The stock automatic transmission seems to take all of these modifications in stride and has performed very well even on the Odyssey’s frequent outings on tracks like Tsukuba. To make it more suited to circuit work the suspension has been swapped for a special Takero’s damper kit featuring hard springs front and rear. The resulting low ride height also helps keep the center of gravity closer to the ground. Brakes are once again from Takero’s, and are made up of huge 6-pot front calipers biting down on two-piece slotted rotors.
Open the driver’s door and you are greeted with an interior more akin to a racecar than a family wagon! Taking center stage are the red Momo bucket seats mounted, for obvious reasons, on very tall custom rails. The alcantara clad Sparco steering wheel has the option of being removed thanks to the quick release boss, helping ease entry and exit. Pivot was chosen for the additional instrumentation which is made up of a large tachometer mounted in front of the main dash area, and a set of smaller dials fitted to Takero’s own universal carbon fiber instrument cluster. This houses the water and oil temperature gauges as well as the oil pressure and of course boost instruments. Set between the bucket seats is the large nitrous oxide canister, which feeds the engine its cold gas when needed as well as serving as a somewhat uncomfortable armrest! And the uncomfortable side of the Takero’s Odyssey doesn’t end there, as there are no other seats for occupants, which have all been trashed in the pursuit of weight savings.
We met up with Takero-san at Tsukuba circuit where we snapped the white van around the twisty corners of Japan’s better-known track. With Takero-san behind the wheel the Odyssey was putting down consistent laps around the 1:10 sec mark but will be running much better once Garage Saurus program a more extreme map into its HKS F Con iS ECU. Takero seems to have well eclipsed simply being ‘noticed’ and are well on their way to full blown notoriety. Most incredibly we discovered that Takero’s have just built an even more extreme track-only Odyssey, with fully stripped interior, roll-cage, semi-slick tires and an engine producing in the region of 400 hp!