For many years the quest to for the fastest rear wheel drive time attack car in Japan has been hotly contested, but when Garage Revolution unveiled their carbon fibre RX7 a couple of years back it was clear that the bar has been well and truly raised. Last year I had the pleasure of seeing this car with my own eyes and now we will take you along as we visit Aoki-san at Garage Revolution and have a look at the masterpiece that is known as TA-2. A car that is built with one purpose in mind – to do one single lap faster than anyone else on R spec tyres.
The big difference between this car and most of the other fast time attack RX7s in Japan, is that this one was built from the ground up and not through several phases of development. Every inch of the body is pre-preg dry carbon and was made by RE Amiemya based upon their GT300 car and, with the suitable aero testing already a given in Super GT, makes for a sensible place to start. This car is state of the art in every regard and features huge Project Mu brakes and shock absorbers that are surprisingly built in house. One of the big differences between this car and a Super GT is that it retains the original firewall and retains conventional style dampners and not rocker style inboard setups commonly found on the Super GT cars.
The interior is a work of art and dripping in dry carbon. That gearstick works the sequential six speed Hewland gearbox. This seems to be a common trend amongst quick RX7s in Japan as Panspeed and R magic use a similar transmission.
The rear suspension is attached to a maze of pipework that is all beauifully crafted and everything is there for a reason and if it doesnt have a reason to be there…… it is removed. This is as close you can get to a GT racecar whilst still retaining the culture of “Time Attack” and is completely devoid of mulit million dollar development budgets that these GT type of cars run on. Sure this would not be a cheap car to build by any stretch of the imagination but the reality is it is built by a little workshop just outside Tokyo by the shop owner and his mechanics!! And thats it! And in my eyes that is cool!
Moving around the front we see the 600hp Garage Revolution built 13B turbo engine in a heavily braced engine bay. The car runs a V mount cooling setup amongst a maze of cooling ducts. This car is the real deal in every regard!
The engine also runs a turbo built by GCG turbos in Sydney and Daniel Ellis from GCG Japan was kind enough to take us along to meet Aoki-san. That is Aoki-san and Daniel in the photo below.
Over in the other corner was a very interesting RX8 time attack car it was left hand drive and fitted with a 20B peripheral port engine and a sequential transmission. This one is left hand drive to allow for exhaust clearance!
As with most of the tuning shops in Japan Revolution is a small operation but they are extremely well equipped with a chassis and engine dyno, fabrication room and a small dry carbon fibre autoclave something rarely seen outside professional race outfits. On top of this Garage Revolution is the motorsport dealer for Hankook tyres for Japan and this car runs on the Hankook Ventus TD Z221 tyre.
