June 4, 2011

Cars & Coffee With A Side Visit To Kaizen

Photo by Josh Hanley - Josh Hanley Photography
Early morning gathering at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum on a Saturday? Sure! I suppose I could manage that after pulling an "all nighter" installing my old rollbar for an RX-8 road racer from Pennsylvania, Francesco. Once there, I got to catch up with some friends for awhile, such as Josh (Altspace), Scott of Kaizen Tuning, Mike Lee and his beautiful M3, and others. What's always nice about the Coffee & Cars meets is that it's very casual.
Photo by Michael Lee - mike-lee.org
Unlike many other gatherings I've attended, these gatherings are low-key, with some beautiful cars, tons of photography, cool enthusiasts, and ZERO tolerance for show-offs. That being said, there is never any fear in having the Police come to an event to start giving everyone a hard time because of someone ruining it for everyone. Much respect going out to Scott for letting me park next to him for some pictures by the castle. I know people have a lot more interest in his GT-R than my RX-8, but the two cars side by side came out beautiful in the shots, especially how well the vinyl work on my car popped out. Be sure to check out the pictures thread on YuppieRacing for more pictures of everyone that attended.
Photo by Michael Lee - mike-lee.org
After hanging out for awhile, we all parted ways and I took a trip over to Kaizen Tuning to drop off Serenity for some work. After seeing the wear marks on the Hoosiers and discussing it with a few other racers last event, she is desperately in need of an alignment, having my Hoosiers flipped, and my street tires as well. Once I got to the shop, I got to speak with Malcolm, who is one of the coolest cats of the crew there at Kaizen. He is a very down-to-Earth kind of guy who you can talk to about anything. When it comes time to get down to business however, you are treated not just with respect, but professionally as a racer. If anything, he probably takes whatever motorsport you compete in just as seriously as you do; and I like that because it's hard to find that mentality these days.
Photo by Josh Hanley - Josh Hanley Photography
I'm looking forward to see the result of his work, especially to see how well she will perform on Sunday's race. Thanks again to Scott for helping me out when being in a time-crunch, and massive respect to Malcolm for taking on the task of dealing with my car and my overly particular needs. Once I get her back, I'll be filling the motor mounts with polyurethane, so look forward to updates on that, along with a nice DIY. Until then, stay tuned.
Photo by Josh Hanley - Josh Hanley Photography

3 comments:

Mike said...

loLooking forward to seeing your Motor mound DIY. Are you going to use window weld or liquid urethane? I have always wanted to see someone use a urethane with a lower shore durometer of around 60.

Marc Monnar said...

Heya Mike,

It will be a liquid urethane mixture I picked up from McMaster-Carr. The item number is 8644K11. When I did it with Dave for his RX-8, it wasn't too bad at all, and so far he loves it. The website says it has a shore of 80. Hopefully if I find time this week I can post up the DIY.

Mike said...

They have a few different shore variety's. I have only seen others use the 80 but believe one would get good results "and maybe a bit less NVH" with a lower shore rating.

I have a new set of "upgraded PN#" OEM mounts and would like to fill them as well. I am adding another 50 lbs or so to my engine and will need all the mount I can get.

Looking forward to you DIY!