there is enough space for us to work under the cars.” He started talking about what was going to stand where and showed the guys around some more. “I’m going to make a list and start calling some people for the equipment, parts, etc. You guys should go out and start looking for a flatbed truck and a parts van.” The guys nodded, got some tips and went on their way. After some searching they managed to find an older model Hiace and a small Toyota wrecker truck. As they came back, Hiroki in the wrecker truck with the Hiace on the back, and Rob in his P10, another truck was parked outside the garage. Rob and Hiroki shot confused glances at each other as they got out of the cars. When Yoshua saw them he laughed, “I had been looking at this place for quit some time and had already arranged all the equipment.” At the end of the day, the lifts were installed and most of the tools etc. were in place. The next morning as Rob and Hiroki left, they noticed that Yoshua’s Honda city was gone. “I guess he’s already there”. They drove to the shop and opened the door. Hiroki was talking to a man and said goodbye when the new mechanics got closer. The man kindly nodded to them and drove off. “Guess what’s under this cover” Yoshua asked. “ehm, by the looks of it, a car..” Hiroki said with sarcasm. “Do you guys know what a Soapra is?” Hiroki nodded. “Well im going to build a modern version” Yoshua said and he pulled the cover off revealing two cars. The first one was a 2000 Toyota Soarer, also known as the UZZ32. After some closer inspection it was seen that there was neither engine nor transmission in the car. The other car was a MK IV Toyota supra from 2002. This car didn’t have an engine or transmission either. “So from what I know a Soapra is a supra with a soarer front end, am I right?” Hiroki said, “Yeah, and we’re going to build a modern version and put a 3UZ-FE V8 engine block in it. It’s going to be awesome!” Yoshua’s excitement caught all of them and they started imagining how it was going to look…