Venture Tough & The Highway To R31 Home

Should you’ve been maintaining with Project Rough‘s progress over the previous few months, you’ll know I dialed within the suspension with the assistance of Frank at Tuner Idea and the group at GKTech, realized do a correct wheel alignment at dwelling, after which set about maximizing the potential of the Shibatire Revimax R23 efficiency tires I fitted.

I then took Venture Tough to Sports activities Land Yamanashi to place it by means of its paces, and all the pieces went higher than I may ever have imagined. Your boy was on cloud 9.

For a couple of days a minimum of…

Following my time on the monitor, the excessive stress line on the ability steering pump determined to leak. A lot. 

It wasn’t the type of catastrophic failure the place you make a couple of turns and the pump jettisons the complete reservoir, however a considerably regular drip was sufficient for me to park my ER34 Nissan Skyline (but once more) and attempt to type issues out.

No worries although, as I used to be capable of finding a used alternative pretty fast on Yahoo! Auctions for a good value. ‘Skyline Energy Steering hose C34 ER34 C35 Laurel’ learn the itemizing. Cue foreshadowing…

Earlier than getting caught in, I made a decision to look over the alternative and ensure it was certainly a direct match, as I had an odd feeling that one thing was not proper. Positive sufficient, the alternative was for an RB20, not an RB25. Sh*t. I partially dodged a bullet by checking, however I nonetheless wanted a repair. I dropped by my native Nissan dealership they usually quoted a bit beneath ¥50,000 (approx US$350) for simply the excessive stress line and ¥30,000 (roughly US$210) for the opposite one.

Within the midst of making ready a sob story for my spouse on why I wanted to spend a complete lot of cash on ‘some hoses’ to repair Venture Tough, I remembered that whereas visiting R31 Home’s components yard a couple of years again, they’d a couple of R34s in inventory. Fingers crossed, I despatched Shibata-san a message asking if he nonetheless had the Skylines, and in that case whether or not they’d have the components I wanted.

Shibata-san’s reply was not the one I wished to listen to: “I don’t have any R34s, Ron.”

I didn’t must dwell on that dangerous information lengthy although, as a result of at least a few hours later, my telephone rung. It was Shiba-san, this time with some nice information.

“I discovered them!” he exclaimed. “They [the R34s] ought to have the half you’re on the lookout for. Should you’re OK with the half getting used, then you may have it. The truth is, you may come and take any components that you simply like to your automobile!”

‘Are you positive?’ I requested, gobsmacked. “In fact, simply come to the store and you’ll take no matter you want!”

It was at this level that the gears in my head began to show…

Seeing that it had been a couple of years since we final paid R31 Home a go to, I figured an replace story was due. I knew attempting to cram all the pieces into sooner or later was going to be inconceivable, so Shibata-san and I determined to put aside a whole weekend.

I didn’t count on Shibata-san to have the ability steering hoses eliminated for me, so I put collectively an inventory of instruments that I would want to seize these and another elimination/refit work I may presumably do within the R31 Home yard.

All of it match reasonably properly on this outsized picnic basket.

With Venture Tough loaded up, I hit the expressway with the navigation set to R31 Home in Gifu.

On a visit like this, I’d usually take the backroads and touges because the expressway could be a bit dreary (to not point out costly), however since Venture Tough was nonetheless leaking energy steering fluid I didn’t wish to danger one thing occurring in the course of nowhere. I simply wished to get to R31 Home as quickly as doable.

To my shock although, the route there was really fairly gorgeous. With my coilovers set to ‘mushy’ and my air conditioner blowing ice chilly, it was fairly an satisfying cruise.

Should you ever must take a break whereas driving on Japanese expressways, the various service areas alongside the best way are an absolute deal with. The smaller ones will a minimum of normally have a comfort retailer inside, however the bigger ones have meals courts and areas devoted to promoting omiyage – the act of shopping for a present (normally some type of snack) for buddies, co-workers or relations.

Shockingly, I arrived at R31 Home with none drama. Digital camera in hand, I used to be able to hit the bottom working to maximise the weekend.

It was instantly clear that loads had modified since our final go to, however earlier than I may start, Shibata-san had another shock for me.

“Keep in mind that factor I promised you 5 years in the past at Tokyo Auto Salon, Ron?” Keep tuned for Half 2 of this story…

Ron Celestine
Instagram: celestinephotography
www.labcuriosity.com