I’m really sorry for the late update. I’m writing this as I’m about to move to Birmingham, Alabama. I thought I’d have time to keep you all updated, but I wanted to enjoy this trip a bit so forgot about this whole writing thing. Now, I’m pretty much up to date with my work and I’ll try to post all updates for the blog posts today.

Here you go…

After leaving New Jersey, I moved 2 days to Virginia Beach, at some friend’s house to cool off and explore the city with locals. It was just a few hours drive and I was now at over 700 miles driven in this trip:

I really enjoyed this moment and just tried some good beers and saw a (free) concert of Third Eye Blind. That was a nice look to the past. Car got super dirty from staying under trees, but with all the driving I’m doing, it does not really matter anymore.

I then headed out to Charlotte, NC. As usual, many stupid things happened to me, because I’m not the luckiest person on Earth. First thing that happened was for me to pay for a car wash that my car wouldn’t even clear:

This is a very stupid system. I had to back off the whole single-land road and dry my car while not being reimbursed because I typed the numbers on the keyboard.

Car was all wet.

When I arrived near Charlotte, I stopped at a shop to have my car dynoed and have a few parts installed. First of all, the dyno : I wanted to have a baseline of my car before I start going too crazy on modifications. Right now, I have only an Odula Air Filter, Autoexe Sport Induction Box and Fujimura Gentle Sound Exhaust. I will make full review of these parts after my road trip, into the ND Shop Car section. Here are the results:

First pull was doing 134whp & 134wtq, but the warmer it got, the less it made. Please note that the outside temperature was 38 degrees Celsius (or 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit)… so it was extremely hot. The Autoexe Sports Induction Box pretty much makes an open filter under the airbox and is not the best modification to have in hot environments. I normally live up north (Canada) where it’s cold, so it’s perfect for me, but not for the North Carolina, it seems. Still, the curves were pretty impressive showing maximum torque at 3700RPM and maximum power at around 5700RPM. Car is very solid and nice to drive… and makes 40mpg!

Here’s a video for your viewing pleasure:

The other things I’ve had done at the shop was to finally raise my car's suspension (by about half an inch, or 1cm), change OEM brake pads to ACRE Light Sports Brakes and install the Nielex Front Knuckle Support. Let me tell you that now the car really feels like it should. The brake pads give that extra power it needs to feel more aggressive and less “old man’s” car. The Knuckle Support makes the front end super stiff during turns and really makes the steering of the car different. This is a very short review of those 2 parts, but I’ll also make a good writeup about them in my ND Shop Car section later (after more mileage is put on them). My friends at SB Garage also did a review on the Nielex Knuckle Support and seem to like it as much as I do!

I’ll now prepare the blog post for my visit at Miatas at the Gap in the border of North Carolina and Tennessee (Dragon Tail). This was one awesome event. I hope you're enjoying the read on my USA Roadster Trip!