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pjr300
pjr300
3/21/08 3:47 p.m.

I 2nd Dayton's comments on RX7Club.com -- a lot of gems in there (sometimes among the rough stuff).

I'd dig that wacky late 60's Cosmo. Maybe when Jay Leno tires of his, I can pick it up as a good deal. I can dream, can't I? :grin:

In the meantime, I'm satisfied with my 1st gen RX-7. Simplicity, a small and light sports car with a great shape and a cool engine. I loved my 85 (Purchased new) but an off-duty cop nailed me and totalled it before the loan was even paid. For 20 years I lusted for one and finally got my hands on another 7.

My current 7 is a really clean original model with the factory fuel injection and the larger 13B engine. Recently I scored an old school Bell turbo kit designed for this car. Unlike current kits, Bell maintains use of the factory ECU and injectors. It will still manage to push hp to over 300 at the fly... should be fun!

Use of this kit doesn't destroy the existing car, as it keeps it both authentic and period correct. I wouldn't want to "rice out" this ride!

TR3only
TR3only
3/22/08 6:25 a.m.

I'm not sure it qualifies as a "classic" but my favorite modern Japanese car is the 2nd gen. Toyota Celica. The design was somewhat influenced by the early '70s Opels, and considering it was available as a hatch or a regular 2 door coupe, it's one of the few cars that looks good in both body styles. The only letdown? Some of the factory colors are borderline hideous...like the "root beer" metallic, and the butterscotch gold.

Don't get me wrong, I also like the early "Z" cars, but the heavy steering and lack of a tilting seatback (at least if you are over 6 ft. tall) puts them in 2nd place for me....even tho the shape and interior finishing is superb.

pjr300
pjr300 None
3/23/08 6:09 p.m.

TR3 Only: what years cover the 2nd gen Celica?

KaptKaos
KaptKaos None
3/23/08 9:01 p.m.

I "believe" that's 78 to 81. Not certain on the 78 part, but I know 82 Celicas were the 3rd gen squared off ones. YMMV

Nick_95_6sp
Nick_95_6sp None
3/25/08 8:53 a.m.

I hope this fits in here since it's about a classic Japanese car that I happen to like a lot.

HKS T-001 JZ80 MKIV Toyota Supra Development Video --- I assume this is a rare find since after all these years knowing about the MkIV Supra and owning one for over 8 yrs. now, I never saw this until recently.

I want to credit Scott Webb of webbracing.com who first posted this on ToyotaNation.com

You will note that this was WAY back in 1993/4 and already the HKS folks had the Supra over 200mph. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjB5KGyqKeE

racerdave600
racerdave600
3/25/08 10:55 a.m.

Our old Speedvision Cup TT Supra went over 170mph on the banking at Daytona, and it was stock, as in real stock. 40k mile motor, 40k mile original suspension, shocks, etc., with only the safety gear installed, the turbos blueprinted, and the speed limiter defeated. We converted the car from magazine test car to race car in two weeks to make the race. Ended up putting the car on the pole over 80+ other cars. Awesome, awesome car!

Nick_95_6sp
Nick_95_6sp None
3/26/08 9:44 p.m.

Cool story, racerdave. Prior to owning one and learning about it, I could never have guessed that I'd be as impressed with this car as I am now.
To add to my history knowledge, and maybe share it with other owners, I'd love to hear more about your Speedvision car and team and efforts....now that my brain is actually starting to function, I'm sort of excited to imagine that you might be Dave Schardt ...spelling?... and if so, of course I saw every one of your races that were televised (back then Speedvision had some vision beyond NASCAR) and I just couldn't get enough of your Supra passing lots of bigger displacement racecars ...assuming this is the same dave? I sometimes chat on a Supra forum with James R who I think is still working at Forgeline.

I've had mine just a tad over 160mph at Pocono at one of the SCCA track days, not a race, but this track setup had enough running room going into the main front straight that it was possible; a CW setup with the entire high banked "turn 1" leading into the main front straight, so top speed seemed more dependent onthe size of your gonads to hold speed thru the banked turn than peak power. This is me crossing the "finish line".

That was about 150whp ago since I now have a larger turbo (but still small by "common" Supra standards), fuel system, etc. One day soon I'd love to try one of the mile runs, with Maxton being the closest to S.E. PA.

racerdave600
racerdave600
3/27/08 10:38 a.m.

Unfortunatley not that Dave. I crewed for the opposition. One of my best friends is Eric Van Cleef, so it was his team. Until they changed the rules and made the qualifying driver start the car, we were on the pole or outside pole in every race over a 2 year period, and tied for most wins in '97, and won the championship in '96 with the NA car (before the TT car arrived to us the next year). We had both an NA and TT car, and they were both at all the races. Usually the NA car was a rental after '96, and was destroyed at Road Atlanta during '98 before the first turn, before the race started.

Funny thing is, most people have no idea how good these cars are. They're just like a big Miata, only no one usually believes it. Ballistic fast, easy to drive, unreal reliability (we never had to do anything other than routine maintenance), and super fun to drive on a road course. The first time I drove it, I was stunned, it was nothing like what I was used to racing at the time. The Supra was the only car in the field that had to weight more than stock (a couple of hundred pounds), have restrictions on turbo boost (less than stock pressures, and it was monitored), and have smaller wheels and tires than it left the factory with. It was still very competitive, and could flat out-out corner every car there. It's only real issue was it had to stop for fuel more often than every car except the RX7's, which were a lot more thirsty than the Supra even.

By contrast, the BMWs were allowed a VERY significant weight break, as were the RX7s, and the M3s got to run full euro specs, including a big cam change.

After the '98 season, the Supra was sold after Toyota quit supporting it due to its demise, and we volunteered to start Toyota's Nascar program and work with them to get the car through all the hoops nessecary to compete, which took about 2 years. We were the first ones to run a Toyota in Nascar, the Goody's Dash series, but that's another story.

As for Dave Shardt, an intersting observation from him. After '99 I believe, he switched to a Porsche, but always maintained the Toyota was much faster, especially in a straight line, but Porsche was a more responsive when he needed something. If something broke on the car, they would not only supply a new part, but find out why the part broke in the first place.

As for Eric, after a couple of years off for family and business time, he's driving an RX8 this year in SCCA, but his last car was a NA Supra in T2. It's the old CART-PPG Pace car. I've been fortunate to drive it on numerous occasions, and it's simply a blast to drive. Just like the TT, you can do anything with it, use all the curbs, something you have to be careful in with something like an M3, and really just beat the crap out of it. Way fun.

Nick  Tallos
Nick Tallos None
3/27/08 11:07 p.m.

wow, great stuff, racerdave. Thanks for sharing. Being a MkIV Supra owner, I really enjoyed reading all that. If you have links to any pics, I'd love to see those, too. Thanks.

RaceNeked
RaceNeked
3/30/08 7:51 p.m.

It'd have to be a Cosmo, or any RX-7

Trev98
Trev98 None
4/24/08 1:05 a.m.

My Figaro ....

Andy Reid
Andy Reid Auction Editor
4/24/08 3:41 p.m.

Datsun 1600/2000 and the 240Z I also strangely like the 280Z as well.

Bret
Bret None
4/24/08 3:55 p.m.

The 240z for sure.

But I'd also have to cast a vote for the Toyota 2000GT the Datson 2000.

Modern Classic? I also wouldn't mind getting my mitts on an early 90's 300ZX Twin Turbo either.

racerdave600
racerdave600
4/29/08 4:05 p.m.

It took a while, but here are the pics of the Supras.

Photobucket

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smog7
smog7
5/14/08 6:31 p.m.

honda s600 http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/cars/HondaSM600_shell.shtml

jay leno is one lucky sob

Nick
Nick None
5/14/08 8:58 p.m.

racerdave, thanks a lot for the Supra pics. I've never seen those before and I'm always happy to see new Supra related stuff and add it to my collection. Since you apparently had a problem registering there, I hope you don't mind if I post these on supraforums in the roadrace section, the people there will definitely highly appreciate seeing these.

wjones
wjones
5/15/08 10:11 a.m.

The wail from that SM600 was really something.

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