"Flavien Vidal" (flyingfrenchy)
09/17/2015 at 07:55 • Filed to: None
5
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"Flavien Vidal" (flyingfrenchy)
09/17/2015 at 07:55 • Filed to: None | 5
| 11 |
31 year old Japanese sports car with a 31 year old French driver. What could go wrong huh?
Day one: beautiful weather, no problem at all, really happy of the whole thing! Honestly enjoyable. I also got to test the top speed of the RX7 in a 4.8km empty tunnel, which was of course about as fast as the speed limit :)
Then on day 2: A LOT of rain. crappy weather, I was supposed to stay around Saitama and maybe go take a look at Tsukuba circuit, but fuck it. The beginning of the day was awful. If that wasn’t enough, my alternator belt started to be noisy again and I realized that the last time I tightened the whole thing, I tightened it WAY too hard and couldn’t even unscrew the damn thing. Still managed to find a metal bar and got the belt tighter, just enough so that it doesn’t scream a histerically high pitch noise all the way back home. I wouldn’t have made it home anyway as the belt would have broken way before that and I’m not too sure if I can get enough electricity out of the battery to get sparks for 400km lol.
All that combined with the fact that my car is not exactly the ideal candidate for a daily driver under the rain and in traffic, made it for a quite exhausting ride back home :)
Anyway that was my first road trip in a 31 year old japanese sports car... It went “ok” for the most part. I didn’t break down so I guess it’s good enough for me haha. It’s the first time I actually missed the Corvette and its daily driveability since I got the RX7 though...
But then I remembered that rain dropped in the Corvette thanks to a 1990’s Targa top with NEW seals, so I was ok :)
supra-squirrel
> Flavien Vidal
09/17/2015 at 08:15 |
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I can completely understand your pain. Good read, any chance of pictures in the next installment?
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Flavien Vidal
> supra-squirrel
09/17/2015 at 08:17 |
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Nah, no pictures on this one... I’ll do a full blown proper Oppo-review of the car when this is one is perfect enough to tear through local mountain roads without problem or maybe during a trackday or something... I like doing driving videos for my reviews so the car has to be in perfect shape for it to handle what it has to handle :)
random001
> Flavien Vidal
09/17/2015 at 08:59 |
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CORVEEEEEEEETTTEEEEE!!!!!
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Flavien Vidal
> random001
09/17/2015 at 09:06 |
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A truly great car... Very different from the RX7 yet somehow similar... It’s fun and I do miss it, eventhough the chassis of the RX7 is miles ahead in term of quality, structural rigidity and so on
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random001
> Flavien Vidal
09/17/2015 at 09:14 |
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I love you so much right now. I had a 92 for a while, then moved to an 02 Z06. Then had a kid, sold it, bought a Subaru. I miss both ‘Vettes.
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Flavien Vidal
> random001
09/17/2015 at 09:21 |
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haha, an 02 to 05 Z06 is planned but that will be for 2017. I’m buying a 1979 911SC early next year (currently being restored) and most certainly a Lancia Delta Integrale 16V in late 2016... I have no kids and start piling up cars before anything like this happens to me lol
And Corvettes are fun in the snow :P
http://oppositelock.kinja.com/living-with-a-…
Jobjoris
> Flavien Vidal
09/17/2015 at 09:28 |
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Sounds like a great roadtrip. But somehow I think you need to take this road!
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Flavien Vidal
> Jobjoris
09/17/2015 at 09:40 |
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I did already appart from very few sections, it’s not that great... Very boring 99% of the time. If you want a great driving road, this one is in my top5 in Japan though.
One way uphill for the south part, one way downhill for the north part...
https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/36.73…
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Jobjoris
> Flavien Vidal
09/17/2015 at 09:55 |
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Ah, the infamous Nihon Romantic Highway! Seems to be awesome. Especially with the sound of a Dino V6!
Nauraushaun
> Flavien Vidal
09/17/2015 at 23:57 |
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I’m not too sure if I can get enough electricity out of the battery to get sparks for 400km lol.
You might be surprised. My old Pulsar ran out of juice while driving to work once. The speedo would drop whenever I turned the indicator on, eventually everything stopped working. But it was a manual, so I made it to work and all was good.
Not sure what was running the spark plugs though.
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Flavien Vidal
> Nauraushaun
09/18/2015 at 00:31 |
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Well, if the alternator dies, on older cars, the sparks will run solely on the battery. Not sure if my car is mordern enough for that... In my father’s alpine A110, the car can run quite a few hundreds of kilometer before the engine dies. His alternator died south of France and our house is something like 1000km away. He managed to drive through France with it with 2 batteries only.