The G is finally beginning to look like a car again, and this time it has some nice upgrades. Note that the new NASCAR seat has been mounted and tied into the cage. All of the new body pieces are set on the car and last but by no means least the engine is back in the engine bay and the tubular front end is coming along nicely. Jason from Bingz Customs is doing amazing work, and very quickly!
Well of course once again with the car being rebuilt I have neglected to update the blog, so if there any of you out there that actually read this I apologize for my lack of updates. If you havent done so already check out my Facebook as I seem not to forget to update that. But anyway back to the G35 rebuild!
As you all know we have assembled all of the pieces necessary to rebuild the G including a whole new front end, bumpers, side skirts, fenders front and rear and a left door. That sounds like a ton but nothing on the car was broken other than the body work and the front left toe bolt. Its amazing how much the tire wall saved the car. My body seems to be hurt worse than the actual car was but thats a whole other story. With everything ready to rebuild we put the G in the hands of the only man we trust, our resident NASCAR fabricator Jason Binger. He is the same one who helped shape the original G but this time around we have a much more agressive plan for the car that you guys will see at a later date. But just as a hint it will be a bunch of badass yet subtle aero on the seemingly wide body beauty wrapped in SOHO Motorsports livery and sporting a new color combo of matte metallic blue azul and lots of carbon fiber. The G will look sexier than ever and as mean as can be.
So far we have gotten the new NASCAR aluminum seat fitted and positioned perfectly for me and also hard mounted to the chassis and roll cage just like NASCAR requires. Making the car as safe as humanly possible for me, so I can go as fast as humanly possible! Not to mention now I will be way more connected to the car and the inputs I receive as a driver. Not to mention it fits perfectly!
Along with the seat, the shell of the car is coming along nicely. With all of the torn up pieces off and the new body parts now on the car, thanks to the unbelievably hard work of Bingz the car, its starting to look like the Batmobile again!
Except for the carbon fiber hood and all of the aero accents, which will be mean looking as hell, yet tasteful and very effective for downforce where needed. This car is going to look amazing and even more badass then before. The front end is going to be absurd when its all done, think a badass G35 front end NASCAR style with block off plates and air ducts and air channeling and kevlar spitter and everything else!
The car will feature a new SOHO Motorsports livery in a 'matte metallic blue azul' vinyl wrap provided by Phenominal Vinyl. The car wont have quite as many sponsors on it and will be a much simpler design than before. Featuring SOHO, Assaultech, Computech and Bingz logo's only.Check out the video preview here -
The beast has also finally gone back into the beauty! Check out the completely cleaned engine bay and awesome front end tubing, once again NASCAR style. The bumper bar, intercooler and radiator mounts are also being installed now. All of the front end work is tied into the chassis and the roll cage, to not only provide a much more responsive and stiffer chassis but also making it safer for the car and driver. Also notice the amount of extra room in the engine bay, we have taken nearly everything out of it that we could to make it easier to work on and also reduce clutter for easier cooling and also reduce front end weight (such as moving the battery back).
The #44 SOHO Motorsports Limited Global Time Attack G35 should be up and running in time for Z Nationals 2012 on October 5-7th in GA and AL. We will be working our asses off to get there but assuming no major issues occur we should be there. Next update should have a lot more stuff so be sure to check back here soon. I will be updating it regularly now.
After contemplating a few different rebuild routes and trying to be most effective and efficient with our small budget we decided to rebuild in a similar fashion as before but we will be tubing in the front end and tieing it into the roll cage for a safer ride. We will also be putting the new SOHO Motorsports turbo kit on it. And also we will be doing some serious weight trimming and also some new aero all the way around the car. As for now we are gathering all of the necessary pieces for the rebuild and we are beginning the process asap. Hopefully we will be back on track within the next month or two, we have a lot of work to do but nothing we cant handle. Ill be updating with the rebuild process but for now here are a few photos. The replacement rear quarter of the car The Garret GTX35R turbo for the SOHO Motorsports Single Turbo Kit
Since the we began planning our 2012 racing schedule in late last year we had one weekend circled on the calendar that we were all looking forward too, May 11-13th, 2012. The weekend of Global Time Attack and Formula D Round #2 came to the east coast at the beautiful 2.54 mile world class race course, Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA. This was a huge event for us because this series is what we built the car for. Global Time Attack is the pinnacle of the American Time Attack series and is the biggest stage for our form of motorsport. Featuring some of the fastest cars and talented drivers, GTA is the real deal. Along with GTA racing the full course Formula Drift was also running its event alongside ours, using turns 10a and 10b. We even shared the same inner paddock as the pro drift teams and damn are those some impressive cars. All of the vehicles on the property were badass and the moment we pulled in we knew it was going to be a good weekend. This blog post may be a long one because our weekend wa very eventful but in to keep your attention span check out this 20 seconds of bad ass-ness that is GTA!
Global Time Attack runs all over the country in a 7 race season with classes for each drive train platform (AWD, RWD, FWD) and 3 levels of classes (Street, Limited, Unlimited). The SOHO Motorsports G35 could have run in Limited be opted to run the stickier Hoosier tires which forced us to run with the Unlimted class. With GTA being the biggest series we run in our number has officially changed from #144 to the much better #44 and our number placards are now GTA official numbers.
The competition was no joke on Friday and Saturday, there were dozens of some of the fastest Time Attack cars on the country and the SOHO Motorsports G35 was right up there with them. The race weekend was setup with 4 sessions on Friday and 3 sessions on Saturday. Racing started bright and early Friday morning and after the first session my familiarity with the course paid off and I was at the top of the lap time charts after everyones first 20 minutes of track time. As they day went on some of the well funded Unlimited teams like Jeff Whesphals GST Impreza and Chris Rado's Scion jumped to the top of the chart with a time that we were never gonna touch, even the Porshce GT Cup Car in our class was way too light and balanced for us to catch him in his Friday best of 1:29.76 to our Friday best of 1:36.63. After a few easily managed issues we left the track Friday night feeling confident and 2nd place in our class and 6th overall. Saturday couldn't come soon enough!
Early Saturday morning the weather was perfect for racing and setting fast lap times. With rain looming in the near future we wasted no time getting on track and going full sail. Between Session 3 on Friday and Session 1 on Saturday we made a compression and rebound adjustment to help the car plant a little bit and when I went out I immediately noticed the difference. Nik's magic touch on the suspension worked perfect and the car was much faster. Along with the car handling great I was driving the car as hard as I could and driving a near perfect line. The combination of the setup and hard yet smooth driving got us our fastest lap time of the weekend on the 4th lap of the first session. As seen in the video below the car was on rails and the line was great, enough to get us a 1:34.36 lap time, solidifying us in the top 10 overall and on the podium for Unlimited Rwd.
With only two more sessions left in Round 2 of Global Time Attack we got slightly greedy and wanted to see if we could beat our best lap time. In session 2 after multiple hard laps I pushed the car too hard as rain began to fall and sadly I lost traction in turn 7 leading to the straight and wrecked the car into the safety wall at over 100mph. Although I walked away with just a sore back, the car did not hold up quite as well as me. All of the safety devices in the car surely saved my life but the car's frame is too far bent beyond repair. As sad as it is to have to move on, we won't be going far. The car will be rebuilt as another G35 and will look nearly identical, except this time it will be lighter, stronger and faster. Be sure to watch all of the videos from this weekend and be on the lookout for rebuild updates on here and www.sohomotorsports.com and KPR Facebook
The SOHO Motorsports Unlimited RWD G35 wouldn't be an Unlimited Global Time Attack car if it didn't have the best possible equipment and that couldn't be any more true than the tires! Our worn out Toyo R888's have been replaced with some super sticky Hoosier R6's. 295/30/18 Rear and 285/30/18 Fronts. Grip should be no problem now!
Driver of the #44 KPR Time Attack Infiniti G35 racing in the Limited RWD class in Global Time Attack and TT1 in NARRA USTT. Crew chief for the #07 Nissan 370Z GTS in the Pirelli World Challenge Series.
