FR-S Release Party at Penske Toyota

From Left to Right (FR-S First owner. Troy and Young from 5 Axis)

Penske Toyota in Downey, CA had a Release party for the New Scion FR-S and for the First Penske Scion FR-S Owner. We happened to be there since it’s not to far from our warehouse and we have actually been testing the Scion FR-S that 5 Axis let us borrow.


This is the FR-S we have been testing on it looks good on our S-Tech lowering springs that we have been developing for the US models. Ride height drop is approximately -35mm front and -30mm rear, giving the car a great stance, especially with plus-sized wheels.

 

It was good seeing that not only did they have the FR-S to show, but they had multiple Toyota/ Scion vehicles, some being 5 Axis customers and others being Toyota enthusiasts of new and old. This evening’s event also included a raffle, showroom models of FR-S’s to check out, a DJ, and also some barbecue for attendees.

To date, we have officially release the following parts

S.Tech Lowering springs
lowers -35mm front and -30mm rear
part number SKQ54-AUB00, msrp $280

High Tech lowering springs
lowers -25mm front and -20mm rear
part number SKSA0-G1B00, msrp $310

Type Flex damper kit
preload & height adjustable (-55mm – +5mm front, -45mm – +5mm rear)
damping adjustable (16-way)
Incl. Pillowball upper mounts (camber adjustable front mount)
EDFC Compatible (sold separately)
part number DSQ54-61SS1, msrp $1790

New Development Project

 

After we wrote our “NASCAR Anyone?” entry, TEIN USA has started another project with Toyota Motorsports.

I believe many of our readers are big fans of motorsports.

And you know it’s time for one of the largest motorsports events in Long Beach, CA next month, which is Toyota Grand Prix in Long Beach!

At the Toyota Grand Prix, there are several race such as Indycar, ALMS, Celebrity race, Drifting challenge, and World challenge.

It’s definitely an exciting weekend for motorsports enthusiasts.

And we are currently preparing our specialized damper for one of the vehicles to be used in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach this year.

Here are a few pics of previous Pace Cars we’ve made suspension for

Stay tune and guess which car has Tein damper on it!!

2nd Place Win for The Rally xD TEAM!

Congratulations to the Rally xD Team pulling a 2nd place win just beating 3rd place by a few seconds!

Even though the teams were faced with a portion of blindness  due to high speeds and dry weather, which combined created major dust clouds affecting some of the teams on day one of  The Rally of the 100 Acre Woods in Salem, Missouri which forced the Rally xD to fifth place on Day 1.

They eventually managed a second place finish but not without battling their way through the ranks.

Nice shot of their custom TEIN Suspension.

Good Luck on their next event! Keep up the Good Work Rally xD Team!

Super Lap Battle Final 2011

Time attack season has began from couple weeks ago.

Temperature is getting cool down but still see the sun during the day, there should be a no negative effect for the engines and all of the time attack vehicles.

We went to Super Lap Battle Final at Buttonwillow Raceway for our supported vehicles for 2 days.

Luckily both 2 days were good weather.

and some of the vehicles break their own record.

One of the our support vehicle Crawford Perfomance’s STi driven by Tarzan Yamada

This vehicle outputs 800+hp…

and beauty of the function.

And also, Crawford Performance brought 2 Scion tC.

2 cars from Evasive Motorsports.

Their Evo marked 1:49.124 and got 1st place in Limited AWD class.

And S2000 marked 1:57.887 and got 1st place in Street FR class.

Congratulations to Evasive!

Our ex-marketing manager Philip Chase’s Evo marked 1:57.735 which is his record and 1st place in Street AWD class!

TEIN damper on Philip Chase’s Evo

And another winner with TEIN damper vehicle is Sportscar Motion DC2R.

This car marked 1:54.789 and winner for Limited FF Class.

This clean JDM converted Civic Si is one of my favorite vehicle at Super Lap Battle .

The driver Renzo Marsano break his own record today with TEIN damper!

Another TEIN user vehicle APM Racing’s RSX.

 

This is another well track prepped S2000.

Driver maked 1:59.066 with TEIN Super Racing damper.

It was very busy 2 days but we are glad that most of our support driver break and got 1st place in this event.

 

Industry Track Day ’11

Once or twice every year, industry workers come together at a track somewhere, which is usually never nearby, and enjoy the pastime that we work to support on a day to day basis.

Industry Track Day was held this year at, the not so new anymore but new to most who attended, Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. Situated in the middle of nowhere, as most tracks that I’ve been to tend to be, it’s a long long drive to get there. In order to arrive in time for the check in and driver meeting I left my house before the crack of dawn. Still tired and ever so groggy I drove down the freeway, past Morongo Casino, past Palm Springs & Indio, and past the Salton Sea.

Yes, it is that far. 1 more hour down the road and I would have ended up in Arizona. I watched the sun rise on my way there and watched as the sun set on my way back home.

After arriving, checking in, and going through the driver meeting, the tents were put up and the cars were unloaded and prepared to go.

(That ridiculously taped up car is mine. I had heard horror stories of people tracking their cars at Chuckwalla with a brand new red tow hook, only to return home with a brand new tow hook that no longer had paint on it.)

(Too cautious? I think not! And don’t be fooled into thinking I had missed a few spots, what you’re seeing is 2 layers of blue painters tape and another layer of white and black duct tape on top.)

The showing at Industry Track Days is always a hodgepodge of many different types of cars.

We had American Muscle.


A plethora of German ultimate driving machines.

JDM

KDM

Italian Stallions

(Look at the size of those things!)

We had the old

And the new

Relatively stock cars

And the dedicated track only cars

Even pirates had a showing

Despite the blistering heat (it reached about 100 degrees out at CVR while it was a cool 73 degrees in LA) good times were had. There were some technical difficulties with the timing system, so unfortunately no one knew if they were getting faster or slower as far as lap times go, but that certainly didn’t stop us from taking our cars out and thrashing them around.


(Evasive Motorsport’s Mike behind the wheel of his Civic)


(Crawford brought their tC’s out to play as well)


(Featured on the blog many times before, Ex-Marketing Manager for Tein, Philip Chase’s Evo IX)

(I don’t have a GoPro, and wanting to review my own driving I resorted to my own GhettoPro. If you’re wondering, yes that is my point and shoot digital camera zip tied to my seat. It didn’t work out so well due to the shaking. I almost get carsick just watching the video that it took.)


(And by the end of the day, my normally white TE37’s had turned a brake dust grey/black color, and I’m on my way to earning my Brownbo [Brown Brembos] Badge)

Stephan Verdier at X Games 17

This weekend Stephan Verdier will be driving his STi in X Games 17 in Rally and Rallycross competition.

Tune in to ESPN or ESPN3.com on Saturday from 1-3PM PST for Rally and 2-4PM PST on Sunday for RallyCross action.

Stephan’s car has undergone changes in preparation for X Games which includes a brand new Tarmac spec Gr.N damper. Our in-house engineer, Katsuma Nakai, has been on-hand to help setup and tune the suspension for the new X-Games street course. Stephan should be a force to be reckoned with. He has been  considered an underdog all year long as he is one of a few teams/ drivers which is not factory backed (big budget). Yet his Crawford powered STi can compete right alongside the factory Fords, Subarus and Hyundais. Stephan has been competing all year in the Global Rally Cross and currently sits 4th in the overall standings behind Foust, Gronholm and Jernberg.

Root for Stephan this weekend, we will be.

A little over a month ago Stephan drove the Zenkai Motorsports STi at Pikes Peak Hillclimb. He is featured in a video just released by Motul. The Zenkai STI is powered by a Crawford built motor and utilizes Super Racing coilovers.

Stephan unfortunately crashed about 2/3 rds up the hill. The heavy winds and road surface conditions change by the minute making Pikes Peak one of the most dangerous hill climbs in the world. We are glad Stephan walked away unscathed.

The calm before the storm

:a quiet period just before a period of great activity or excitement.

The World Time Attack Challenge held at Eastern Creek, Sydney Australia is meeting in less than 11 days. This years event is making big noise with the Pro Class line up.


Prep’d Motorsports Lotus Exige

Pan Speeds Mazda RX-7

Garage Revolutions RX-7

Sierra Sierra Enterprises Evo (2010 2nd place winner) Recently broke the Buttonwillow time attack record

Cyber Evo (2010 1st place winner). With a new engine, lighter chassis and more aero, the Cyber Evo is returning to keep the title.

As much as we are cheering for the TEIN sponsored Cyber Evo, this year all Pro Class teams are stepping their game up including 2 R35 900+ horsepower GTR’s.

Check out the World Time Attack Challenge website for more information.

All photos from World Time Attack website.

FINAL ROUND of 2011 Rally America

This past weekend was the final round (Rd. 6) of the 2011 Rally America series. TEIN sponsored Sparco Rally xD made the trip out to Maine for the New England Forest Rally. Andrew-Comrie Picard and Jeremy Wimpey returned as driver/ co-driver. The winning combo last drove the car at round 4 in Oregon to the 2WD class win.

At NEFR the newly improved xD faced a plethora of Ford Fiestas including 2010 2WD Chris Duplessis (who drove the xD last year), 2009 2WD Champion Dillon Van Way in another Fiesta and 2011 2WD Champion Wyatt Knox in a MazdaSpeed 3.

Since Oregon the xD has undergone major modifications mainly in the power department. Greddy tore down the motor and installed Carrillo forged rods and pistons to beef up the 1.8L. The fuel system was upgraded as well which netted a significant power gain. The 1.8L Scion xD now produces 200 WHP, up 35 WHP from the last outing. Not big by HP number but if you look at percentages that is a big difference.

Greddy engineers working on the 2ZR-FE.

Carrillo components help beef up the short block. Power is still left at a conservative 200WHP.

The HG suspension worked perfectly over the rough terrain and various sized jumps.

NEFR was a real test for the car and newly modified engine as it has some long stages, three 16 mile stages and one 19 mile stage. The crew tells me the motor ran flawlessly but there were other issues to deal with at every service. Loss of 3rd gear, a slipping clutch, damaged exhaust system, cracked wheel, punctured tires…

The crew working hard during service to inspect and repair the xD.

Some of the chassis modifications that Design Craft made prior to NEFR also paid off. This tubular brace was added to the underbelly of the car for added reinforcement against all the offroad abuse. Even with this, the oil pan took a hit. Without this who knows what would have happened to the oil pan.

At the end of the 2 day rally, the Rally xD finished second in class and sixth overall. OVERALL. Meaning against 4WD turbo STIs, EVOs and WRXs.

Left to Right – Kenji from Greddy, fabricators Gary, Len and Ben from Design Craft, Co-driver Jeremy W., Driver ACP, Team Manager Gordon, and Jason.

Look for a video soon.

Sunday was a Funday

This is not one of our normal posts but these are some of the staff at TEIN USA – West.

The staff here at TEIN USA try to have a Summer BBQ at least once a year. Yesterday was our out of the office funday. There was grilling, eating, 3 on 3 basketball, kids running around and more eating.

 

Our Operations asst. manager, Paul, hosted and served as grill master.

Our BBQ included current and ex-staff members. I think everyone was most impressed by the diversity in food which included:
Korean short ribs, Ribeye steak, Pork Belly, Asian style BBQ chicken, Portuguese sausage, Ceviche, 2 kinds of Enchiladas, assorted rice balls, Chicken Adobo, Lumpia, Pancit, mixed green salad, Japanese cucumber salad, homemade guacamole, spinach Empanadas, baked donuts, assorted fresh fruits, and multi-layer cake.

 

Air Marc. He’s from Hawaii so he does everything in slippers.

Brian, also with slippers. It was like 90 degrees so flipflops were the footwear of choice.

Our accountant, Hirayoshi playing some catch. Both these guys are from Japan where American football is not a popular sport. I think this was the first time Hirayoshi had thrown a football.

The boss and his wife playing some catch.

The kids even got in on the sports. Jaydean here is taking it in for a touchdown!

One of our operations staff doubles as a Yokohama Globe Trotter.

Our accounting assistant, Mirelle, putting it up and in.

Hirayoshi playing some basketball. He said the last time he played was about 20 yrs ago. He is actually a good surfer and downhill mountain biker.

Our engineer, TK, taking our accountant off the dribble.

Paul driving to the hoop.

Sergio, aka Gonzo, going up for the easy 2.

Some of the staff enjoying the sun and some cool dessert.

Taking a break and enjoying the day.

Good times were had by all.

Sleepy Time Car Show

Usually when we prepare for a car show, we do an early drop off, set up and then return later or possibly the next day for the actual event. Let me tell you, I’ve been to a number of these kind of events but never to a Cars & Coffee event which is held in Irvine, CA simply because of the early check in and show time. I’m talking about arriving before 8 am and finishing around 11 am on a Saturday (sorry but I need my beauty sleep).

Here’s a few shots a friend took while I washed the car the night before.






Morning of the show

Just a few Lotus Elise

A beastly Camaro

K20a Ariel Atom

Big Body Bentley

Classic Ford GT

And the best car at the show.. This bug

Hmm what motor could this be?

Oh Snap! 13b Rotary!

Peep that custom fuel cut off

Overall it was cool show to check out. I don’t think I will be attending another anytime soon… or maybe once I pick up my Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.