Susumu Koyama deals in speed. Not so much Maverick's homoerotic, volleyball-playing, Ninja-riding speed, or even that "prescription" diet pill speed but real speed, the kind that comes when you shoot up cars with heavy doses of horsepower and let them loose. And Koyama-san's speed lab is not some mold-infested mobile home with a rusted out Hemi 'Cuda in the front yard but exists deep within the hallowed service bays of JUN Auto.
JUN Auto can best be described as a three-slice pie. I had a pie chart to show you but Jonny ate it mistaking it for a real pie. JUN Machine Shop represents one piece of the pie, crafting the finest bits of cutting-edge tuner car hardware, JUN Auto Works is the body works division, and JUN Auto Mechanic is the place where it all comes together in an orgy of tuning precision. This is Koyama-san's house. And what a house it is.
But right now, ain't nothing hotter in Japan than Time Attack and JUN Auto is well-skilled in the art of clock management. At the December '03 Option magazine Time Attack event Super GT driver Mitsuhiro Kinoshita went 0:56.595 in the JUN Auto's Super Lemon GDB, making this the fastest Subaru at Tsukuba (ha, say that five times fast). And even before this, Kinoshita-san drove the Hyper Lemon Evo V to a 0:55.976 lap at Tsukuba. Koyama-san tells us that this is the fastest JUN Auto demo car at Tsukuba-for now.
Poised to take the number-one-son position from the Hyper Lemon Evo in the JUN Auto family of super lappers is the Hyper Lemon 350Z R you see before you. Now, you might be questioning how an FR like the Z33 could even hope to keep up with the sophisticated grip of an AWD like the CP9A. You know what, that would have been a damn fine question-along with, "What was the best thing before sliced bread?"-except for the fact that this Z33 is an all-wheel-drive machine. Before you exit Asian Thumbs to check out Nissan.co.jp in search of a JDM-only AWD Z33 NISMO Z-tune edition, know that there is no such thing (now you can resume your quest for any links with German tourists and Thai lady-boys). That's right, the all-wheel-drive system on this Z is custom-made, which is just a wee-bit more difficult than that five-bolt conversion on your S13.
Koyama-san created this AWD Z33 for a couple reasons that actually make sense. First of all, by working out a lot of complex computations and downright guesstimations that are beyond our grasp, Koyama-san figured that he would need at least 800 ps (or 788 of our Yankee hps) to run a good number at Tsukuba. And this is too much power for an FR on treaded street tires. But then wouldn't it just be simpler to start with an AWD like the Evo, Impreza or GT-R?
"I like the Z very much because I remember that I drove a Z32 at the Bonneville speed trial in '91 making over 260mph," Koyama-san told our source (who is actually our J-boy, Tetsu). "I also wanted to build the only AWD Z33 in the world." Mission accomplished, Koyama-san. While the changing of spark plugs scares us, the thought of swapping out an entire drivetrain makes our heads explode. Here's a quick rundown in case you're thinking of trying this swap yourself-and if you are... don't.