What I learned at Final Bout Gallery
I find learning throughout life to be one of the most rewarding experiences one can have. Learning can come from books, teachers, positive experiences, negative experiences, and a whole host of other life interactions. All it takes is a mind open to new ideas, and the willingness to put oneself in positions that may be uncomfortable. As we get older, this becomes more and more difficult. We believe that we “get it” and start to have things figured out. Our mind develops algorithms and approximations based on prior experiences, and becomes resistant to spending the energy to modify those approximations with new information. However, as my good friend Henry Ford once said, “Anyone who stops learning is old”.
“Anyone who stops learning is old”- Henry Ford
With months to prepare for this event, I leaned on my 15 years of event experience, including 3 previous Final Bout’s, to help prepare my mind, body, and vehicle. All I needed to do was get my new 1JZ-GTE VVTI setup running well, button up the exterior, and work on my driving using Assetto Corsa. The engine was my main priority. While it was a fairly simple setup, I’ve learned over the last decade that rarely does an engine swap go as smoothly as you think. I’ve also learned that I HATE last minute preparations, and I HATE working in a dirty unorganized space without the proper tools. So this time, I started on the engine swap in November when I pulled the old 1JZ with rod knock (root cause still unknown). I had never started on next season’s prep before the new year starts, I felt good. I then set out to work for an hour or two at a time, a couple days a week. I told myself “If I get stuck or frustrated, whatever, just go back inside the house and come back another day”. I am very into incremental progress day after day, “just keep things moving” in work, life, and drifting. It’s the small wins that add up over time to create the big achievements.
I had a few minor delays waiting for parts over the weeks to come. I spent so much extra time and money, buying the little parts as I needed them, gaskets, studs, adhesive, wiring connectors, etc. I failed to properly plan what I needed and I spent the month of April finishing up the swap when it could have taken only 1–2 weeks.
Note to self: Next time do a more detailed job of planning parts required.
Well, the big day finally came to start the engine. I had a dyno tune setup for May 11th, and my first start attempt was on April 26th. I turned the key to the on position, the vehicle lights and accessories sprung to life, but I instantly noticed the lack of the whine from the Walbro 450 fuel pump. I reasoned that it was probably something simple and started to dig into the wiring. I spent a week listening to multimeter beeps, recrimping terminals, and frantic phone calls with people that actually knew what they were doing (thanks Mark Panic @ Panic Wiring and Eric Francisco @ Feness Engineering). This is when my lovely wife realized #finalboutprep was in full effect, and late nights were in order while my full attention was on my car. I can’t thank her enough for supporting me through the last two weeks by cooking dinner and cleaning up, allowing me to ignore “responsibilities”, and coming to bed late smelling like car. Eventually I ran out of ideas, and carefully peeled back the stickers on the AEM box that read “THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY IF REMOVED”. I opened the box and the smell of burned circuitry instantly hit my nose while my eyes were drawn to the big black spot on the board. Now I really knew what defeat felt like.
What I learned: Just because something has a ring terminal does NOT mean it is a ground.
I scrambled to find a new ECU, and thankfully my good friend Melvin had the exact same 506 box for sale. I had Eric @ Feness come over and probe the wiring harness to ensure there were no shorts or funky things that would cause this new ECU to blow immediately. With nothing odd found, I plugged in the new box, and turned the key to the on position…THE WALBRO WHINE sprang to life. With a sigh of relief, I twisted the key to the next position and listened to the starter chug away and waited for the sound of carbon combustion. Nothing. Try again…nothing. We determined that it was due to a bad crank angle sensor, and I picked one up the next day. Turn the key…BAM, the engine sprang to life after it’s long slumber. My knees buckled in relief as I felt the hard part was over. I checked for leaks while it warmed up, examined the wiring harness one more time, and then finally gave it a nice rev once it hit operating temperature. It hit 3k rpm and said NOPE. The AEM software told me that it did not understand the cam vs crank signal that was coming through. It was 2 am the night before my scheduled dyno tune. We were tired, and I started thinking about how I could get this car tuned next week. I told myself, “No, you still have 8 hours, figure it out.” So I went to sleep for 4 hours, and woke at 6 am to drive over to Eric’s house to pick up some new shielded wire and give it a shot. With the new wire on the cam sensor, it revved beautifully all through the rev range. I slammed the hood shut, ziptied the front bumper on, and started on the drive to P&L, where Martin was already tuning other cars. I literally pulled into the P&L parking lot as Melvin gave me a call asking where I was because Martin was ready for me. Ready at the last minute. Martin @ RS-Enthalpy tuned the car to a conservative 360ps, with loads of midrange torque.
I spent the next week working on the exterior of the car. I added some fiberglass, gave the interior and exterior a thorough wash, and a few other details. My last night of prep was lined up for me to add the diffuser and mess with some lights. I jacked up the rear of the car, slid on some rubber gloves…and my phone rings. “Revgasm Josh” displays on the caller ID, and when I pickup he explains he’s with the Serial 9 guys, and they need this little 90* pipe that comes out of the head for the heater hose on a JZ. I spot it on my parts rack and think “Well, I guess Final Bout week starts now!”.
What I learned: You’ll never finish everything you want before a Final Bout.
After that, the next 5 days were a blur. It was a surreal experience, and I mean that in the most literal way, “having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic”. We made 3 airport runs in one day, including one 7 car roll-up to pick up Sexy Nights. I cruised down I-90 with 20 of the best prepped drift cars in the country, with Daigo Miura in my passenger seat! We had hangs and so many laughs with friends from all over the world while we ate great food, and played some video games at the local arcade.
After 3 hours of sleep, we woke up at 4am on Friday to begin the drive up to Shawano, Wisconsin…in thunderous rain. We pushed through, and after stopping 5 times to fill my cracked front wheel up with air, we arrived at the track just as the rain let up and the pits started to fill with the smell of fiberglass and gasoline. The aura as we pulled into the pits was like nothing I have experienced…and I’ve been to 3 Final Bouts before. The cars were clean, they were bright, and they were all put together by individuals who understand the depths of car control. I saw so many familiar faces, all beaming with the joy that only a true passion can conjour. This event is filled with old friends, new friends, and “internet friends”. We connected like best friends only can, hugged, high fived, and exploded in anticipation of the days to come. We ate some great food from a local food truck, and went back to the hotel for a quick shower before heading to the local drinking hot spot, Long Horn. This is our tradition now, where we slam Jameson and see who can get the high score on the punching game. Some stay late, others like myself head back early to get a good night sleep. I can get hungover whenever I want, I’m at this event to drive, and to drive well.
Mental preparedness is just as important as tuning the machine.
The next day I woke up like a kid on Christmas day. As I arrived at the track, I was instantly filled with the environment of a track day morning. A certain stillness hangs in the air as the morning dew starts to evaporate. It’s chilly, but a few engines idle in the background as they warm up to operating temperature. Familiar faces are around, walking, talking, drinking Red Bull or coffee, or the familiar sight of feet already poking out from underneath a vehicle on jack stands. I head straight for the tire changer to finish up the front wheel repair. With that taken care of, I hear Ilia start yelling over the megaphone that there is a drivers meeting at 9:15 in the tech building.
The minute I slide the helmet over my head, and pull my driving gloves on, my heart starts racing. I can feel my muscles tense up as the adrenaline starts pumping to each limb. Clutch in, 1st gear, and I pull out of the pits and onto the start line of intermediate. I remind myself that this is my first track event this year, and to take it easy for the first few laps out. Kicking the clutch into turn 1 feels incredible, all of the tension and weeks of stress instantly evaporate as I throttle up and feel the new Tomei turbo build boost far sooner than I am used to in this chassis. After the first run, I’m wondering why I didn’t do a VVTI setup sooner. So much power down low, pulls hard all the way to the 8000 rpm redline, and it releases sounds that make any 16 year old scream for joy.
The rest of the day goes smoothly. Full of high fives, close tandems, and belly laughter, I can’t contain my excitement and joy. I love this sport, I love my friends, and I love the feeling of a machine that I built performing in a way that I intend. So much of my machine is built around feelings and not technical bullet points. I follow my instincts when choosing what parts to put in the car. Sure a 2J could have even more low end torque, but it doesn’t have that high rpm excitement that a 1J’s short stroke has. Sure I use an AEM Infinity to tune my engine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want that gen 1 AFC and AVC-R in plain view, reminding me that I’m in a late 80’s sports car. Most suspension nerds will tell you to allow for more suspension travel for more grip, and thus higher speeds. But, the emotion of drifting is not affected by increased grip, it’s affected by increased excitement and the personal satisfaction in making a machine perform and move in only a way that years of practice can bring.
“The whole point was to make it the worst handling, eye catching machine possible and then make it fly. The skill was controlling the beast not fucking auto pilot.”- Lorin
The following day I immediately had to start fixing a massive power steering leak that was causing my power steering to be heavy and intermittent on the previous day. I made it through the first day, but as the day went on, it got worse and worse, until, at the end of day 1, I was forced to pull off track with another hour of driving left. I found out that BOTH steering rack hardlines had the flare shear off inside of the rack. A very odd failure mode, and one I am stumped on determining the root cause. I began the pit walk of shame, asking around for anyone that might have a metric flare kit. No dice, until the Front Street Boys, Josh and Tom, offered up their spare S13 steering rack hardlines. “See if you can bend and twist them and make them work”, Tom said. “Alright”, I thought, “I certainly have plenty of other non-A70 parts on this chassis, maybe this one will fit too.” To my surprise, it threaded into the rack, but seemed a bit too short. I spent about an hour under the car yanking on a steel hardline trying to get it to line up. Sweating, covered in ATF fluid and grease, I was getting a bit defeated. “Fuck you, push through, you’ve made more weird repairs before” I raged inside my head. And fuck me I did, all of a sudden it lined up, and both sides started threading in. Then I began the painful process of turning one fitting an 1/8 turn at a time due to lack of space. 20 minutes later, I emerged from the belly of the beast smiling at the accomplishment. In my haste, I only fixed the line that was seriously leaking, and left the minor leak for another time. And it’s good that I did, as soon as I grabbed a beverage, Josh came over and let me know that Proceed and Sexy Knights tandem was going down and to get ready.
This was it. This is what I came for. My idols, my dream team, senpai…SEXY KNIGHTS. The team leader Tomoya Suzuki pulled out of his spot in his light blue FC3S, followed by the comedian Daigo Miura in his D1SL 180sx, and then his brother Ryo Miura in his FC3S. Then ProceeD followed, first Josh, then Simba, Ilia, and me (Chob had driveline issues, but was copilot with Simba). I could literally feel the excitement of my teammates. We were grinning ear to ear as we followed this team onto the track. How is it possible, that after scouring the internet for obscure pictures of Sexy Knights for almost 20 years, that we finally are on our home track with them!? Are they really going to drive with us super fans? Do they even understand how excited and blown away we are to be following them onto USA International Raceway? After days of drinking with them, cruising the city streets with them, and laughing hysterically in broken English and Japanese, they seemed like friends now.
What I learned: Whoever said to never meet your heroes, chose the wrong heroes.
It was getting to be the end of the last day, and as we pulled onto the advanced reverse layout, it felt like all eyes were on us. The crowed had thinned for sure, but here comes Sexy Knights followed by the home team ProceeD. The pressure to perform had never been greater for me. We did a parade lap, where I began to feel the power steering get a bit notchy. “Oh no, not now. I can’t tandem without Power Steering. No way.”. At that moment, the 4 drivers in front of me pinned the throttle and I had to mash the gas in pursuit. We threw it into turn 1 and I was finally driving side by side with my idols. Red and yellow flashed across my visor, as their Falken tire rubber bits and smoke came racing across my windshield. I literally began screaming and laughing. Then I lost ALL power steering. It felt like I was trying to steer a Sherman tank. I gave myself the pep talk, “you drove this thing with out power steering for the first 3 years of ownership, it’ll come back”. And come back it did. The next few runs were a bit sketchy, but my muscles started to revert to grabbing the wheel with more force. To steering the car more with throttle and brakes than with the steering wheel. The e-brake was almost useless as I had to keep both hands on the wheel…luckily I drove the car for a few years without an e-brake! “LET’S GO DAIGO, YOU LEAD”, I shouted to the red machine I had only seen in Drift Tengoku previously.
As we pulled off the track later that day, I realized this is what it was all about. This is why I have been pushing my driving limits for over a decade. This is why I’ve stubbornly not overbuilt my car, and didn’t make excuses when I was learning without power steering. This is why I have driven event, after event, with no competitions to get in the way of my seat time. This is why Proceed stayed true to drift car style, street cars that get driven on the track, and friendship that is as deep as family. We had dreams as kids, we had aspirations of one day driving with legends and controlling a machine like few could. I learned at final bout that with enough persistence, with enough drive, and with a solid group of friends, no, family, that dreams do come true.
