Earlier in the week, in a prior conversation with Hashimoto about a photoshoot, he mentioned that he was going to be at Tsukuba on Thursday morning assisting with Kiyotaka’s with his FD. Throughout the week, the TFR supported FD has been frequenting Tsukuba, testing various aero setups.
Namely the effectiveness of the rear diffuser. While the car has been running the full flat bottom and diffuser setup, with new sensors equipped, Kiyo has been turning laps in order to acquire data to determine it’s usefulness other than just by driver feel. Kiyo does say that the car feels much better with the full package on, and with the diffuser off, the car has more of a tendency to get squirrely braking into corners.
The car also boasts more power this year by way of a new Garrett G40-900 turbine. The new turbo delivers the boost more effectively, giving the 13B more top end power than the previous setup. The car makes about 50 more horsepower than last season (total about ~750ps now), but the power delivery requires some adjustment behind the wheel.
You can catch a recap of the event and some close ups of Kiyo’s FD in the newest video below:
Ideal track conditions allowed Kiyo to run several back to back sessions in the mid-55 second range, and a best time of the day of 55.194. Quick, although still a bit off his all time best of 54.585.
We most likely won’t see Kiyo again until Attack in February, so it was nice getting some one on one time with the car and watching it in action on track. The day was very light with cars, as it was an invite only event put on by Sato, the owner of Unlimited Works. The rest of the paddock was lightly scattered with a handful of Evolutions, Unlimited Works specialties, and a couple of other random customer cars.
You can see more of the FD below, or check out the video on YouTube.
Hokkaido’s Rise Up/GNR EK9 was at Tsukuba, but not running this day. They finally made their way down to Ibaraki for the Attack season. For a few months out of the year, they rent a garage at Tsukuba to store and work on the car when needed. The 2.7 liter engine build they have this year is, for a lack of better words, insane, and makes about 450hp. They have plans this year to take the overall NA record at TC2000, currently held with a 55.509 by the M’s Machine Works Cayman; a car that is currently getting a new motor installed.
We’ll have a special spotlight on this build in the coming weeks.
Didn’t get a chance to talk to the owner of this FD, but it sure was clean. Enjoy the video – thanks for visiting.