Japan Day 4 – Tomei

Day 4 in Japan and we were still on a high from MSC the day before. We didnt have much planned for day 4 but we met Allen from Tomei Motor at MSC and he suggested we pop down to the shop for a look around, you dont pass up an offer like that now do you?

We packed up our “traditional” japanese beds, did some ninja kicks

Prayed to the drift gods to bring us more drift action

Had some cherry water for breakfast

Started heading from Chiba back to Tokyo around the bay

Saw some more workshops we should have had a better look at on reflection.

Stopped in at Upgarage drift parts store, they had a heap of cool stuff we didnt need.

Into the Tomei showroom, Allen met us and gave us a quick run down on the history of Tomei, a family run business with the founder Seiichi Suzuki actually in his office at the time we were there. Head to the Tomei website and have a read of the history they have in engine and chassis development, its outstanding.

The Tomei 350Z was parked out the back and the quality was unbelievable. Allen explained that it was a joint venture with nissan for a one make racing catergory, Tomei devoleped the motor to produce around 450HP at the wheels naturally aspirated and no other assistance from products like NOS 

Everything was fitted as neat if not neater than factory, i would love to drive this to a trackday and home again.

If you read Drift Tengoku then you will see this shot in the new products write up. They were doing the photos on the day we were there, that just shows how on the ball Dori Ten are, 1.5 weeks and the photos are at the news stands. WOW! Our aussie mags are about 6 months behind.

We headed inside into the cam room, the sweet smell of warm coolant filled the air, cams were lying everywhere in each stage of production and each and every cam is hand verified beofre it is boxed up. It gave me a new appreciation for Tomeis cam range, i wont be using any other brand from now on, support those who do the development because these companys are the future of HP!

The head porting room was as busy as ever. Tomei do a lot of work for the early A12 Datsuns that are still racing and Tomei still support them, with the amount of knowledge and devolpment these guys have gone through then you know your head is in safe hands, thats if your lucky enough to get them to do it.

Another room another dream workshop. Tomei now do all the repairs and overhauls for Hollinger gearboxs, seems like Tomei are cleaning up after HKS all the time.

In this room there were manifold jigs and TIG eqipment for designing different manifolds. Rows and rows of folders housed data confirming what design manifold works in each different situation. The research these guys do is out of this world.

We headed into the soundproof engine dyno room where a GENISIS RB26 was being tested with different turbos, in the busy days Tomei had 4 motors on and off this rig every day for testing.

The RB26 actually drives through an SR20 gearbox with a single gear inside it. Tomei go to great lengths to supply the motor with the excact loads it would on the street. Thats one thing i found with this company, its built on hard work, no gimmicks and pure real world research and development.

A very familiar gearbox to what i run in all my cars.

The packaging area mostly for those low volume items and one offs.

You may have heard of Tomeis complete Genisis motor range, what would have hit you first is the price, yes they are expensive but what you dont relise is that its as close as a factory race deal you are likely to ever come across. What i mean is that if anything ever happens to that motor you have 100% factory backing to fix the problems. Each motor Tomei produce in these 4 walls is put together with pure precision and cleanliness, every motor has a log book and everytime something out of the ordinary happens to this motor it is logged and noted and if theres any problems then Tomei will rectify it and learn from the issue. If i needed a motor for circuit racing and i lived in Japan then i knwo where i would be going!!

 

Massive thanks to Allen (far right) for taking the time to show us around. We all have a huge respect for the Tomei brand and what it has done for the strength of our culture.

1 Comment
  1. Wow – what an experience.

    Reply

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