Even though the HACHiRoCK festival 2008 was only 9 months ago the upcoming HACHiRoCK has already been sold out!

HACHiRoCK festival September 13th 2009

250 entries were allowed to the premises of the HACHiRoCK 2009 edition and they already reached this number of entries! :)

Also several AE86 related companies like Impulse, Run Free and Tech-Arts already confirmed they will be there with exhibitions. Can't wait till see the pictures of this event on the 14th of September! :)

It is no surprise I'm following the tuner Impulse for a while now and I spotted some videos by them on Youtube a while ago and subscribed to them on Youtube as well.

Anyway, they just posted this really old footage of an AE86 race (no date given) in which a freak accident happens:

The hachiroku right in front of their car just drives its normal lines and another hachi just does some weird action. Either the driver was very inexperienced (breaking while turning?? :o ) or he freaked out on the hachi in front of him and did a quick evading maneuver (couldn't tell from the video) and bumps into the hachi in front of the Impulse hachi. The wheel of the hachi in front of the Impulse hachi gets smashed first into the bodywork and then on the rear wheel of the other and gets launched a few meters and flipped over! The Impulse driver keeps his head cool and keeps his distance...

Couldn't see how bad the damage was on those two hachis, but it states that the race continued after this incident. Hopefully the driver of the launched hachi came out okay...

The Optionland Exciting Car Showdown 2009 I blogged about was held this weekend. I did find some sources with pictures of the event (mostly Speedhunters of course) and surely there are a lot of exciting things going on there! :)

First of all: as I wrote before, Impulse was invited this year and they arrived with three Corolla Levins from which two were AE86 and one AE111:

Three Impulse Levins: AE86 and AE111

One AE86 was a "stock" AE86 with some really nice Doridoris and a N2 racer:

Two Impulse Levins AE86

Better view of the N2 racer:

Better view of the Impulse Levin AE86 N2 racer
According to Dino Dalle Carbonare this N2 racer has a smallport 4AGE with Toda ITBs and outputting 213HP at 9000rpm. I don't want to know what its rev limit is!
In case you're wondering why the N2 doesn't have a fender on the left side: this is a showcase of how the fender is mounted. Most of the N2 conversions are done with removing all metal from the fender so it is an irreversible process. This one has its fender lip cut away nicely and the N2 fender is mounted with a few drilled holes. Nice! :)

Furthermore I came accross this new feature, Electro Luminescence Car Vinyl by ELLighting Japan:

This is most probably the next big thing and will feature very very soon on D1GP cars and most probably be picked up soon on F1 cars for the night races!

This example is a bit less clear to see because of the surrounding lights are too bright, but imagine this black car with illuminating vinyl drifing on a night event! Can't wait! :)

Furthermore this Odyvia (Silvia with third generation Honda Odyssey) was something everybody talked about so I won't post any pictures of it. ;)

And this was also something exciting:

Champ Road Skyline HCR32 by RYO
RYO calls it the Champ Road Skyline and it is very like the Bosozoku Style. Maybe you can call more or less the successor of the Gran Chan style but I expect this style to be picked up soon. :)

Well, that's about it. You can read more about the Nagoya Exciting Car Showdown here:
Speedhunters
Jdmego
and probably soon more. ;)

The Japanese cartuner Impulse is specialized in tuning and restoring Hachi Rokus (Toyota Corolla AE86). They are currently doing a terrific job on this 1983 Sprinter Trueno:

1983 Sprinter Trueno rebuild

Zenki GT Apex wiring loom
When running Google Translate on the page I got this translation under the wiring loom:
APEX based on vehicle type 1 for the first half of digital meters installed by default.
If I read this information correct the first batch of Zenki (type 1) GT Apex trim of the AE86 featured the digital dash by default. That would mean almost all 1983 and early 1984 hachis featuring a GT Apex trim should feature the digital dash unless the owner actually ordered the car with analogue dash. I tried to double check that with Carland86 and Goo-net and so far I could only verify that most early zenki (should that be zenki-zenki?) JDM Sprinter Trueno AE86s feature the digidash. Most of the Corolla Levins were all featuring the analogue cluster, so would it be a Sprinter Trueno only default? And would this also implicate Bunta Fujiwara did order a Trueno without digidash or that it is a late 1984 or early 1985 model??

To get back to the rebuild, look at how immaculate this rear bench is:

An immaculate rear AE86 bench
Never seen anything like it!

Eventhough this Sprinter Trueno probably used to be red/black once (due to the brown interior) it looks stunning in white:

Stunning panda AE86 painting