Euro Trip 2010

As mentioned in previous entries I have been planning a trip to Europe since the beginning of the year, I've always fancied driving through and around the Alps and also since becoming a fan of the Austrian Hillclimb events I have made it my mission to go and see one of these events. Below is the actual event I will be attending on the Sunday 25th April, I think this will definitely be the highlight of my trip purely because of the sound and speed of these machines, the top class cars are actually faster than the Group B rally cars from the 1980's, it will be some spectacle.

Rechberg Hillclimb Austria


I will also be travelling right through the centre of the Alps, starting in Switzerland and ending up at the hillclimb event in Tulwitz, this will be some trek as its 1000km's from Strasbourg to Tulwitz going on the route I have highlighted in the Google Map below.


View Austria Trip in a larger map

As you can see on the map above I have also booked 4 laps on the most famous proving grounds in Europe, the Nürburgring. I seriously can't wait to blast around this track in my EG6 as I've spent quite a lot of money installing various parts and changing the suspension especially for this. As there is a video ban on the track I have my best friend for support who will be track side to capture me as a I go past.



For now that is all I can think of writing as I'm am in the middle of packing for the trip, I will be heading down to Dover tomorrow evening to catch the early morning ferry to France. I will try and document the trip as well as possible with the help of my friend, expect a full feature and photo shoot of the EG6 in the Alps in a few weeks.

Thanks for reading.

Stage 1.6 | Part 7

Part 7 now and this is getting to be a little more interesting. The next few problems that needed addressing was the lighting, as you know from previous blog entries I had bought some brand new headlights, after discovering that painting the inside of the headlights black is a very bad idea. Also I got around to fitting the 50W H4 HID's, man these things are bright, found a few different places to mount the ballasts, I have four of these now dotted around the car.

The Yokohama tires are installed now and they are so much better than the ditch finders I had fitted before. Specs on the tires are Yokohama Parada Spec-2 | 195/50/R15.





Now me being pretty anal about colours and how they have to be coordinated I decided to change the silicone air intake pipes from Blue to Black and to be honest it looks so much better.







As you can see from the pictures above I have got round to fitting the OEM fog lights and also the 35W HB3 HID's, these took a bit of customising to fit but so worth it in the end.

Now there is only a few things left to do which are only simple. I bought some Honda MTF as its about time to try this stuff out, everyone seems to rave how good it is and that it makes for a more smoother gear change. My rear wiper blade refill arrived too so I got that installed with the new powder coated wiper arms and a nice stainless captive nut.




These will pretty much complete the modifications that I needed to carry out.

Stage 1.6 | Part 6

Well as the time draws nearer to travelling around Europe for the first time I had to get the car prepared to a level which I was happy with. I knew the car had a few issues to resolve so I went about fixing the small things first. The VTEC solenoid gasket is a common problem that most B series engine owners face, so after reading through some forum posts then double checking using the Honda EPC I got the right part numbers for the gaskets. As you will see from the images below the engine block and the gearbox were a right mess from the leaking oil building up and becoming sludgy.

VTEC Solenoid Gasket Replacement




Next on the agenda was to replace the missing arch liner on the drivers side which I hadn't got round to doing since I bought the car from Japan. This was a bad idea really as when it was raining hard the indicator unit filled up with water and totally corroded the indicator bulb holder and the inside of the lens. So I replaced the arch liner and installed a new indicator and bulb holder. Now it was time to install the Spoon replica front splitter which I had shown in the previous post, this actually fit really well with the supplied brackets and screws, it didn't require any bonding which was quite pleasing. Also check out the newly installed APP Stainless Mesh Teflon brake lines and indicator unit.





I must apologies for the lack of quality in the photo's and no real progression is shown either, this is what happens when you don't have a camera of your own or much spare time.

Part 7 is next.....

Feature | Stagea 2

I went to the local meet at Squires Cafe near the A1 which is a culmination gathering of JDM marques. I had the opportunity to ride in my good friends Stagea with the R34 GT-R Front end conversion installed by Masa Motorsports in Japan. It features some rather interesting parts other than the R34 conversion, 5 speed factory manual, R34 GT-S Neo RB25 Engine, HKS Coilovers and so on. When the weather improves and I have more time I will run a full feature on this vehicle with an accurate spec list. For now here are a few pictures of my friends Stagea and another on from the owners club.