Morning meeting held at A PIT Autobacs Shinonome
A PIT Autobacs Shinonome in Tokyo holds a morning meeting once a month on Sunday mornings. The theme for 17 September 2023 was “female owners”, and the venue was filled with cars of no genre from mini to American cars from the morning. There was no specific content other than a group photo shoot and a relaxed atmosphere of exchange as people looked at each other’s cars. We spoke to some owners who caught our attention at the event.
Fell in love with Challenger at first sight
Ms. “Mi-yan,” says she fell in love at first sight with a Challenger in the same color as her car about three years ago, researched the models and other specifications, and finally selected a 2016 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Shaker. The Shaker at the end of the car name refers to the shaker hood with a scoop in the bonnet for the integrated air cleaner case and air scoop to stick out.
“It was love at first sight because of its pretty form. When I started the engine, I saw the shaker hood shaking with it, which was lovely. So I found a shaker in this color and I bought it second-hand.”
The origin of the term shaker hood is that the air scoop and other parts shake with the engine due to the direct connection.
From a custom that shows to a custom that runs
The car was stock when she bought it, but she didn’t want it to look like anyone else’s, so she decided to start by modifying the exterior. The contents are diverse, but some of them include bonnet wrapping, side decals, one-off Apr body parts, BC Forged wheels, scissors doors, etc.
In addition, the ACC air suspension, brakes and one-off Saxon muffler were worked on, and the ECU was further tuned to go in a different direction than before.
“I’ve never changed the way I tinker with the car to look normal to people around me, but the guy who did my computer work asked me if I wanted to try drag racing. I got serious about it. So I cut the tire house itself to fit drag tires and fitted one-off carbon wide fenders. It’s a very ‘straight specification.’ The suspension has to be hardened to keep the legs in place, otherwise this car won’t be able to race around curves. But we go touring together and use it everywhere, even for shopping around here and there.”
Considering fitting NOS or twin turbos
They are currently in the 10-second range from 0-300m, but she is considering further work to improve their times.
“I might have to change the muffler and headers, because it doesn’t improve from 200m at all. I also want to see if it’s NOS or if I can put in a twin-turbo and see how far I can go with that. It’s already my reason for living. I can customize it the way I want, and even if the engine seizes up, I might just replace it and keep driving it.”
translated by DeepL