Sneak Peak…
Here’s a quick shot of what the storefront will look like, you can also catch a glimpse of the new sticker design…
Store and new merchandise coming soon…
So after taking the advice from my buddy Jay over at JDMEGO, I’ve finally decided to have a more organized storefront for you guys that will make it easier for you guys to purchase Chronicles goods. It’ll be like actually semi-professional looking with a cart and shit. So I don’t get my orders mixed up and what not. Make sure to keep an eye out for that. I’ll have the new sticker design as well and I’m also gonna be making special “Wek’Fest Edition” stickers that will come in a special color for a limited time and will also be available for sale at the actual event.
I’ve also been completing some work for Honda Tuning as well so I apologize if you haven’t seen any major crazy updates and what not. Plus it’s been raining fucking crazy dog shits over here lately so I haven’t gone out to take any pictures or hang out with the homies. Stay tuned though, I’ll have more for you guys soon…
The Status of Sean…
Not much for you guys today, I’m actually working this week as well but either way, it’s been slow as hell lately. I did talk to Status Sean to day though. I know we were supposed to document his build but the guy has just been so ridiculously busy that we just haven’t had time to connect to get a solid amount of content to update you guys with. He’s busy putting the finishing touches on his new facility as well as running the marketing side for Status seats. To say that the guy has a full plate would be an understatement. He’s gonna try to get me a bunch of stuff this Friday though, so hopefully that works out and we can finally start documenting his Integra build. This thing is gonna be amazing, I’m telling you….he just has to come up with the time to show the world. Soon though, I’m crossing my fingers, soooooon….
Let’s have a talk…
I know here at The Chronicles we usually take a look at things from a bit of a more comedic perspective. Sure I take things seriously sometimes but for the most part, I like to just have fun and bullshit with you guys. Well today, is not gonna be one of those days. Nothing serious happened or anything and no need to attack any certain individuals but I think it’s time somebody addressed this issue…
I’ve been working in the industry for a couple years now and have had the pleasure of seeing and writing about some of the best builds the country has ever seen. The guys that build these cars are brilliant. Seeing these cars immortalized in print is a beautiful thing. I remember back when I first got my feature in Honda Tuning, man I was so shocked and surprised. I didn’t believe anybody wanted to put my car in a magazine. That surprise later turned into a great amount of pride once I finally had the issue in my hand. It’s like, no matter what people say or do, they can never take that away from you, you know? Somebody actually thinks well enough of you to say that you deserve to be in their magazine. The car that you probably built in your garage for fun, for you to cruise around in with your friends is gonna be in print for the world to see. It’s not tainted or biased. Car show trophies are cool, don’t get me wrong, but the feeling you get when you win a piece of plastic at a car show is fleeting. You take that thing home, it collects dust, and eventually you don’t even know what you want to do with the thing because it’s in your way. Either that or the shit breaks and you lose parts of your trophy. It’s just not the same feeling. When you make a mag, damn, everytime you look at it you remember the sense of pride you felt when you first saw it, when your friends saw it….you remember the smile that was on your face.
That might have been the way things were back then, maybe a different generation of builders….
Today, man, I’m sad to say…it’s just not the same anymore. People don’t build cars for themselves anymore, they don’t build it for fun. It’s become so competitive that people don’t even spend time to sit back and enjoy their cars anymore. Cats build cars for fame. They build for a magazine feature. They build cars to make a name for themselves and then they try to cash in. That’s sad. My point is…
Why does everyone sell out the moment they get any amount of notoriety?
People are so quick to go and sell their cars the moment they get their features, that it’s fucking ridiculous. I see people lately who are literally sitting in front of their mailbox waiting for their feature to come out so that they can post their car for sale on the internet. They’ve taking everything fun out of being in a magazine. Shit, try to enjoy it…flaunt that mag, show everybody you know, relatives that probably don’t even care shit. Drive it around, enjoy your car, enjoy the hard work. Why is everyone so quick to cash in? I see guys who are putting their cars up for sale before the features have even come out!! Shits getting outta hand…
I remember entertaining the thought of selling my car back then too, don’t get me wrong. A couple months after my mag came out, somebody hit me up to buy the car and I seriously thought about it. But when I asked some of the guys that I looked up to about it, they kinda treated me different, you know? I just kinda asked around and talked to some of the others who had been doing this longer than I have and I just felt like they looked at me differently. It’s hard to explain. But it’s like they looked at me and said “Oh alright, I see how it is, you’re just in it to cash-in”. It wasn’t until then that I realized that it’s just not the right thing to do, it’s a bad look… I guess it’s kinda just an unspoken rule…If you sell your car right after you get featured, you’re selling out. You look like the guy that built the car just so you could make money off of it, it’s not a hobby for you, it’s a side job… I mean, if you don’t care what your peers think, they do what you gotta do, but I’m just saying, it’s not a good look.
The current crop seems to be doing that a lot. Build it, sell it. Build it, don’t even drive it, sell it. If you need emergency money, then by all means, do what you have to do. I’m not talking about those guys. It’s just sad to see people selling their cars as soon as they get magazine coverage. Kinda takes away from the feature itself…as if the owner used it as a means to an end. That feeling of pride, sense of accomplishment, that shit doesn’t mean anything…it’s all about the $$$$.
People and close personal friends of mine have approached me before to ask me what I thought about this before too when they thought about selling, and I tell them straight up; “It’s a bad look. You’re trying to build relationships with other people who love cars like you, people who respect you and enjoy what you do. You don’t want to be the guy that looks like he’s only in it for the money.” It’s a hobby afterall people, let’s try to enjoy ourselves alright? I know it’s very competitive out there but people respect the guy that builds for the love of it before anything else. I’m not saying don’t sell your cars because we all have to move on to other projects eventually but damn, it’s funny how a lot of cars go on sale mysteriously around the time when they get mag coverage. I can sit here and name guys off the top of my head that are itching for a magazine feature so that they can make some money off of their cars. They think that being in a magazine makes your car worth twice as much and that’s fucking idiotic. You really think people want to pay you twice the value to drive around in a car that other’s obviously know that they didn’t build? It doesn’t work that way.
I don’t know, take what I said as bullshit or however you like, I’m just saying. It’s sad to see so many people selling themselves out. It’s disappointing to follow a build for months on end and then before they even debut the car, they’ve already traded it away or sold it. You should build cars because it’s your hobby, not because it’s a bargaining chip to get something else.
Probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen…
If you guys took a look a couple posts back at the Tokyo Auto Salon 2010 coverage, you’ll probably at one point spotted a Honda NSX Super GT car constructed entirely of cardboard…yeah, cardboard. It doesn’t run or anything of course but it was actually assembled inside and out with cardboard and even has a cardboard skeleton….
Looks pretty sick right? Haha, almost looks exactly like the real thing. Sure it’s cool looking but if you saw it at the show, you would give it one look and go “oh wow, that’s neat” and then go on your way. What you may not know is all the hard work that went behind it. Phaze2 Tony posted this up on his Facebook and I took the liberty of trying to translate it to see what all went on in the process. The translation isn’t super good and I actually had to find a couple different translation sites before I could find one that worked. I guess Epson put this whole thing together by blowing up an 1/24 scale model and printing out each piece for assembly. Think of it as one of those old cardboard airplane models you got when you were a kid, just in actual life size….
I’ve linked the site below for you guys to look at and it’s the semi-translated version. It’s a bit hard to understand but you’ll get the jist of it just by looking at the pictures and the little blurbs they have below them. Stuff like this you won’t normally see in the US because we just don’t have the kind of creativity that the Japanese do, I’m serious. If Epson USA attempted something like this the company would go to Chapter 11 backruptcy and the whole staff would be out of jobs. There’s so much detail in this that it’s ridiculous to even see it attempted, much less pulled off. From reading it, the guys that put it together say that it was a lot harder than they thought it would be but the end result I think is definitely worth it. So take a look at the site, I guarantee it’ll be one of the coolest things you’ve ever seen…
First funk-faker of 2010…
Ah as you guys all know, I am a big fan of people who fake the funk and try to rock real stickers on fake wheels to play them off as the real thing. What’s even better is when the owners try to justify why they do it. Often times we hear the “well I don’t have money for the real thing”, etc. etc, but the point is; why try to front like they’re real? Regamasters are usually the first to be faked because the stickers are easy to replicate but any real car head knows the differences between the real deal Regas and the Rotas, DRAGs, Nippons, whatever. I recently spotted these on NWP and I guess the guy who shot the photos had no idea they were fakes, but I wonder what the owner was thinking when the guy was getting close-up wheels shots. These don’t even look close to being the real thing. For the less inclined, real 16-inch Regamasters don’t have the extra holes in the lug/hub area, only the 15s do. That and the lip design is slightly different also. This may be the first guy caught of faking the funk in 2010, but it definitely won’t be the last…Good job fella, you’ve got the first set of Rotamaster EMOs for the new year…
Tokyo Auto Salon Coverage 2010…
Well, it’s really wishful thinking for me to provide you guys with my very own coverage of TAS 2010 because I can’t afford to go anywhere, but I did manage to find a lot of pics from this year’s show. I read that this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon was indeed smaller than year’s past due to the global recession but they made up for it by filling a large section of the show with a mini car show put together by Option magazine. They hand selected the cars for the event and made sure the quality was there and overall it looked like a good showing. I hope that someday I will get to go and actually see the show for myself, maybe next year, depending on how things go in 2010 with finances. I noticed that the trend for this year will be wheel fitment and offset, and that’s not just in the US. Rays Engineering was on hand at TAS with their new Volk TE37V wheel which stands for “vintage” and is basically the classic TE37 wheel with a deeper lip as opposed to just the concave face. The bronze ones look pretty money but I gotta say that the gunmetal with the polished lip looks a lot like the Rota copies. It’s kinda sad when a wheel manufacturer releases a wheel and it looks like the knock-off version of the original. You’ll see it in the pics so judge for yourself. I’m sure they will sell like hot cakes regardless because everybody loves TE37s and people are going apeshits right now over wheel lip and offset. Good idea on Rays’ part to release this wheel. I also saw the new Advan RG-D wheel which is also the same idea as the TE37V; classic wheel design but with a lip. It’s a RGII with lip basically. Looks pretty good from what I saw but it also made me long for an RG-D with the Advan RGI face. I love the original RGs and they hold a soft spot in my heart. It was one of my dream wheels when I was younger and I eventually owned a set and just seeing them reproduced would be awesome. Oh well, one can only dream… With the way things have been going lately, I would have surely thought that the theme for the year would be concave faces and wheels but I guess the Japanese aftermarket thinks otherwise. They’re trying to cash in on the current wheel fitment craze and it’s a smart business decision on their part. There’s a bunch of other cool stuff too but I’ll let you guys see for yourself. Make sure to look at the FT86 concept car and the all cardboard Honda NSX Super GT car…yah all cardboard. Either they got too much time on their hands or they don’t have money for a real car…either way, it’s cool…Anyways, time to go…have fun staring at pictures of people luckier than you that had an opportunity to go to TAS 2010….
Tokyo Auto Salon 2010 pics by “JDMISGHEY”…
J’s Racing to call A&J Racing’s father…
Well, I’m sure many of you in the Honda world have read all about this by now, because well, it’s everywhere on forums to be seen, but I do have a lot of international readers who probably may not have seen this yet or may not even know who A&J Racing is. Well for those that don’t know, they are a pretty well known company in Canada who is known mostly for their association with J’s Racing in Japan and they happen(ed) to be one of the few exclusive distributors of their’s. I use the past tense because they no longer carry J’s products. The reason can be left up to quite the debate if you ask the guys over at A&J Racing but recently this letter surfaced on the internet which pretty much explains everything and why the relationship between the two are no more. It’s pretty sad actually. If you don’t want to take the time to read it, basically what it says is this; J’s Racing is writing A&J to let them know that they recently have discovered that A&J Racing had been copying their products and selling them as authentic J’s Racing stuff. Not only are they copying the parts, they also went and copied the packaging tape and boxes too to trick consumers into believing that their parts were legit. Pretty crazy right? It’s faking the funk at it’s worst. I guess on paper, it sounded like a great idea to the guys over at A&J but eventually somehow it got back to J’s Racing in Japan and they even went and purchased these fake goods to verify that their products had been duplicated. Here’s what the letter said…
Dear Ben Leung
First of all, it is almost 9 years since we, J’s Racing, started a business
relationship with your company in 2002. We fully acknowledge that your sales
& marketing have made the current J’s Racing popular status in the North America
and we deeply thank you for that.Unfortunately we have to present you a rather unpleasant notice today. We recently
learned that in spite of your status of an official distributor of J’s Racing, you
have been copying J’s Racing products in a factory abroad and selling the products
as the genuine J’s Racing merchandise.In order to verify the information and to get the clear evidence we actually purchased
a product from you for an inspection. Regrettably we found that you not only copied the
product but also copied our packing tape and box to make the product look exactly like a
genuine J’s Racing product.Now that we have a proof and we consider your conduct as a criminal offense, we no longer
can maintain the current business relationship with you. We have already consulted an
attorney in the British Columbia and we are ready to take strong legal actions if necessary.We strongly feel that an official distributor should be the one policing the copied or
knockoff products. It is outrageous that an official distributor itself sells a copied
product as a genuine one. This is an inexcusable conduct even from the social point of
view and we will not forgive this kind of crime.Regarding this matter, we are considering the number of actions. We will give you one
chance of providing us a sincere response and coming up with an offer for a monetaryOur actions include but are not limited to
1) Termination of the distributor status
2) A legal action to demand accounting information on the quantity of the copied products
produced and to demand a definite proof for destroying the copied products.
3) Bringing a criminal charges against A&J Racing
4) Disclosure of the issue on our website using your company’s name
5) Disclosure of the issue on the several forums in the world using your company’s nameTo name several forums,
http://www.s2ki.com/
http://www.8thcivic.com/
http://www.nagtroc.org/forums/
http://www.honda-tech.com/
http://hondamarketplace.com/
http://www.fitfreak.net/forums/
http://www.team-integra.net/
http://www.definitivedriving.com/
http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/6) Notification of the issue to all the manufacturers J’s Racing has business relationship with
7) Notification of the issue to all the companies J’s Racing has traded with
8) Notification of the issue to all the magazine publishing companies A&J Racing has relationship with
9) Notification of the issue to your father, AnthonyThose actions will inflict serious damages to your company.
In the business world, the trust is the most important. It is very regrettable you have lost our trust.
We will be waiting for your sincere response and a specific compensation offer.
The deadline is April 22, 2009.Sincerely
J’S RACING Junichi Umemoto
J’S RACING Hisaaki Murakami
Haha, fuckin crazy right? Did you see the last part? These guys are gonna go and call the dude’s father about it. Way to call the guy a bitch in a professional manner, haha. If you go to the site now, they no longer carry J’s Racing stuff. I guess it’s old news to a lot of the Fit owners and S2k guys since they were probably the first to get scammed but it’s definitely an interesting story…
Here’s a copy of the official letter too with the signatures and all…
Not only are these guys copying J’s Racing stuff, but they’ve also been seen bringing in fake Spoon parts as well. Spoon stuff I think would be easier to copy since most of it looks poorly made anyway, haha. I’m just sayin’. Look at any of their Kevlar or carbon fiber stuff and tell me you would buy it if that shit didn’t say Spoon on it…
Here’s a link to the S2ki forums where guys talk about the fake Spoon and J’s Racing stuff…
Here’s a link to the J’s Racing Japan site/blog with the post regarding the counterfeit issue. (As you can see, I’ve taken the liberty of translating it on babelfish to make it even harded for you to understand.)
It’s cool to see a company actually go and take action against people who are copying their product. You see so many knockoff products nowadays that it’s fucking ridiculous. Hopefully everything is figured out and we don’t have to see these cheesy ass taiwanese-made J’s Racing parts floating around. We demand justice!! Haha…Man I know if I was sold some fake ass J’s shit, I would raise some hell. I feel bad for these guys who are now stuck with these parts and lost their hard-earned money because some greedy fuck try to make some extra bucks off hard-working people. It’s a shame when stuff like this happens within our industry. Unfortuantely, it happens more than we know and it’s gonna keep happening too. That’s why it is good to see at least one major company going after counterfeiters…
Quick look at what I’m working on…
Just a quick update for you guys today. I’m working on the new stickers for the Wek’Fest 2010 event and gonna order up some more vinyl today. These will be “limited edition” I guess you can say with a new look and color scheme. We’ll see how they come out and if I like them, maybe I’ll keep them around for the future. I’ve also been working on the Top Ten of 2009 stickers for the guys who made the list. Man, this gold chrome vinyl looks way better than I expected it would and I can honestly say that the stickers are coming out great. It’s a little time consuming to weed out all the little letters but the final result is well worth it. It really stands out so people will definitely spot it on the cars…
This is pretty much the process after the logo has been vectorized and sent to the plotter/cutter…
Getting cut out…
…then I cut the black border/outline for the logo. It’ll look virtually identical to the logo that I created for the images…
…and this is after the transfer layer has been applied. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics. The foil itself is very reflective and well, gold…haha. I took the liberty of taking it home and using a better camera so you guys can see how it looks in the light…
…here you can see how it looks with light directly on it…It came out great. I can’t wait to send these out. Back tomorrow with other stuff…
DPK David’s EJ1 Civic Coupe…Exclusive Content…
As promised, here are the final edits of the photos of DPK David’s coupe. Seems like only yesterday when David had no idea what the Chronicles was and thought it was gonna be wack…haha. It also seems like only yesterday when David decided to tear his car down and rebuild it. Little did anyone know that it would be down for about 3 years before it finally made its return at Nisei of 2009. When I saw it at the show, I was pretty impressed but I don’t know, something about it…left me with a weird feeling, like it was naked. Just something missing you know? Nonetheless, it was a great car and I was very fond of it. It wasn’t until he brought it out again for the Norm Reeves show in the winter when my view on the Civic completely changed. He doesn’t know what lip it is and no one else seems to know (we’re thinking 5Zigen) but the front lip changed the whole look of the car for me. I guess you could say that it was the perfect finishing touch. He would go on to win best of show at that event and for good reason. David is a hell of a picky guy, and I’ve said on more than one occassion that he’s the most undecisive person I’ve ever met, but it’s quirks like that that often make for great builds. Undecisive, picky, whatever you wanna call it, the final product is definitely worth it. When we had finally come to an agreement on the time to actually go and shoot this thing, I wasn’t sure how I felt about his wheel choice because I had it in my head that it would be on the CE28s but when I actually saw the car in his garage with the CPRs on it…oh man..I knew we had our choice. Something about the green and the Sprint Harts that remind me how much I miss my car, and I take great pleasure in presenting this Civic to you all…
I’m not gonna include all the specs of the build, because well, I usually get paid to do that…haha…but you can see the goodies…
You know the routine, I’m compressing the images to fit the layout of the site but below each image is the link to the original size. At the end I’ve included some widescreen edits for you all…1920×1080 and 1600×900…that’s right, big as fuck in 1080p. Only seen here on the Chronicles…
Random fish-eye…
Extra widescreen shot for the ones with the big screens…
Widescreen Version 1080p (1900×1080)
Hope you guys liked it….PEACE.
Behind-the-scenes look at the DPK David photo sessions…
Over the weekend, I met up with DPK David so that we could finally take some updated pictures of his Civic coupe. We had set this thing up like almost 2 months now or so and just had conflicting schedules so it never happened. That and he was working out little kinks with his car that he wanted ironed out before it happened. I’m still finishing up the pics but here’s some behind-the-scenes stuff. There’s a couple random videos at the bottom too of David just rolling around and setting up, pretty random but hey, it’s Tuesday and it’s something to look at…haha…All point-and-shoot pics here by the way if people are wondering…
I always like going to this spot. Nice and quiet with not many cars around or other distractions. No people either to walk up and ask dumbass questions or to bother us. The cops are really cool there too. One even passed by just to see what was going on and he went on his way…
It’s also really cool because it’s near an air field where you can see small planes going back and forth. The spot is also huge and pretty random so I don’t have to worry about burning the spot up and always taking pics in the same section. The area is so large there that I have a bunch of different places to move around…
David and Mikeyyyy cleaning up the bay and what not…
That sexy guy would be me, trying to figure out how to use a camera…
Human tri-pod…
The pics came out pretty good. Usually when they look good at the shoot and when I get home they’re garbage…but I was pretty happy with the outcome. I know David is waiting to see the pics so I put these up first because I know he’d probably get frustrated knowing that I told him that shit would be up by today…haha…
Oh here’s the videos…make sure to watch them in HD…It’s jam-packed with excitement and explosions and shit…
Here’s me acting like I know what I’m doing. I made David move like a milimeter front and back for like 20 minutes and he ended up in the same spot as where he started haha…
There’s also a video of Mikeyyyy rolling up in his Corolla but that’s not really worth the time…haha…back tomorrow with the final pics…
A Big Mike update and a visit to Bisimoto…
I’ve actually been sitting on these pics for a little bit now but I just haven’t had time (as you can all tell) to post them up lately. Work had me distracted all week and I actually went out and shot some pics this past weekend…Anyways, many of you have been asking me for an update on Big Mike’s Prelude. Well he’s still in the process of tying up the little things but it should be out and about for Wekfest in February. I took these pics when I went over to Bisimoto’s to grab a pic of Mike’s Prelude for the Top Ten list. It was the first time I had ever been over to Bisi’s and I’m happy to say that I’m gonna go back there real soon to grab some more shots of his turbo Civic Wagovan. That thing is pretty ridiculous and I can’t wait to go back and get a closer look at it. I didn’t stay long that day because he had another shoot to go to and it was pouring rain that day so I couldn’t really do much anyways. These are just random shots I got while we were standing around talking….Enjoy…I’ll be back in full force this week since I finished my actual work stuff last week….
The rest are just regular size…
Big Mike and Timmy getting the car ready…
Big Mike Edition interior…
Kinsler ITB set-up…
That’s it for today.
I’m proud to say that I’m pretty good at what I do…I think…
Oh man, what a hectic week of work it has been. Mr. JDM Wong sure knows how to give me the most interesting cars to write about. Started out the week doing a feature on a pretty bad ass RX-7 from of all places, Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now I don’t really know too much about Green Bay other than the Packers, who I really don’t care for by the way, but I really had no idea they had an import community out there. Not sure how strong it is but this car makes a good case that people out there know what they’re doing with their cars. So I did that, knocked it out and was presented with another gem. The Super Street guys rarely have me writing about Honda stuff, because they have a resident “Honda guy”, so I get to write about all kinds of other cars, which I really enjoy. I may have a fondness for Hondas, but I’m a car afficionado afterall and love anything that’s tastefully built. I’m not gonna turn down Honda work, but whenenver I get to write about something else, I’m always interested.
So I get this AE86 that no one really knows about and even the tech sheet was nothing more than a couple mods. Like for the engine mods it wasn’t even filled out. I ended up doing about 2-3 nights straight of all internet research just so I could come up with something on the car. Man, I gotta say, this AE86 is something else. There was nothing on the internet about this car at all. I had to come up with random search terms about the car just to dig up anything on it. When I did finally come up with something, it was GOLD. Man, I learned so much about that car and the country of Japan that I almost felt a sense of accomplishment finding out that information. Turns out that this AE86 I was writing about actually used to be this car…
Those of you that recognize it, good job because this car hasn’t been relevant or in the public spotlight for I don’t know, like over 6 years now? Apparently the internet wasn’t around 6+ years ago because I couldn’t find shit on this car either! I definitely do remember it though because I was a big fan of Tarzan Yamada back in the day and remembered all the cars he drove. Anyways, it looks nothing like that now and the only resemblance it has to this look was the Maziora paint. I did so much random ass research in Google translator (for the Japanese) that I even learned a shitload about Maziora. Most of it wasn’t even relevant to what I was looking for like…
a Maziora saxophone?….
Fuckin’ crazy….That’s not all either. They even have a Maziora cell phone…
I mean, how much extra money do you even have to be able to spend on something like this. Seriously, it’s like either in your pocket or in your purse most of the time, one or the other. The only time you need a Maziora cell phone is when that shit is glued to your fucking face. I would ruin that the first 2 hours I owned it…
I really can’t give out too many more details on the 86 though because I’ll probably get in trouble, but man, it made for a couple interesting nights. So be on the look-out for that issue when it hits the stands. I put some hard work into that, the least you can do is buy the issue! Don’t just read it and put that shit down. One of these days, if that shit keeps happening, there won’t be anymore magazines because we’ll all be out of jobs. BUY THE MAGAZINE. You spend 5 bucks to stuff your face and then shit it out, the least you can do is spend another $5 and have something to read while you do that…
Before I leave you guys to get some much needed sleep, I also found this old pic of the Speedmaster/Maziora EK Civic. Does anyone remember this thing? I haven’t seen it in ages!…
Wish I could find more info on this car…damn. Oh that reminds me, I also found the Car Service Hiro blog…those guys do some incredible work with Maziora paint…amazing stuff…alright, goodnight finally…PEACE.
2009 Honors…Part 2…
I’ve been workin like crazy and haven’t really had time to sleep much but here we go….the rest of the Honorable Mentions of 2009. Note to self and to all parties…never attempt to eat Jack in the Box Breakfast Jacks and hashbrowns and then fall asleep without drinking any water. I woke up from a random crash nap and had the worst dry mouth ever. Terrible….anyways…
Moving on…
HeyMikeyyyy…
Mr. Cristi is in the building…He deserves a mention more so for the work he’s been associated with in the past year. A lot of the plating and chroming that you saw on a lot of the Top Ten cars as well as the Honors list comes directly from this man. His Integra deserves to be on the list because it made it’s official retirement in 2009. The car has accomplished everything he could have asked for. It became infamous on the internet, took Integra wheel fitment to a whole new level, was featured in Honda Tuning magazine, the list goes on and on. Did I mention that it was one of the major factors in two-toned bays gaining so much popularity…
Showstoppers Civic…
This car was everywhere this past year. It made appearances at all the major car shows in Socal and gained a lot of attention because it stepped outside the box of what 8th gen. Civic owners normally do….
Reza’s DC2…
Reza makes the honors list because he finally achieved his long-awaited feature in Honda Tuning. His DC2 is pure function and he actually tracks this car for fun. Reza has come a long way from his old street racing days and definitely deserves a mention…
Kserieseg aka G.T.S Auto EG…
This thing makes the list because it came out of nowhere and caught everybody’s attention. The J’s Racing lip, K-swap, and the wild color really stand out. This car is worth mentioning just because it has the sickest valve cover of all time!…jesus…
EJ’s DA Integra…
EJ is also a guy that came out of nowhere in 2009. It wasn’t until Mega Matsuri did I first see this DA. Pretty uncommon to see a DA with an H-swap, tucked too. The airbrushed hood is a breath of fresh air and something we don’t see done so well in the Honda community. He’s a super cool guy too and really laid back…
Alexisthemovie S2000…
He makes the list because he has the most unusual user name ever. And the most made fun of as well. But Alexisthehonorablementioned because his S2000 was one of the more controversial S2ks in 09 because of his constant experiments with wheels sizing and offset. Look for more of this S2000 in 2010, where I’m hoping he’ll do more to this thing than just swap wheels…
Bryan’s DA…
Bryan makes the list because his DA reminds me a lot of my old Accord and he looks like the albino version of Freeway from Roc-A-Fella. If Freeway had a Bizarro Irish version, Bryan would be him. In all seriousness though, this DA was one of the more notable DA-bodied Integras of 2009 and it had a timeless look that would be popular past, present, and future. I believe this DA is also retired now and he’s moved onto a new project…
DPK JP…
DPK JP is one of the cars I heard mentioned from others that deserved to be on the Top 10 list. The truth is, JP’s Civic is a hit every year. He didn’t make any major changes to it this year and that’s maybe why it didn’t make the list. He changed up little things here and there and I like the changes and the further evolution of the build. There were just a lot of guys who did complete builds this year and that’s why he didn’t make it…
ATS*ALLDAY EG1 Del Sol…
This Del Sol was one of the builds that I followed in 09 from beginning to end. I even wrote the feature for it in Honda Tuning. The bay is immaculate and I love all the subtle details. It was definitely close to making the Top Ten list but I didn’t really see as much of it as I wanted to and when I did, I don’t know, it just seemed like something was missing. I love the bay but the exterior, for me, was just a little too simple. It almost took away from the car I guess you can say. Still one of the best Del Sols around though, and for something that was a daily and a side project, hell, it came out amazing…
Circuit Hero/Guilliotine’s Integra Type R…
Oh man, I’m honestly a little disappointed as I’m sure Gil is that this DC2R didn’t make any public appearances in 09. This thing is badass…unfortunately, he ran into problems with the motor and it just never saw the light of day. It did appear on the cover of Honda Tuning and deservingly so. It’s got all the essentials of a great build that will be functional on the track. I’m telling you, this was a top 5 caliber build. I would have put this thing up there with the best of them had this car been running, made appearances at shows, ran around the track for a bit, etc. I hope I get to see more of this Type R in 2010….
That’s it, hope everyone the best in 2010 and I can’t wait to see the builds that are coming for this year….
2009 Honors…Part 1…
Well everyone has seen the Top 10 of 2009 and as promised, here is the honorable mentions list. These are the 20 guys that came close to making the list and are definitely worth mentioning because they were impact players of 09…
DPK David…
Definitely one of the most anticipated of the year, David’s coupe finally made it’s re-debut at Nisei 2009. It definitely was close to making the list but came up short just because it was down most of the year. David brought it out to the Norm Reeves 09 show at the end of the year and showed us it’s near completed state. Expect to see a lot more of this Civic in 2010 where it should make a much larger impact…
Morgan aka RandomnessofJade K20 CTR…
Morgan’s Civic Type R was the biggest female build of the year. She made it out to many shows and events in 2009 and looks to make her way onto the track in 2010. It’s a real deal CTR making a lot of power….definitely a great build and worth mentioning on the honors list…
PG+K Ben’s TSX…
It was Salem’s TSX in 08 and in 2009, Ben from Premium Garage Krew took the crown for the best TSX of the year. Not only was it featured in Honda Tuning magazine, he continued to improve the car by boosting the engine soon after. Ben even drove across country to the annual Eibach meet in Socal…
Phaze2 Sid…
Phaze2 did it big in 2009 and Sid’s DA was definitely one of the more recognized Hondas of the year. He was also featured in Honda Tuning Magazine and made appearances everywhere…
AS1 Brian’s Mugen RSX…
Like DPK David, Brian’s RSX definitely deserved to be on the Top Ten list. He had a big year which started out ugly when a mishap occurred in his wiring harness making his trip to Norcal for Wekfest a nightmare. The problem was corrected and Brian went on to further his build by tucking his A/C lines and upgrading to a full Mil-Spec engine harness. No other RSX currently comes close to his in terms of build caliber and no one since Rudy Falcon has stood above the rest and shined as bright as this RSX…
Arn’s Abunai Racing DC2…
The man that originated the gold-plated m7 came back big in 2009 with a K-swap and custom engine bay. Arn definitely deserved a mention and made a strong argument to make the Top Ten list. His DC2 is timeless and the guy is a class act. He’s been a part of the Honda community for years now and his Integra continues to evolve…
Reynard Mauricio’s CR-X…
Reynard’s CR-X made caused quite a stir in early 09 when Canadians cried foul because his build didn’t make the Top 10 of 08 list. His CR-X is one of the best and is up there with some of the best CR-X builds of all-time. He didn’t make the list because he just wasn’t seen enough. He deserves a mention though and should be making a more “public” debut very soon…possibly in print?….
FAST Autoworks Civic coupe…
Tuan’s coupe was big in 2009. Two-toned bay, built motor, it was a complete car…
PlusOne/Hasback Danny’s Civic coupe…
Danny’s coupe was a hit at Nisei 2009. Everybody loved it and couldn’t stop talking about it. It even won an award at Showoff in non-running condition. The only person that didn’t like it was Danny. He would have made the list had the car been complete but it only appeared publicly once throughout the year and it’s now been disassembled and hopefully reassembled for 2010. Lookout for this one, if it’s complete, 10 should be a big year for Danny…
Nasif’s Civic…
Nasif was a winner throughout the year, often winning first place or “best of” in the Honda classes at shows. He even picked up some major sponsors and appeared in print ads. Another one that was in strong contention to make the Top 10 list. He tends to kind of make himself unavailable though and isn’t really a public figure on Honda forums. That and he stopped showing up to meets and smaller events that he used to always come out to…
That’s the first 10 of the Honors list, 10 more to come….
Soon…
Just ordered up some gold vinyl for the Top Ten of 2009 decals and I’m hard at work on some magazine stuff as well as putting together the Honorable Mentions list so stayed tuned for that! Exclamation means I’m excited!
The Top 10 Hondas of 2009….Part 3…
It’s been quite the line-up hasn’t it? 2-10 were all equally impressive Hondas in their own right. There’s no doubt that these guys deserve ther recognition and I hope that this will continue to motivate their builds to be even better in the following years. For the most part everyone has been happy with the picks and where they ended up. Some were happy just to even be mentioned, which is a really cool thing, because that means this lists means something. I’m not putting these cars up here to kiss ass or to blow smoke up people’s asses. I just want the world to recognize these guys for the hardwork that they have put in all year. I saw on one of the forums that talked about the list and saw someone mentione that I take this stuff way too seriously….I mean, would you rather I not take it seriously and just throw random cars up here? It takes a lot of time to plan out and I work very hard to keep track of every Honda in the community. If I take this too seriously then maybe many others out there are the same way. I literally had phone calls today asking me who was number one. At the end of the day I just do this for fun and hopefully this thing kicks up some steam for next year so that it futher motivates people to build better and work harder. With that said, I think it’s time to present you with the number one Honda of 2009. It was definitely a hard decision to make, because in all honesty, who do you put in front of guys like Sheepey, Big Mike, etc? These guys have builds that will set the standard for the future.
There were so many quality builds this year and the top ten reflect that. Quality was just so high that I had to look beyond that. I had to look at build purpose, accomplishments, function and form, impact on the Honda community… When I added all those things together, there was just one person I could think of. One of the biggest trends of the year had to be guys/gals who were building for road racing and time attack. Many people were building “track” cars, even though the majority just had the parts and didn’t actually hit the track. Whether they will eventually or not, I don’t know…but time attack-themed Hondas were very popular this year. Popular enough where publications like Super Street held Honda-exclusive road race events and Honda Tuning began featuring more track-ready/capable Hondas. The ultimate goal for many was to build a clean car with quality parts, that functioned on a track.
With all that in mind, the number one Honda of the year was the obvious choice.
Built with purpose?
Check.
Functional?
Definitely.
Accomplishments?
More than many of us will ever see in a lifetime building Hondas.
Impact on the entire automotive community?
It made the Civic/Integra relevant among the big boys of time attack and road racing. No longer were these cars underdogs among a sea of Evos, Nissans, and WRXs…
Oh, it doesn’t look half bad either…
1. Sportcar Motion’s Acura Integra Type R and Honda Civic…
Why it made the list: Everyone thought that Loi and the Sportcar crew had their hand’s full with their Civic. It was a record breaking machine, had big wins last year, and nothing came remotely close to running with it in the Modified FF and Limited class. Little did anyone know that this DC2 R was tucked away in Loi’s shop.
It started out exactly how you see it above. Nothing crazy, Loi had just always wanted a Type R and finally found one that was in good shape out in Utah. He went and picked it up and it just sat in the back of the shop. While the Civic was still out in the beginning of the year breaking records, Loi was patiently waiting for parts to come in for his R. See, this Type R was originally meant to become the successor to the EG. The Type R was everything the EG was not. It was more refined, stronger chassis, just a better car. It was an R after all. He ditched the b-series and went with what he knew best. He made a living off building K-motors that made gobs of power, and this DC2 would have the best yet. Better than the record breaking EG…
Soon it began to take a more menancing form and made it’s official debut at Redline Time Attack. The result? First place Modified FF class. After that, it was invited to participate in the Super Street FF Battle over the summer where it dominated the competition. Driver Andy Hope was quoted as saying that “corner exit was awesome with too much power” and that “the sensation of speed was amazing”.
It hits the list at number 1 because the car came out of nowhere and it set out to do what Loi Song had planned for it and more. It’s the pinnacle of every Honda-lover’s dream: An Integra Type R that had all the parts an enthusiast could strive for, and it was put to use.
Why it made the list: It was already at the top of its game, and it just got better. How do you top yourself when you’re already at the top?
This Civic took it’s success last year and simply carried it over to 2009.It started off the year at the first Redline Time Attack event winning it’s class and breaking a record. The industry began to take notice of the Sportcar Motion EG and it was then invited to participate in the Modified Tuner Shoot-out where, as first time competitors, it faired very well against other, more powerful participants.
After that, it became the official representative for Honda Tuning Magazine at the Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge. Sportcar rolled up to the event naturally aspirated and as the clear underdog of the competition and did so well that it earned the respect of all the other participants, including 5.0 Mustangs and Super Ford magazine, who had their representative talking shit (on this very site) the weeks leading up to the competition…
With the Integra Type R set to replace the EG, Loi had thoughts of retiring the car but it was doing so well. There was no point in having two Modified FF/Limited class Hondas in his stable so he took aim at a bigger goal; Unlimited FF. Bigger competition, less restrictions, but he would have to really go all out. Loi then pulled the Civic from competition and sent it off to Robispec to build a custom chromoly cage and gut out the entire inside of the car to reduce weight.
It’s current incarnation is ridiculous.
Custom front splitter, canards, rear wing, and a fully built K, all done in-house. It’ll definitely be a sight to see next year when everything is dialed in and ready for battle.
To sum it all up, the Sportcar Motion EG deserves the number one spot because it was the underdog that helped re-introduce Civics to the rest of the import community. It destroyed the competition, earned the respect of many outside the Honda world, and it continues to get better and better. Sure it will never have the depth, the intricate details, or the bling as a Sheepey or Big Mike but what it was able to accomplish with what it had is undeniable. This Civic’s body of work and resume for 2009 is simply incredible. The rest of the world saw it as an old Civic with a puncher’s chance. Today, along with the Sportcar Motion ITR, it’s the top Honda(s) of 2009.
See you in 2010.
