Road to Rotary: Japan to France in an RX7

sx_turbo said:
Surprised hks are hesitant over their turbo kit, think they would have more faith in their products lol. There shouldn't be much go wrong with a turbo and manifold.
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It's more that if they don't know and trust the tuner, they're more concerned about the control of what's been done to ensure that it works as needed for such a trip. I do get it.

I'd happily take it pretty stock with uprated cooling and ECU though. Just to help me get home as intended. I'll try and get their turbo later on :D

sx_turbo said:
Speak to re:worx they done a lot of work on the Apexi PFC and it may be possible to have switchable maps on it using the commander, I've seen mention of it on the internet on forums but nothing concrete.
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Thanks man I'll have a look
 
I've got an uprated thermostat and Mishimoto radiator and slimline fan on the way. They gave me a bit of a discount, which is nice of them and that should help keep temps down a bit as well if needed. Just need uprated HKS intercooler and air filter I'll pick up at some point and it'll remove the stock stuff and hopefully make it a bit more efficient there.
 
My little Kei truck... no idea what it cost me at this point, i'll get the invoice soon :cry:

She's a little bit ratty, but the bed will get a full raptor bed lining and I'll be tarting her up nicely!

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The mission to get a A/C car! Meant I had to also get an AWD which is fine, but just harder to find. Looking forward to some tinkering!

Oh and i've booked tickets to Japan for July! Head there on July 12th
 
To be honest, I think I'd leave it looking like that. Gives it a bit of character!

Have I misread things or is the truck being shipped to France, worked on then shipped back to Japan for the start of the trip?
 
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Love it.

I was looking at an Acty too, they look the best, that or the round headlight Carry.

Really wanted a Turbo though so got a 2000 Carry with the F6A turbo

That one looks fine, bet it was a bargain
 
lordrobs said:
To be honest, I think I'd leave it looking like that. Gives it a bit of character!
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I think it'll stay like that for the trip... saves me spending too much time on it for it to get mucky again. I might raptor spray the bed though to make it a bit more hard wearing but that's about it.

lordrobs said:
Have I misread things or is the truck being shipped to France, worked on then shipped back to Japan for the start of the trip?
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It has to come back anyway for Reg stuff. No way around that, so will do roll on roll off, which is the cheapest way of doing it. No container, just drives on the boat, drives off the other end. I go and collect it there.

Axeboy said:
Love it.

I was looking at an Acty too, they look the best, that or the round headlight Carry.

Really wanted a Turbo though so got a 2000 Carry with the F6A turbo

That one looks fine, bet it was a bargain
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Yea, I actually prefer the round light front. I might convert it to that, as it's just the headlights and front panel change.

Nice!! This would be a hoot with a turbo. Any pics?

I still haven't had the invoice, so no idea the price lol
 
Yeah, the round lights looks so much better.

I got the ugly duckling, and thats saying something! Really wanted Turbo though so not a lot of options.

Really looking forward to it though. I still muuuuuch prefer the older styled Kei trucks but no Turbos at that age :(

 
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Little updates as they come.

HKS seem to have gone absolutely silent :cry: so might have fallen through on that one, but I'm not massively fussed tbf. I have coilovers on there anyway, I'm going to fit the new radiator when it arrives and the car has a couple of weeks in france for paperwork, and I'll probably fit a new intercooler at the same time all for cooling. If I can't get anything through them, I'll sort my own stuff out for ECU and tuning for fuel. It would have been a real nice to have, but it's honestly no stress.

On the plus side, I spoke to the head of PR for Mazda UK today who is a great guy. He's going to arrange for me to have support from Mazda tech in Russia all along my route. He's also going to reach out to Mazda EU, Mazda Worldwide and Mazda Japan to see how they can get involved and help out too, as he thinks this would be a great story for them and their PR. Which is nice.

He also asked if I had contacted any magazines about covering it yet... I was like mate, no. Who would listen to me? He asked if he could do it on my behalf? Ha, yep. Of course! Again, I went into the conversation expecting nothing but chatting about the trip, so a real nice bonus and see where it goes.

Looking forward to my trip to Japan in 23 days. I'm meeting Alex from Top Rank EU there and we're going to do some cool car stuff together and he'll introduce me to some other people, which will be super fun.

Won't give up on HKS just yet, but it's all good either way! I have so much time to talk to companies, but shipping wise we need to have the car on a boat in Sept in order to get it turned around and back in Japan when I need it!

Now is silly season for traveling, too, so I'm going to be all over the place.

More updates as they come :p
 
Actually just picked up the phone this morning and called my man in HKS, they're still down! Just been busy on work trips, which I get. Told him about Mazda too, which I think always helps haha going to meet up with him in person when I'm in Japan next month. I think that'll be a nice way to build relationships more.

Trying to get a tyre and wheel company on board now really. I think that'll be the biggest thing to get sorted, because I do think punctures will be something we experience a fair bit. I spoke to Yokohama UK before but think I need to up it to EU/Global for their reach, so trying to talk to them at the moment.
 
Just found this thread, what a crazy trip, should be amazing.

How many hours a day to you plan on driving? I find that 8 hours is tedious, that's about the longest I have drove in 1 day.
 
Apologies, I've been logged out for ages. It's been an absolutely mad summer to be fair.

Siliconslave said:
toyo might be worth a shout, a little smaller afaik so more likely to help out?
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Yea, good shout. I am still talking to Yokohama, will see what comes of that one but no harm in reaching out to toyo as well. Will add it to my list.

sx_turbo said:
Falken would be the other JDM brand to try.
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Awesome. Thanks man, another good one.



UPDATE:

I went to Japan to see my cars! Did that in July. Was mad. Met with HKS, they sounded me out to see if I'm suitable to risk their brand on or not :D they then traveled an hour to see my car, which was surreal of a moment.
The RX7 needed a new ECU but HKS said that an Apexi would be more suited to my needs and fuel switching etc. than theirs.
They're providing me a full exhaust and coilovers.
All maintenance has now been done on the RX7 inc ecu - it'll be on a boat next week and back in France for registration and then back to Japan.

I need to get the plates sorted but also the carnet de passage, which is annoyingly going to take me too long to do to be able to get it back to Japan for Auto Salon in January, which I wanted to take my car to, and drive to all the meets etc. in, but still.

I am working with Mazda, but they got some flack for me saying that (thanks internet you *****) but even still, they're going to provide support through their connections/ service centres in russia, but it's through personal connections of the PR head, because the corporate ********. Stil, he's also opening some doors.
IN Jan I should be going to Mazda in Hiroshima to see their RX7 museum and hopefully get to drive their test rx7s they have at their test track.
I had also been invited to drive around fuji speedway in January but now won't have a car, so I'm going to tap up some contacts I made in July and see what can I can wangle to borrow from someone while I'm over there lol
I have also got a meeting with Mazda EU and their social media team, as they want to do stuff with me. That's this friday. Will see what they want but also good exposure!

Slowly been growing my tiktok as well. Still not big enough to make any coin from anything :cry: you don't want to know the running total to pull this stunt off, lets put it that way... hahaha

I just dropped a YouTube video of me going to Japan, seeing my cars and everything, so if you're interested I'm sure you can find it if you search for:

GOING TO JAPAN TO SEE MY RX7 & KEI TRUCK FOR THE FIRST TIME
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Maybe... just maybe!?

Will try and be more consistent with YouTube tbf but most of my efforts seem to go on short form content for insta / tiktok at the moment. Will try and increase that, but I'm juggling all the logistics of this trip, my arctic trip, all preparations as well as working with people to try and launch 5 products at the moment lol

Will keep you all updated as always.
 
randomshenans said:
All maintenance has now been done on the RX7 inc ecu - it'll be on a boat next week and back in France for registration and then back to Japan.
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Perhaps I missed this somewhere amongst the thread developing but you're shipping the car to France, registering it, then shipping it back to Japan, so you can drive it back to France?

That's even more bonkers than what I thought was the plan - buy the car in Japan, get it fixed up, drive it back on temporary registration - has anyone (thinking your corporate contacts) asked you about the carbon footprint of shipping a car from Japan to France to Japan and then driving to France? :p
 
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