Month: September 2008 (Page 3 of 4)

How to fit stretched tires?

September 14, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

Ever wondered how they fit stretched tires on those fat 9, 10, 11 or 12 inch rims? Ever wondered how those wheels on the B?s?zoku, Kyusha Kai and Shakotan cars are done? I did after seeing this picture of the Carina Firevan:
Stretched tires on E-SA60 Carina Firevan, about as far as you can stretch them!

See for yourself here:

What happens is that the tire is only fitted on one side of the rim and the other side has a small (ahum) amount of space between the tire and the rim. The guy in the video applies brake cleaner on the rim (to ignite), just above and inside the tire. Then he lights it and the brake cleaner ignites and explodes inside the tire. This causes the air to expand and the tire to stretch. Due to the tire expanding it will tightly fit on the other side of the rim and you have a stretched tire. It is as simple as that! :)

Here you can see a better (and safer) how to:

(don’t mind the bad choice in music…)

So, now you know how to make your car look Shakotan. ;)

And be careful… You don’t want to end up like this:

I know I promised to give a follow up on the AE86 cupracer in the Car feature, but writing that piece takes a bit longer than I thought. I’ll try to finish it later this week.

Carina sightings: the famous Carina firevan part 2

September 13, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

Just found the profile of the owner of the third Carina Van (the black one) in this picture:
Carina Firevan next to other Carina vans
So more about that black Carina Van in a later Carina sighting. ;)
I also found out all three Carinas are indeed all vans! I noticed the front bumpers having their indicator lights inside the bumper! That was only delivered to the Carina Van, so all of them must be vans! I corrected this in the other topic as well.

About the Firevan: I found in the profile of that third owner some photos and additional descriptions of the Firevan!! :)

3SG & 6-speed mission
Butterfly throttle until you rub
It is good spell of engine

Don’t mind the spelling of this Google translation, but I think the message is clear: 3SGE with ITB and 6 speed transmission.

And ever wondered how stretched those tires are? Or actually how far you can stretch tires?

That’s how it looks if you put a 155 wide tire on a 9J rim! That’s real Shakotan! ;)

Anyone got more pictures of the Firevan for Part 3? :P

Carina sightings: the famous Carina firevan

September 13, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

I still haven’t found the owner of the famous Carina firevan, however I thought I finally should add this great car to the sightings after I found these pictures on TurboDude’s gallery at Photobucket:

As you can see these two pictures were taken individually, but both of them are stunning! You can clearly see that the car is featuring a 3S-GE with ITBs. From what I heard that engine is perfect for lightweight cars, like the AE86 or this SA60.

~~I suspect the car started its life as a SA60 Carina Surf and not a A67 Carina van as believed earlier.~~ edited: The car probably started its life as a SG67 van. The front indicator lights are inside the bumper and that’s only applied to the van and not to the surf. It would be far more easier to swap the 1S for a 3S-GE. And the round lights from the Carina A67 van could be swapped just as easy later on.

Here you can see a picture I’ve posted earlier:

The firevan next to two other Surfs. Compared to them it is really low! A really nice example of a car in Shakotan style, and not too distorted to be referred as Kyusha Kai or B?s?zoku. Lovely stretched tires on the first picture, and even more stretched on the other two. :)

Second picture is courtesy of Auto-otaku.com. You can find more pictures from him here:

Anyone got an idea where to find more pictures of the set which features the first set?

Hilarious: Gumbay Dance Band

September 11, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

After last week’s hilarious entry of Fancy I have another one: the Goombay Dance Band.

The Gumbay Dance Band is a German Boney M spin off which best can be described as German Schlager music combined with Jamaican goombay music.

Just look at this fantastic clip:

The singer starts breathing fire, then starts singing Schlager and after a while just babbling some stuff (is that supposed to be the predecessor of rap???). He has a really nice, ahum, open shirt and with his golden curly hair he really looks like he is from Jamaica. ;)

It gets really hilarious when they start limbo dancing: those children doing limbo are crawling on the floor: that’s no limbo!! The male dancer sets the pole on fire and starts doing his limbo dance and eats the fire after passing the pole. What is this? A circus act?

Then we get a closeup of one of the woman dancers: scary!! She looks like a voodoo which!!

They still exist and still tour, so maybe you’re lucky and they will visit your town someday! Or you can just wait till 1:58 and write down their address and book them! :P

Another hilarious posting next week. :)

Car feature: Original AE86 cup racer from Holland Part 1

September 6, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

Some days ago Speedhunters posted some info about a 24 hours Spa Francorchamps AE86 and a BTCC AE86 Touring car. It made me remember that we still have an original AE86 cup racer here in Holland.

During the 80s there was an AE86 cup driven in Holland and Belgium. Most cars did not survive but some should still be hidden in sheds, just like this car from IJmuiden. After the driver( Mike van der Raadt) retired the car was cherished by one of it’s sponsors/creators put on display for almost 20 years. Only a short while ago it got sold to it’s current owner who is racing with it happily on Zandvoort.

Here is a video of the car starting:

More info about this car and the ae86 cup will follow next weekend. ;)

Hilarious: Fancy – China Blue

September 4, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

Since last week I am using Last.fm. Normally people would use it to listen to their favorite music and such. I found that it is actually a very good tool to find the lost treasures of music. :)

How to use it? Simple: think of a really bad band like for instance Modern Talking and use that band on Last.fm to play similar music. Be patient and wait for Last.fm to find those little gems for you. ;)

This week I found the singer Fancy with the hit China Blue:

Not only their music is horrible and stolen from Modern Talking, but they even copied their looks from other horrible bands/artists: the singer looks like how Michael Jackson wanted to look eventually, the keyboard player and drummer look like they were borrowed from Europe and the Chinese girl, who looks Thai to me, looks like she is played by Boy George. And those bright white smile of the keyboard player!! Directly stolen from Dieter Bohlen!

If you want to know more about Fancy, try here:
http://www.fancy-online.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_(singer)

I’ll add another hilarious posting next week. :)