I think Vishnu_Evo8's sig better addresses the same question??

 

Congrats to Vishnu!

I was there but had to leave around 3 to get back to L.A. and didn't get to see the Touge portion of the shoot.
The Vishnu evo handled really well and had alot of grunt on the track.

I didn't know Shiv was there in person until I was going out to lunch with my buddies. Driving down the small road next to the track area I see the silver evo hammering up the road in anger and guess who was the driver? ......Shiv
Testing the car uphill on a '15 mph' track road.

Shiv, I was driving the silver evo coming down the road.

It was interesting to watch Vishnu getting into the finals and Shiv trying to understand what Keiichi was saying in Japanese.

 

From what I have heard, this event is not all it is cracked up to be. I think Team Vishnu actually might have gotten robbed on this one.

 

ill wait for the 'hot version' dvd to come out to see the results.

 

Gotcha, I didn't catch that.

 

In the spirit of Touge, we entered Asitha's/Vishnu EVO 8's daily driver. You can see the mod list in his sig profile. As far as performance goes, it was a basic Stg 2 turbo package with Cusco diffs, a rebuilt tranny (stock ratios), a twin plate clutch and our custom valved ohlins that Paul G spent so much time testing/developing for us. It is a full interior, full weight street car complete will sunroof, stereo, ac,, etc,. It even had the front and rear bumper supports. On just about any level, our car looked stock (even under the hood).

At the start of the competition things did not look good considering how most of the other cars looked (like stripped, bare-bones race cars). The Skyline, in particular, was outlandish. No interior, no dash, just 600whp and all the racing bits you could throw on it (including Hankook slicks). This was the SCC Ultimate street car winner last year.

Despite a bad start (our IC hose popped off the first time out), the Best Motoring folks gives us a second try. Thank god. The car goes out again and it absolutely rips through the course. The Best Motoring drivers stayed out the car for a long time just sliding it around the place. The new quotes our signatures pretty much tell the whole story about what they thought. Specifically, they were amazed at the balance of the car. That it did absolutely nothing wrong. Had no vices. Just made good consistent power, handled marvelously, was completely neutral and was the easiest AWD car to drive. It was also the fasted with the exception of the Skyline who had a 1.3 sec advantage over us. When the results came out, the called both us and XS Engineering (who brought the Skyline) out in front of the group. The organizers took a poll to see if the XS car should be allowed to run their tires (everyone else was running real street tires like RA1s, Yoko 048s, Nitto R-compoud radials, etc,.) The unamimous answer was no. This gave us the AWD victory which would put us in the finals gains the winners of the FWD and RWD classes which were several seconds slower around the track. This was good. This meaned that it was more than likely that we'd be in the final against the Comptech NSX which was also a bit slower. And if all went as planned (ie. no hoses popped off ), we would have become this years Touge Champion.

Unfortunately, an hour later, we were told that they wanted to let the Skyline in anyway. General consensus is that the producers wanted to see a full race Skyline in the finals with the SC'd NSX. I don't think they had any intention of seeing a stock-looking EVO battle with some high end, highly visible tuner cars. And I don't think anyone could change their mind. So there, you have it, we were crowned the AWD battle champion. Then uncrowned. Then we got to watch the awesomely fast Skyline simply annihilate the other cars to come out as the overall victor and 2005 Touge Champion. Still, it was good fun. We got to spend the day with John Mueller (who is a great guy), the guys at APR (with their awesome wide-body EVO, our old friends Kenric and Alex of BOZZ, our friend and customer Navid of Extreme Performance, the boys of A-Spec and, of course, Robi. All of us represented the EVO well with heart and determination. But unfortunately, I think politics may have had something to do with the final result. But we're still happy that we were given a second chance. Good knows, if we hadn't, we'd go down in history as the tuning shop that can't keep their IC pipes on!

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the help of our entire crew (all I did was tune the car on the dyno and warm-up the tires!!)

First of all, the man responsible for developing this awesome fast and 100% streetable road/track suspension is the one and only Paul Gerrard. He spend months refining the valving, rates, alignment, bushing upgrades, mapping suspension geometries, etc,. The kind of stuff few people have the knowledge and resources to do. And it paid off in spades. Simply amazing what top level suspension tuning can do to a car. Better-than-stock ride quality with unbelievable handling. Everytime I drive the car, I'm blown away.

Our very own Dustin Bramell was also a critical player in the effort. As the project manager, he was responsible for actually seting up the car the way it should be set-up. He rocked the house and the car barely missed a beat. Without him at the helm of the project, we would probably gotten to the event sleep deprived and unprepared. Dustin in the man. A 130lb man. But the man, nonetheless

And, of course, Asitha the Street King. With yesterday's performance, his name truly can apply. Big props to him for his generosity of letting us enter is daily driver and putting it all on the line. Years ago, he believed in our ability to build his car and I hope we've not let me down. What we love about Asitha, besides his great singing voice and his Circuit City discount coupons, is that he actually DRIVES his car. Hard. Every day. Putting it through the test (and torture) that few can conceive of. Without people like him running our parts, everyone else out there would lose out.

And big props to our friends at Full Function. Despite entering a car themselves in the RWD catagory, those guys were on our side, helping us with whatever glitch we faced (loose IC hose, melted wheel weights, etc,.) We always knew they rocked, but their sportsmanship speaks louder than words.

So many more to thank (like Calvin and the rest of the Vishnu friends and crew) and so little time. We'll post pics and more info soon. And I'm sure the rest of the guys can add their impression of the event in.

Best to all,
shiv

 

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Great write up!

I think alot of politics were involved in the decision of the finals. The rules were too vague and alot of the tuners were eliminated because they had race tires etc.

 

Shiv, it's really good to see your organization competing and doing really well in these events…you’ve got to do something ‘bout those intercooler pipes.

 

congrats to vishnu crew !!!

 

How much for the coilover setup you used? I'd love a PM.

 

Shiv, let me introduce you to Wiggins clamps, expensive but they will not fail, super simple and flexable. Anyone running a stage two or above should have them.

http://www.burnsstainless.com/Hardwa...insclamps.html

Thanks for the props Shiv and glad the suspension was so well received, it has truly been a labor of love this year and I have to thank CSU (and especially Joe) for all the time an patience listening to me whine about the "feel" of the car at all the track days we did. BTW, all that was done with stock sway bars and very streetable spring rates, there is more.

The "race" set-up is over a second faster on the same tires. We also have an super-street set-up that rides better that Asitha's car yet preforms the same at the track and also an intermediate track day set-up that a few tenths behind the "race" package but quite streetable (a tiny bit better than stock ride). A little confusing but you get the idea (?)

all set-ups have wonderful balance (if I do say so myself ) and can be driven any way you like from tidy understeer to drift laps...you pick!

Oh and of course you can only get them through Vishnu! Call Dustin

 

I had my Ohlins set-up by Paul G./Joe Henry through Vishnu - Turn around was immediate as well all tech info. Call Vishnu for the Custom Ohlins.

Look forward to the Spring to put this set-up to use in conjuction with a Ecutek Flash

 

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Stay tuned everybody. I know that Shiv, Dustin, and Paul are putting a price together for the complete set up.

Paul, I finally have the $ to finish my suspension. Don't forget to make adjustments for the teenie tiny bit more torque I'm making than the average customer. I'm next in line everyone!