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Do-Luck with Kunny's JZX100 CHASER From Drift Tengoku
This Chaser is the true street machine! Weighing in at over 3300lbs, this vehicle is still equipped with A/C and a GPS unit! Do-Luck with Kunny's CHASER [JZX100]
Kunny Takahashi's Chaser is the heaviest machine in the D1 circuit today. This 4 door sedan still is equipped with air conditioning and a full car stereo system. This car has gained a lot of respect since it competes with the top class drift machines while still retaining its streetable qualities. Kunny has had this car for over seven years now and the chassis extends past the 100k mark but it's still going strong. This car signifies to the rest of the drifting crowd that respect can be gained even with simplistic tuning such as this machine and the years of experience gained by being faithful to a single platform.
2002, setting the vehicle for speed was a mistake
7 years ago, Takahashi had grown tired of his JZX90, and decided to switch to the JZX100 chassis. Toyota's GOA (Global Outstanding Process) was used on the JZX100, making the cabin space very rigid while the front and rear of the vehicle was designed to be crumpled upon impact. Because the vehicle skeleton was made from 3 different parts, the movement of the machine suffered greatly. The vehicle will begin to turn a slight millisecond later than a normal vehicle, due to flex. Takahashi tried to cope with this handicap for a while but had enough after 2 years of involvement in D1, not being able to achieve a single point. In fact, he had never made it to the tsuiso battle at this point. At that time he was only focused on speed, and at times he would take it past the limit resulting in a devastating crash. (D1 2001 4th round) The Do-Luck floor bar helped Takahashi significantly back in 2003 by increasing the chassis stiffness to counter attack the GOA construction, getting the hang of the vehicle little by little in this season. Striving to perform better than the given judging standards, Takahashi worked on increasing his vehicle angle, achieving a 3rd place round finish in the 2003 season, and even a 1st place finish in the 2004 pre-season match. But Takahashi claims "that 1st place finish didn't bring me financial help, but more pressure" . For the rest of the 2004 season, he failed to make it to the best 16 tournament until the 6th round. To make matters worse, Takahashi and his team kept concentrating on how to make the vehicle faster in terms of speed, a rather wrongful approach for the machine. Such methods as setting the rear toe 10mm inward or putting 10mm spacers on the rear member to achieve more traction were attempted, but only resulted in a vehicle that was hard to break sideways and when it did, it would spin out.
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The Chaser puts out positive results after increasing its sideways velocity
Takahashi's motto when building his drift car was to keep it so it can be daily driven; at the same time compete with the top machines in the D1 circuit. His dream was to win the D1 series with a street driven car still having air conditioning and a full audio system. But in the 2004 season, Takahashi became desperate for sponsors so he decided to go against his original plan by taking out the rear seat, changing the windows to lexan, and changing the doors to FRP units. However, that didn't change a thing. It wasn't until he ran with a fellow competitor that he realized that it wasn7t the speed, it was the ease of use of the vehicle. Before the final round of that season, a mechanic from Kei Office had suggested to Takahashi that it seemed like his vehicle was very difficult to ride in. There, he took that opportunity and asked for advise. The vehicle was set lower in the rear rather than the front like he had it, changed the spring rate from 16 to 9 kg, and set the toe inward 4 to 6 mm. To counter the heavy weight of the front, he also put back the bump stops in the front suspension. These changes resulted in a vehicle where he was able to turn it sideways whenever he wanted and stop at any time. Takahashi also changed the way he operated the machine. Rather than going into a turn at high speed with a shallow angle, he did the opposite of swinging his tail out big; appealing the best potential of his 4 door sedan. In the final round, he managed to make it to the best 16 tournament finishing at 9th place, scoring some points. In the 2005 season, he has been progressively improving his game, showing good results. The key to the success of the Chaser lied in the sideways speed, and the wide angle initial drift. Takahashi is currently preparing a second version of his chaser, and this machine is strictly a full race car. Until it's finished, his fans are waiting to see how far he can take his daily driven machine in D1.
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ENGINE
The engine is basically stock, even the camshafts are untouched. Takahashi's theory on this is that "rather than spend money on building the engine, I would prefer to save that money for a backup engine". Generally when power is increased on an engine, the fine balance of tire grip to the road surface is disturbed, causing too much wheel spin. The engine had been replaced once by Do-Luck, and spot welds in the engine bay had been performed concurrently.
ENGINE
The car was equipped with an internal actuator type wastegate, but they decided to change it to an external type before the final round last year. Because of this modification, the vehicle was able to achieve 3rd gear faster between the 1st and the S turn at the Tsukuba circuit. The AFM was converted to Map, and an F Con V-Pro was installed.
ENGINE
A used oil cooler was placed right behind the front grill and is used to cool the power steering. Because of this, the power steering runs cool and prevents the loss of fluid.
SUSPENSION
A custom support bar from Okuyama was placed with the strut tower bar. This bar provides rigidity from the firewall to the struts. Takahashi claims that with this component, he can apply more loads to the front of the vehicle. The brake pads are stock units since he only taps the brakes during his runs. The front camber is set at 2.5 degrees, to keep the tires from rubbing the fenders at full counter. The steering angle was increased with JIC tie rod components, and the toe was set to zero to minimize the chance to spin out.
SUSPENSION
The adjustable suspension arms used here are from Kazama Auto. The wheel base had been shortened to influence quicker movement of the vehicle. 250mm springs were installed on the rear to keep the contact patch on the tires on the ground especially at times when the vehicle tries to come off the road. The rear differential had been strengthened, just in case the floor paneling gets ripped off during hard runs.
INTERIOR
The GPS navigation unit was built in the center console, and the A/C control panel was moved to the center arm rest. The ETC unit was placed inside the glove box. The vehicle used to sport semi bucket seats in case Takahashi needed to sleep inside the car, but during the middle of the season he had switched to a full bucket seat to shed some weight. Takahashi claims that the full bucket seat secures his body better and it's evidently easier to toss the car around.
INTERIOR
The car used to sport a simple roll cage system by Okuyama, but now it looks like a jungle gym. The front points in the cage go through the dashboard leaving more leg space and promotes chassis rigidity. The cage is all bolted in, not welded.
INTERIOR
The trunk board is plastered with team stickers, which displays Takahashi's drifting history. A differential oil catch tank is also mounted in the trunk to prevent messy spills from the bleeder valve.
EXTERIOR
Kunnyz original bumper, hood, fenders, and the sideskirts were installed. The underpanel beneath the front bumper effectively directs air past the vehicle without any obstructions. The rear wing is a Do-Luck unit, switched from a low to high mount wing last season. Takahashi claims he grew tired of the low wing. The new fenders widened the car by 15mm each side.
Contact: Kunny'z  http://www.kunnyz.net  (Japanese Only) Back to the top