22nd – Seems both of us have now come down with colds Really crappy, but can’t do much about it apart from taking loads of med’s and resting. Spent most of the day inside getting things ready. Tomorrow we’re leaving at 3am and our flight is at 8.30am, so this is it till I’m in NYC! Hope to do an update whilst I’m out there.

18th – Popped over Soph’s parents in the morning for a spot of breakfast and to get my hair cut. Later in the afternoon I cleaned up the garage and sorted out some bits with the s13 since I was starting to neglect it a little. In the evening me & Soph went to Cannon’s & Josh’s, got Nando takeaway and watched the incredibly scary Apollo 18.

19th – Woke up after a bit of a lay-in and went to my folks today. We were treated to a good ol’ roast, and in the afternoon I got playing with my old RC cars, charged up a couple of the batteries and had a laugh with them for a couple mins till the batteries died.

20th – Been getting quite into NASCAR over the past couple of weeks or so and so it happens its the Daytona 500 on Sunday which is when I’m in NYC. I wonder if I can catch a part of the race while I’m out there? Anyway, enjoyed lunch break watching some footage from last year.

Feb 15th – Some bits arrived through the post which I ordered a while ago. A new steering wheel, the same as what I use in my s13, and a Ph1 Almera grille & badge. Was cheaper to buy the grille & badge than just the badge!

Feb 16th – Work eased up a bit today which was nice and gave me a chance to escape for an hour at lunch to hunt for tyres. Went down to my local tyre shop who have served me well in the past and sure enough they let me look through the part-worns and take whatever I wanted. Managed to squeeze in about 15 tyres in the Almera, collection of 16s & 17s.

Feb 12th – Thought my girlfriend was off work today so had everything done so we could spend a day together. Ends up I forgot that she was working! But, as it happens, got a text off Ryan to come help Craig with his s13. Poor guy’s had the car 2 weeks, but only drove it a day till he hit a curb and bent some bits.

Feb 13th – Back to work again, did a bit of a late one since its still pretty busy due to all the promotions we’re doing for Valentines Day. We’ve also got one of the American CEO’s of the company in our office this week so best impressions are a must! Had a nice dinner cooked for all of us in the evening though.

Feb 9th – Works starting to get pretty hectic again, we’re a man-down on development, and then we had server issues. I’m beginning to pick up on how to monitor & maintain them now which is good, so most of my day was spent looking at this weird message that one of our Static servers was chucking back.

Feb 10th – Everyone was talking of Snow! Was expecting to wake up to a white sheet, but there was nothing. I did, however, manage to find the only bit of snow in south Hampshire I think. And it happens to be the infamous train station car park again where I always seem to take photos of my Almera, lol.

Feb 7th – Today was the first day out of this whole project that I didn’t actually take a photo of what I did during the day. It wasn’t because I forgot, it was simply because nothing interesting happened! So, I decided to head out and go for a walk. I cross this motorway bridge every time I walk to work, always wanted to take a snap at night.

Feb 2nd – Popped into work very quickly after getting the car on the coilovers, managers wanted to give us something. I didn’t get chance to get a photo when we were being given them, but I got a snap in the morning. Oh yeah, company Nike 6.0′s lol!

Feb 3rd – Friday went out for my mate Graham’s birthday. Went to the ol’ Water Margin in Portsmouth and our group of friends were there. Pretty good food and great company. We chatted about AwesomeFest a lot and such a shame that its cancelled this year.

Feb 4th – Catching up from my day off on Wednesday, went into work today. Was pretty quiet since not really anyone else was there so got a fair bit done. Waking up in the morning was tricky, and especially to find my car caked in a heavy frost.

Jan 29th – Relaxing Sunday with the girlfriend. Went over to Sophie’s folks house for a Sunday roast and got chatting to some of her family relatives too. Chilled with her Dog’s after and listened to DAB radio.

Jan 30th – Monday back again, and woke to a surprise to find it snowing. Just slightly though! Managed to grab a couple flakes which I found on my windscreen as I sat at the train station waiting to pick up Fab.

Jan 31st – Decided to cycle to work, but it was absolutely freezing. No snow today, but a heavy frost overnight. Felt good though, I had all my gear on (helmet, lights, gloves, facemask thing) and wasn’t totally frozen when I got to work!

Jan 27th – I setup and organised a car meet a couple weeks back and Friday 27th was the day of it. It was dubbed as the “272 Heroes Black Tie Meet” with thanks to one of the forum members suggesting the idea in the first place. Was a freezing but great night, 40+ car’s turned up and there was a great atmosphere between everyone.

Jan 25 – Earlier in the week I started buying some bits on the trusty eBay for my new-found enjoyment of cycling/walking. This included a hiking backpack that I can wear when I’m cycling as well as if I go hiking/walking. Can’t believe how well this is made and how comfy it is when I’m wearing it – and it cost just £19 delivered!

Jan 23rd – Ughhh Monday back again. Work a lot less stressful due to some of the managers being away. Walked to work this morning with Fab again, and used my new hiking trosers & boots.

Project thread here for those Almera lovers amongst you?

Jan 20th – More ongoing issues today at work with all the websites we run, so today went slowly as did our website loading times! I did, however, walk to & from work today which was nice. I meet Fab at the train station in the morning, and before his train arrived I snapped this.

These 2 shots are probably my favourites of this year so far

Jan 17th – Since Saturday I’ve been reading & getting into cycling a bit more. I decided to cycle to work today even though it was freezing this morning, I faced the elements and cracked on. Albeit only a mile to work each way, it all counts. My trusty GT Mountain bike has seen better days, but its still a good bike. Perhaps I’ll upgrade it one day if I get more serious about cycling.

Loads more photos on my write-up/review that I’ve done over on 272 Heroes.

I’ll be doing a full write up of the whole show, probably posting it over on 272 Heroes, but I’ll post a summary here too.

Jan 14th – Was hoping to visit my folks today, but tiredness and doing odd-jobs got the best of me. However I did do something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while which was go for a good cycle again. Used to love cycling and it is exercise after all. Went to Fareham & back. The route I took I worked out to be about 10 miles all in, pretty good going I think.

I’ve just done this one, a compilation of outside video dubbed with some inside video in the corner. Never done this before, but I think it works pretty well.

And incase you’re interested in seeing the main footage from inside,

Or outside,

Then that should satisfy your video needs

Jan 12th – After much annoyance and a couple of phone calls, I decided to totally ditch dazecoop.com – my blog. Really sucks since that has been mine for over 6 years (approx), but its time for a change and I’m now blogging on dazecoop.wordpress.com

Sucks a bit, but paying to have a blog that brings me next to no income is pretty pointless anyway. Having it on WordPress.com also means my WordPress is always the most up to date as it can be, makes life easier for me at least

Go ahead and bookmark (people still bookmark?) Or add my new site to your Feed Reader,
http://dazecoop.wordpress.com

Jan 7th – And with just 3 hours sleep, I headed up to Lydden Hill very much unprepared for the whole day with little tyres & money! However had an AMAZING day, learnt a lot and the car performed near faultlessly apart from some small issues on the drive home!

Jan 8th – My girlfriend’s Dad’s 50th birthday! The big Five-Oh, so went headed to her Grandad’s place for a lush roast dinner with all the family. I snapped a photo of Sophie’s Dad whilst he was playing with his 7d

Jan 9th – Standard but tiring Monday at work, then headed to Ben’s & Adam’s in the evening to pick up a memory card I left with Ben from the drift day. I got to Ben’s before he did, so I went for a quick drive down to Southsea in the Almera and snapped a shot.

Jan 5th – pretty average day at work. We've got a new incentive scheme going on and one of the things is that we all get to go on holiday if the whole team pull together and complete a set number of targets. We've agreed on Canada, now its come down to where – Montreal or Toronto. As you can see, Fab drawing a "Forever Alone" character because it was only Billy wanted to go to Montreal. Bahah!

So, Jan 1st – Went for a walk with my girlfriend's folks. Got pretty wet, but had a good laugh.

Real happy with how its looking too – apart from the slightly too much "orange" on the front. On the hunt for some 180sx Kouki OEM bumper position lights!

I'll then take this opportunity to talk about something very different from the norm.

Chevrolet. That word to me brings thoughts of America, Taxi's and big V8's that sound like God crying. All of those things are what make a Chevy in my eyes, and its good.

However, I had the chance to write about a new Chevy that has come out – the Chevrolet Orlando. Quite a clever name, in my mind at least, since most times that I've been to America its been to the Orlando area. Really ties in quite well with the image that's in my mind at least.

Seeing photos and reading about this car changes it though, genuinely looks like a nice car and certainly a nice place to be behind the wheel. I always think what kind of car I would get if I were forced to buy a brand new car, in different circumstances – what would I buy if I needed a city car, what if I needed a 4×4, a sports car, or a seven seat car?

Its a difficult answer since (myself anyway) often overlook manufactures because of this image I have of their cars in my head. Looking at this new Chevrolet has opened my eyes a bit, and perhaps its worth not jumping to conclusions to quickly about certain car manufactures & such.

Take a look yourself – I'd certainly consider it if I were in a position in the future to buy a car of this sort.

Nice work Chevrolet, I think they're going in the right direction for the UK market, and with their cars in general. Its also nice to drive something that's very slightly unique as to not blend in with the crowd.

Perhaps I need to get back into my photography more often, not just motorsport/car related, but other stuff too

More photos over on the 272 Heroes forum & my write-up on the blog.

Unfortunately for Ryan the day ended with this s13 on the back of an RAC truck. They were good enough to get him home at least, and I think his plans are now to SR the car and get back out drifting once again in the new year.

And if you haven't already please support us with a fat Like over on Facebook

Today, at last, got a Nissan badge to attach to the front bumper. Bought this off eBay over a week ago and paid for "next day delivery". And all for a sodding Nissan badge.

I'm keeping my build thread updated fairly often over on 272 Heroes, but doing my best to update this place as much as possible with anything to do with my s13 as well  

For now I'll just leave this photo here, my s13 from the other night.

Peace. x

from 272heroes meet, last night in Portsmouth. bigger version here.

Pretty happy with how its looking & driving recently. Hoping to hit up another drift day soon, and hoping to get another pair of RPF's for drifting on.

In related news, you'll notice the badass looking road and the signature in the pic. The road is the A272, and the sig/logo is inspired by this. With the help of some of the local boys around here, we're setting up a blog/forum/club. Still "coming soon" for now, but we've got the forum online now and its picking up already.

Without further ado – www.272heroes.com – Not just Hampshire, not just Jap cars. Anything goes forum & a soon-to-be cool blog

Anyway, day started off not so great. I had some pretty big overcenter problems and more issues with the tyre hitting the fender & inner arch, at least I think that's what was going on. This meant that I had to taime down my entries quite a bit, couldn't go as balls out as I had wanted to with fear of munching my front tyres up completely. Also hitting into the corner at 50+mph, then not being able to steer out of it was putting me off quite a bit.

After lunch and being pretty pissed off with it, I got back out there and hit up some more entries. Instead of attempting anything too brutal & backwards, I went for fast 3rd-gear wands which seemed to work a bit better.

Ended up having some good fun and got a couple of speed-gun recorded speeds of around 78mph! Mark from msphotographic.co.uk got some great pics.

Pretty stoked with how good it looks on track, even with the turd rear wheels, and quite high ride-height. As of yesterday, I'm now rolling on a 215/40 profile tyre up front (was 215/45) which should give me slightly less ride-height, but also more space in the arch for the tyre & wheel. Hopefully this'll help with the issues I've been having.

And finally, to finish up, got some video's too. Outside one with thanks to my buddies Graham & Hudson

Turned out good. Need some tweaks to fitment & ride height again. Rubbing issues on the front a bit, due to wings that actually fit properly. And there's no reason why I can't drop it 1/2 inch out back, and maybe a few more mm on the front.

Now I've spent a fair bit of dollar & time on cosmetics, its time to hit up my next drift day. 1st of July, I'll be heading to the Driftworks-oraganised Extreme Entry day at Donnington Park. Cannot wait!