Sportcar Motion does it again…Part 2…
Random mid-day update….I actually forgot to include this in the other post and I don’t want to edit it because you guys might miss it. It’s a clip from the Sportcar Motion Civic at the Redline Time Attack. The driver is none other than Tim Kuo, enjoy….
Sportcar Motion does it again…
You heard it right, Loi Song and Sportcar Motion have done it yet again…This past weekend at round 1 of the Redline Time Attack series, the Sportcar Civic hatchback placed first in Modified FWD class and beat the record that they themselves set last year…
The image of the time sheet might be hard to see so I highlighted it in green, essentially making it even more difficult to read. The CX hatch ran a 1:55.809 at Buttonwillow, with the next closest run from another Civic which was 9 seconds slower. That’s gotta say alot for what the Sportcar team is doing out there…
Probably would have ran under 1 min times if he had kept The Chronicles sticker on there….Not only did he lose massive street cred points but the chrome outline of my decal creates a significant amount of downforce…
Not much else I really have to say, the times speak for themselves. I’m excited to see the new time attack build when it’s finished as well as the other white hatch that is being prepped for the Castrol Syntec Challenge…
Loi would like to thank his sponsors, Skunk2, Hondata, Rywire, BDL, Special Project, Church Automotive Testing, Toyo Tires, and me for my old Advan RGs that Jeremy wanted me to mention…oh, ahem, “Time Attack Winning” RGs….
Stuff from the weekend…
So I woke up at like 6am to head to a shoot for Honda Tuning this past weekend. I did my usual arrive on time and then subsequently get lost for 20 minutes routine. I don’t know what it is about directions but when they come from HeyMikeyyyy, they’re usually pretty incorrect. He gave me some random ass address and then called me to tell me it wasn’t at that location. I somehow ended up at McDonald’s and grabbed some breakfast before I randomly ended up at the spot I was supposed to be at…
I suppose you all wanna see what car was getting shot…
…but I don’t really think I’m at liberty to reveal what it was so you guys can decide for yourself. Let’s just say that it’s definitely deserving of being in the magazine. Nothing really exciting happened. Car was shot, stood around for a couple hours, ate, shot the shit with some homies, etc….Oh we also saw some random car that was on fire and stared at it. There was also a dead rat that had been run over right next to it and I took a picture of it. But then when I came home to look at it at like 3000 pixels or whatever I almost threw up and quickly deleted the picture…
Other than that not much happened. The day before I managed to find some time to finally adjust the coilovers on my Q45. It needed to be lowered badly back to it’s original height before I installed the Wald kit. I was nervous before about damaging it because it hung so low and my complex has speedbumps all over the place. I really can’t stand the height it was at and it doesn’t really matter if I damage the kit because I plan on redoing the car eventually anyway. So I took it apart and lowered it to the point where the ramps I use had about 1mm clearance left under the front lip. I tightened everything and took it for a spin and remarkably didn’t hit anything or get anything caught under it. For the first time since I purchased the car, I can honestly say that I’m happy with where it’s at. Before there was always something that bothered me about it but now I’m content…
Here’s a pic for reference…
For you guys that ordered stickers, I plan on shipping them out this week. The previous batch of people should have received there’s by now. Richie aka “nashville” from NWP was kind enough to snap this pic and show love for “The Chronicles…”. He’s putting his car back together and it’s looking good. I have to admit that I was kinda iffy on the previous set-up he had but from seeing his recent pics, it’s definitely a huge improvement and I’m excited to see the finished result.
Shout-out to nashville and Premium Garage Krew for showing love all the way from the other side of the coast…
That’s basically it for the weekend. April should be more interesting with some more meets and shit going on, that and everyone is starting to get their stuff together for the annual Eibach meet. Oh, Loi and Sportcar Motion took another trophy home and set another record. I’ll let you guys know what’s up with that when I get more information from him…
Alright, time for a random snap…
Here comes another totally un-Honda related post…Sorry guys, not much going on this week. I’ll return to your normally scheduled programming very soon…
So I finally got around to moving my car around. It’s been so totally neglected the last couple months that I didn’t even realize until last night that I haven’t updated my tags since October 2008. That means that on the rare occassions when I’ve been driving around, I’ve been rolling around with expired tags. So when I had my blow-out, all my trips back to visit my parents in SD, the Eibach meet in January, etc….all with old tags haha. I consider myself to be very lucky. Especially with cops always running my tags whenever I roll up anywhere, I’m surprised I didn’t get caught up. Of course my registration paperwork is up to date, I guess with me always rolling around in my daily, I just forgot to put the sticker on and put the paperwork in my car. I had to look through a shitload of my old mail and what not on my messy-ass computer desk before I finally found it.
Guess the blow-out on my tires put everything into motion and mattered more than just a simple ripped up tire. I finally got around to getting some new wheels, updating my tags, washing the fucking thing, and actually getting it to start since it was sitting. Guess things do happen for a reason. With that said, I’m very happy with my new wheels and how they fit. I don’t want to experience another episode of hanging out with my friends for a couple hours on the side of a freeway so I plan on finally getting my alignment readjusted. Gotta fix the toe cuz it is terrible in the rear. After that, it’s time to get this Y33 lower again. I also got little things here and there that I need to install and update…
Oh well, that’s all for now. I leave you with a pic of my Q45 as it sits today and also in the picture is my daily, a 1997 Toyota 4Runner with 221k on the odometer…gotta love those Toyota trucks…I beat the living hell outta this thing…
Hmm…
So it’s just been an utterly slow all week. Nothing noteworthy at all. With no shows and meets coming up, there just isn’t much to talk about. I don’t want to always do nostalgic posts even though they are interesting. I also want to not always do those “indepth look at bad idea” posts because it often makes me sound like an asshole and one guy on Honda-Tech (who probably isn’t very bright and has parents who are related to eachother) went as far as to say that he wishes I “die in a car fire”. If that does happen I sure hope I’m driving into his house while he’s taking a shit…
Some of you guys have been asking for pics of my car but yes, this is a site mainly focused on Hondas and I don’t want to shy too far away from that just to post some pics of my car. It’s not much to look at anyway trust me. I took it out for a wash today and it’s starting to get kinda beat up. I hope I find a job soon and some extra cash so I can get a full kit and respray the whole car. I was tempted to go take a picture though so I stepped outside to the carport that I park in. Directly next to me is a Nissan Altima and above that is a fluorescent light. Well they have been doing renovations to the port lately so things are kind unfinished. I look up and the light is like hanging off to one side…
I’m not a betting man but I’m willing to bet that the light isn’t supposed to be hanging by one screw and dangling off the wooden beam. I’m also one that likes to live dangerously so I’m going to see if I wake up the next morning with that light sitting inside my passenger seat. I can’t really do much honestly. The management here is so strict that everyone has a parking pass and the parking from the port to the non-ported spots have different passes. If I moved my car it’s pretty much gonna get towed. If it does fall, I hope it doesn’t fall in a swinging motion and go through my window. I’d rather have it just drop onto my neighbor’s car, haha.
Man that was pretty uninteresting…
I figure I should include something about Hondas so here’s some notable Hondas that I spotted so far this week on the net…
This Fit looks good on the purple BBS wheels. The gold bolts are a great touch…It belongs to “Towelie” from Florida…
I wish I had more pics of this Accord. I’ve seen it before and it’s also been these exact pictures. Custom widebody VIP-styled Accord sedan. The wagons have a bit of a following in Japan and it’s rare to see the sedans modified this way anywhere. Sometimes Florida surprises us with some interesting, impressive builds. And sometimes they got the guys that are trying to set the “new” standard by calling people out over wheel fitment…you know who you are…
This of course is Phaze2 TJ’s S2000. I don’t know how this guy constantly gets new wheels and manages to fit basically anything on a stock body S2000, but then again I managed to completely burn a waffle in the microwave today…wait what are we talking about? Love TJ’s builds, both this S2000 as well as his previous red S2k. I just hope he would follow through and finish a car for once and not try to sell it every month. Thumbs-up for the homie TJ though, S2000 wheel-fitment king….
At a snail’s pace…
Man, it’s been slow as hell this week. Nothing really going on at all. I finally got around to picking up some new wheels this week since I got rid of my Eurolines after the birthday fiasco. I seriously never look forward to jacking my car up in the air to do anything because it’s just an awful pain in the ass. That’s one of the reasons why I miss having a Honda. Usually like 3-4 pumps on the floorjack will get that shit up in the air and ready to work on. With this car I have to drive on like a wood board to elevate the front, not to mention that I can’t even get a low profile floorjack under it unless I jack the car up from the tow hook in the rear. Once I get a little bit of space then I can slide my scissor jack up front and wedge it under. That and I also push up against the sideskirt while in that process and it just makes me nervous. Did I mention I plan to make it lower soon? Man I can’t wait to get airbags on this car…just not looking forward to the ride quality afterwards. Anyway, the wheels look better than I thought they would. Me being away from working on cars so long has made me forget how big of a difference 10mm is in terms of offset on wheels. Now sitting at 0 offset in the rear, I get that nice poke that I’ve been wanting for the longest. I need an alignment badly though. The toe in the rear is just way off and I’m gonna eat up these tires like the last ones. It sucks not living in a place with an enclosed garage because I can’t really do the things I used to on my other cars…
Oh yeah, my car has been sitting so long that it barely even cranked over today. I basically parked it that night of my birthday and it had been sitting since…
Nothing really Honda related today….
On a brighter note, everyones favorite hate-fodder, the JDMEgo blog, is back! I don’t know why people hate on the guy so much, guess it comes with some reasonable success and a strong mind. He doesn’t always say things that everyone agrees with, something I can relate to, but he knows what he’s talking about. The guy knows his shit plain and simple. Back before he deleted his old blog I was getting alot of traffic from his side and he even hooked it up one time and made a post about this site. It’s only right that I return the favor so I invite you all to head over there to read his ramblings. I don’t have anything near interesting to talk about today so maybe you’ll find him more informative….
Some tidbits for today…
I normally wouldn’t give something like this so much attention, but I was pretty busy throughout the day and when I heard about this, I was kind of annoyed. Well that and I don’t really have anything else to talk about today… There are a couple things you can do on the internet that are cool…umm look for good prices, fap, ruin your mind by accidently discovering some new type of porn that you’ve never heard of before, stalk people, fap, and of course, read The Chronicles.. You know what’s not cool? And well, borderline stupid? Calling someone out on the internet. Not only does it not solve anything, it just irritates people and people quickly discover how big of an asshole you are. I bring this up today because I was eating lunch with Heymikeyyyy (name drop….although he really isn’t that important) at The Hat in Pasadena when HBK Gabe (double name drop…if you’re the old lady that he stole the parking-spot from at the JTuned meet and you’re reading this, hit me up and I’ll tell you where to find him.) texts Mikey to inform him of a thread on Honda-Tech. Usually when something pops up on Honda-Tech, it’s 9 out of 10 times some sort of shit-talk. Turns out that some cat in Florida created a thread to specifically call-out Arnel from Phaze2 and his Civic…In a thread titled “Phaze 2 who?!” , some guy posts “My friend had to do something crazy to set the NEW standard” accompanied by a picture of what looks to be a red hatchback with a jagged-ass fender and a wheel with no tire. I don’t really understand what the new standard was that he was trying to set but I’m really not that excited about it after seeing the condition of the body. That and anyone can make a wheel fit with no tire. It’s a little stupid to be calling anyone out anywhere over something as elementary as wheel fitment. I guess the guy and his homie threw on a 16×9 +10 wheel on his car and thought that they discovered the land of Narnia or something. A 9 wide wheel isn’t all that exciting really. But if the original poster really thinks so then all I can really say is…. congratulations, you’re the Christopher Columbus of Honda wheel fitment.
.That’s really all I gotta say about that. Here’s the link to the thread. In typical Honda fashion, by the time you get a chance to read it, it will be filled with a bunch of senseless arguing where someone reads something the wrong way and goes apeshits over it. Oh and of course it’s gonna turn into a war of words between the east/west coast. Either that or whatever state the original thread creater is from will jump in and defend the holy fuck out of him. I’ll let you judge for yourself. Keep in mind it’s not about who did what first but who pulled it off better and executed it properly….
On a lighter note, as you all know, I regularly keep up with the search terms that people use to discover this site. Anyone that’s followed this site closely will notice that I usually post up the funny or strange ones. Well this one I got for you from yesterday has to take the cake….
Hmm…what the fuck is going on in the mind of whoever typed that in. Pretty sure it’s not for any kind of research paper. This has me a little worried….good news is that whoever it was actually did click on the link and looked at the site haha….If you’re reading this, I sure hope you find what you’re looking for….
A Nostalgic Moment…”The Dragon Unleashed”…
I was glancing at my old photo albums the other day and couldn’t help but notice the enourmous amount of Accords back in the day at shows. Nowadays, it’s rare to see one or two Accords at shows or even meets. Of course there isn’t much debate as to why…Once the whole “JDM” style took over, more and more Civics and Integras that had more parts readily available took the place of heavily modified Accords. So many Accords were getting modified in the past because the lines of the car were so simple. Any headlight/taillight and body panel modification would easily alter the entire look of the car. If you stepped foot into any car show in Socal back in the early 2000s, you would undoubtedbly run into a 4th (90-93) or 5th (94-97) generation Accord with either a Skyline or Altezza conversion…
The Altezza conversion was so popular at that time because the IS300s had just made it’s way to U.S. shores. We all know how popular the taillights were. So popular that it changed the entire import scene at the time and companies began introducing “Altezza-style” lights for every car in sight. Before APC had their way with the style, people were doing real Altezza taillight conversions. The headlights were also very popular. I remember seeing them on Del Sols, Preludes, etc. You name it, someone probably attempted it. The Accord you see pictured was one of the more notable showcars of the time. Sure it didn’t have a lasting impact of say, L.J. Garcia’s FEEL’s EK, but it was a big deal back then…
This Accord, deemed “The Dragon”, originally appeared on the cover of Import Tuner in January 2001. It had all the modifications that were popular at the time: head/taillight conversion, white vinyl interior, flared body panels, and big ass wheels. 5, 10, 20 years, it doesn’t matter…Racing Hart C5s will always look good with a decent size lip on them. I imagine the owner must have forked out a pretty penny for some 19×9/19×10 Hart C5s back in 2000, but judging by the custom gas filler behind the taillight, money wasn’t really an issue….
The thing that kinda ruined it for me was the whole “dragon” theme. In my opinion it kinda cheesed-up the build. I remember thinking that even back when I first saw it and back then I was pretty open to seeing some cheesy shit. I mean, the dude had dragons EVERYWHERE. Even his custom hood has a transparent section of it where it’s cut to resemble a dragons head…
Alot of you might be kinda thrown off by the color more than the dragon stuff. According to the magazine, it was a Ferrari red with a mix of white and blue pearl. I call it pink pearl. The color wasn’t that big of a deal for me. During that time, cars were either pink, baby blue, white with gold/blue pearl, umm..fuckin neon green, or like yellow. Most of the time it would have some pearl in it, it was also one of the hot things to do at the time. All the bodywork and paint was done by JT Autostyle. JT was huge back then. They were doing alot of custom kits as well as putting their “JT EVO” kits on every car that went into their shop. The owner also had that Miata with the motorized lambo doors and the orange juice maker wheels that looked like Racing Hart F24s….
There’s a shot of the engine bay in the mag also but I forgot to get a picture of it. Nothing really spectacular, it had polished pieces and colored silicone hoses and what not. It was also on air bags. Would have bene cool to see a boosted H in this thing but it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. I doubt this thing really ever drove anywhere fast…
Say what you will about this Accord but alot of work was put into it and the execution was great. I know alot of people will talk shit about it but that was the “look” back then. I’m sure alot of kids are gonna be like “oh it’s rice” and “Haha, that’s stupid”, etc. But guess what? Some of these guys are rollin’ around in their Rotas and tow hooks with dolls hanging off of them and trying to front like their shit is tight. These kids are basically the new “rice”. The only difference is that back then, they used better quality parts and their cars were complete inside and out. I guess it’s one of those “to each their own” situations but I mean, you can’t really deny the attention to detail back then. I think that alot of times, people are more concerned with “JDM” parts that they don’t ever think about attention to detail, which is something that was very prevelant in the past. You always hear people nowadays complain about why they don’t get features and what not even though they have JDM this and that part. It’s because of horrible execution. You can’t just throw random ass parts together, be the nice or not, and expect people to understand what you’re trying to present. Yes, the 94 Accord above is pink and it does have Toyota lights, and dragons all over it. But that’s the central theme, and it’s carried out in spectacular fashion…I mean, the owner calls it “the Dragon”..you look at it, and it’s a fucking pink dragon car. He’s not frontin’. You got guys nowadays calling themselves “JDM” and they got nothing but fake wheels and knock-off faux JDM stuff. Your parts are definitely from out of the country homie, but it ain’t Japan….
“The Dragon” – no lie. Circa 2001…
Mugen Insight…Environmentally Hot???…
As I look back on my younger years when I used to go basically anywhere with my friends to have fun, I remember going to some pretty awful places. Whether it be a shitty bar or a shittier club, I’ve always managed to find ways to have fun, despite the environment. One thing that I remember doing back then, especially when it came to chicks, was to find the hottest one at that specific location. I’m sure many of you guys and girls know what I’m talking about. For girls, you know you find yourself looking around for the best looking dude no matter where you go. I am off the market now of course so I don’t find myself doing this as much because I generally get yelled at if I look elsewhere. But in the singles days, it was definitely a must to find the hottest chick in the room, even though at times one sacrifices good taste in the process. If you find yourself in a club full of ugly chicks and you find yourself thinking that the least ugly one is super hot, then you my friend, are a victim of circumstance…That and you’re probably young and shallow. In these situations, one is subject to the “hot by association” rule aka…”environmentally hot”….Meaning that the girl you’re looking at isn’t exactly hot, but because of the locale, she’s a fucking supermodel. You can deny it all you want, but everyone knows that it’s true…even if you don’t think your mind works that way. For example…
When you look at this picture, do you find yourself looking for the hottest one out of the group? Most likely. Those of you who are happily in a relationship might not be looking and wondering why the girl in the front is hunched over. That’s because she’s pretty fucked up. But if you find yourself thinking “ummm…yeah, I would hit that one…she’s pretty hot…” Then you my friend, are looking for the one that’s hot by association…
I bring this up because the Honda Insight, is not the best looking car in the world. Sure, it saves you lots of gas and sometimes it has a unique look to it, but it’s no Ferrari. In the hybrid world, it’s not even the hot chick’s “somewhat-hot-but-not-really-but-I’ll-keep-her-around-cuz-she-makes-me-hotter” friend. You know who you are ladies and don’t act like we don’t notice that you only keep less attractive friends around because they make you look better…
Look at this thing…it looks like the product of a drunken sexual escapade between a computer mouse and a handi-vac….It’s not exactly the belle of the ball, if you catch my drift. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard about the next generation Insight. I heard rumblings about it but didn’t get to see anything other than pics of the rear of the car and it reminded me alot of the Toyota Prius…So when I got home today and my homie Chris IMed me this link and told me to “write about this”, I must say, I was shocked…
…Kinda like this but minus the shock and horror….Anyways, I sat in front of my computer and watched the video provided by the Mugen website and was truly impressed by how great the Mugen Insight looked. It’s like borderline new-age Civic Type R but with a touch of green…as in environmental green…
The headlights look alot like the new Odysseys and Streams. The addition of the Mugen aero definitely gives it that aggressive touch…
The rear does have a bit of the “Prius-look” but is definitely more sleek…
I can’t really put in words how sweet this Mugen Insight looks in motion and on the road. I doubt we’ll ever see this on a U.S. road but it’s definitely cool to see Mugen and Honda working together to create a sporty vehicle that’s still good for the environment.
With that said, I would highly recommend watching the video and checking out the other features on that site. Definitely an “Insight-ful” look…(ehhh…cheesey)…
Let’s try that again…
Definitely good-looking enough that Chris Brown won’t punch it, bite it’s fingers, and push it’s head against a car window…
Okay okay, I’ll stop.
More Top Fuel nostalgia…Top Fuel EK on video…
Been a slow week so far. Nothing really going on other than the same old stuff…The post about the Top Fuel Civic from a 1999 issue of Turbo magazine sparked so much interest that I thought I’d keep you guys company with some videos today. No this isn’t the same EK that graced the issue because it’s basically impossible to find anything on it anymore. The only thing that really comes up is Hugh Le’s old EK and that was repainted yellow and went through many other phases. Despite it not being the same car, it gives you an idea of what Top Fuel was doing at that time. Just to hear this thing run is music to the ears….One video is from Max Power UK (sans tits), the other two look to either be from an Option or Revspeed or Hot Version video…Anyway, enough with the talking…
New batch of stickers….
Small update for you guys today…I finally managed to get a new batch of stickers made from my sticker guy. All you guys that ordered them the last month or so will be getting them soon cuz I’m sending them out today. I made alot more this time so I won’t run out anytime soon. If you guys are interested, click on the “Support The Chronicles…” link above and purchase…If you guys missed the last sticker update, these are indeed the bigger ones and are about 14 inches long. The very first batch I made were a bit smaller so it made them kinda hard to read. The design is slightly different on these and are alot more visible…Thanks to everyone that’s been pitching in and helping support this place…
A Nostalgic Moment…June 1999 – Top Fuel’s 531hp EK…
Ahhhh….why the fuck is it shaking?!….Haha, so I was at my parents’ house a while back and I managed to find a whole stash of all my old magazines that I used to collect. Back then, I used to buy pretty much all the magazines that were out but followed Import Tuner the most. When I do these posts, sometimes it’s basically impossible to find any pics of the cars I wanna talk about because they’re usually about 10 years old and any picture of them is probably long gone. For example, I brought up Kash Singh’s widebody Accord awhile back and struggled to find images of it. Now as you can see from above, I have the issue in hand with Aiko Tanaka on the cover and all…I also dug up the 2nd photo album that I was looking for. When I found the first one, some pics were missing and I was thinking that another album must be somewhere in my room and sure enough, here it is…
The first car and mag that I wanted to bring up before all the others is the June 1999 issue of the now defunct Turbo magazine. On the cover, as you can see from the top right corner of the picture, was the H22-powered, 531hp Top Fuel EK Civic…
Back in 1999 I was still a diehard Toyota-guy and also still in highschool. A Honda wasn’t anywhere near my plans for the future so the only time I really looked at them was when I flipped through a magazine. I think this EK might possibly be the reason why I fell in love with Hondas. Something about it was just so raw…
This feature was probably also one of the first time the U.S. was introduced to the Buddy Club bodykit. Whether you liked it back then or not, there’s no denying that this kit was probably one of the most popular of all time. I remember I went to a show once, probably an Autofest in San Diego, and there was a whole row of cars all rocking Buddy Club front bumpers. Of course they weren’t all real, kits were one of the first things to be copied and knocked-off but that represented the true popularity of the look at that time. Shit, of all the Buddy Club kits out there, I bet 90% of them weren’t real. They were all over the place. On Escorts and Sentras and shit,…EVERYWHERE.
This thing was serious…It made 531whp with an H22A and IHI RX-6 turbo. One of the signatures of this EK was the A’PEXi Skyline intercooler core. It might even be the first thing anyone noticed. It probably wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that this EK was the inspiration behind the Team Rice EK as both used Skyline cores…
Advan RGs will always be one of my favorite wheels of all time. Seeing them on the Top Fuel EK is probably one of the reasons why. It was definitely on my list of wheels to own in my lifetime and when I found a set in 2006, I knew I had to have them. Sure RG2s are great wheels but they won’t ever come close to the original RGs in my eyes….
If you brought this car out today, it would probably still be a beast. There’s nothing really outdated on it per say, the Buddy Club kit maybe but it’s functional on this car. People nowadays are still searching for a mint set of RGs, Top Fuel as a whole is probably a much bigger name than it was back in 1999, and the turbo H22 would probably be a built n’ boosted K20R. If anything it’s the prime example of a timeless build. Most people today are still trying to reach these types of numbers and trying to get ahold of the parts on this EK. If this thing were to arrive at a show or meet, guys would act like giddy little school girls in anticipation of catching a glimpse at it. A crazy thought considering it’s been almost 10 years since it graced the pages of Turbo…
Oh and if you were wondering…I intentionally didn’t scan the pics because of two things: 1. I fucking hate scanning shit cuz it’s so tedious and time consuming. 2. I fucking hate macs even more and that’s the only computer I have here that has a scanner. The images above probably look better than scanning it and them turning out all huge and grainy anyway…
HIN and Stuff from all over…
Photo courtesy of alexisthemovie…
I bet you guys are here looking for HIN coverage. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to go. I don’t think I was particularly busy, but I didn’t really plan to go unless some of the homies hit me up to go or something. My phone didn’t ring so I ended up doing other things. I’m hearing from those that went that it was a pretty decent show though. Some even said that it’s the best that it’s been in years. Which is a good sign considering it’s under different ownership now. Maybe the new crew running the show hit the mark and will continue to throw good HIN events from now on. If you guys were wondering why it was smaller than usual, that’s because it was intended to be so. That’s also why it was outdoors because the new owners wanted to save money. Guess it worked out for them from all the positive feedback I’ve been hearing about it. Almost makes me wish I had gone and saw for myself…I never really had too much of a problem attending the shows. Showing is different though, I doubt I would do a show again after I had something stolen from out of my car the last time I showed and usually it’s a little too crowded and people are all leaning on cars and shit trying to take pictures of so-so looking girls. As far as just going and checking it out it’s usually never been that bad. The only complaint I would have about it would be that it was so crowded at times that you couldn’t even walk around or look at cars indepth. Having the show outdoors might have solved that problem though…
Alex usually takes some pretty good pics but I guess he hasn’t uploaded the ones from the actual show so I didn’t get a chance to jack his pics and post them here…=P
On another note regarding the post from over the weekend, I glanced at the search stats again and found some more interesting stuff….it’s no fuckwheel, even though the term does appear once again, but definitely noteworthy…
Yes folks, I am officially “JDM”. Though I am said “JDM”, I don’t have any nip slip pics from HIN Anaheim 2009 so sorry to whoever the pervert was that searched that. I also don’t have any pictures of Christine Mendoza slipping on anything either. Though I have seen pics of her in some precarious positions where it may have looked like she slipped while aiming a water hose on herself. If you’re looking for a nip slip from her well……I don’t have that either. Do try to type in “nip” next time though when you search. Maybe there’s a video of one of her photoshoots in a kitchen where you may find your unicorn at the 3:40 mark….so I hear…..
Here’s a pic to keep you occupied in the meantime….
…I think she’s looking for her nail…haha…
If you guys are looking for HIN coverage and not just nip slips, my little cousin actually went and took pics too. He’s just a young buck and barely getting into the whole scene but he did manage to capture quite a few shots from the event. I remember when I was his age and going to shows like this. I was too busy holding bags of free shit and stickers or whatever that I didn’t even have any hands free to take pictures.
Let’s send some traffic his way…If you don’t like his pictures, please feel free to tell him to concentrate more on taking pics of asses and boobs. The last line is there just because people generally search for “assess and boobs” online and guess what’s gonna show up? stickydiljoe.com…..
HIN Anaheim 2009 Coverage by timscribbles…Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Ahh, the magic of Google…
I’m often fascinated by the capabilities of search engines. Okay, not really, but as a guy who runs a pretty successful site, I often look at the statistics of this site to see what draws traffic over here. WordPress has the ability to record exactly what people type in to reach this site via search. I believe I mentioned this randomly in another post before. I think it was when I mentioned that someone was typing in “sticky lil joe cronicles” and managed to find this site. If you thought that was a little weird, wait until you see some of the other stuff people type in. Since there’s nothing really going on lately, I thought I’d fill you guys in on exactly how bizarre Google and other search engines are when it comes to “The Chronicles…”….
Mind you this is all within a week’s time, there have been even stranger terms but these are the only ones I have access to right now…I’m not exactly sure how it all works either because I actually typed in some of these terms and stickydiljoe.com doesn’t show up. It could just be that people are randomly searching for “fuckwheels” or “public pubis” and then thought to check my site, I don’t know….But I’ll let the images speak for themselves…
I especially like the “sticky dil joe asshole” search…haha…
Man, people are really fascinated with pubis and pubic in public….So strange…. If you’re wondering about the Lorraine Motel, I too wondered about it because it often comes up in the search stats. I actually googled it and it’s the location where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. I mentioned it awhile back in the Wek’Fest posts and I guess it’s a popular search term….Not as popular as “pubic” and “get a boner” though, which worries me about the future of society…Anyways, if you happen to be one of the people who were looking for “pubic” regions exposed in “public” places so that you can “get a boner” while “Honda fucking” on your “fuckwheel”, thanks for the traffic and the hits. I hope you find your “fat lips dick” someday…. - “sticky dil joe asshole cronicles on site from the Lorraine Motel.“
Now for something TL-otally different…
Did you see what I did with that title there? Yeahhh….Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates the last two days, it’s not that I haven’t been trying to update it’s just that I felt that the Nisei post deserved more attention than just one day’s posting and then going into the archives. That and there might have been a night where I totally fell asleep but still, the Nisei post is definitely the most important news for the week…Moving on…
So I spotted this car over on VIPstylecars.com and thought it deserved a mention. The car itself, without the styling, is uncommon enough as it is. You just don’t see many TLs of this generation on the road anymore let alone modified to any extent. The first and most obvious change is the satin black paint. There are a couple VIP-themed builds out there with this type of paint, but you can count them with one hand. Number of TLs with this paint? Uh, probably just this one…
Many who put so much work into custom fitting all these parts onto a car would probably refrain from using a satin black. Reason being that it might pull too much attention away from the parts itself, but the owner states in his thread that it’s painted this way because his other car, an RX-7, also shares this black…
Great shot of the NSX brake swap…Would have been really cool if it was gold like the lip of the wheel…
I absolutely love how the wheels came out. The wrinkle finish is definitely something you don’t see all the time and it adds to the extensive list of custom work on this 1st generation TL…Also note that the fitment is awesome too.
There are alot of people out there that will hate on this car or say that it’s not “VIP”. You can’t please everyone you know…This is a perfect example of building something for yourself and not really worrying about what people think. VIP or not, it’s definitely unique in it’s own way. Personally, I really like it. The wheels set it off for me. The kit doesn’t fit all that well but it adds to the character of the car. Paint is okay, he could have painted it or left it the original color it was (Original below…) and both would have worked…
The owner says it has a high compression motor and built tranny in there too. He didn’t have any engine shots but with all the custom work and what he did to his other car (LSx-powered FC3S), I wouldn’t be surprised. Props to this guy for thinking outside the box….Great job…
Credits go to OJ SANTIAGO for the photos.
Back tomorrow with another update….
The Last Nisei Import Showoff….EVER?
Got an email today…I’m sure many of you got a similar email as well if you’ve participated in an Import Showoff event within the past couple years or so. If not here it is…
It’s our 15th Anniversary and it’s the
LAST SHOWOFF EVER!
Nisei Week SHOWOFF Car Show
August 15, 2009Did we get your attention? Since SHOWOFF gets no love from industry = no sponsors, it might just be the last SHOWOFF ever! Come support the orginators of car shows and be a part of history.
For the first 25 car show registrants we are hooking you up with discount $10 OFF Nisei registration fee. We call it the “Recession Hook-Up” so hurry before all spots fill up. Like always, SHOWOFF comes correct and will have top notch show cars along with prestigious awards.
This is truly sad…Man I have so many great memories of doing these shows. I remember either participating or just attending these events and they’ve always been one of the best shows out there. I can’t say enough of Ken Myoshi for staying loyal to the import community by keeping this event going for so many years. It’s a shame that the industry hasn’t given back to him by not sponsoring his events and letting this show die off. Falken used to be their major sponsor but I guess they’re busy doing drift events and what not and no longer support car shows other than the major high dollar ones like Hot Import Nights. It was already weird enough coming into 2009 without a Chinatown Showoff. Those were usually held during Chinese New Year in conjunction with the festivities. Even though the shows were usually a bit smaller than others, and the driveway totally sucked dick, they were always heavily attended and the best cars always made an appearance…
Damn I remember the first Nisei Showoff I did with my Honda back in 2005. It was my Accord’s “official debut” I guess you can say. I had just recently completed alot of stuff on it and was anxious and nervous to do the show, because the quality and competition were always so high. I decided to do it just because. What made it even nerve-racking was that I was doing the show by myself that year. I really didn’t know anyone because I had just gotten into Hondas and my car crew that I was rolling with was basically separated. I ended up driving to Little Tokyo from San Diego with my friend Kevin early in the morning. Like REALLY early. My carbon fiber trunk didn’t really seal correctly and so we were kinda breathing in gas fumes all the way up…it was pretty bad. We ended up having to crack the windows the majority of the drive and my friend ended up getting sick from all the cold air and fumes. I got to the venue and didn’t have anyone to park with so I ended up parking right by the Showoff booth, which worked out for me because the spot got alot of traffic and people got a chance to see my car. I didn’t think much of it but I had alot of people come by and pay me alot of compliments…
This was also the first time I got to officially meet the late great Randy “Questoyz RHandy” Gagan. We had been exchanging PM’s on Honda-Tech because he saw some pics of my car online and was giving me advice and what not on what to do. If you knew Randy, you knew that he was always willing to help anyone and always had a kind word to say. I remember him coming up to me and introducing himself. I shook his hand and he told me to stop by and check out both of his cars that he was showing. He brought out his beautifully done DA Integra and CRX and it was mind boggling to see those cars finally in person. Just talking to the guy for a couple minutes and you instantly knew that this guy was a class act. Sadly it was also one of the few times I would ever see Randy again as he passed away the year after. I truly miss that guy, and I can’t even imagine how much his really close friends and family do. After the show he continued to help me out and I even ended up picking up some stuff from the Earl’s shop that he was working at. I was also on the verge of buying his DA too but it just never came to fruition because I had no where to store the car. R.I.P. Randy, you are truly missed….
Over the years I also met alot of other great people. Many of who I consider to be my close friends today. This show did a great job of bringing all the great car builders together in one place. It wasn’t overfilled with people, and neon lights and loud music and shit. So you actually had the opportunity to go around and truly look at other peoples’ work and talk to the owners. The only downside was that it got progressively hotter every year but you can’t really blame that on Ken. The show was simple, go to the lot, park, hang out, look at cars. No extra bullshit and that’s what made it great….
I remember the last Nisei I did with my Accord too, shortly before I sold the car. What a hell of a weekend that was. I had just recently completely my NSX-brake swap that week and was planning on driving up to Los Angeles early and stay at a friend’s house so I didn’t have to deal with the grueling morning drive. Boy did that end up being more grueling than anything. I swore I double-checked everything that day that I drove up. I had left Chula Vista and stopped by Oceanside to get some gas and a hot dog because I was hungry. I didn’t get a drink because I honestly didn’t think anything of it. By the time I got on the 210 west freeway towards Pasadena, I was hauling ass because it was the heart of the summer and I no longer had A/C in my car. I was also thirsty from throwing that hot dog down so I was going about 80mph. All of a sudden, I heard a lot pop while I was on the phone and after that, an even louder screeching/grinding sound. I pulled off to the side immediately from the fast lane and got out of my car. I was like “Man, what the fuck, did I get a flat or something?” My tires were brand spanking new so it couldn’t have been and the car didn’t drive that much differently. I stare at my front driverside wheel and my fuckin NSX caliper had fallen off and was sitting on the inside of my wheel. With the speed I was going, the caliper grinding on my wheel also caused a bit of a groove inside my wheel. I stuck my arm behind the wheel and realized that the top caliper bolt was gone and the vibration from the road and probably caused it to come loose and fly off. I was stuck on the side of the freeway at around 3pm or so with traffic with an Accord that was dumped and a brake caliper sitting on my wheel. Luckily the lower bolt was still on and the brakes were big enough that the caliper wouldn’t have completely ripped off the car. I obviously couldn’t tow it at this height and I couldn’t drive it, so I was standing there for about an hour and a half before I could reach any of my friends to help me. Funny thing was some guy in a Civic rolled up and got out of his car on the shoulder and was like “hey nice car man” and then proceeded to drive off…haha…I couldn’t leave my car there so I had to MacGyver some shit and ended up taking one of the bolts on my Autopower rollbar off and remounted the caliper so I could get it off the freeway. Man what a day that was….To make matters even worse, the morning of Nisei, I was driving to the venue and tore a C/V boot and ended up with grease all over my newly polished Work S1′s and all over my white NSX calipers….Like I said, I have alot of memories of doing Nisei shows, whether they be good or bad…
Anyways, I’ll let you guys go now. There are many more stories but they’re probably better left told in person. I’m really gonna miss Nisei Showoffs when they’re gone. It was probably the number one show that I looked forward to every year. People from all over the country would come out to do this show and now with this being the last one, it makes it even harder to meet other enthusiasts that we’ve come to know. It’s really a shame. I wish it didn’t have to be this way but I guess that all good things inevitably come to an end eventually…
I’ll definitely be attending the last and final Showoff event ever. I can’t wait to make more memories….
A Nostalgic Moment…The Supra Taillight Conversion…
Ah yes…many of you who were involved in all this since the late 90s and early 2000s will remember this “unique” modification. Yes, many taillight and headlight conversions were prevelant back then but this one by far was the most popular of that era…Nothing says “I’ve got a Supra”, like some Supra lights on your Honda….haha. People did a lot of crazy, frightening things to cars back then. I almost catagorized this as one of my “indepth look at horrible ideas” posts but I have to be honest….I actually thought this was pretty cool when I was alot younger….
This baby blue CRX definitely isn’t the car I’m gonna tell you about but back in about 1999 when I was still in high school, I remember the first CRX that I saw with a Supra taillight conversion. It was a white CRX from 935draggers. I don’t really remember the owners name but it was one of the first CRXs to catch my eye because it was pretty wild and it was always all over the streets. It had a body kit that wasn’t too common for that time either and was supposedly really rare. I think the guy said it was from Australia or some shit. Anyways, it was a pretty nice CRX from what I remember. I wish I had a pic of it still….actually wait…let me check…
…Hmm, well ain’t that something, I actually do have a pic of it. This is the exact CRX from 935 that I was referring to. Check the date on that photo, pic is taken from 1999! Haha. Man my skills were bad even back then, I can’t even center the fucking car in the picture….Man I’m sure you’ve heard me say it before, but back then, no matter what kind of stupid shit people did to their cars, the wheels were always proper. Look at the Racing Hart Type-C’s on that CRX….ah those were the days…
Even when I search for pics now, the most common car that had the Supra tails were CRXs. I guess people took the straight lines of it as an easier conversion. The above car may be ugly as fuck with that Black Widow 2 kit on it but the bodywork is pretty nice. The lights fit flush and the curve of the light even lines up with the angle of the widen quarter panel….
If you think this looks horrid, keep reading it gets worse. I found alot of these pics from an old site called Honda-Fan.com. I think it was the Canadian version of Importfan.com back when all they did was show tail/headlight conversions on different cars. Honda-Fan just happen to show only conversion on Hondas. I’m surprised the site still exists actually and the pics are still up because it hasn’t been updated in some time…
Here it is on a Civic coupe. Looks like he even molded in the Supra center brake light! Haha..wow. Damn even a fake Mugen spoiler and Feel’s panels…
I’m pretty sure this is the same Del Sol that’s from San Diego. It also had Supra headlights. I think it was from Syndicate or some shit but it used to always be at Gold Crest Autobody. I had both my cars painted there back then and everytime I would go over there this Del Sol would be sitting there. I bet you if you drive over there today, it’s probably still parked there. Why, I’ll leave it up to your imagination but the owner of Gold Crest told me the story once….
Now what I’m about to show you may make you lose your lunch, so if you have a weak stomach or heart, please don’t bother scrolling down. It may just totally shit all over your day….
Yes Supra taillight conversions were cool back in the early 2000s, but the trend eventually found it’s way to the midwest and east coast. As usual, they took the idea…and really ran with it. I’m not gonna argue about west/midwest/east bullshit because it’s stupid. But don’t sit there and tell me that there still aren’t a shitload of j-body Cavaliers rolling around with Shogun kits and whale tail spoilers out there….With that said, I must warn you again of how graphic the pictures are below….
…..
…..
No it isn’t a reflection, there really are 4, count em’, 4 Supra taillights on this DC. Why? I don’t know but it looks disgusting. Reminds me of like a close-up of a fly’s eyes. I bet you that not all of them work either…
If you think that’s bad, you gotta see this…
HAHA! What the fuck is going on here? All that bodywork and the owner apparently lost the motivation to put the taillights where well, where taillights go. I know you wanna see the front, so here it goes…
It’s like Mad Max ran out of gas and was forced to suck the dicks of his enemies, and then they chopped him up ala Robocop 2 style (Yeah you remember) and then frankenstein’d his ass back together with the bodyparts of others. Is that bad enough? Okay let me try again…
It’s like if Mad Max ran out of gas and was forced into the chambers of his enemies where they took turns raping him until they discovered a way to inseminate his ass with mutated semen and impregnated him, then Mel Gibson, who of course plays Mad Max, decides to make a gem of a movie called “What Women Want” and made us watch Helen Hunt for 118 minutes before he took the Delorean back to 2003 and gave birth, out of his ass of course, to this monstrosity. Yes it is that bad.
Just a short one for today…
Sorry guys, I’ve been busy writing for stuff that I actually get paid for so I gotta keep it a bit short today. Lately I’ve kinda had the itch to build a Honda again. Don’t get me wrong, I really have no regrets or any sense of “unfinished business”, but seeing everyone’s builds lately have kind of put that motivation in my head. The only problem is that there is just absolutely zero practicality in owning a Honda in Socal. I hate having that feeling of wondering whether or not my car is gonna be there when I wake up. You know things are fucked when a fixed up luxury car can sit outside all day and be fine and a Honda won’t last more than 20 minutes out in the open. I remember I had my old Accord up here in L.A. for like a week back before I moved up here. The only reason I had it up here was so Son of Hasback fame could shoot it. It didn’t even leave my complex. The one day I take it out I get rolled by a cop. That’s one thing I don’t miss about being a Honda owner. You either get jacked or get rolled by the police. You basically got everything stacked against you. That’s the only reason why I didn’t daily the car, not because it was a garage queen or anything like that. I used to love driving my car, there are just so many factors preventing me from enjoying it. It got so bad to the point where my dad used to come home at work every night at around 3-4am and he could see some fuck parked a couple houses away waiting for the day that I leave my car outside of my garage overnight for him to take…
Even with all the bullshit, I do miss wrenching though. I don’t really do much of that anymore, mainly because I don’t have the funds to do so. The other reason is because I own a car that doesn’t require much work. I would love to tear apart my Q45 piece by piece and put it back together but there’s nothing to do to it that would require that. I’m always around Hondas too and that also makes me want to get back into it. The majority of the people I associate with are still heavily into Hondas and they tell me all the time to go back. I got so many ideas in my head as to what I would do if I had a Honda again. The whole hobby has just evolved so dramatically and it would be fun to apply these new things. I don’t know, the VIP scene is a welcome challenge though. It’s just hard to do anything VIP related without any real funds to do so. It almost seems strange to be building a VIP project during these terrible economic times. I guess I got alot of thinking to do. On one hand, I’ve always been one to see things through to the end so I really want to finish building this Q45. But on the other hand, I’ve kinda had an itch to go back to Hondas and I got so many people telling me to come back. It’s just something I’m gonna have to sleep on. Which reminds me, I need to get some sleep, I was up so late these past two days that I honestly didn’t even realize that whole daylight savings time shit happened. You know what would have made this whole post cooler? If I had the Doogie Howser M.D. theme playing in the back as I typed this…ah…dum dum dum dum, dee dee dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum dum dum dum…
Now you know why I don’t write music…
A day at Sportcar Motion…Part 2…
…On with the pics shall we?…
So the crew over at Sportcar was busy all day dropping a built K-series back into a 06 Civic Si. It was a customers car and the outside was relatively stock so I didn’t really get any shots of it on the lift. The main thing that really stood out about it was the valve cover that Loi had powdercoated…
If this EG looks familiar to you, it should. Not only because every car that Loi has is white, but because this was also the project that I first posted when this site got going. Back then it was still 5-lug, K26 swapped, and with a shaved and tucked bay. It has no been taken apart again in preparation for the upcoming Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge. Sportcar Motion will be working closely with Skunk2, Hondata, and KraftWerks. I’m very excited to see the progress of this car and I’ll try to keep you guys updated on the progress…
KraftWerks will be supplying their K-Series Rotrex Supercharger kit and in combination with the K26 being built, it should make some insane power numbers. Going into the challenge, it might look like the underdog but it’ll definitely be interesting to see how it performs…
Billy’s a close friend of Loi’s and he’s been patiently building this 4-door DB for awhile now. I used to always see it around whenever I would visit and now it just sits pretty in the middle of the shop…
I don’t know how often he cleans it, probably everyday, but this DB is the definition of clean. It’s probably one of the closest you’ll see to a real 4-door Type R aesthetically minus the right hand drive….
I forget the specs but I believe these were 17×8 RG2′s with the offset in the mid 30′s. I haven’t even seen Billy around lately so I didn’t get to ask him…
No K here but a high compression Benson/Laskey built 2.0L GSR swap…
…just one more shot…
I don’t have too many pictures of the exterior, but this is another project Loi and Sportcar are currently working on. Can’t really give out too much info on this one other than it’s a genuine DC2 R that’s been completely stripped and now also K26 equipped…
Loi finally found his unicorn in the form of this Mugen Gen. 2 wing. Pretty much as long as I’ve known him, he’s been searching for this piece. He finally located one from a guy in Japan who happened to be switching this out in place of a J’s Racing wing. Loi was happy to take it off his hands…
K26, looking mighty fine with the powdercoated blue valve cover. Can’t wait to see it when the wheels go on there. It was just sitting on some HFP wheels so it could clear the gigantic Baer brakes but I think the brakes are gonna go because the wheels just don’t fit over the 13-inch rotor. I was just randomly taking pics of it because I was testing out a lens…
Gutted inside with just a seat and Mirarcle Cross Bar…Can’t wait to see how this R comes out…
They won the last time attack with my RG’s on it, hopefully the luck carries over with the R rocking the sticker too…haha…
It was starting to get dark outside so we moved the time attack eg back and got ready for dinner. While Loi was waiting for a customer to pick up a car, I just walked around and snapped some more random shots….
One of my favorite wheels of all time…30s offset Gabs…Looks good on any Honda, believe me…
Rare Toda header that was just hanging in the room where Loi stashes all his old stuff…
After the customer came by, we took off to go eat some Japanese food for dinner and that’s about it….thanks for looking…
BREAKING NEWS!!!….okay, not really…
If you already haven’t heard by now, Super Autobacs recently filed for bankruptcy and now the stores are closing. Word got out this week that they were basically clearing everything out. Always the opportunist, I decided to go see what was going on down there and to see if there were any good deals I could hop on. Before I begin, I’d like to remind you to check out the post below on Sportcar Motion and to stay tuned for the rest of the pics this weekend. With Autobacs biting the dust, I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic and think back on my favorite moment at Autobacs….
This happened probably about 2 years or so ago…
I was still living in San Diego at the time and a couple of friends and I were up in Stanton at Autobacs because I think I had to pick up a sheet of carbon fiber or whatever. Anyways, I hardly ever buy anything there because the stuff was so overpriced. I ended up not even buying what I needed there but I think I saw some other little trinkets that I wanted there and I went up to the register to go pay. There was this short asian girl working the register, not bad-looking, a little pedo-status, but anyways….My friends and I were at the register and she was trying to be all cute and flirty or whatever and making conversation with us, and like her other co-worker was there giggling and shit cuz I think she found it funny and what not. Well after we finished paying, one of the homies forgot to look at something he needed so he walked off while my other friend and I were standing by the front door waiting for him. Well I don’t know what the fuck happened, maybe she was drunk or some shit, but the two girls at the register were giggling to eachother and then the asian chick like started running towards the bathroom. She didn’t make it. Haha…she like ran up to the front door area where the security sensors were and she just like throws up on the floor. Why? I don’t fuckin know, but it was hilarious. Haha…I normally don’t like to laugh at other people’s misfortunes but I found it funny cuz she was trying to be all cute and then she just fuckin plasters the floor with vomit. Maybe she was hungover or something but it was not pretty at all. My friend and I tried not to laugh but it was like watching a fat chick fall of a bicycle, it’s hard not to laugh. My other homie came back and saw the puke on the floor and just started cracking up…man what an asshole that guy is…anyways, that’s my story….
This was the sad scene when I arrived. I honestly never really bought anything from there aside from little things here and there, but I was pretty excited when I heard that they were coming to America way back when. Don’t get me wrong, it is definitely a cool store at a good location. It gave people a chance to see alot of things in person that they otherwise would have never seen normally. The only problem was their high prices, which is understandable. You can’t really survive at a storefront charging internet prices. Autobacs was always the kind of place where you would see something upclose and then go home and buy it elsewhere. Sad but true…
It was pretty crowded when I walked inside. Wasn’t like so crowded that you couldn’t walk, but there definitely were alot more people than usual. I didn’t think that they would really have any good deals because I went to Circuit City during their store closing sale and nothing was really that good of a deal. I was wrong today. They actually had really good prices on some stuff. Majority of the car parts and accessories were 40% off and air fresheners and other cleaning supplies were 30% off. I haven’t been there since the JTuned Meet and they have alot of new stuff too since then…
Most of the really nice parts like seats and steering wheels were basically all gone with the exception of some of the cheaper stuff that no one normally buys anways. For Honda parts, I saw they had a JDM Honda NSX center garnish as well as badges and emblems. I didn’t catch any Mugen or Spoon stuff so I assume they were bought already. I did see a front lip for a Civic there but I forgot to see what model it was. I wanted to pick up some of their scale model cars but they were all gone already. They did have Option DVDs still and they are only $10…
I never spent so much time inside that store until today. I was there for about an hour just looking through all the goods. Majority of the audio section is still around. They have some rims but most of them were display models and incomplete. Tires are about the same price from what I was told when I asked them. Tires probably are discounted because they can always be bought back by the manufacturer and redistributed. I’m sure you know by now that you can’t take pictures inside the store, or I would have taken pics. Air fresheners were abundant but of course the squash scented My Shaldens were all sold. I ended up spending like over $100 there because they had some really good VIP accessories there. Hopefully this will motivate me to start working on my car again…
Even if you don’t need anything specific, it’s a good idea to go check it out. Their motoroil is on sale as well as cleaning supplies, and everyone needs that stuff. If you’re in the area, make sure to go look inside. The next time you’re in the area, that place is gonna be long gone so try to scope it out while y ou still can…
A Day at Sportcar Motion…
So I had nothing really pressing going on during the week and I hadn’t really hung out with my homie Loi Song in awhile so I decided to head down to San Marcos. If you all don’t know Loi, he’s the head honcho over at Sportcar Motion and is responsible for building some of the fastest Hondas in the nation. Last week he mentioned that Skunk2 recently released their new K-series header and I wanted to check it out. I don’t own a k-series or anything Honda related mind you, but I guess I might as well stare at something while I was there…
Rodrez and Jeremy from NWP were already down there pulling the engine from Rodrez’s hatch and wanted to have lunch. I really didn’t bother taking pics of it because nothing special really happened. We ate at Boudin’s and Jeremy and Loi were competing over who could eat the outside of their breadbowl first. Actually, it wasn’t much of a contest because Jeremy was competing with himself. Loi normally eats the outside of the bowl anyway so he finished at his own pace. After that, we headed back to the shop and bullshitted with eachother for a little bit before Rodrez decided he had something better to do and took off. Then I pulled out the camera and snapped some pics of the shop…
I’ve been there plenty of times before but for those of you that haven’t this is what the shop looks like…
The hall is filled with plaques of previous features from well-known customer cars as well as Loi’s previous vehicles…
Here’s a look inside the “showroom” area…
Loi also cashing in on all the latest ricer trends…. =P
One of the sections was strictly for Skunk2 stuff and had all of their newer products…
Speaking of Skunk2, here’s their new K-series header that I mentioned earlier. The craftsmanship on this header is beautiful. Makes me wish I had a K but I’m broke and Honda-less….oh and my car has a flat, a bend, and it’s not getting fixed anytime either…anyways back to the header…
Here’s a shot of the B-series version…
I walked outside to see what Loi was doing and he was showing his time attack hatchback to some guys….
Yes that is a custom front splitter made out of wood…whatever works right? If you’re wondering, yes, this is the same Civic that won 1st place in the Limited FF class at last years Super Lap Battle…
These are my old 16×8 Advan RGs that I once had on my old Accord. I honestly thought that Loi was a little crazy when he first offered to trade me his brand new Regamaster Evos for these things but I guess it worked out for him because I no longer have the Evos and he’s put these wheels to work. He had them on his previous time attack DC2 and now he’s still running them on his current car. They’re also still in perfect shape too. You figure after all this time with it being used all the time on track cars that they would have at least a nick or something. They look as good as the day I gave them to him…
K26 hybrid under the hood, with BDL accessories…
The Greddy oil catch can was recently added from what Loi was telling me…Other than that, most of it remains the same. Most of you have probably just seen it from the outside on the track though so here’s some fancy artsy close-ups of it…
Damn, I didn’t realize I took so many pics and it’s getting pretty late. That and some of you guys who view this on your phone probably hate me right now for freezing your phones from all the images loading…
I’ll put up the rest later. The other pics are mostly cars that are inside and some projects that are upcoming that Sportcar Motion plans to campaign this year…stay tuned…
Hard at work…for a change…
So I was over at Sportcar Motion all day yesterday hanging out with the homies and basically just brushing up on my photography. I’m a total noob when it comes to photography but it’s something that I’ve always been interested in. After Rodrez and Jeremy left I basically just spent the day taking pictures of stuff around the shop and listening to Loi Song tell stories about everything. I’m actually pretty busy this week because I’m editing these pics that I took as well as writing a feature for Honda Tuning. Sorry there’s no big update today but as soon as I get all the pics finished and uploaded I’ll definitely get them up…
I was also glancing at the stats today and this site and they have a feature that lets you see what terms people are searching to find this place. I’ve been noticing repeatedly that someone keeps searching “the cronicles sticky lil joe”…. Come on man. I know it’s always the same person because it always shows up as just 1 search with that particular term. It’s “The Chronicles” and “stickydiljoe”….haha…nice try though. At least you’re finding the site. I have faith in the internet search engine if you can butcher up the spelling that badly and still manage to end up here…
Dodgers Stadium says no to hip-hop…
In case you haven’t already heard, the Hot Import Nights tour will be moving to Anaheim Stadium on March 14th instead of it’s previous spot at Dodgers Stadium. No one really knows the reason why this occurred. Okay well everyone knows, but if you don’t find HIN to be all that appealing, the reason for this is due to Dodgers Stadium all of a sudden having issues with HIN playing hip-hop music. I’ve never actually been to a Dodger game, but I’m willing to put money on the fact that they probably play hip-hop at their games. I’m sure they play just a little bit though. By “a little bit” I mean before, during, and after the game. I’m also gonna put money on the fact that people also play hip-hop music outside in the parking-lot, where the HIN event was gonna be held. With all this hip-hop, one would obviously expect the stadium to burn down or spontaneously combust, but by the grace of God, it hasn’t. Maybe hip-hop isn’t so bad after all….
I can only imagine one reason behind this. The same reason why there aren’t any events held at the Pomona Fairplex anymore, who also has a similar ban in place. They don’t want their location to seem “ghetto”. Hey, I didn’t make the rules. But after that whole Funkmaster Flex car show debauchery, maybe Dodgers Stadium decided to follow suit. I mean, when they originally okayed the whole event to take place at their lot, did they not expect there to be hip-hop music and late show hours? It’s called “Hot Import Nights”. Not exactly “Normal Pop Music Daytime”….
It’s strange to say the least but I didn’t know Dodgers Stadium had such high standards and such a great reputation to uphold. Whenever the Padres/Dodgers play eachother, fistacuffs usually ensue in the game or in the stands. I mean, it’s not the most polite of events. An interesting scenerio that the voices in my head came up with was that maybe the guy in charge of Dodgers Stadium is a true hip-hop enthusiast and once he discovered that “Ya Boy” was performing, he dropped the ban hammer on him and didn’t want to hear him talk about how good girls look after he’s had a couple drinks. In any event, HIN decided to move the event to Angel Stadium of Anaheim, where apparently, they do allow hip-hop…
I will most likely be attending this event just to check it out and cover what Hondas are there of course. With my terrible camera skills and my lack of knowledge of how to use flash, I’ve decided to use my time traveling powers and go to the future. Here are a couple preview shots of my HIN coverage from March 14th, 2009….
Of course, there was a bikini contest/fashion show. Whatever they want to call it to get girls on stage in minimal clothing…You can see here how “club-like” the atmosphere is. Everything was dark as shit and all the chicks were assumed to be hot…
You can’t see it but this is a Honda that I saw there. K-swap, cotton wheel well, best of show status in my opinion….
Of course I then discovered how to use the flash, simply by changing the flash settings to “on”. I know you guys love titties and ass so I got some T&A shots for you guys. T&A brings the hits to this site and it helps me sell stickers. That and the 5-10 minutes a day you guys spend reading my nonsense, you might as well use the time for fapping purposes….
This was the hottest go-go dancer by far at the show. Christine Mendoza, Justene Jaro,….they got nothin’ on her. I didn’t catch her name cuz she was too busy being hot but I managed to get close enough to get this shot…Look at those Ultimate Warrior inspired tassles. That shit is so hot right now….
Of course I got the perverbial nipple slip shot that all you guys out there are always searching for. You don’t have to click through 20 plus pages in an attempt to find a nip-slip. The Chronicles always comes through and brings you the slips….Loi from Sportcar Motion would love this. Right-click save, screen saver preview, fap fap…
Oh and you know no event coverage is complete with the “I’m-accidently-picking-something-up-so-you-can-take-a-picture-of-my-ass” photo. I know she looks shocked in the picture but she’s just pretending, she loves the attention.
Well I hope you enjoyed the pics…There were plenty more but they all came out too dark….
An indepth look at horrible ideas…Part 4…a salute to APC…
In case you didn’t know, it’s a little over a year since the downfall of American Products Company. APC shut it doors in February of 2007 and eventually sold all their remaining inventory to Pilot Automotive. I imagine it had alot to do with all the fines they were incurring for manufacturing and selling aftermarket lights that failed to meet federal safety standards. That and other companies like TYC/Depo were beginning to come out with their own line of stuff and competition was too much for APC to handle, especially with all the money they were paying back….
Never has a company had such a huge effect cheesing up the automotive aftermarket industry. This is my ode to American Products Company…the company that allowed so many kids to think they were “JDM” without ever selling one product that ever came from Japan. Never has a company also had a name that contradicted itself. American Products Company…..made in Taiwan.
“The Chronicles…” is proud to bring you an indepth look at the horrible idea that was APC…
The “Altezza” Era…
I remember the exact moment when I first saw “Altezza” lights. I always looked through Importfan.com for light conversions and what not. I’m sure many of you remember back in the day when Import Fan was not a commercial site yet but merely a site where someone was posting pics of every headlight/taillight conversion ever done. It was an interesting site to say the least. I recall the guy that was running the site had a link for “Altezza-style” Civic taillights. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I was collecting Option magazines at that time and was familiar with the Toyota Altezza so I was intrigued. I clicked on the link and remember the image taking forever to load. I was on a 28.8k connection at the time (I was behind on the times) and the image had to be over 1200 pixels. The moment it loaded…oh man, the thought that crossed my mind was clear as day: “what…the…fuck…is this?” Something very Civic about it in the shape of the light but it’s like they shoved something red inside there that’s really nothing Altezza-like. I was even in my ricer stage at the time and I still hoped that these lights wouldn’t catch on. APC products weren’t really heavily distributed at the time and I think Pep Boys was the first people to really carry their stuff. This was when Pep Boys was experimenting with import/sport compact parts. The first time I saw a set of these sitting on the shelf at my local Pep Boys, I had a sick feeling in my stomach…like the feeling Andre Rison had when Lisa “Lefteye” Lopes burned down his house. Or maybe even closer to the feeling that 14 year-old girl had the moment she realized R. Kelly was urinating on her….
Little did I know how popular these things would become. Leave it to APC to completely whore this shit out and make “Altezza” taillights for everything….Civics, Accords, Chevy Astro vans, Ford Mustangs, motorhomes, you name it, they had a set of Altezza/Euro taillights for it. They multiplied faster than the Gremlins did after you put water on them. It was bad….So bad, that people with stock IS300′s were starting to get pulled over for having these and their lights for OEM! Thank you APC, for shoving anything red and round you could into every possible square light and making them look like terminator-versions of traffic lights. This shit was so whored out that people who were molding real IS300 taillights into their cars were getting pissed off. The worst part about it was that APC was so busy riding the money train selling these things that they never bothered to get them DOT approved. That genius of an idea ended up costing them alot of money and ultimately paved the way to their demise… Careless? Yes… Ironic? Yesssssss…
APC Attempts to take over the import industry…
How do you ride the success of non-DOT approved aftermarket light excellence? Attempt to make more money making useless shit. How does one go about cashing in on the booming import industry? Umm….make fucking EVERYTHING…
I remember when I was an assistant manager over at Kragen Auto Parts when APC shit was blowing up all over the place. It got so big that Kragen, who once was only involved in domestic aftermarket performance, decided that it was their turn to cash in and dedicated an entire section of their store front to strictly APC stuff. At that time, I was not only the only asian person working at my store, I was also the designated “import specialist”. Funny thing about it was that my store manager didn’t really know I was into cars at the time. So deeming me the import specialist was a decision based solely on the fact that I was asian. Hmm…now that I look back on it, I think I should have been insulted. Nonetheless, I spent the majority of my day peddling this APC garbage to every kid that would listen…
Man, they made EVERYTHING. Neon floorplates, neon underbody kits, Dodge Neon bodykits, racing seats, umm…cigarette lighters, neon in-car post masturbation hand wipes, EVERYTHING. I honestly would have had a little bit more respect for their products had they represented any shape or form of anything manufactured with quality, but that just wasn’t the case. To call it “American” was an insult to Americans who hire illegal aliens to work at my dad’s restaurant. Wait, what? The craftsmanship of their products was horrible. I mean, their shit ALWAYS came back. You can sometimes chalk it up to dumb kids not knowing how to install shit, but I mean, the shit would fall apart in your hands. I think sometimes kids would steal the shit from the store and then bring it back because the parts were defective….You know what always bugged me? People would always buy and/or order an intake for their car. Yes, APC made intakes for everything too. I mean, I would almost be disappointed if they didn’t at that point. But why the fuck was it always yellow? Not the pipe but the silicone boots. And the filter too. I just don’t understand. Speaking of which, here’s some other goodies…
What the fuck is this thing for?!! Why do I want my “diamond cut” floor plate to light up? And once I’ve accept the fact that it does light up some words totally unrelated to me, why does it look like it’s not gonna work or on the verge of breaking? Is that some glue under the light? Why does it have so many holes in it? What’s going on here….
You know what? This interior looks like shit. I’m thinking it’s like an 84 Nissan Stanza but yes, it does resemble some sort of fecality. Of course I created that word. Fecality, think fecal, and then apply Mortal Kombat rules….I’ll wait…..Do you find yourself going back to the image of this interior? I think my point is made. Usually when you have an interior that looks like shit, the only thing you can do is make that interior look better. I mean, shag carpet on my dashboard might do the job, but I would most likely change the steering wheel because it’s big enough to attract alot of attention. By changing out the oem wheel, there should be some sort of improvement. Despite all the other terrible things that have already been done to this interior, the APC steering wheel manages to add the perverbial cherry ontop of this steaming pile of poop….
I don’t have any actual pics since the APC site is long gone now, but they even manufactured their own bodykits. They had like a widebody kit for the EP3 chassis Civic and even a kit for the newer Mustangs that didn’t look half bad. Does anyone remember going to shows like Hot Import Nights and Pep Boys had their huge displays with all the APC demo vehicles? They had that flat white Mazda 6 that looked like a life-size version of a chassis schematic. I believe they also had a Nissan Sentra on some Gram Lights and that purple EP3 hatch that had like yellow tribal graphics all over the side of it. I never took any pics of them and generally stayed away from them completely but man, they were huge at that time….
If these seats look terribly constructed to you…that’s because they are. The top is all lumpy, the center section is already coming apart, for some reason, when I look at it, I kinda feel oily and dirty and want to take a shower. That pretty much sums up APC racing seats. Fake Brides with their crooked ass stitching had better construction then these badboys…
APC’s coup de grâce… The RSX Civic front-end conversion kit…
I’m pretty sure that APC wasn’t the one that originally came up with this idea but I was flipping through their catalogs one time when I was still working at Kragen and spotted this thing. No, it’s not a photoshop image. This was their RSX conversion kit for the Civic coupes. It came with the “C-West” front bumper, conversion fenders, RSX headlights, and “Mugen” hood. I’m happy to say that I’m delighted that this never caught on. It might have been this generations version of the “Cali Type R” that we were so used to seeing as kids….
APC’s legacy will definitely be forever associated with the “Altezza” taillight craze. It helped spawn a generation of tuners that created the ricer movement. APC windshield banners, Altezza tails, “Mugen Replacement” grilles, and interior accessories galore. You can call them Pep Boys tuners, ricers, noobs, anything you want. But APC did it’s job in making the casual car owner feel like a car builder. The problem with making the casual car owner feel like a car builder is that these kids then believed that they were the Fast and Furious cast come to life. Ricer fly-bys ensued, dangerous street racing, and kids “going JDM” (What does that even mean?). I’m happy to say that in 2009, APC no longer has a presence in our community. Sure you still get the altezza taillights popping up every now and then, but the heavy-influence they had on the unsuspecting “tuner” no longer exists.
APC was like the ugly girl in highschool that always put out. Everybody fucked her, but you never understood why….You would hope that one day she would calm down and not be such a dirty slut, but she was reckless and contracted AIDS, now she’s dead and gone. Here’s my ode to APC, whore bitch of the import industry….thanks for the memories.
