More RB-1 Upgrades...Dure Ace Forever!!!

Got around to more upgrades on my Bridgestone RB-1 cause of all the rainy afternoons this week.

Spent LOTS and lots of time taking apart and cleaning up all of these old-school parts...thank goodness I never threw these away!!! Got to take it for a ride yesterday and it was running really good compared to the lower grade Suntour GPX components. And, it felt plenty fast...

Dura Ace FOREVER!!! This rear Dura Ace 7400 derailleur is still super solid with absolutely no play in the parallelogram at all after all these years (and a couple of crashes - one I remember on a right hairpin coming down Tantalus).

Companion front derailleur still shifts super fast and direct. (Took off the 9-speed DA I had originally put on.)

The ORIGINAL 6-speed SIS Dura Ace shifters. Working absolutely flawlessly even now. I still remember when I first upgraded from Suntour friction shifters (with Ultra 6 freewheel) to these "new" indexed shifters. It was cutting edge back then. But still, it only became industry standard when Campy finally got on board several years later. Once that happened, friction shifting was gone forever... Although, Shimano still provided a fail safe friction mode with a twist of the D-ring.

Back in the day, I had all the cogs to make straight blocks, wide ratio sets, super low gears, whatever. Of course, a 6-speed Dura Ace 7400 freewheel with champagne colored Dura Ace Uni-glide cogs.

Weight savings compared to Suntour GPX.

Crankset: 690-595=95g
BB: 300-190=110g
Bolts: 40-0=40g
Front D: 105-100=5g
Rear D: 225-200=25g
Freewheel w/ cogs: 25g???
DT shifter R: 50-45=5g
DT shifter L:5g???
TOTAL SAVED: 310???

Bridgestone RB-1 Upgrades

Spent this rainy weekend upgrading my RB-1...
A long time ago, even before I bought this RB-1, I bought these DiaCompe Royal Gran Compe brakes cause I though they looked super cool. Took off the stock RBS 400s? and put them on the RB-1 a while ago. Today I was considering slapping on a pair of 9-speed Dura Ace calipers...but, these brakes just look too good on my retro RB-1. At any rate, I read that DiaCompe also made these same brakes for Suntour...for their top of the line Superbe Pro line...

Felt bad about it, but the original Suntour GPX crankset and bottom bracket went into the trash today...the crank was totally buzzing with surface corrosion and the big chainring was bent cause it was waffling back and forth with each turn. Also got rid of the GPX front derailleur - keeping that for backup.

Ended up putting on my spare Dura Ace 9 speed front derailleur, crankset and old-school Time Equipe pedals.

Weight Savings:

Crankset: 690-595=95g
BB: 300-190=110g
Bolts: 40-0=40g
FD: 105-90=15g
TOTAL SAVED: 260g

Road&Ster...Hawaiian Style...

Instead of riding my bike on Lagoon today...I took a couple of action shots of my brother's roadster. This thing looks so awesome it belongs on the pages of Road&Ster magazine.

Some of the Cambio gang riding by...

ラムネ Ramune Marble

ラムネ　Ramune Marble, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Enjoyed this drink over the past couple of days...

Accroding to my brother they drink this in Japan during the hot summer months. Today, it still felt like the middle of summer here in Hawaii...

"Love Never Faileth"

Two Saturday's ago it was wedding bells for one of my cousins. They got married in the bigger of the two Central Union Churchs.

The inscription on the top saying, "LOVE NEVER FAILETH"...quite fitting...


Enjoying the awesome drinks, pupus and 1st class dinner...

Total SNAFU!!! Oct. 6th Autocross...

Countersteer quick!
This past Sunday was a TOTAL FAILURE.

By removing the rear swaybar, the car drove totally different from last race. And, add that to my non-adjustable lousy driving, I again never compensated until the LAST of my fun runs. Took 8 out of 9 runs, but, I finally got it to do a 29.8ish - versus the 31+ I mangled out during the real runs.

Like the last race, I managed to totally RUN OVER so many cones that gave up trying to count. You know it's bad when while I was working the fun runs, another competitor mentioned to me that, "that cream Miata's been running over the most cones....."...no $h!^^!#&..."Oh yeah...that was me."

My brother again smoked the course in his 6 running a 31.6ish for 1st place in STS. Maybe...I gotta get back into my bimmer wagon and into STS again??? In the fun runs he managed a 30 flat in the Miata while totally messing up a key turn.

Fwiw...the roadster is driving totally different now...without fear of a spin, sans rear sway, it has a very predictable trailing throttle oversteer, and, on power it doesn't slide very much and puts down the power WAY better than before. Overall, much more stable and less twitchy. Now that I think I know how to drive it, next race...it should be different...IT BETTER BE!!! Just writing this is p!$$!#& me off...



Results: http://www.sccahawaii.org/2008results/10-5-08.pdf

Big Sunday...Aloha Staduim Autocross - Oct. 5th.

Some pics by my friend Zarli from the last autocross on August 31st.

My brother smoked the course again in his Mazuda MX-6 wagon with a very fast 23rd PAX and a 37 flat time.

After getting some driving pointers from my less experienced but "smarter" (when it comes to this car driving stuff) brother, I finally sort of got "IT." But, he must have not told me all of his tricks cause during the fun runs, my brother BEAT my official run time of 36.24 with a 35.8 in only 3 fun runs in the Tetsuya Garage Eunos.

Had to really reset my brain's concept of speed and how fast you can really go, but, after (ahem) 9 shots, I finally got it down to a 35.6! When your really cooking, the car is just slithering through the course, especially through the transitions!!! No sliding, no skidding...just slithering, and it feels unreal!!!

During the fun runs, my brother said that the car was really over steering under acceleration. This Sudnay, we're hoping that disconnecting the rear sway bar will provide a little more traction out of the turns since were still on our skinny 185's. Else if not, ADJUST YOUR DRIVING!!! And, DON'T LIFT!!!, and start turning before the cones in the slaloms...