Not sure if anyone saw this on my webpage, but today there was a major event in Japan, the Tuning Sports Japan '07 show (tuning-sports.jp). What it was was a gathering of tuners racing their shop demo cars for the public to come out and see at Suzuka Circuit. One of the main events was a compact car challenge which had a number of Fits in it -- the J's Racing Fit, the Noblesse Fit, and Last Station's Fit. I've been following Ichiro-san of Noblesse's blog on cooLma regarding the show and he just posted a vid of the race along with some various photos as well. The vid's in-car footage of him racing the Noblesse Fit.

Vid: Compact Car Challenge

Pics:

 

Cool vid! that l15 sounds mean!

 

looks damn Hot. especially wth the drop.

any chance we can save the vid?

 

Sweet vid but it triggers some questions.

what are the specs on the Nobless? Engine upgrades or what.

Is that the J's racing Fit with the L15 or the K20?

I answered my own question on this one, its the L15, cause the k24 has a single exit exhaust out the rear bumper.

Oh yeah, and what was that silver car in front - vitz?

 

what a strange sounding engine

 

And no way would the k24 fit run that slow The vitz was pretty quick

 

The Vitz was fast in a straight line but it was SSLLLOOOOOWWWWW through the S's. I would have been so tempted to punt him.

 

Very nice vitz.....I like J's fit.

 

im guessing the Js fit has the l15 right!?!?!? kus wow the noblesse fit passed it up fast.....

 

It is a pretty awsome vid, one of the better ones he's posted. As far as I know, it's an .flv file so if you have/find some software that'll record .flv streams you should be good to go.

As for the engine, it's an NA L15, but heavily modded. Noblesse is the only shop I've seen that's doing extensive mods to the L15 so far. It's his shop's demo, so I'm assuming it's got the full menu -- full head port and polish, high-comp pistons and rings, cylinder bore and hone, titanium valve retainers, piston, conrod, and crank balance, custom conrod bushings and shaping, big bore throttle body, Last Station/Noblesse Power Box intake, M-works sport cat, Noblesse Racing muffler and b-pipe, HKS V-Pro EMS, etc. Their tuning menu puts the engine around $9,000 or so, so it's not cheap. No idea what kind of power it makes, but I'm tempted to PM him and ask figures for the various tuning stages they offer. Of course, the rest of the car is modded to match -- brakes, coilovers, etc., so he's put some money into over the few years he's had it, though not all at once. All in all, it's a pretty sweet ride.

The only K20 Fit (Garage FK) ran in the std. Tuner's race for obvious reasons. I suppose I could hunt for vids of that if they have any.

The Vitz was from EMC Engineering and had a turbo, but I have no other info on it. It was fast in a staright, but the Fit more or less whomped it in the curves. I suspect if they ran the full Suzuka course, Ichiro might've been able to get ahead and stay there if only because of the increased number of corners.

Here's another vid I found of Ichiro's Fit during the Parade lap of the show. Check out all the other sweet rides there, once they park. I so wish I could've gone to this. BTW, if you're wondering what they're saying and laughing about, the guy taking the vid is complaining about his a$$ hurting since he's just sitting on the bare metal floor in back.

Parade Lap

 

on the turns he was definitely giving that vitz the business.

 

The Noblesse Fit sounds mean..... I was surprised that the Vitz is so much quicker in the straight line but Noblesse got so much more speed in & out of turns

 

awesome vid man... nice!

 

I'm pretty Surprized how hard that Vitz pulled on that fit on the straight aways. I guess. DOHC > SOHC. I noticed this in a race with an echo ( vitz) as well.

 

It's more like Turbo > NA really. I read more of Ichiro's blog and he said that the Vitz was putting out around 168 hp, and I think it was also the only turbo car in the lineup. Didn't help that the driver was a pro either, whereas Ichiro is an amateur.

Vitz Turbo open-hood shot

 

Well that explains alot then.

 

I'm wondering if the Vitz has the 1.3 or the 1.5...

 

funny as i read in the site he's a former truck driver?
if its true then its a real achievement!

 

One other interesting note about this -- I just got off the phone w/ my friend in Japan who went to the event and he was saying that the Noblesse Fit still has the A/C in it, and a Navi system as well. In fact, it's Ichiro-san's daily driver. He said it's funny beacuse all the other tuners trailered in their cars and ran them, whereas Ichiro just drove there in the Fit, changed the muffler and tires, then ran the race and drove back. Pretty cool if you ask me.

 

N1 muffler