Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

 

Nice pic. What turn signals do you have? Do they not have the glass cover?

 

They are made by me.
Since real Mazdaspeed turn signals were so hard to find, I made them using spare 99 spec lights to replicate them. No glass cover. I've driven them in rain with no issues.

 

You're a good photographer Phil.

 

Thank you!
Coming from you it means alot! I'm trying to pick it back up and collecting some equipments. Just bought the new Nikon 70-200 2.8. Hope I get to use it next year covering some motorsports events.

Are you coming to DGRR next year?

 

DGRR? I dunno if this old man wants to be in an FD that long. Lol

That's a great lens. I used that for many years before sacrificing it towards the purchase of my 200mm F2 VRII lens. Sometimes I wish I still had the 70-200 F2.8 as the form factor is so much easier to hand hold.
The 70-200 is a great lens for the track on a cropped body. Ends up being more like a 300mm at the long end and that's all you usually need at the track and image quality is excellent. What camera body is it going on?

 

Here are few shots I did up at Seattle Washington Formula Drift at Evergreen Raceway.. I was denied of media pass so I had to shoot behind the fence.. Even though I was hired to shoot there.





I have Nikon D810 body. Above shots were done with Nikon 70-200 2.8 VRII. I've heard that the new 70-200 was coming out so I was borrowing my friend's 70-200. Great lens! I had Breakthrough circular filter on the lens.

This one with MadMike!


I haven't played much with the new 70-200 but so far it feels better. But my favorite is the Zeiss Otus 55 1.4 I have.

 

You def know how to pan. That's a difficult technique to master. Especially when you are trying to push the envelope with shutter speed for effect.
I find the longer the focal length the easier it is to pace the car. The closer you are the faster you have to move and makes it tricky to get the timing correct.

I picked up a Rig from Rig-Pro. Makes for easier to set up shots with planned camera angles and background for more pleasing photos. You just have to be able to clone out the boom in post.
You may want check it out and see if it's something worth adding to your gear.

 

I used to shoot back in the days with film.. But mostly people. Motorsport is kind of new for me and I'm learning and experimenting as I go. But don't get to experiment much as I lack the time.

Here are few more events I got to travel to and shoot.



GridLife ATL


My favortite. NMRA Final

 

Update.. Hope all of you got some car related gifts from Santa..

I'll try to update you guys on what has happened this year.

My SpeedHunters feature back in Sept 2016.

Old Rotary, New Tricks: Checking In On A Favorite - Speedhunters

Photos:

 

I had a chance to work on my 1994 SSM FD RX-7. It had a small coolant leak somewhere so replaced and tighten some hoses to the turbos and such.

And decided to put on my Mazdaspeed MS01-Mag wheels on.

Here are couple of pics of the car.

 

very nice fd

 

Those wheels are classic excellence

 

the ssm looks good

 

Thank you! I fixed the sequential turbo system and a small leak around the turbo return line and the car feels so much better! Car also feels much more nimble and tight with such a low mileage (32K).

Thanks Aaron! these are my favorite. Needs refinishing but I think I'm just going to hold out.

Thank you!!

 

Phil, that's about the nicest SSM FD I've ever laid eyes on my man, just beautiful

 

Thanks Rich!! That means a lot coming from you!

 

Update...

Happy New Year everyone!! I have couple of projects to finish off this year and maybe new one to start later on

2 Rotor update..

Going with couple of different stuff this year..

1. Haltech Elite 1500. It has loads of features. One of the thing I didn't realize was the OBD II output. This means that I can still use my Defi Dash and get more reading out of it by using this ECU. This time, I'll be adding Haltech flexfuel, 2 x EGT, Borg Warner Speed sensor for the turbo, wideband, etc. and keep the OMP.



2. Chris Ludwig/ Ludwig Motorsports (LMS-EFI) harness for the Haltech. Amazing details on this harness!! This is my second harnesses by LMS-EFI and I highly recommend. They will be also attending DGRR 2017 and will be doing a seminar and Q&A at the event.

 

Update..

I realized I didn't post anything about the bumper project I did early last year.

Back story.. When I first started this thread, I was building a car for SEMA, my 3 rotor project. For years leading up to this point of building this car, I had a vision of my ultimate 3 rotor. But like most of you, job, family, money, etc. can lead to not quite execute your dream build. In this case, one of the thing I wanted to do was make a unique bumper. I wanted to mash together my 2 favorite japanese companies; Fujita Engineering (FEED) and RE-Amemiya. If you look at the car now, you will see that its pretty much built using both of those companies. But what I really wanted to do was build a bumper using two iconic bumpers. FEED Type 2R and RE-A N1-02 bumper. I love the signal/driving light set of of the FEED and loved the aggressive bottom of the N1-02.

FEED Type 2R on my 2 rotor


Re-Amemiya N1-02 with Front diffuser add on


Back in 2015, I decided that it was time to fulfill my goal of making a bumper that meets my vision. Instead of using RE-A N1-02, I decided to used the N1-05 which has the molded in undertray/diffuser. We cut the both bumpers and started to put them together. (Oh, I should most definitely give credit to my engine builder and long time friend Luis Canizales and his son Luke Canizales for their help putting the bumper together and helping me make the initial mold).

I did not like the 90's 'hump' on the front bumper so we made it to sit flat.

Here is an initial shaping of the bumper.. It weighs 40-50lbs


We made a mold and pulled one bumper off. When running the bumper on the, it didn't quite fit correctly. It sat quite low and required some hand on modification. Again thanks to Luis and his friend, we were able to have it on and made it to an event very next day (low as in I couldn't make it out of my driveway).

I was able to have it on the car and get it featured in SpeedHunters.


Meet The Rotary Maniac - Speedhunters

But I wanted to make the bumper correctly and more of it.
Following year, I was conversing with my friend Michael about the project. He said he knew someone local who might help me regarding making a new updated bumper.
So, I took my initial bumper and started to correct some of the issues. Being extremely low was an issue, so first the bumper was cut, fix the height issue, and corrected so the front lip was flat.





Bumper sit just as 1993 R1 lip sit on stock bumper.
First bumper pulled from the second mold.


Im running out of time so I will update next week regarding the fitment and the results.

Phil

 

Neat to see the process of the bumper.

 

Update...

Continuation of the bumper making..

Here are the detail pics of the bumper.


Test fitments:












Overall, I was very happy with the results. Fitment was satisfactory for being what it was. Height of the bumper was similar to the stock 93 bumper with 99 front lip. Compare to the first version, its night and day difference in fitment and quality.

 

Here is my other feature with SpeedHunters... with my 1973 RX3 and history behind it.

Mazda History & Tales Of Friendship - Speedhunters

I am honored that Mr. Larry Chen was able to shoot the car. It almost didn't happened because of the weather. It rained all day and as I was leaving the track (Road Atlanta), weather started to clear up and Larry gave the thumbs up.
Like any cars or people at this age, it comes with fantastic history. This car was initially built by a gentleman named Tom McGuire. It was his daily for many years and later I was told about the sale of the car by another friend, Chris Mahaffey. At that point, I was only interested in FD RX-7 so I passed it to a good friend Steven White. I regretted no buying first time so, when it was available for sale, I snatched it up from Steven. I fixed few things and after my marriage and 7 cars parked, I ended up selling it to yet another friend who recently had to sell his beloved FD RX-7, Marco Lau. He owned it for several years and was moving to west coast and I ended back up with this car again. I've updated few things for this feature and all my friends have great memories with this car. My future plan is to put maybe NA 20B in it. But I guess I need to finish up few other projects before I do that swap.

In case some of you don't or can't click the link above, here are some photos from it.







I am honored that Mr. Larry Chen was able to shoot the car. It almost didn't happened because of the weather.

 

Update:

It's been busy few weeks for me. Purchased a new car for the family. Back SEMA 2015, group of friends rented a Infiniti Q50 3.7 in Vegas. I was driving around and put about 100 or so miles on it. Car was comfortable and had decent pick up in speed. At the SEMA, I ran into a guy who put GTR R35 motor into the Q50, and though how it would fulfill my GTR desire. Well, Nissan finally came out with Q50 Red Sport 400, which I recently purchased. Car is just what I needed. Comfortable daily my wife can drive and enjoy, switched to Sport + mode and car comes alive and becomes a beast with 380WHP (thats what some of the stock RS400's been dynoing). Here are couple of pictures of the car.




With both of my Daily, RS400 and IS300 Wagon.


Regarding Rotaries...
I've decided to clean up some wiring to get ready to put a new set up in the car.


To do it right, I also needed to pull the dash and clean up the hacked up 20 year old interior harnesses.


More to come next week..

 

I never knew that Infinity existed before you started posting about it. It sure does check a lot of boxes of a "dual purpose" car.

 

Well, I haven't owned the RS400 for long but for me and my wife to like the car, it does check that box. Maybe I haven't owned other more powerful newer sedans but this definitely got some power. The difference from Standard mode to Sport+ is pretty cool.