American Touge 3

Yesterday was Best Motoring Video’s American Touge 3 at the Horse Thief Mile @ Willowsprings Raceway. The drift king and kazama were there to drive American’s “best” tuned cars. Greg from XS and I brought out the XS BNR32 since the BNR34 GT-R is now retired. The headlining theme of AT3 was supposed to be the Mine’s BNR34 GT-R Japan “Touge Monster” vs the XS Engineering BNR32 USA “Touge Monster”. Unfortunately after I warmed up the car and took the car for a quick drive to check the boost, a rod bearing failed. I think it was from the extreme G’s at high speed tracks from Time Attacking that led to oil starvation. Anyhow, it ended up being the Cosworth/Dyno-Comp STi which is a monster street driven STi with 480whp and 8 piston Brembo monoblocks vs. the Mine’s BNR34. I didn’t want to run it and destroy the crank, block, rods, etc. in the BNR32. It totally sucked because I really wanted the drift king and kazama to truly feel the power of American tuning. I know both DK and Kazama would have shit their pants if he drove the XS BNR32 on that small ass track.

For those of you who watch AT2 last year, you may or may not be glad to know that the XS BNR34 GT-R from last year is in fact faster than the Mine’s BNR34 GTR JDM “Touge Monster”. XS BNR34 = 0:59:88 lap, Mine’s BNR34 = 1:00:1 lap. I can officially say that XS builds faster BNR34’s than Mine’s. FUCKING SWEET!! The other cars that showed up were the Cosworth/Dyno-Comp STi, Muellerized EVO street car, Hasport CRX, JIC 996 TT, and the Prototype Racing Lotus Elise. Also a KTwizzle Del Sol showed up for DK to drive.

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The two buffest cars to ever be on Horse Thief Mile.

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Ken from Best Motoring hired Bobbi the DDD cup (that’s probably like K cup for you JDM people) Touge girl standing next to me. We are supposed to be representing the American side whereas Kazumi and Niikura-san from Mine’s is representing the Japanese side. Kazumi is REALLY cute with her clothes on. Her body is a little too JDM for me (small, flat, and skinny). Of course DK and Kazama are in the middle. You think Kazama is just a drift driver, but he’s a pretty bad ass grip driver too.

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That’s Niikura-san from Mine’s. I got to pick his brain and shoot the shit with him on the car ride back in Ken’s giant ass H2. It turns out he’s one of the coolest 54 year old Japanese dudes I know. And I know quite a few 50 y.o. JDM dudes. Anyways, I made a new friend in the JDM tuning industry. I’m going to tell Toshi that we should go to Mine’s the next time we’re in the Yokohama area filming JDM Insider.

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The Cosworth/Dyno-Comp is a true street car. Proabably the buffest street STi around. Rich over at Dyno-Comp knows what he’s doing.

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You gotta dig the AP monoblock brakes on the 355mm rotors with the Magnesium BBS wheels. JDM Bridgestone RE-55S are the Yokohama Advan A-048 soft compound (neither are available in USA) competitors in Japan.

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