Monday, February 12th, 2001
This weekend I have been seeing the car culture side of the Kansai region. I had a volunteer Japanese guide, Onoe-san, show me the car tuning shops in the Kobe area. I met him through Club 4AG on the internet, and we have the same car. I also went to the Osaka Auto Messe twice, which was interesting, but not everything I had hoped for. I saw the city lights of Kobe from the top of Mt. Rokko at night. I saw the shipping lanes, waterfront trade center/convention district, and (hopeful) 2008 Osaka Olympic Park from a reclaimed island (i.e. garbage heap) in the edge of Osaka Bay. The whole time I was out there on the island, the earthquake threat was in the back of my mind...Atlantis, the amazing insta-liquifying, sinking, man-made islands of Osaka Bay! The shipping area is mind boggling; I could see, at any given moment, twenty to thirty gianormous, huge-ungus cargo ships in going out or coming in. The amount of commercial activity in Osaka is hard to comprehend. Apparently, if the city of Osaka was a nation separate from Japan, its Gross National Product would be among the top five for NATIONS in the world!

I like Kobe a lot! It is in a sort of narrow strip of land between the mountains and the ocean. It has an exciting cosmopolitan feel to it, but is still only minutes away from the countryside. I see no evidence of the devastating earthquake at all-everything seems to be rebuilt. Onoe takes me everywhere...a typical Japanese visit that is a cultural contrast to American social visits...he didn't show me his house or car, but we packed maybe ten destinations into one day. I ride the train from Osaka to meet him, and am a little bit behind schedule the whole way. Being a little bit late makes it hard to enjoy the view as we speed along very near to the coast. I call him on his cell phone when I can't find him in the station, and we eventually talk each other in the right direction until we meet for the first time with a bunch of relieved laughter. :)

He bought his hachiroku a year ago and co-owns it with a friend. It has a small-port high-compression sixteen-valve 4A-GE, running the individual throttle bodies off of a twenty-valve motor, presumably with an aftermarket engine computer. It also has forged pistons and Formula Atlantic-spec connecting rod bolts. He told me what cams and....hmmm...I don't think they are HKS, not Web, not Toda, not TRD....I don't remember, but I think he said they were something like 302 degrees intake, 288 degrees exhaust!! He says that it is a strong motor and I believe him. We stop at a Toyota/TRD parts shop first. I try to get the Japanese "Sprinter Trueno" badges for my car, but they don't have them in stock. Onoe-san graciously says that he will order them and then ship them to me if I want. We stop at a Toyota tuning shop which is closed, so on to Autobacs, a large parts-store chain. Imagine a large Pep Boys/Knechts-type place, but catering to Japanese tastes. Camaro headers?...Uh...NO. Suzuki Swift coilover racing shocks? Sure thing. It was really fun to look around and see some of the wacky products that are available in Japan for car enthusiasts. The employee parking area was probably the most interesting part of the whole place: _lowered_ DC2 Type R Integra with a carbon fiber hood, full roll cage, and aftermarket racing seats, a hachiroku AE86 Toyota, SW20 Toyota MR2, kyu-ni AE92 FWD Corolla coupe. We continue on to a local "junk shop" (junk yard) which was on the top of a hill, up a very bumpy dirt road. I can't believe it....stacked in a heap: Supra 1JZ-GE straight six with tranny, Mistubishi gasoline-direct-injection V-6, Nissan SR20DE (Sentra SE-R motor to us) no less than three four-valve per cylinder, twincam, turboed, intercooled 660cc microcar engines, AND a "silvertop" twenty-valve Toyota 4A-GE (20-valve, VVT, maybe 10.5:1 compression, 8200 rpm, four individual throttle bodies, about 155 hp, introduced in 1991) This was their junk heap! No "blacktop" 4A-G, though. :-( The blacktop is rare, even in Japan, and is the latest (about 1995) and ultimate development of the 4A-G with a supposed 170 horsepower from 1600cc!

We drive for maybe an hour to get to Dogfight Pro, but it is worth it! More to come soon... Back to the Index