BensonHsu.com

Wow, if you are from Southern California, we experienced some pretty crazy weather this past weekend! It was pretty danged cold outside and to top it off, it was raining pretty hard. There was an international D1 Grand Prix event at Irwindale. Pretty good way to welcome our foreign guests, huh? I bet you they were expecting sunny blue skies and palm trees. So Cal is not like the movies guys!

I got my car back from Tanabe! I’m testing out their Sustec Pro Seven coilovers right now. Pretty much, it’s the next generation of the Tanabe DDs (my previous coilovers that I thought were good). The good thing about these coilovers is that they improved the dampening so that it feels much tighter. On the Tanabe DD, the coilovers felt great when the dampers were set stiffer but at soft, it felt like the dampers didn’t match well with the springs. With the new Sustec Pro Sevens, the coilovers feel great through the entire damper setting range. They are even pretty comfortable when set full soft! Another improvement is that there are 16 different damper settings instead of the previous 4. I’m also currently testing their TEAS electronic active suspension controller, which is much like Tein’s product where you can adjust dampening from inside the car, but it has some even more impressive features. The controller unit gets a signal from the ECU telling the controller wheel speed. On full auto mode, the controller will adjust according to the speed of the vehicle. You also have 4 memory settings so that you can quickly change settings depending on the type of driving/racing you are doing, or different tracks that require different setups. So far, everything is really cool driving it on the street. I can’t wait to see how it does on the track when I leave it on full auto mode. I’m also interested in how it will feel during autocross and gymkhana. I know it allows you to fine tune the way it auto adjusts, so I’m really excited to see how much I can do with this thing!

Tanabe also custom fitted me a Concept G Blue exhaust so that it would fit with my extreme aero a little bit better. Basically they took the S13 exhaust kit and extended the exhaust further out. MAN, the exhaust sounds MEAN!! There’s no pre-muffler, so it’s just piping from the catalytic converter all the way to the muffler cannister. And the best thing is that it’s pretty quiet with the silencer in. But once you take the silencer out, it’s ear bleeding time baby!

Now I can focus on getting a few other things taken care of before the January 27th event.

Last month, right before SEMA, Nadine and I finished our photoshoot with Super Street. It was really cool… the last photoshoot Nadine and I did together was for the very first issue of Drifting Magazine with Ed Loh. It’s neat to see how much both our cars have changed, although mine was pretty much the same only 4 months ago. The issue should be coming out early next year… maybe in February (think Valentine’s day).

I’m also bringing my car back into the Tanabe garage this upcoming weekend. The car will be getting some new coilovers and probably a custom muffler setup to work with my new aero. The work at Tanabe will most likely be shot by Super Street as well.

So next up… some engine work, a new engine, new transmission, then a roll cage. Where will I find all this money???

My good friend Harp from Taka Motorsports came by last weekend with some goodies. He brought me a Taka Motorsports oil cooler kit, complete with a Setrab oil cooler, Earls lines and fittings, a Taka Motorsports oil filter relocation kit and even a Taka Motorsports oil pressure meter! I am super impressed with the quality of this stuff. I haven’t gotten something for my car in a while so it was freakin awesome working on my car. I fit and mounted the oil cooler on Sunday, and along with the help of Kyle, my engine bay is spotless and way shiny. This week I’m going to finish up the install and work on my interior. I’m going to pick up some stuff from More Japan this week as well. It looks like the car is headed to SEMA also… sweet!

Just as drifting became a part of my life the same time Nadine did, two major changes are happening again in my life.

I just got my car back from the bodyshop (Sleeperz in Santa Ana)… it’s now RED and has a 180sx face back on it. That’s change number 1. Change #2: I’m getting married to the lovely Nadine Toyoda this Saturday October 30th. Needless to say, I’ve been super busy with things getting ready for the weekend, prepping my car for the wedding (yes we will be at our wedding with our cars) so I haven’t been around much lately. But I’m so excited that the day is so close.

I’ll fill you all in on the details later!

Do you guys have s13 daily drivers? I have this 1992 S13 hatchback that is green… I love it! Brown interior and all… it handles good, it has awesome gas mileage, it’s got a working heater and A/C, and it’s one of the strongest KAs I’ve ever driven.

Well, the starter decide to fry itself last week. On Saturday I spent a couple hours underneath the car to change it out… at first I was a little sad because this is the first problem I’ve had with this car, but man, it’s the most beautiful thing to work on a car that is 14 years old, and every bolt you work on is clean like new and not seized or rusted! I need to take better care of this car… I’ve never seen anything like it.

I drifted at Irwindale in the white thing… it felt so freaking good!!! I haven’t had this feeling in a long time… it’s good to feel it again. I improved a lot today, especially compared to the last time I drove at Irwindale. My throttle control was better, smoke was better, but most of all my speed and approach to the judges stand was better.

I’m a happy man!! Too bad I can’t drive at Irwindale…