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On Noriyaro.com, I saw a picture from Tokyo Auto Salon 2009 of Daigo Saito’s new drift car for 2009 D1GP. I have to admit that it’s the best looking mustang I’ve ever seen!

Decked out in a nice red and good looking aero! Hope he loses those wheels though!

Daigo Saito was last year’s D1GP champion, which is kind of interesting to me, because either:
a) He’s improved a lot and has become an amazing driver over the few years that I stopped paying attention to D1GP
b) There’s not a whole lot of talent left in D1GP
or
c) D1GP is up to some shenanigans again

I guess he could have just been the most consistent huh? I could see that…

It’s too bad that D1GP has been a bore to me since all of the politics ruined the series that inspired me so much. Daigo Saito can’t compare to the likes of Taniguchi, Kazama, Kumakubo and Nomuken.

I WAS working on getting my car in awesome shape for next year… but now with our hopes to buy a house, my plans have been put on hold. Anyway, I don’t want my plans to disappear into thin air, so I’m putting it down here to remind me that I still need to get it done.

Let me start this off by letting you all know that I got a freaking REF ticket a few months back while driving my car home from the track. I was really lucky he didn’t impound my car or do anything crazy… he just gave me the ticket and was being really professional about it. Well, I took care of the ticket, but I really don’t want to chance getting the car impounded.

So what are my options here to avoid another ref ticket? I really just refuse to tow my car to the track… it that makes me feel like I’m cheating myself from enjoying the day with my car. Although sometimes I dread the drive to and from the track, I always have a sense of pride that I’m driving my car on the streets just like I did in the good ol’ days. It’s part of the experience to me… Do you guys feel me on this one?

So that settled it for me… I need to make my car street legal.
Options:

1. Buy another car that I don’t have to do an engine swap on
2. Come up with a way to stealth all my illegal engine modifications
3. Do a legal engine swap. In California, this means an engine from the same manufacturer, available in a car sold as new in the USA, and newer than my car.

Well, I really considered the first option for a long time… I just couldn’t see myself in a WRX and I didn’t want to work on a VG30DETT in a Z32. And although I love my turbo engine, it made more sense for me to do a legal engine swap. Which engine – a VQ35 of course! Or a VQ37 if I was fortunate. I think it’s the future of Nissan engine swaps… so many cars come with the VQ that it’s a proven engine and it’s only going to become more and more available. Which means tons of aftermarket support (think “street legal supercharger”) and no problems if I ever blow mine up. I even did research and found a ton of sources for front clips or whole cars.

My other plan was to powdercoat my SSR wheels… face AND lip. I had them all ready to go… but now they must wait.

If my prayers are answered, we’ll figure out our money and housing situation and I can get this project started sooner before later!

This video was taken from Rob’s blog… but man it’s so awesome I HAD to post it!!