Category: Automotive

This is an event I have been eagerly awaiting ever since I heard about it back in 2008. I stated back then that this would be perfect in Kuwait and now Red Bull have finally brought it here.

The event will take place on Friday, May 14th 2010 at the Jaber Al-Ahmad International Drifting circuit in Farwaniya area located at the sixth ring road behind the Car Driving School. This is a local qualification and the winner will have the chance to compete in the final round taking place in Lebanon on Friday, July 16th 2010.

Date: May 14, 2010.
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Jaber Al Ahmed International Circuit, Farwaniya (6th ring road)
Categories: 2WD and 4WD Saloon/Sports cars
Hotline: 66406020

This happened last night at 7:20, the guy started making donuts in the middle of the 40th blocking traffic for nearly 20 minutes! [YouTube]

Thanks Ayman

My friend shot this video while driving in Bayan. [YouTube]

Thanks David!

Today I got a phone call from a friend telling me my tires arrived from the States. I went picked them up and then headed over to Michelin on Canada Dry street to get them installed. Michelin are also the dealers of BFGoodrich and the guys there are pretty cool so I figured would have them install the tires for me. The result? They look hardcore!

I ordered my tires from Gavin at TireRack.com, I had previously ordered my Z4 wheels from him. This time I ordered 5 BFGoodrich M/T KM2’s. I had asked the local dealer if they could order it for me but turns out they’re not authorized to sell mud-terrain tires for some reason.

Anyway the tires look great, I love them and I’m glad I went for mud-terrain and not all-terrain tires. Next thing I need to do is black out the silver parts on the FJ (already swapped the silver door handle for black ones).

So far my set up is as follows for those of you who have FJ’s and want a similar setup:

Old Man Emu Full Suspension
2x OME-884 Front Coils
2x 2″ ToyTec Lifts Super Flex Rear Coil Springs
2x 90000 OME Front Nitrocharger sport shocks
2x 60020 OME Rear Nitrocharger sport shocks

Tires
Kind: BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2
Size: 285/75 R16

I ordered the lift kit from ToyTec
I ordered the tires from [email protected]

Thanks Troy for helping me out with all the shipping!

Update: I forgot to add something very important. You can get an OME lift from the local dealer in Kuwait and you can pick up some incredibly good BFG All-Terrain tires from the local dealer as well. Their prices are really good, OME is slightly more expensive than the US prices, the dealer is located in Shuwaikh at the corner of the turn that takes you to Ace Hardware. It’s the ARB dealer. For tires, BFG in Kuwait have the exact same prices as the ones in the States. They are located on Canada Dry right after McDonalds, the BFG dealer is the Michelin dealer. The only reason I got my stuff from the US is because I was looking for very specific items which weren’t available locally.

I use my In Focus posts to highlight some great businesses here in Kuwait and today’s post is no different. As I mentioned previously, I’m lifting my FJ Cruiser and installing large tires just like I did with my Wrangler. The previous place I had installed my Wranglers lift had shut down so I asked a friend from the FJ Club for a recommendation and he pointed me towards ORP.

ORP is short for Off Road Performance and that’s exactly what they specialize in. If you’ve got a 4×4 and want to install a heavy duty bumper, or get a suspension lift, larger tires and wheels, maybe a light bar etc.. then they’re the place to go. Personally I would love to install everything myself and if I had my own little house with an indoor garage I would attempt to do that but since I don’t, I have to get stuff installed at specialized places which I usually don’t like doing. With ORP I felt comfortable getting my lift installed there because the guys are 4×4 affectionados. I met two guys, both Kuwaitis. Yousef is the one I first spoke to over the phone while Saud I didn’t communicate much with since he was always busy working on a car. They’re both passionate about what they do and to me that’s extremely important.

First time I passed by ORP was to check out the location and see how much they would charge for my suspension lift install. Then I just set up an appointment, dropped my FJ in late at night and picked it up again the next evening. I needed to get the FJ aligned and they recommended I take it to a guy called John at Auto1 on Canada Dry street who also turned out to be really great. So overall I had a very good experience and their prices are very competitive. Now I have to go back and buy a shorter antenna since with the lift kit installed my FJ’s antenna is hitting every pipe in my underground parking. I haven’t even installed my large tires yet so I am starting to worry my FJ is going to be too big to take underground. Hopefully I should be ok.

If you need anything for your 4×4 I highly recommend them. They’re very easy to find in Shuwaikh. If you’re on Canada Dry street with McDonalds on your right keep going straight past the bridge and then do a u-turn at the round-about so you’re heading the same way you came from, then take your first right and drive maybe 100 or 200 meters and you will find them on your left. (see map above). Their website address is www.orp.com.kw and you could also call Yousef on 99422254.

I got these pictures by email today. Unlike the drift photos I posted two weeks ago, these pictures are really from 1985. The funny thing is, the cars in these old pictures look newer than the cars at the drift track two weeks ago.

Thanks Fahad!

Last week I ordered a lift kit for my FJ from Toytec Lifts. I’m planning to install a 3″ lift along with larger tires. So yesterday I went to get a set of tires but I couldn’t find any mud-terrain ones in the size I wanted. I checked Hankook, BF Goodrich, Maxxis and Goodyear. BFG actually were the most helpful, they told me they were getting some All-Terrain KO’s soon in the size I wanted but no plans on getting the mud-terrain KM2’s which I want. So now I am stuck with no idea what to do. I contacted Tirerack.com and they quoted me KD110 to ship 5 tires to Kuwait which isn’t too bad considering how heavy they are. But still, thats around KD22 extra per tire which I would rather not pay.

I’m now thinking maybe there is some small off-road shop in Kuwait that might carry BF Goodrich tires, does anyone know of any? Also does anyone by any chance know who the dealer in Bahrain is? I tried googling but didn’t find anything. Maybe I could drive to Bahrain to pick up the tires myself…

This morning I noticed 4 tow trucks and a police car near my office. I went to check what all the commotion was about and noticed some men hard at work trying to unlock a parked car to get it ready to get towed. I asked the cop what was going on and he said they were towing illegally parked cars. I thought that was cool and about time since the area gets major traffic sometimes due to the fact the illegally parked cars turn the two way road into one.

Sadly, I went back during lunch and noticed the tow trucks were gone, the cop was gone and all the cars parked illegally again. At least they tried…

I was dropping my Beemer off at the dealer today for a service when I spotted a closed booth that contained a car inside. Turned out to be the new BMW 5 series and it looked really good, much better than the new BMW Gran Turismo. I spotted one when I was in Lebanon and it looked really ugly, like if you took the already awkwardly looking X6 and had King Kong step on it and squash it. Seriously don’t know what they were thinking with the GT. Anyway the 5-series I saw today was the 535 and it was already reserved for someone.

The other day I posted about Kuwait’s first drift track, well it turns out the picture above is from the original drift track in Kuwait back in the 1970s. Ok, that’s not true, I actually retouched the picture to give it a vintage feel because I found pictures on the blog Every Little Thing that were taken today at the track and literally ALL the cars in the pictures were from the 70s. Seriously its like every Datsun from that era was at the track today, it was like a vintage car meet. Check out the pictures [Here]

On the bright side its great seeing those guys drifting on the track instead of blocking the highway and making donuts in the middle of traffic…

Update: Thanks to a reader, here is a [Video]

This Friday a drift track will be officially opening up in Kuwait called Auto Test. The track is located off the 6th Ring Road and will be open every Friday for anyone interested in either drifting or just making donuts. Later on things will be more organized and competitions (dirft/autocross/auto-x) will be held there. For now anyone one can go and have fun, all you need is a car and a driving license. There are also places for spectators to sit and watch the action. Here is how you find the place:

Take the 6th Ring Road towards Dajeej Area past 360 Mall and then take the right exit that takes you to Dajeej. The road will turn and you should then be passing under the 6th Ring Road heading towards Dajeej. Don’t exit to the main road, stay on your right and head back onto the 6th as if you’re heading towards Messila. Stay on the right side and continue ahead. You should then see the exit to the Airport and as soon as do take the exit. You should see a dirt road on your right, go on the dirt road and continue straight ahead until you see a bunch of small hills and dirt. That’s where all the tracks are (rally/motocross/karting/ATV and drift tracks).

The official website for the track is www.q8racing.com. At the moment you can see the Auto Test logo on the bottom right but the link isn’t clickable. I am guessing the section will be open once the track opens this weekend.

Thanks Othman!

Two weeks back I posted that I ordered the Alpine iXA-W407 car stereo from Amazon along with all the parts I needed to get it installed in my FJ Cruiser. Originally I was planning to do all the install myself but I found a sound install place where the people who run it actually know what they’re doing. The place is called Zaharat Al Naseem and they’re located right across from Al Raya. I originally went there to have them solder some wires together but I was pretty surprised when the person I was talking to knew was an SWI-JACK was and what a TR7 did. Not only that but the guy actually spoke proper English and they were in the middle of installing a rear view camera on another black FJ. I decided to give them the whole install project and so I left and went back after I was done with work so they could install everything.

They didn’t have any issues soldering all the right wires together (check out the picture above) and they got it all right from the first try. I had ordered an adapter from Amazon that would allow me to install the Alpine in the FJ but the adapter I bought turned out to be really crap. Turns out they had the right adapter I needed and the price was just a KD1 more than Amazon after shipping. After installing the stereo I had them install my extra 12v socket by the fuse box and run my Garmin GPS charger up inside the dashboard. I had a whole weekend of installation planned and they were able to do it all in under 2 hours. I didn’t have the rear view camera the first day but once Aramex delivered it the next day I went back and they installed it for me in under 30 minutes.

If you want to get your sound system installed I highly recommend them. There are a bunch of places in front of Al Raya so make sure you go to the right store.

Update: They’ve moved, here is their new location [Google Maps]

Here is a quick review of the Alpine iXA-W407.

It works great with the iPod as expected. I previously had the Alpine iDA-X001 installed in my Wrangler and one annoying thing in the X001 was searching for an artist. It doesn’t get much better in the W407. You can’t search using an onscreen keyboard to type an artist name for some reason instead you need to scroll down to the artist u want. You can scroll down by letter as in if you are looking for Smashing Pumpkins you can press “page down” when u r at A and it will take u to B and u keep pressing till u get to S. A painfully long process which I do not recommend while driving. Once you get to S you then have to scroll down regularly by pressing “down” untill u get to Smashing Pumpkins. Takes forever and not practical at all.

On the bright side, that’s the only negative thing I found. The multi display screen is very cool (see picture above) which basically allows you to display up to 4 different kinds of information on the same screen. I Just wish there were more widgets to add out of the current 6 including calculator and sound adjustment which are not pictured above. What I would have liked to have seen is a weather widget (could use my iPhone’s internet connection for the date) or an RSS reader.

The W407 has Bluetooth built in. Once I get into the car my iPhone connects to the Alpine automatically and whenever I want to call someone I bring up the phone number on the Alpine screen and call it. When I get a phone call I can either answer it on the Alpine or if I want privacy I can talk directly on my iPhone. Now all thats pretty normal but my favorite thing is the fact that I can stream music from my iPhone to the Alpine using Bluetooth. Like my iPod and the Radio I have Bluetooth as an audio source. When I select Bluetooth as a source whatever sound my iPhone makes I hear it on the cars sound system. Other than listening to your iPod’s music wirelessly or playing games and have the sound blast out of the cars sound system, another cool feature is the fact I stream music from the web over 3G and onto my car stereo using bluetooth. I’ve got the iPhone app WunderRadio (which I’ve posted about before) and I use it to tune into radio stations in Lebanon and stream them into my car. I don’t have any problems streaming the Lebanese radio stations since they broadcast in EDGE but Ministry of Sound UK for example streams as 3G and after a minute or so the music cuts off and I have to buffer for like 10 seconds which is very annoying. But, I am going to be upgrading my iPhones internet connection from 600kb to 14.4MB at the end of the month which should solve my problem.

I really like the iXA-W407 and if I had to do the purchase all over again I would in a heartbeat. The final score is a 4 out of 5. The lack of a decent search feature and the fact there aren’t any extra widgets I can download and install are the reasons it’s not perfect. If anyone has any specific questions regarding that Alpine unit or the install just ask it below and I will try to answer it. Regarding the PAC TR7, it worked perfectly with the W407. With the TR7 install I can watch videos and change the stereo system settings while I am driving. Without the TR7 I would have to put the car in PARK and raise the handbrake. I also had the PAC SWI-Jack installed which allows the Alpine to be controlled with the FJ’s steering wheel buttons. The PAC SWI-Jack works on a number of cars and with a number of sound systems.

I ordered all my items from Amazon, here is the list with links:

Alpine iXA-W407 Digital Media Station $554.48
Alpine HCE-C107D Rear View Camera $176.99
Scosche TA2076B 2007 Toyota FJ ISO/Double DIN With Pocket Kit $19.58
Scosche Stereo Wire Harness Toyota FJ Cruiser $12.31
PAC TR7 Multi control interface bypass module $23.26
PAC SWI-JACK $42.90
Total: $829.52

Not sure when this video was taken, looks like sometime during the winter. [YouTube]

I recently purchased a Garmin GPS device from Amazon, it was a really good deal costing me under KD40 with shipping to Kuwait via Aramex. I know most of the roads in Kuwait but every now and then I need to go somewhere I haven’t been to before and a GPS device would come in handy. Turns out its actually a lot more handy then I was expecting since a forum user (Burhan) made me realize I could use the device as a radar detector.

All you need is a Garmin GPS unit and the following file which you need to download and copy onto it [POI File]

What this file does is tell the GPS unit where all the speeding and red light cameras are located. When you get near a radar camera the device alerts you with a beep. If you’re driving below the speed limit you get a gray box alerting you of the camera ahead and just a single beep. If you’re driving over the speed limit you get a red box alerting you that you’re speeding and the device beeps frequently until you either pass the camera or drop your speed below that roads speed limit.

It’s very cool and practical and it cost me under KD40. If you’re interested in the same device I have which is pictured above, its called the Garmin Nuvi 255 and it’s available on Amazon for around KD30. [Amazon Link]