Happy 5th birthday!!!

Thanks to Facebook- memories I can see, that I created this blog 5 years ago!

Man, the time is really flying!!!

I haven't posted as much as I initially wanted to but maybe it will be more the next 5 years now!

Haha lets see! There is always hope :)

DriftIreland is back

Hi everyboyd,

in case someone still reads blog and comes across this.....

DRIFTIRELAND is back in action!

If you are from Ireland, you might know this forum, it has been very active a few years ago but got quiet with all the social media these days.
However my friend Laurence started to take on this challenge and revived it!!!

You can find the forum here:

DriftIreland Forum

I highly encourage you to check it out!

I will start updating more on my S14 on it (and here too).

Until then  :)

21st-22nd September, Narita, Japan

On Monday the 21st of September 2015, my OH and i made our trip from Cork to Narita in Tokyo.

The first flight to Amsterdam was pretty nice since I feel asleep and basically slept through the whole flight. We left around 6AM 21st September from Cork and only had one Stop in between.
From Amsterdam we flew directly to Narita which was also surprisingly easy going and worked out perfectly time-wise.

Due the time-zones we arrived in Tokyo a day later, it was around 8AM on the 22nd September.

This was a bit head-wrecking to be honest, but it helped with the jet-lag (which was almost non-existent).

It simply couldn't be any better when we arrived in Japan.

First of all it was a bank holiday over there, so all seemed pretty relaxed and people seemed happy. The weather was just amazing (over 24 degrees) so it felt like we finally got to experience a bit of our (lost) summer.

But what made all of this even better is, that we got picked up in a jzx90!!

One forum member (DriftIreland - Andrew who lives in Japan) kindly picked us up from the airport to take us to the Nikko Circuit for a practice day (to watch).

I still cant believe how all of this worked out. I'm forever grateful to Andrew :) .

So how it went down:

-left Cork

-arrived in Japan

-got picked up in an awesome JDM car

-dropped stuff at the hotel

-road trip through Japan to the Nikko Circuit
- and much more after

So as mentioned, off we went for a road trip to visit the legendary Nikko Circuit. It was about 2,5 hours away but with some stops in between it took us a bit longer.

The sun was blasting down and it was absolutely roasting. I never appreciated an air con more in a car haha.
The best part was, that we saw loads of (random) stuff on the way, we also got to see loads of different (sport) cars and a good few of them were 180sx, Skylines and other cool modified ones.
We also spotted a few parked up 180sx, Silvias etc and it was just awesome how you randomly pass them whilst driving around.

We arrived just after lunch time at the track, at this stage it was absolutely roasting. I am definitely not used to 27 degrees anymore.

The atmosphere at the track was really relaxed and everybody was just doing their own thing.
You could see everybody's tyres and tools stacked up behind their spot and there was also one or two small merchanides stands. They were quiet amused when they saw us with dropped jaws haha.
So stickers and a few others goodies were bought and I was happy out ha.

We obviously went throught the pits to have a look at all the cars and i was happy to see a few girls with their s-bodies over there who put on an awesome show on the track.
It seemed all so normal and relaxed, and the most surreal part was, to actually watch the drifting.
Even the beginner's group was simply amazing, but when the pro's came out to slide their car arounds......mind blowing!

Not only was it absolutly crazy to see all this right in front of your eyes (instead on a laptop/phone screen)...but also the level of drifting and the skills of these people.
It was like watching a couple of James Dean's and Jack Shanahan's throwing their cars around haha.
But have a look yourself:

After a couple of hours and a being bit sun-burned, we decided to head back to Tokyo.
We spontaneously stopped a couple of times for either food (traditional restaurant), magazine- store's (Takyuo) or UP GARAGE!
Yes thats right!!! we came across one UP Garage store and simply had to stop.

UP Garage is as amazing as it sounds (or looks). We couldnt believe all the parts/bumpers/etc in there and there was so many things that we wanted to buy. It was really cruel to be there but not be able to buy stuff. Well small stuff we purchased alright but we couldnt bring the incredible cheap side skirts or bumpers they had for sale. Or other handy engine parts.

Just crazy really!!

After a lot of day-dreaming and planning how to get stuff home the cheapest, we finally left and headed for Tokyo.
Andrew wasnt bothered at all to drive around with us (or so it seemed ha), so we got to see a lot of Tokyos night life and also crossed the very famous Shibuya cross, which you can see in Tokyo Drift.

Another absolut surreal experience that i still cant believe!

I tried to soak in as much as i could...all the lights, the people, the clean and perfect roads, other cars or even sport cars. All of this was just amazing.

This day was truly packed with everything really.

The best part was, that we got to experience the real nature of Japan and it's people. We were never interested in visiting any tourists spots and with a local as a guide, we had a very good insight of Japan's rural parts, drift culture or even town-experience.

The only negative surprise we encountered was all the tolls on Japan's roads. They added up to over 100 Euro for that day (in fairness we traveled a good bit), so this was a bummer.

However, it was well worth it and i suppose their roads wouldn't be that nice and perfect if nobody would pay for them.

Now...i know this has been a long post but this was just the first day and it is not over yet.

We then finally made it back to the hotel around 1PM. At this stage we were awake/up for over 36 hours if not longer, so we were simply wrecked. Happy but wrecked.

I hope you enjoyed the first post.

We surely did! :)

My trip to Japan- September 2015

Hi everybody,

I decided to give you all some insight and let you be part of my first trip to Japan.
My other half and myself decided that it was finally time to visit the motherland and after a lot of saving (besides saving for our cars and car parts), we finally booked our flights early in 2015 for September 2015.

After watching countless videos on Youtube about drifting/car culture in Japan or other people visiting Japan, it was finally time to make my own dreams come true (in this case i should say our dreams, since my OH is just as obsessed with it as I am).

I will break the trip down in a couple of posts to keep nice and easy and i will also throw in as much on pictures and videos as possible.

Unfortunately im not a photographer nor do i have a fancy camera, so some of the footage can be blurry or so.
However, you should definitely get the feeling!


With this I would like to encourage other petrol heads to make their dreams (also) come true and if you have the chance, definitely go and visit Japan.
It has been an incredible experience and I am already looking forward to go back this or next year again.

Here a small teaser for the upcoming posts.

If you have any questions, let me know and I will be more than happy to help :)


さようなら

Cornelia 

Updates SOON!

Have a few updates for ye and I promise I will post them soon :)

Evenings are dark and cold, perfect weather to get the blog (and forum thread) updated!


Soooooooooooooooooon, I promise!

The hardship (sometimes)

As promised here now all the updates from the last couple of weeks.

You might have read my last post which basically told you most of it already :D My S14 is fully road legal now!!


The last few weeks before NCT were some hardship I have to say.
Besides going to work 8hrs a day, trying to have a private life and meet friends (which never really worked, i’m so sorry!!), working on your career, visiting evening courses to educate yourself (including learning how to speak Japanese), taking care of my babies (dogs and boyfriend), i've also tried to get my S14 road worthy as fast as possible.

Im pretty sure there is people out there who have a far busier life and even kids/family and all that, but i must say it stressed me out big time and i basically had no time for anything else.
Now do i complain about it or wish it would have been any other way? HELL NO!

Besides all that (and being broke from buying more car parts), i’m pretty happy about all that. Well...now i am happy because now it is finally all worth it.
Everyday after work i find myself nearly running out of the office, to get my car and drive her home. With a big fat smile on my face. :)
All worth it.
 But what caused all the hardship that i actually somehow enjoyed?
 The car. A passion. A Hobby. Its my kind of mediation.
If you are a true car enthusiast you just live for it.
Sound weird doesn't it?

But what really caused me stress most of the time were unforeseen circumstances.
A hose that suddenly broke. A part that gave up. Something else i might messed up on my one. Lack of patience or time which caused me to hurry and make an unnecessary mistake.
It can be pretty frustrating at times and makes you seriously wonder: why do I do this again?

The worst part of it all was, to discover a nasty crack in the thermostat housing 4 days before NCT. Not only does this not work (car overheating) but it also leaked constantly which prevented me to somehow quick fix it (at least for NCT!)
In the end a worn hose clip caused me most of the trouble on the way to the NCT Centre (during the night), and I awkwardly had to stop 4 times on the way (within 20km) to put the intercooler hose back in place...who would have thought of a worn hose clip that suddenly gets loose!?
Anyway....
Also seat rails. I REALLY DONT LIKE SEAT RAILS.
I thought this would be all easy and straight forward...but once again...it is not haha.
They cost me so much time and nerves (not only me, i’m Sorry Denis and Timmy haha!), but in the end,  of course it worked.

But thats the thing... it always works in the end. Or at least in my case. I always try very hard to get it all don and sometimes maybe a bit too hard. And sleep? What is that? When i actually went for my NCT, i haven't slept 48 hours around that time because i was preparing the car, went to work, prepared the car, went to NCT (3AM!!) and back to work.
 But I also would like to simply say:
 First of all APOLOGIES to all my friends who didn't see me for a while...i simply had no time left.
 And THANK YOU for those people who helped me on short notice or helped me with certain tasks that i couldn't finish on my own.

All in All....i learned once again so much about my car. By now there is nothing that i would not do on my own.

Now i wrote way more about myself than about the car haha.

So to summarize:

-all lights/wiring issues sorted
-boot lock finally working again
-new very rare headlights finally fitted after i was hiding them for so long
- interior almost finished the way i wanted it too (carpet, new Sparco seats+harness)
-awesome dukes of hazzard-horn fitted (yep....thats right)
-discovered a problem with the subframe (more soon)
-fixed and fully upgraded my water cooling system (new waterpump,thermostat, thermostat housing, GKTech fan, belts etc)
-new bumper will be fitted soon as well (stay tuned for that one)
-new intercooler brackets (to hold them up)
-full new exhaust system

Pics tomorrow!

ROAD LEGAL! :D

Its been only a month since i update this, but it feels like forever and SO MUCH happened!

I will split ALL updates in more posts over the next few days because otherwise it simply gets too much :)

For now i would like to let you know though, that my baby is fully road legal now!

Since i couldn't attend the first round of IDC (half sick :( ), i thought i at least have to take her for a short spin today...the weather was just too good!
And i think i truly needed it after all the stress i had lately, so here we have two pictures.

More will follow soon!

Almost there! Now the wire-fun begins!

Hey guys,

its been a little while again since I updated my blog or the forums but that doesn't mean nothing has been done in the meantime.
I simply have no time to sit down and upload pictures and write about my progress. So much is going on in my life atm (which is all positive and good) and I have been working on Nessy in the meantime as well.

For all who are curious, I will give you a (picture-less) update now!

I have replaced the waterpump, thermostat and fan and put everything back together. Unfortunately i cracked the thermostat housing while putting it back, a new one is on the way already.
I ran into one problem while fitting everything, it was the fan catching slightly on one of the hoses. With some suggestions from the forum and some research I wanted to fix the problem but then the funniest thing happened.
Before I did some blocking of pipes, cutting etc, I actually just took all pipes off (intercooler pipes) and put them back on, but moved them slightly. With that little trick i was a bit playing around until i managed to clear the fan area. It is still very close to the hose (2mm) but will definitely do it now.
After that I had her up and running and everything went fine.

Since I have an aftermarket steering wheel (Personal) I had to get the horn sorted, so my S14 will pass NCT (MOT). Since electronics and wires are not my cup of tea, I asked a buddy for help, who did a fantastic job!
We also measured a few wires/plugs to see what was working and not which helped me learn more about my care and aallllllll the wires.

My next plan is now:

Fix (solder) the reverse light wires
Fix (solder) the indicator wires
Fix (solder) the washer wires


Not sure if the breaking-wire is a thing now with S-bodys or if its just my luck haha.

Not much is left now and I also booked an appointment with NCT in 3 weeks time.
That means in exactly 3 weeks she will be out on the road again!!

Stay tuned for that!!!!! :)

Cornelia

Valentine's selfie

A snapshot from today....while spending some quality time with my baby haha

Waterpump replaced, fan on

Latest update:

Almost everything is back on, but i discovered that the fan actually hits one of the hoses (top left corner on the pic)
Gonna see how i can tweek around that to make all the way free for the new fan :)

Many more plans ahead for this weekend as well :D

Picture update

Im almost there! Spent 2 hours in the unit last Sunday, it was sooo cold and I was all on my own :(
But thats fine :D

Only the belt and fan needs to go on and all is replaced then :)

Who can spot the rookie mistake tho? :(

Waterpump update

 Hey guys,

barely have time to update my blog but here we go :)

So as per last post, I was finally able to get off the pulley to reach the waterpump.

I took of the fan before violently using the crowbar, since it was completly stuck on it.

looked like this before:

 With some help of a friend, we got it off :).

Since I had to wait for the thermostat and belt until today, the waterpump+ the rest hasnt been replaced yet. That will happen tomorrow though :)

I also spent a lil bit of time on my indicators and corner lights. To treat them with a bit of love and polish to make them look cleaner again :)

Looks like this:

Tomorrow I will also do a few interior changes, stay tuned for that :D

So in my last post I wrote.....and did:

So the plan is: 

Getting the fan removed and replace the waterpump (which was the original task)

get seat rails for the Sparco seats   (got only one though)

put in the carpet and sort interior the way I like it (tomorrow)

Sort the issue with the left wheel (bit tucked in) and adjust the coilovers to have her nice and ready for NCT (MOT) in February.

Not too bad for now....cant wait for tomorrow now :)

More parts!

Hi everyone :)

i hope you had a good start into the new year?!

Mine certanly started awesome and continues to be good so far. But its only January, so lets have a look what I got.

In the meantime I received a few bits and pieces but I havent made a pic for every item/part.

However, this picture I can show you :) 

My brand new Gktech fan which should help keeping the engine nice and cool.

I still havent managed to get the old fan off, it is truly an act of violance by now haha.

I shall try my luck during the week again.

I as well got a brand new front bumper last month, which I wont show you yet because it will be something unusual and I cant wait to see if it will look as good as I picture it in my head :)

So the plan is: 

Getting the fan removed and replace the waterpump (which was the original task)

get seat rails for the Sparco seats 

put in the carpet and sort interior the way I like it

Sort the issue with the left wheel (bit tucked in) and adjust the coilovers to have her nice and ready for NCT (MOT) in February.

More pictures and updates soon :)

Happy New Year!

I came across a post from "Mighty Car Mods" in regards of the new year and new years resolutions.
That's basically what I say all along for a good while now, so I would like to share their wise words :)

Happy New Year to you all! :)

Cornelia 

"As 2014 draws to a close, no doubt many of us are thinking about New Years resolutions. A lot of the time we are living our lives abiding by an invisible script, written by our circumstance, peers, parents, friends, family and trends in mainstream media. It flows all the way down through to what we eat, what we wear, how we act and how we drive and how we modify our cars.

So if there are things you want to change in 2015, then you need to change the script. If you don't change it, then nothing is ever going change. You've gotta really mess with it and you can start with little things. Drive a different way home. Try a different food. Book that trip to Japan. Reconnect and reconcile with your family. Do a track day. Do a mechanics course. Read a book and start building the car that YOU want. Forget what the Internet says you have to do - you're the one who has to live with the car everyday.
You don't need loads of cash to be into cars and anyone who says otherwise is lacking true automotive spirit. One of the most memorable experiences we ever had was taking the TRDLZR to the drags, and that car cost $92 to buy and build.
So our advice for 2015? Ask questions. Make mistakes. Ask some more and get your hands dirty. Our intention with MCM wasn't ever to make a step by step guide on how to fix things, that's what a Haynes Manual is for. Just get outside and make something and make it your own.
Everyone is on their own road learning their own way. And as they say, if you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.
Cars have this incredible way of teaching us about ourselves and hi-lighting different aspects of who we are. They transport us away to better places, both physically and emotionally. So grab a spanner and a rust bucket and get to it. Then turn your GPS off, find a new road and just drive - who knows where you'll end up...
Keep learning. Keep modding.
Wishing you all an amazing 2015.
MCM"

Spraying the front

One of my latest updates is a bit of spraying that I did on the front of the car.

It wasn't necessary but it bothered me for a good while. I wanted it a bit freshened up and all in one colour too.

It wasn't a big job but it makes such a difference!

Love the look now.

I also got my new water pump, so that's on the list next :)

pure perfection

i simply must share this....in my eyes this is pure perfection!!

Track rod end replacment+ tracking

A bit of an update.

Last weekend the track rod ends were replaced.
I first thought it would be some kind of complicated job and since I love "learning by doing", i said i might get some help with it because i don't wanna mess around with the steering/tracking. After all, my life is very dear to me ha

JDM Garage (Bart) kindly showed me how to replace them, so next time i can do it on my own. It was way easier than i thought it would be! im delighted

Here the old ones compared to the new ones




The tracking was also done afterwards since i thought it must have been way off. Car is pulling badly to the left so i thought that was a result of the tracking being off.
After that was done, she still pulled to the left, so we discovered that it is actually the rear being off.
That will be looked into within the next few weeks!
here more pics:



And here to compare the rear (with the trusty daily posing in the background ha)




What do ye think about the rear?

Sport cat

The first one of my orders arrived and its hilarious because that is what i ordered last. It is from Japspeed performance and arrived from the UK to Ireland within 3 days! Now thats how i like it: fast and uncomplicated :) Since the car wont be on the road for another while, i will wait a few weeks with fitting it since I need to get more axle stands and a better jack as well.

Still, here is a yummy picture :D

shopping? hellz yeah

Hi all :)

so who knows a girl or many girls who love shopping sooooooo much?

speaking as a girl, i can honestly say i hate shopping.

i can understand the hype about it though, because as soon as i start car part shopping (or car related stuff) i get all excited too :D

the last few days have been crazy and since it is also christmas time, i combined car-part shopping wiith the christmas shopping. i bought me many presents haha.

So currently i am waiting for my orders from:

FRsports

Japspeed performance parts

Jimmy Up

Speedhunters

an order from Japan (private seller) 

ebay

i cant wait to receive all the goodies and show them to ya!!

In 2 days I'm back in the shed to get more work done, i will give an update on it (and about some work from last weekend) in the coming days :)

so who else is waiting on car parts or car/motorsport related goodies? :)

November update...about time :O

I somehow don't understand how time is flying so fast!

With work and other life commitments, time is passing by so fast...but at least it's a good thing in my case :)

It also means, that the days are getting less and less until I have my Zenki out on the road again.

In September I parked her up.

I don't want to drive her during the winter months and thought it's time to get a few parts and changes sorted.

Even though I put her through NCT this summer,…i never bothered to actually go back in and get her retested....so I have a few things on my list to get NCT sorted.

I will post all the upcoming plans (hopefully) soon and leave you with pictures for now :)

Before the big wash and a last lurk out of the unit...