Merli

My hotel room. Quite an interesting story with that one, because I didn't have anywhere to stay, so I basically walked around for the day, and then as night fell, I wandered into the first hotel I found and asked for a room. The conversation went a little like this: Me: Hi, can I please have a room? (holds up a finger) Lady: Room? No room now... Tomorrow! Me: What? No, not tomorrow, I need a room TONIGHT! Lady: YES!!! COME BACK TOMORROW! Me: No no no, I need one TONIGHT! Lady: No, you pay tomorrow! Me: OH!!! I see, so I can stay now, but I pay tomorrow when I checkout? Lady: YES!!! Me: Great, okay I'll take it!!! Lady: Me: So can I get a room now? Lady: NO! Me: uhhhhh... Lady: You come back later! Me: Well can I leave my things here? Lady: NO! Me: Riiiiiiiiiight... How much is it for a room? Lady: 3700 Yen! (This is REALLY REALLY cheap) Me: 1 night? Lady: NO! 1 hour! Me: OHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently I walked into a "love hotel", I'm sure you don't need any more explanation I was wondering why the entrance was hidden and covered with overhanging plants Anyway, so I found another hotel for 6000 yen which was still pretty good, except it was HALF the size of my room in Tokyo. Here's the bathroom. The rest of the consisted of a bed, and a desk. That's it I also visited Hiroshima Castle, which was beautifully crafted... Hiroshima Mall: Hiroshima Redlight District That woman you see in the bottom left is a "Hostess"... You pay 4000 Yen (AUD$50), which gives you entry into their club, your personal, half-naked girl to talk to all night and all the whiskey you can drink. Be warned though, they drink whiskey and WATER, so I ended up drinking whiskey straight........... Not that I went to any of those kinds of places Skill Testers filled with................... RAMEN And something I saw spraypainted on the wall in hiroshima mall. Unbeknownst to me, Hiroshima's youth are VERY VERY violent. They are all in gangs, as will be evident in my next few photos. Anyway, here we have one gang who has spray painted their "tag", which is two tigers onto a wall, and another gang has come along and spray painted what THEY think of the other gang on top of their tag. I didn't even think twice about it until I came across these sights: Two girls dressed exactly the same running across a courtyard. "That's strange.." I thought. Guardian Angels? What do they need Guardian Angels for??? Police in riot gear?!?!? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AROUND HERE? Actually you can see in the foreground of this photo a guy wearing a martial arts gi (uniform)... What the photo doesn't show is that the rest of his gang is also wearing their gis and brandishing long metal poles with metal spikes on the end, nunchaku, tonfa and other assorted martial arts weaponry. One of the gang member's cars This is another gang walking up and down the mall This is an all girl gang. and the car they arrived in: Sorry for the blurred photos, I didn't know how they'd react to me taking photos of them, and they were all out looking for a fight so I didn't really want to get involved with gangs packing that kind of hardware. Basically what they did all night was sit/stand in their groups, all wearing the EXACT same things (gang uniform/colours I guesS) up the entire Hiroshima Mall Strip that I posted a photo of earlier. They were in either all male gangs or all female gangs. No mixed-sex gangs that I saw. There were literally about 15 gangs with about 10-20 people in each gang. I was waiting for world war three to break out What they did was sit in their groups for a while, then the entire gang would get up and strut up and down the mall eyeing off other gangs and shouting things at other gangs. I met up with some American marines who were scrawny as all hell.. Don't they get fed?? And we stood there watching for a while waiting for something to happen. That kind of weaponry and this much testorterone/estrogen (which turns out was worse), and something's gotta give After watching them strut up and down in turns along the mall, two female gangs started shouting at each other and all of a sudden, they all hopped up and flew at each other with a flurry of spinning kicks and head punches and the rest of it... It all started soooo quickly. Those girls don't hold back, let me tell you, they were putting their entire bodyweight behind those kicks... The fight lasted about 1 minute before the Riot Police broke it up. Luckily, these girls were only using their hands and feet and no weapons, so no major blood was spilt, but it sure was fun to watch

[email protected] Thanks!!!

Jezz, I'm more of a circuit racer than a drag racer, and as such, I want as much response as possible. I considered the 2530s, which are meant to be "the best turbos for street and track", but I can't understand how that can be when they come on 500rpm later than stock turbos. The GTR is laggy enough as it is, in fact when I first test drove one, after owning two GTS-ts, I thought that the engine was busted. Seriously. So the GT-SS are meant to come on earlier than the stock turbos, AND make more power (I've been told 320kw @ all four is possible, but I'm aiming for 300kw @ all four) which sounded perfect for my needs. I'll let you know how they go when they get installed, which has been pushed back another month or so now that I'm waiting for forged rods to come from the US

I know the Dunlop D01Js were very similarly priced to the RE540s, and very similar in performance... Dundan, have you got any more info on those D03Js? Google returned nothing...

I think I broke it I can't see page 2

Okay, here's the next part... After a week in Tokyo, I loaded up my backpack, grabbed my JR Railpass and proceeded to head down to Hiroshima and Kyoto... I went upto Nagano as well, but that was pretty boring. The train platform at Chiba Minato at some UNGODLY hour... I caught the train to Tokyo station, where I boarded the Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Hiroshima!!! It's very much like a plane inside the shinkansen, and even has pretty hostesses pushing carts up and down the aisles selling o-bentos and gifts About 4 hours later, I arrive at Hiroshima Outside of the JR train station, there were these weird guys dressed up in red coats singing... I assume they're some religious group? Rezz? Dave? I had to catch a bus to get around Hiroshima, as it's quite large and I only had limited time, so I couldn't walk everywhere like I would have liked... But I managed to have an experience on the bus as well In Australia, you enter the front of the bus, tell the driver where you're going, pay the fare and then get off when your stop comes up! In Japan, you enter via the REAR doors, and take this little ticket (which is optional)... All the ticket has on it is a number. :wtf: At this point, I realised that my japanese (at the time) was abyssmal and I needed help.... RUH ROH!!!! After much hand gestures and broken japanese by me and broken english by the bus driver, I pretty much figured out how things worked... The number printed on the ticket indicates the zone in which you boarded the bus. When you get off, you look at this dynamic table at the front of the bus and look at your stop number, and then look down the table and depending how far you've travelled, it tells you how much you owe.... As you get off the bus, theres a fare collection box near the door and you just drop in the money and get off. There's no-one to check how much you put in... It's all honour-based!!! That was really cool I thought, and something that could NEVER EVER work in Australia. So I caught the bus and I visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Wow. I don't think I'll EVER forget that place. EXTREMELY GRAPHIC exhibits included a whole clump of hair that had fallen out of someone due to radiation, a concrete wall 2km from the blast centre with the shadow of a person standing up against it left when the blast vaporised him and burned his shadow into the concrete, models of people running around with flesh dripping off their arms, and so on and so forth. The WORST however, were the drawings done by survivors, depicting the sights that they saw. Drawings of mothers charred and burnt to a crisp after throwing themselves over their children to save them, and the child underneath their dead mother crying for help... Anyway, enough of that... I'm starting to get emotional again. Before: After: The Hiroshima Dome... I think it's going to be left damaged as a memorial, they're just restoring it so it doesn't fall down. Two elderly men playing tennis............... Without a net.

bump... cos I want this to get to page 2 so I don't oversaturate page 1 (which I already have done )

I have a contact at the Nissan Dealership nearby my place... I've spent an inordinate amount of money with them buying parts for the three skylines I've owned and he gives me a big discount on whatever he can. I might be able to get them a little cheaper again, but I'd prefer to work off those prices for now (which are already discounted) and if I get 3 or more concrete orders in, then I'll ask him to do a further group discount.

I might just do that

540awhp was made on an American DynoJet... Tyndago himself has written on his website that he's seen back-to-back testing comparing Australian and American dynos, and the American dynos read 17% higher than Aussie dynos. 540awhp = 402awkw so 83% of 402awkw = 333awkw which is much more realistic.

UAS sell a fibreglass copy of the Series 3 front lip, but it doesn't have the centre divider in the holes, so it's just one big hole on either side of the lip. They sell for $295.00.. I would much prefer to keep the normal PLASTIC front lip than get a fibreglass replacement. One bump to one of those concrete blocks in parking stations, one big scrape up a driveway, one time reversing and the lip catches on something and rips, and you can say goodbye to your front lip. One of the best things about GTRs IMHO, is that they look GREAT with factory styling which are available in PLASTIC!!!! I've had too many issues with fibreglass front bars in my lifetime, so perhaps I'm too cynical, but I've wasted THOUSANDS away by systematically destroying fibreglass

LESS TALK. MORE PICS.

Yum How come you don't come out cruising with us? IBPranktellsustostopchatting;)

Magical turbos

Oh sorry... I think when they're under lights, they can speed as long as it's safe. Also in a chase, I think they have to call it off after a certain speed... 180km/h comes to mind, but I think it's a lot lower than that...

"オーテック" Is that how they write Autech?? With an O? How weird

Thanks Dave 5 YEARS!!! Was it you who went to Japan on a holiday and decided to stay there so went job hunting for the rest of his "holiday"?? I wish I had the balls to do that when I was there... I came back to Sydney and instantly started Japanese lessons with the aim of moving there after I got a good working knowledge of japanese going... That was a year ago, and I think I know more than enough japanese to get around now, but I'm having second thoughts of moving there and just dropping my IT career. Japan is so enchanting though... I just love it!

Take into account US dyno inflation and you have about 300-320kw @ all four

According to that chart taken from Option Magazine, they're equivalent to GT-SS/GT2510s... They should be good for 600ps, or just over 300kw @ wheels... What I've heard about APEXi turbos are that they are AMAZINGLY fast spooling, but have weak shafts and are prone to damage when running decent boost. That's not personal experience though, just what I've heard.

By law, they're not allowed to speed if their flashing lights aren't on. But who's going to stop them? You? Other police colleagues? I don't think so.

To be honest, I knew the front lip was going to be around that price, but I thought the price for those N1 slots were daylight robbery!!! If anyone else can get these parts cheaper, please let us know... I'm after them as well.

I have heaps more pics to put up, but I don't want to do it on this page... It'll load slow enough for dial-up users as it is

I had a look inside Mario's JUN plenum chamber, and let me tell you, it's about 5 trillion times more advanced than the GReddy plenum. The way the internal bellmouths have been crafted is just mindboggling, and just by looking inside it, you can tell how much care has been taken in it's design and fabrication. It was flowtested to a 0.4% flow difference across all cylinders. If that's rice factor, then I think I need to find a new hobby

Hehe... The japanese on the sign says "From this point on, no foreigners allowed"... The stuff on display there was all mainstream censored porn... All the porn that I saw was all censored... How useless is that? I think they kept the scat, bondage and bestiality videos upstairs and I guess they don't want foreigners knowing all their sick fetishes :Oops: :Oops: :Oops:

OH ABSOLUTELY!!! I'm sooooooooo glad you posted that, you've just made my day :) I went to Japan armed with a hotel room booking in Chiba for 2 weeks, and a JR Railpass. After spending 2 days at TAS, 1 day heading out to UpGarage, Crystal and Top Secret and another long, useless day going all the way out to Saitama to visit JUN, I was sooooooooo sick of cars and I wanted to go exploring and see what else this AWESOME country had to offer me. I loved how everything was so different, I loved how the culture was so pure and unadulterated by America in some aspects, but EXTREMELY influenced in others... I loved the people, everyone was so friendly and no egos... We came across some kids practicing breakdancing in a part of a JR station and we were seperated by a big pane of glass and they saw us taking photos of them and put on a big act for us and hammed it up for the camera... So after spending those 4 days on car stuff, I bought a backpack, left my friends in Tokyo, and hopped on the Shinkansen and came back a week later. I went to Hiroshima, Kyoto and Nagano... There was still so much more I wanted to see, but didn't have enough time.. It was the first time I had ever gone travelling by myself, and I felt that I had grown soooooooo much in that week and learn't so much about myself... It was so great! Here are two videos of the breakdancers... In the second one, pay close attention to his nose http://www.andrewho.com/misc/japan/breakdance1.mpg http://www.andrewho.com/misc/japan/breakdance2.mpg