The Chronicles© - No Equal Since 2008 | www.stickydiljoe.com

Making Moves…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:30:31 +0000

It’s been a pretty slow week online for the most part…I wish I had more event coverage or features and what not to toss up here on The Chronicles but there hasn’t really been any events and the stuff I’m shooting is usually for work. The lack of any major update on the site may make it appear that I am not doing anything and just sitting on my ass, but I’ve actually been pretty busy working on numerous things. In just this month alone, I think I’ve shot about 4-5 cars for work as well as for the site. You won’t see all of it right away because it takes time for them to get published, but believe me, I’ve stayed busy. I’m trying to grind harder than ever this year and get as much work as I can. I just want to be able to have some extra resources so that I can either use it to travel or just to have money in my pocket later on. The site will continue to grow because it’s still a really big part of my everyday life. Even when I don’t update, I am consistently working on ways to improve the site or to add content that you guys want to see. It should be pretty obvious to many of you who have been around for awhile that I’m always trying to make things better, whether it be work, play, or just life in general. I know I’m not the greatest photographer, but I’m still learning and hope to someday be up there with some of the best guys in the industry. Writing comes pretty naturally for me, but even so, I am always looking for ways to make stories more interesting for you guys. There’s no better feeling than getting feedback from a fellow enthusiast who has had their car featured and for them to tell me that I did a good job of telling their story to the world. I’ll never be a “workaholic” by any means but I am most certainly on the grind constantly…

Whenever I have some spare time, I’ve been focused on getting some new merchandise for the Chronicles Storefront as well as for the upcoming SF Wekfest event. Wekfest is undoubtedly one of the biggest events of the year and I will be having a booth there once again so I really wanted to have some new stuff for the supporters of the site…

One new thing that I will be adding that I haven’t had in previous years are these new digital die-cut stickers. I’ve always done my own stickers by myself here at home on my plotter but I thought it would be cool to try something new. These stickers are much easier to apply and much smaller so you can basically slap them on anywhere. One of my favorite designs from the past has always been the Robocop/Unicorn Stickydiljoe.com design so I used it to make these die-cut 4-inch stickers. They were honestly a pain in the ass to cut on my machine back then but since they were being printed this time around, I was able to re-do some of the artwork and added more detail. They were a pretty good seller but I stopped selling them because they were so hard to weed-out and put together. You can see in the pic above that I’ve added little details here and there to make Robocop stand out more. I drew in new lines in his arm and leg area to make it look more like the original Robocop design. Minor details that most wouldn’t notice but hey, I’m a man of details and I think it looks much better now. These will be a lot cheaper than my usual vinyl stickers so make sure to stop by the booth at Wekfest where they will debut and snag a couple of them…

For those of you who haven’t been a Chronicles fan very long, I design and print a new shirt every year. We are heading into the fourth year of The Chronicles, so we are now on the fourth tee. These are limited in production so after the first initial batch, I usually don’t print more unless the demand is great. The version II shirts did really well, so I made a second batch of those as did the Hurt Feelings shirts. For this year’s shirt, I wanted to go back to my roots and went back to the original Chronicles logo. To this day the original logo is still my best selling sticker so it was only appropriate to use it on this year’s shirt…

For the back of the shirt, I’ve added the logos of those whom have contributed to the site the most throughout the years. The three car crews; Phaze2, DPK, and Premium Garage Krew were the ones that built the cars that helped bring attention to this site from the very beginning. People wanted an inside/behind-the-scenes look at what these guys did and they were and remain an essential part of this site’s success. I’m proud to have these guys represented on the back of The Chronicles shirt and I hope you guys support the site by representing these new shirts year-round. They will also debut at SF Wekfest and will come in both black and white versions. You’ll also notice the new “No Rival, No Equal, Est. MMVIII” logo on the back. I’ll elaborate more on it later but it should be pretty self-explanatory…I’m pretty excited about these shirts and I can’t wait to get them back from the company that’s doing my shirts….

On a random note, I went down to the Extreme Dimensions facility yesterday to meet up with Bisi Ezerioha to shoot the Bisimoto 2012 Civic for an overseas publication. This doesn’t really apply to anyone stateside because we don’t get that particular magazine here, but I thought some of the overseas Chronicles fans would get a kick out of this. A UK-based publication known as “Total Honda” wanted to feature Bisi’s Civic in their magazine and hit me up to shoot it. I’ve never done anything for any other overseas mag so I thought it would be cool to try it out. I’m pretty familiar with the car and communicate with Bisi regularly so I was the right guy for the job. They wanted to put the car on the cover and wanted to post a little teaser on their Facebook page so I shot the car, came home and processed the photo, and sent them the image that I felt would be good as a cover image. I’ve never shot a cover before so it was pretty cool to have the opportunity to do it. The people over at Total Honda seem really nice and enthusiastic about working with me so we will see how that plays out in the future…

Here’s a behind-the-scenes pic from the shoot yesterday. Extreme Dimensions has a huge lot with a lot of industrial buildings surrounding it so it made for a cool backdrop…

I was pretty surprised by how quickly they put the cover image together, but here is what they put up today on their Facebook page. It’s still a mock-up image so some changes will be made before it goes to print, but I think it looks good so far…

Not bad, right? Again, we don’t get that publication here in the states so you guys won’t see the feature later on, but I think there are ways to order single issues from them if you were really interested in checking it out. For you guys overseas that do get the magazine, I believe this issue drops on February 23rd, so stop by your local newstand or wherever you guys get magazines from and support my ass as well as Total Honda Magazine….

Thanks for looking…

Weekend Wrap-up…

stickydiljoe — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:44:48 +0000

For any of you who ever wondered what “NWP4LIFE” stood for, it started out as a small internet message board for a small group of Honda enthusiasts that hung out at a pizza place in Irvine, CA. That pizza spot was known as “Northwood Pizza”. When that group of individuals decided to come up with a name for their forum, they decided to name it after the spot that hung out at regularly, thus the name “NWP” aka NorthWood Pizza. It seemed like ages ago but now the forum is one of the most notable Honda enthusiasts forums in the entire world and has more than enough members to consider it the “small group” that it once was. Awhile back, I want to say maybe a two years ago or so, Northwood Pizza was bought out by the owners of the Yogurtland next door and while it remained a pizza place, numerous changes were made. The entire restaurant was re-modeled but what always stayed the same was the pizza…up until last year that is. For whatever reason, the new owners decided to shut down Northwood Pizza and turn it into a seafood/crawfish spot and NWP would be no more. The forum still stuck around of course, but the pizza was GONE. When we found out that it was closing down, we headed down there for one last slice before Northwood Pizza was no more. It was always an important spot to us because the food was great and the location was a landmark for a lot of great times that we had. We even took one last photo outside to commemorate the occasion…

This was back in May of 2011…

Everyone thought that Northwood was done for good until a couple months ago when we heard that the people that worked at Northwood so long would be bringing it back. They got the rights to re-use the name and would re-open Northwood Pizza in the same shopping center, just in another building. This location would be much smaller than in the past, but much easier to manage. It would serve more as a take-out pizza spot, but there was still enough room to accommodate a small gathering. What was best about bringing Northwood Pizza back was well, the great pizza…When we all caught wind that it was returning, we all decided to plan a get-together and have a small meet there like the old days…

Everyone seemed to have very different schedules, but it was finally decided that last weekend would be the weekend that we all went out there to eat Northwood Pizza. It was a bit of an impromptu gathering and wasn’t heavily advertised, so we expected it to be a small and poorly planned. It didn’t matter though and people didn’t even have to bring their cars. It was just more about getting together again and catching up with old friends…

The original sign and all, just in a different location…

Even though it was late notice, the turn-out was still pretty good…

One big difference since the original Northwood closed down is that we have a new addition to our stable of friends…Everybody seems to be getting a little older and progressing on in the journey through life…

Pie eating some yogurt from the Yogurtland next door…

Mike from PlanB Motorsports rolling through in his Evo X…

Larry Le’s pearl white Integra LS with ITR front conversion…

Andy Hope, who is an amazing driver and also previously the head editor of Sport Compact Car magazine, got a chance to enjoy some Northwood Pizza for the first time and brought out his clean EF Civic on Precedeo CST wheels…

Our old pal Jared from DPK, also enjoying some self-serve yogurt after devouring some pizza…

Many of us ordered a pile of meat with a side of pizza…

People made the trek out from all parts of Socal…

…including Bryant Nguyen from San Diego. His TSX on air was a little dirty but nobody cared…we were just happy to see him there…

Collin brought out his BB6 Prelude with a very rare Wisesports/Wisesquare front bumper…

Overall, it was just a nice chill day…no drama, no worries about people doing stupid ricer fly-bys and burn-outs. Just old friends, nice cars, and great food. A lot of guys also donned their NWP4LIFE gear to represent….

That pretty much summed up the weekend. On that Sunday, I woke up bright and early (actually it was still dark) to meet up with Mark Sutakajana and his 4-door DB Integra. As you know, he was the #5 spot on The Chronicles Top Ten Hondas of 2011 so it was just a matter of time until he got his chance to be featured in print on the pages of Honda Tuning magazine. We’ve had our eye on his Integra for quite some time now so it was good to finally be able to get the shoot done for HT. He injured his leg a couple weeks ago so he was unable to drive his car, but luckily for us, he’s got good friends and his buddy was willing to wake up early to drive his car out there with him…

I love being able to capture a moment when an owner stands by his creation, soaking in the moment and realizing that he’s built something great…Congrats to Mark and make sure to keep an eye out for his feature in an upcoming issue of Honda Tuning magazine….

I also had a chance to meet up with another favorite Honda of mine a couple days before that. Sam’s FA5 is coming along nicely and he wanted me to get some quick shots of it before he adds the final touches on his build. He’s got some big surprises in store so keep an eye out for his car. He is also Honda Tuning-bound as well but we all want Sam to be 100% content with his build before we put it in print…

That’s all for today, thanks for looking guys…

Exclusive Content: Tactical Art Meets Super Street Magazine…

stickydiljoe — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:06:25 +0000

One of the many great things about meeting the guys over at Tactical Art is that Yasutaka Shimomukai, Atuki Tubouti, and friends are constantly taking photos of whatever they are doing and sending them over to me. They are always up to something so it’s cool to be able to see what goes on over in Japan at their shop. Recently, they opened up their doors to the staff of Super Street magazine when they flew out there for Tokyo Auto Salon 2012. I served as the bridge between the two parties and helped set-up the meeting since Jonathan Wong wanted to shoot a couple of their Hondas for a future feature in Super Street. I asked Yasutaka if he could grab some photos while the Super Street guys were there and he was more than willing to take some pics. Below are photos from that day and you will also see a couple new cars that you hadn’t seen before from some close friends of Tactical Art; a crew by the name of “Team Madame”. They had three cars in particular that aren’t even available in the U.S. so it was even more interesting to see how they looked modified…

The photos aren’t in any particular order. You’ll see the Super Street guys there and then a couple photos from a mini-shoot that they did on their own after the SS guys took off…Enjoy…

The Tactical Art trio…Yasutaka’s EG up front, Atuki’s in the back, and their friend, Taku Kusugami’s EK…

Sean K., Jonathan Wong, and Sam Du checking out the Tactical Art cars…

The Super Street guys setting up the equipment for the shoot…

Wong and their Japanese translator, Tetsuya Ogushi, looking on…

Posted-up outside of the shop was Team Madame’s Toyota Wish mini-van, owned by Beeyan Hamada…

Also outside was Kazuya Kawashima’s Honda StepWGN from Team Madame…

Not familiar with that particular brand of brakes but the StepWGN as well as the Toyota Wish are on Work Meister S1Rs…

Mr. Beeyan Hamada sharing a photographic moment with Bernice Guevarra (art director from Source Interlink), Jonathan Wong, and Sam Du…

The SS staff preparing for some interior shots of Taku’s EK…

Team Madame getting acquainted with Super Street magazine and American import models…

Atuki positioning his EG for the shoot…

One car that I really wished that we had in the U.S. is the GRX133 Toyota Mark X…This is another car from Team Madame and just looks perfect on bronze Work Meister S1 wheels…

The SS staff taking a break to inhale some Japanese coffee in a can…

Taku Kusugami’s EK post-shoot…

Totally coincidental, but during the day of the shoot, I received a text message from Jonathan Wong telling me that the Tactical Art guys received my package of Chronicles merchandise I had sent over a week before. Pretty cool that it arrived on the same day as the shoot…

Masashi Kameoka putting a Chronicles decal on his 2nd gen. Mark X…

After a chunk of time, the Super Street guys finished-up their shoot and headed back to their hotel…

Since they had all the cars at the shop already, Yasutaka Shimomukai decided to get some more photos of the cars in front of the shop…

All you wheel fitment guys will appreciate Kameoka’s Mark X…

A couple more shots of Team Madame’s Toyota Wish…

Interesting to see that in their quest to adapt the U.S. “Hellaflush” style, Pedobear has also made the transition. This rendition is slightly modified though and his pink and rocking gold earrings…

The Wish’s custom side-exit exhaust…

Sticker-bombed Recaro bucket seats in the Wish…

Side view of the Team Madame Mark X…

Team Madame X Tactical Art…

Hamada applying a limited edition Year.Three Chronicles decal onto the windshield of his Toyota Wish…

The guys chillin’ in the shop after the cars were moved back inside…

That’s pretty much it from that day. I don’t know if you guys are at all interested or not but I’ve taken the liberty of creating some 1080P-sized desktop wallpapers for you guys, featuring the Team Madame vehicles. If you like them, go ahead and click the links below for the full-size images…

Masashi Kameoka’s Toyota Mark X…. Desktop Version (1920×1080)…..

Kameoka’s Mark X and Hamada’s Wish… Desktop Version (1920×1080)…

That’s a wrap, thanks for looking…

Just Because…

stickydiljoe — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:11:50 +0000

…You ain’t got shit to do on a Saturday anyhow, so why not just come out to Northwood Pizza and grab a slice with some of your fellow car enthusiasts. We’d be hanging out and eating regardless of whether or not you came, but it would be cool to chill with good people and great pizza…

“So You Think You Can STANCE?” Coverage…Part 2 of 2…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:03:46 +0000

Back now with the second half of It’s JDM Yo!!’s “So You Think You Can STANCE” event coverage, brought to you by The Chronicles. When we last left off, the competition had just started and people were gathered along the street and driveway to check out all the “action”. By “action”, I mean cars going up driveways slowly…haha. I know an event like this usually has it’s fair share of supporters, and also it’s share of people that just think that it is out right stupid. To be fair, it’s totally okay to think that it’s completely retarded because there is a growing number of enthusiasts within our vast community that is starting to dislike this whole “stance” movement. Any time you mention anything about low offset wheels and aggressive fitment, you will have a number of people that will detest the idea and show their disappointment with where the scene has shifted. The whole stance/hellaflush/fitment scene has become it’s own subculture now within the community and it doesn’t look to be going anywhere any time soon. It just goes with different people liking different things. There’s no definitive right or wrong because people don’t always like the same thing or share the same ideas as others. Being in the magazine industry opens my eyes to a lot of different styles of tuning and I’ve learned to appreciate them. I don’t necessarily have to agree or like what some enthusiasts are doing nowadays, but I also don’t have to always be vocal about it. If you don’t like the “stance” movement, just take a gander at the photos, read some of my stupid comments, and move on. This site isn’t solely devoted to wheel fitment and if you’ve been around for a lengthy-amount of time on The Chronicles, you know that I like to bring you a variety of things. Now let’s just move on with the photos and knock out part 2 of the “So You Think You Can STANCE?” coverage…if you want to read my thoughts on the event as a whole, I invite you to take a look back at part 1…

Now when we last left off, Milt had just kicked off the competition and did his run through the driveway…

He didn’t look like he had very many issues getting up the driveway…

…but coming down proved to be a little more interesting…

As I said in part 1, I don’t know the criteria for judging or what they were looking for, but on that particular run…Milt Salamanca garnered a score of 27 out of a possible 40…I didn’t even bother catching score after this because I really didn’t know what was going on. We all basically stood there to watch people potentially fuck their shit up…

A TSX narrowly missing the pavement as he was barely angling out…You can see Holly Lee and Tony from It’s JDM Yo!! standing in the middle of the driveway because they were basically the markers used to cut the driveway in half….Guy in the photo with the 49ers gear on is either whistling his favorite tune or over exaggerating his shock…

A strawberry-faced S14 240SX on Leon Hardiritt Ordens getting set to make his run….I thought the competition was a little unfair in that guys with aero or front lips already in need of repair competed against guys whose cars were in better condition…I mean, in terms of willingness to take a chance of breaking something to win, wouldn’t you have less to lose if your shit was already messed up already?…Then again, I don’t know how it was judged or scored so I can’t really say anything, just raising an interesting point….

People gradually started to get more into the event as more cars made their runs…Even Holly Lee was using the camera and trying to get some action shots…Tony for whatever reason, was showing off his hella hyphy THIZZ face circa 2006…

A clean white S2000 on CCW wheels stood next in line to make his attempt…

Antonio from Motormavens.com didn’t seem too impressed….Big Mike on the far left was taking a standing nap…

While I was happy to see that this S2K owner’s fenders weren’t fucked-up, his front lip has probably seen better days after this event…

Next up was the RHD CR-X from Infinit Wheels…

The CR-X’s run was one of the more interesting ones because they chose to drive the car straight up the driveway without angling at all and when it came down, it struggled to get traction and created some tire smoke…

Thanks to drifting, enthusiasts these days are conditioned to cheer and go ape shits anytime there is tire smoke so Infinit Wheels got some dap for creating the smoke show…

Armand with the TRD widebody MR-2 decided to participate/fuck his shit up…If anyone had anything to lose in this competition, it was him. His car is in pretty good condition and I don’t think damaging that kit would really be a good idea but he went for it anyway. During a test run, he mysteriously broke the wing off that he had just recently not replaced EVER, so this will be day 837 of wingless widebody SW20…

It didn’t look too bad as he was making his way down…

…but the more angles he had to make to get out, the more stress it was on his front end…if you look closely, you can see his fender cracking where it meets the sideskirt….

Next up was this S2000 with a CR lip and what looks like F-Zero Blue Volk CE28s…

If you ever wanted to know what a CR front lip would look like if it was driven into the ground with the weight of the car on it, here you go…

If that wasn’t enough scraping for you, here is a BB6 Prelude that also participated…Good to know that he had that plastic lip under his bumper to give the driveway more contact patch…haha…

This EF was one of the more ridiculous competitors of the day…not only was he making sparks under his car as he was exciting the driveway, he also was sparking when the car was driving normally on flat pavement. The guy decided to lower his car so extreme to the point where his car would flip over if he ran into a dime. The owner was also very serious about this competition and constantly asked later if he made it into the later rounds. Being low and fucking up the bottom of the car is serious business…

Last time I checked, IS350s weren’t cheap and neither are the parts made for them…Tell that to this guy’s front lip…

After most of the cars had finished their runs, out of nowhere, people decided to start acting like dipshits and revving their cars or driving really fast as they were leaving the venue to show off and/or mow people down who were spectating. Tony and many of us started to get kind of iffy about keeping the competition on an open street, so Tony and crew told everyone to get back inside where the parking lot was. The highlight of douchebaggery was when a 15 year old kid smoking a cigarette driving an STI his parents bought for him pulled in front of a crowd and started revving. Instead of just waiting for people to disperse, he felt it was a better idea to rev his shitty car at people and ask them to move. He was also accompanied by his other douchebag 15 year old friends who think that mounting two 25mm spacers on each wheel qualifies as “aggressive fitment”. The runner-up for master of douchebaggery was some jackass who was sitting on the passenger side window, hanging out of his car while his friend peeled out and hauled ass down the street. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Apparently these kids thought that they were participating in an event called “So You Think Your Parents Will Want to Visit You In The Hospital When You Are A Brain Dead VEGETABLE?”…

People acting like complete idiots sort of put a damper on the event, even though a majority of it went very well and without any real issues. There was a break during the competition to tally up the scores and see who would advance to the later rounds, but I was pretty set on going home. I had just driven back earlier that morning from my trip to Las Vegas so I wanted to get home to get some much needed rest. Before that though, I made the rounds and finished up the rest of my coverage of cars that were at the event…

Michael Mao’s Acura NSX…

G35 on DPE wheels…

A couple more shots of the Amuse-inspired S2000 from DTM Autobody…

…as well as the KE70 Corolla wagon parked behind it…

JonJon’s supercharged IS350 from Vanguard Collective/It’s JDM Yo!!….

Y34 M45 on air…

Oh this was cool…It’s virtually impossible to see a modified Lexus ES300/Toyota Windom EVER so it was refreshing to see one at the event with a kit and old school Work Equip mesh wheels…These cars are terribly unpopular to modify, because they are basically fancy versions of Camrys, but I’ll always have a soft spot for this car because my parents owned one when I was growing up…The last time I saw one of these ES300s modded was back around the early 2000s when I would spot the same one always cruising through LA. It had a HKS turbo kit and everything, shit was crazy and way ahead of it’s time…

Ryan Delosreyes’ Scion xB on old school Work VS wheels…

The Kouki S14 from part 1 with the crooked intercooler…As a whole, this car wouldn’t look bad if it was all one color…

FC3S RX-7 from the most un-intimidating car crew name ever, Nuisance…

Acura TSX from Low’N Slow on gold-faced CCW Classics…

3rd generation Toyota Celica from Low’N Slow…

Armand’s MR-2, post cracked fender…Aspiring breezies in the background doing hoodrat stuff…so hood that the guy photographing them is standing on the train tracks…

The BB6 Prelude on white-faced Work Equips that competed earlier…front lip scuffed up, but still intact…

The most aggressive S2000 ever to park in front of a dumpster…

Real clean EK with a iridescent hood shield…

Hubert Barnum male modeling on the Ruckus he and his brother built…

One more shot of the 350Z from part one on the SSR Gartmaier wheels…

The Barnum brothers’ Ruckus…draped in orange jizzum…

The IS350 that competed earlier on SSR MS1 wheels…

The S14 that also competed earlier…

DPK David’s EJ1 coupe just before he left…

Keith aka Keychain’s Accord sedan on polished MB Battles…

That’s about it…after that I left so I didn’t really get a chance to see who won the whole thing. I believed after things calmed down for a bit, they went back and finished the competition on the driveway where it started. Overall, a pretty successful event I would have to say…It wasn’t really meant to be anything taken too serious and I think that’s what people left with. At the end of the day, it’s just a couple guys showing off how they get out of driveways in their lowered cars. The meet portion of the event was cool. The diversity was good and wasn’t only limited to just beat-up cars on aggressively-fitted wheels. Congrats to Tony and staff for putting together a good event….

Thanks for looking… Back tomorrow with other stuff…

Oh before I go, I had to post this up. It was on Facebook late last night but I figured I’d post it up here since a lot of you don’t have Facebook accounts…

Haha, the expression on this guy’s face just made it too easy…

“So You Think You Can STANCE?” Coverage…Part 1…

stickydiljoe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:22:46 +0000

Well this was different…haha. I mean, in terms of just being “different”, this event takes the cake so far. When Tony first came up with the idea to do this whole “Stance” competition, I was really up in the air about it. The whole name is something that we’ve been throwing around as a joke for the last year or so now, but when he decided to dub his event “So You Think You Can Stance?”, trust me, it was met with a collective “what the fuck are you thinking”. Tony is a pretty smart guy though with some pretty innovative ideas…he’s a massive pervert, but still, he is a smart pervert. If you don’t know which Tony I am referring to, I am talking about Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!. He’s always been a great friend and a huge supporter of mine so whenever he comes up with an idea, no matter how out of the box or random it is, I will support him….

Michael Mao’s Acura NSX on Volk CE28 Genesis…

The whole idea behind this “So You Think You Can Stance” event was very basic in principal…almost too basic. We were to have a pretty aggressively sloped driveway, in which people would sign-up and attempt to show everyone how they could go in and out of the driveway with their slammed/lowered/stanced-out vehicles. The original driveway that was chosen for the competition was over by the Rywire facility. It’s got a pretty big slant to it, but it wasn’t impossible to get up and down. DPK David takes his Civic coupe to work on occasion and has little issues getting in and out and even my Q45 aired down to about 40-50psi with a big kit and get out pretty easily. There are a number of cars that come through the shop and I’ve never really seen anyone have any problems. Being that the venue was also good enough to host a small meet though, Tony decided to use it for the event. What he would do would cone off a large chunk of the driveway, and as the competition progressed, the driveway would become smaller and smaller…

Linda’s Toyota Matrix on VIP Modular wheels from Team Praxis…

How it would be judged would also prove to be pretty interesting…There would be a panel of three guys who would determine the winner…Keith aka Keychain from It’s JDM Yo!!, Noel Barnum from Canibeat, and Yogi from Fatlace. These guys know about all things low so they would be good judges. Yogi I don’t think has ever really had a car that low..his Accord never moved and now he drives a Nissan pick-up, but still, he works for Fatlace/Illest so he encounters his fair share of lowered vehicles. I don’t know what was a point of emphasis for judging, nor do I know what they were looking at…I really didn’t want to know because then I would wonder if they were judging it correctly and with this being a first-time competition, there are a lot of unknowns. Even after the event has come and gone, I still have no real idea of how they judged this. There were so many different types of cars and they all went about going up and down the driveway different…it’s one of those things that can have real open interpretation. In the end, I believe a 1st generation Lexus GS300 won so congrats to the owner. I believe Falken Tires was a co-sponsor of the event and the winner got a set of tires. The other co-sponsor was VIP Modular wheels, which offered a significant discount (20-30% I believe) on a new set of VIP Modular wheels…

350Z on SSR Gartmaier wheels fro Royal Origin…

On the days leading up to the event, Tony realized that there was a chance that the event would be bigger than originally anticipated. I guess he had more than enough responses on social media outlets where he believed the event might be larger than the Rywire parking lot could hold, so he changed the venue entirely. Instead of having it at Rywire, he moved the event over to the city of Santa Fe Springs, inside an industrial section of the city that was quiet and had plenty of space on a Sunday. Overall, I think the event worked out great. The whole idea of it on paper just sounds kind of silly, but man, people fucking love all things “stance”. You can literally throw the word “stance” into any event name or website and there’s a high possibility of it being successful. As much as people love to talk shit about stanced-out cars, it’s become a genre in our community that has become quite popular. I’m a fan of everything as long as it’s done right in my eyes or in moderation. There are some absolutely ridiculous looking cars that showed-up… as with every stance-related event, there are often times when people just try way too fucking hard to be cool and somehow totally fuck up their cars in the process…

VIP Modular booth on display…

If you want my honest opinion of this event, I would kind of relate it to like pro-wrestling and figure skating, but without the excitement of wrestling and without the grace of figure skating…haha, if that makes any sense… I didn’t think that many people would be into the competition side of the event but damn, people were on edge after the first couple cars did their driveway sessions. I think many of us were skeptical but eventually we were also into it and wanted to know who was going to win. I knew that the meet portion of this event would be good because Tony’s events always have good turn-outs. He can bring a good crowd in just by blasting the event on Facebook. The competition was cool, but like I said early on, there’s a lot that needs to go into judging criteria if Tony and crew decide to put another event like this on again in the future…

Lowered cars going up driveways is something that every enthusiast has to go through practically everyday…turning it into a competition just sounds totally absurd…but you know what? It just works…haha. Congrats to Tony and the It’s JDM Yo!! crew for putting on another successful event…

Standard Functions brought out a couple of really nicely-built Ruckus’ for display at the Fatlace booth…

I spotted my favorite car early on in the day…DPK David and I were walking around while I did coverage and stumbled upon an AE86 on HRE wheels…

HREs are not a typical wheel that you see on an AE86…this one might be the first one ever actually…You don’t see these wheels on Corollas of any kind because they are often times worth more than the cars themselves. It’s a high end wheel that belongs on more appropriately high-end automobiles. Anytime you see something like this though, it’s definitely a cool sight…

Turns out that this beautiful creation is actually owned by Mickey Andrade who works at HRE. David and I were a little shocked at first to see a perfectly fit set of HREs on a Corolla but after speaking to him, it all made sense. The car itself was built by John Russakoff from JSPFab in Vista, CA…

John Russakoff’s claim to fame, besides being a talented drifter in Formula D, is performing S2000 F20C swaps on older Toyotas like the AE86. He has a whole kit that is made just for the swap and even has this custom made F20C spark plug wire covers with the Toyota 1600 insignia on them…pretty cool stuff…

I’ve seen this EK with purple Work Meister S1s various times before online…I believe it’s from Northern Cali…

The It’s JDM Yo!! booth with an assortment of the latest It’s JDM Yo!! gear…

The Z33 from above on SSR Gartmaier wheels…

Jay Borcena’s Acura TL on VIP Modular wheels and Accuair suspension…

The guys having a moment…(From left to right: Jay Borcena, Big Mike, Noel Barnum, DPK David, and Noel’s girl Emily…)

Ms. Sheila working the NOS Energy booth…

3GS on Auto Couture wheels…

A good-looking wingless Mitsubishi Evo X on concave Volk TE37s…

JonJon Usaha’s Job Design Lexus IS300 representing It’s JDM Yo/Vanguard Collective…

S2000 from Infinit Wheels sitting on CCWs…

2GS on Work Eurolines, also representing Infinit Wheels…

WRX rolling through with some aggressive blue Work Meister S1s…

Powerhouse Amuse-inspired Honda S2000 on Enkei PF01 from DTM Autobody…

Clean Boso-style Corolla wagon on really clean old school Super Advan Racing wheels…I dig the red interior on this thing…

Keychain cruising up to the event fashionably late…

Noel Barnum taking a seat on his Ruckus to check out the event…

I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why the intercooler on this S14 is cock-eyed…probably insert a “Because Drift Car” or something stupid here…

Antonio from Motormavens was in charge of MCing the event but also had his camera and massive lens on hand to do some coverage for his site…

This G35 on white-faced Work Meister S1 wheels was just stunning…Shows that you can have a clean set-up on aggressive wheels without making your shit look absurd with haggered fenders…

Yogi from Fatlace/Illest standing the in the middle of the street with a giant “Illest” flag…

A couple hours into the event, it was time to begin the competition and people got together by the driveway in anticipation…

Evo X on green Volk CE28s posted-up on the side of the street…

Here’s an incorrect way to be “stanced-out”….fake TEs, chewed up tires inside and out rocking two gigantic wheel spacers just to be “flush”…What is that shit, like 50mms wider now??…

Jimmy from Team Praxis rolling through before the competition started in his FJ Cruiser…

RHD CR-X from Infinit Wheels lined-up and ready to compete…

Milt from Low N Slow was the first car on hand to try his way up the driveway…he and his crew took the competition seriously and had their team flags and shit all up in Milt’s Z…

Milt’s license plate was a popular topic of mention at the event…

The judges and Antonio huddling-up and discussing the rules…

Milt and his Garson Deep Racing wheels ready to go…

…Judges ready…

…and….

…back tomorrow with part two of the “So You Think You Can Stance?” coverage!…

Stay tuned and thanks for looking!

The Rywire ITR Build…Part 6…

stickydiljoe — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:38:18 +0000

I wanted to jump into some event coverage today but I’m not finished yet with the photos from the latest It’sJDMYo.com event. I’m about 95% finished but I’d rather just wait until tomorrow when they are all done before starting on part 1 of the coverage. Today, we are going to jump right into part 6 of the Rywire Integra Type R build. There was a short update last week but Ryan actually found some time over the weekend to work on the car so I stopped by to check it out. These photos are only a couple hours or so old so this is literally how the car sits at this exact moment. There will be more updates coming up soon but I believe the car will be heading down to ASC Speed Metal for some custom fabrication in a couple weeks. We’re going to take a look at Ryan’s Tilton brake set-up that he mocked up over the weekend. There is still a lot to be done before the brake pedal assembly will be operational but I figure now would be a good time to introduce it to you guys before more stuff is going into the car. I’ll let Ryan Basseri himself take over for a quick minute so that he can explain it to you guys, check out the video before you jump into the photos below…

Here are some photos so you guys can get a better idea of what he is referring to…

Here is the Tilton pedal assembly mounted on the car. As he said above, there is still an extra pedal that will need to be retrofitted to the Tilton assembly to make the drive-by wire system operational…

A driver-side view of the pedal assembly. The gas pedal assembly from the Subaru STI is actually kind of far off from where it needs to be so it’ll be interesting how it will look when it’s been modified. Ryan tells me that the brake and clutch pedal will be moved further back as well…

Custom brake hard lines that Ryan started on but has not yet completed…

This is the Tilton brake bias/proportioning valve that will later be run under the exhaust tunnel which will give Ryan the ability to adjust rear his braking…

Ryan also spent some time over the weekend installing his Hybrid Racing shifter assembly…

Here are some other parts that are waiting to go on the car…

I may have already taken a photo of this before but since he had it on hand, I figured I’d show you the intake manifold that he will be running…

Here are pretty much all the pieces for his dry sump oiling system. This dry sump unit is what makes it possible for Ryan to modify his valve cover the way he did with deleting the oil filler, dip stick, and crankcase ventilation…

Blueprint Racing’s K-series alternator bracket…I believe this is used to eliminate the OE K-series water pump and to allow the usage of an older B/D-series alternator. Ryan will be utilizing a electric water pump instead because it reduces drag from the crank and will allow his K to produce more power…

Rywire brake hoses that will be used for Ryan’s ITR…

Remember how I showed you guys his custom valve cover last week? Well, Ryan also spent quite a bit of time over the weekend making the ignition harness that will be going under the modified K-Tuned wire cover. I did an overlay shot above where you can get a good idea of how everything will look once the harness is finished and the cover will be mounted. When the car is finished, I doubt many of you guys will be able to see what’s going on from the ignition coils out to the engine harness so here’s your chance…The dimple dyes in the plate will give you a very small hint but you’ll mostly be seeing the custom made harness only…You can also see in the photo how the Deutsch connectors will look exiting drilled holes in the valve cover…

Here it is without the cover…nothing is mounted yet and is just a basic mock-up of the finished product…

The back side of the valve cover, completely streamlined with just a single connector peaking out…

Most people get excited by sports, girls, drugs, etc….Ryan on the other hand, gets incredibly excited when he creates custom electrical parts like the harness for his camshaft sensor…

He insisted that I take a photo of it even though he has yet to finish it and put a connector on the end… I mean, the guy is a genius when it comes to this kind of stuff and he creates product of only the utmost quality… I’m not going to tell you where you guys need to get your stuff from because you should know very well who to go to…

That wraps it up for today…Make sure to check back for more on this build later. Tomorrow is part one of the “So you think you can STANCE?” event coverage…thanks for looking…

It’s gonna be a good week…

stickydiljoe — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:16:52 +0000

No time for a big update today with it being Chinese New Year and all, but here’s a preview of things to come this week. As with the previous weeks, we are going to have a lot of good content coming your way…

I’m gonna kick off the week with coverage from the 1st ever “So you think you can Stance” event, brought to you by It’s JDM Yo!!!…

It was definitely an interesting event and the first of it’s kind…I was surprised by the turn-out and people looked like they were really into the “competition”…

The best thing about this event was the variety of different builds that showed-up…There were definitely some cars that I had never seen before…

I also have some photos that the guys from Tactical Art took when the Super Street staff stopped by to check out their shop and shoot some of their cars…

It looked like an interesting day over there and they also had a couple new cars pop-up that we had previously unseen…

I have to head out for now but make sure to check back tomorrow for the first chunk of updates….

I’m also visiting the Rywire facilities as well because Ryan had a chance to spend some time over the weekend to update his ITR build, shit is going to be crazy, stay tuned!!!…

The Rywire ITR Build…Part 5…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:46:18 +0000

While I would really like to give you a full in-depth update on Rywire’s Integra Type R, I can’t because the progress on it has been relatively slow. Ryan is brainstorming everyday and the car has already come together in his mind, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day for him to execute his plans. When we followed Big Mike’s Prelude re-build, it went significantly faster because Big Mike had set a target date for it to be complete. With Ryan’s build, there really isn’t a set date for it to debut. Wekfest SF 2012 would have been an amazing place for it to debut but with so many customers and a company to maintain, it just wasn’t feasible to put everything aside to work on a personal project. It’s been pretty busy ever since the chassis arrived back at the Rywire facilities so Ryan and staff have been busy knocking out custom harnesses and other work for customers. His Integra chassis has been sitting in the corner, directly behind the table where he does his everyday work. He’s been itching to work on it and every time he gets out of his seat, the car is right there staring at him waiting to be re-assembled. He hasn’t forgotten the car by any means, the Rywire business just comes first. Many of you should understand that and if you don’t, you need to understand how to manage priorities better in your own life, haha. Today we’re going to be taking a quick look at some small updates just so we keep the flow of this build going. It’s been awhile since we did an update and I felt that it was time to give the public some information on the build… After Wekfest SF, I am sure he will have more time to work on the car, in the mean time, we just have to wait just like Ryan…

As you can see, the chassis itself has not moved since it’s returned to Rywire…There are a couple more things around it though, like a stock engine harness that’s laying on the floor for a customer’s project. A couple days before this, I wouldn’t even have been able to take a shot like this because there were other cars occupying space inside the shop…Click for Larger Version here (1400×933)

Like the outside, the interior remains completely untouched…he’s kept it clean though, haha…

One notable update that’s worth mentioning is Ryan’s custom valve cover. He had Louie from L*Con Race Fabrication shave and smooth out a stock K-series valve cover, removing everything that Ryan deemed unnecessary. The dipstick and mounting area has been deleted and filled as well as the crankcase ventilation area. There’s no need for ventilation because he will be running a dry sump oiling system. There were some areas on the edge of the valve cover that were raised by design from the factory but even those have been shaved for a more streamline look. Unless you are familiar with how a K valve cover looks, you probably won’t really notice what has been changed, which might also be a good thing, because it’s so streamlined that you would think it came that way from the factory. If you take a closer look, even the oil cap and oil filler section has been filled and smoothed out. Once this thing is coated, it’s going to be amazing… Also notice on the K-Tuned spark plug wire cover how dimple dies have been added. I believe the positioning of the holes exist as well so you can see peek inside and see the coils…

On the backside of the valve cover, you’ll also notice that the top corner has been filled in, along with the area where the harness would normally run to the coils. Instead of having all the deviations and square edges, Ryan opted to have the whole area filled with just a hole drilled out to make room for a shell size 8 Autosport connector. All necessary wiring to the coil packs will run through the connector….

His Wilwood brakes recently came in and were ready to go on the car, but Ryan’s ideas are ever evolving and he decided to pick up a set of AP Racing brakes and now this Wilwood kit is up for sale…Once those come in, we will be able to mock them up on the hub and see how the wheels clear in relation to the custom front fenders…

These exact connectors aren’t for Ryan’s ITR but he will be using Deutsch connectors when his harness starts to come together… Not much of an update until we actually start getting all the wiring done but it gives you an idea of what he’s going after electronically…

Meanwhile, moving at an even slower pace, is DPK Darryl’s EM1 coupe….it’s looking much better these days but hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next decade…

That’s pretty much it for now. I know you guys have been waiting on good updates on this build and trust me, I’m right there with you. Every time I go down to the shop I walk over to the car to see if anything’s been added. You can see in this shot that Ryan’s been trying to install his FCS-made fuel cell. I think he had to modify the brackets a bit but the cell should be mounted by the weekend… Click here for a Larger Version (1400×933)…

Thanks for looking… updates will come when Ryan decides to update his car…haha…

Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 Coverage…Part 3…The Finale…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:05:06 +0000

We observed the largest internet strike of our history yesterday to fight the SOPA/PIPA Act and from how things look so far, the strike was worthwhile. You can do much more reading about it and the effects the strike had on the country but today we are going to get back into the swing of things. I don’t want imposed my beliefs about stuff that’s not directly related to The Chronicles so feel free to do more reading on the SOPA/PIPA stuff at your own convenience. The site was blacked-out from 8am – 8pm EST so I didn’t get a chance to update with the concluding portion of our Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 coverage. Today we will see the final batch of photos that were provided by our friends over at Tactical Art Japan and I will also include some photos from the parking lot of TAS 2012 that were supplied by Koji Karamata. Part 3 will have more photos from the previous two posts because I felt like it would be better if I just closed out the coverage today instead of extending it an additional day. It would have just been a small amount of photos anyways so there was no point into making a separate post. ..

Gonna kick it off today over at the Project Mu section where they had all of their baller brake set-ups on display…I totally forgot that Project Mu had lug nuts in their product line-up until I saw this photo…

Here’s their new Project Mu Monoblock 4-piston brake calipers… They aren’t coated like the usual Project Mu brakes and have a very distinct “MONO” engraving on the face of the caliper itself…There’s no price tag yet because this shit is probably worth more than the car you’re building…haha…

Subaru STI sedan with-said Project Mu Monoblock brakes….

Over at the Rays Engineering area, you will notice a whole new line-up of Gram Light wheels as well as new Volk Racing wheels…

Rays had this Lexus LF-A on hand with a new set of Gram Light 57Extremes in blue…

You can see the rest of the Gram Light line-up here. I didn’t think that the Gram Light line was all that popular compared to Volks but judging from this display, Rays has invested a lot of money into this particular line…

Mad Mike’s D1 Spec FD3s RX-7 that he will be campaigning in 2012 in Japan…This one also on Gram Light 57Extremes…

Toyota Prius Hybrid Super GT race car…

HKS brought out their wild Toyota Veilfire democar for display at their section… Standing next to the Veilfire is Keisuke Morita, an HKS Sales Engineer that we met last year during the SEMA 2011 show in Las Vegas along with the Tactical Art guys…

They had this hole implemented into the fender where you could peek inside…

…and see their HKS Hipemax III coilover system lit up with bright white LED lighting. Pretty cool idea that you will never see done over here because people aren’t done to put holes in their fenders…

This is the same HKS Supercharged S2000 that was at the SEMA show in 2011…Pretty crazy that they had the car shipped back and forth when they could easily just install another HKS supercharger on a S2000 in the states…

The HKS exhaust system on the S2000…

HKS Hipermax III coilovers…

HKS GT Supercharger for the S2000 off the car and on display…

HKS header with dyno numbers for the AP1…

The new HKS F-CON IS piggyback engine management system…

HKS also debuted their new DMR-150D Direct Multi Recorder system…If you’re interested in what this system is all about, click the link here…

A better shot of the Toyota Veilfire van…

GReddy fixie…

Subaru STI sedan on display for Blitz…

Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 marked the debut of RE Amemiya’s latest FD3s project, dubbed the “Super NA7″…More shots of this wild RX-7 over here on Speedhunters…

The R-Magic RX-7 displayed at the Exedy booth…

FD2 CTR race car from M7 Japan…

Ridiculous looking Toyota Crown Japanese Police cruiser from Car Sense…Say what you will about this car, but it was meant to be off-the-wall ridiculous. It’s just a display vehicle for a shop so I don’t know why people are going so crazy about it online and talking about how it doesn’t function. What the fuck do you think it’s for? It’s not a real police car and hell, it probably doesn’t roll anyway…

Just fucking nuts…

S15 Silvia from Okuyama/Carbing…

Evo X also from Okuyama/Carbing…

One of the most unattractive air boxes I’ve ever seen for any car, haha…

They removed the doors to display the cage and interior…

Endless Porsche Super GT race car looking great with the classic Endless livery…

Pink metallic 2GS from K-Break…

A couple other K-Break VIP cars on display…the sedan to the left is actually a Toyota Celsior with a Toyota Century front end conversion…

K-Break Y33 Nissan Cima…

Appropriate to have a bunch of Japanese dudes in suits standing by the car…

Ferrari 458 Italia race car…

Great detail in this interior, whether you like floral patterns on everything or not…

STI version of the Subaru BRZ…

Subaru BRZ Super GT race car…

Towards the end of the day, Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art (aka the guy who took these photos) ran into a couple familiar faces. Ken and Adam from Wek’Sos/Wekfest were also in Japan for TAS 2012 and they got together for a photo-op… Oh it’s also Yasutaka’s birthday today as well so a big happy birthday shout-out to him. Super Street magazine is visiting them today and Tactical Art has also organized a little Civic meet over at their shop…

Well, that marks the end of the coverage that was provided by Tactical Art. The photos below are from my other source, Koji Karamata, and are mostly photos that I felt you should see from the show that Yasutaka missed as well as some photos from the parking lot. Judging from the photos I saw, the parking lot at TAS 2012 should have been a show in itself with all the nice cars out there… Anyways, here are the pics…

I didn’t even know Rando Sports was still around but apparently they are and they brought out this new Evo X…

A better shot of the RE Amemiya Super NA7…

Another RE Amemiya beauty with Porsche headlights and custom RE Amemiya aero… I love how they did a gradual fade into the exposed carbon on the hood..Just an amazing looking car. RE Amemiya is just one of those companies that has been quietly killing it throughout the years with amazing product and the world doesn’t know that much about them because they have a very specific demographic (RX-7 owners)…

Another shot of the FD2R from M7 Japan…

GReddy’s BenSopra R35 GT-R…this one has to be the best looking of the three at TAS 2012…I love what they did with the burnt titanium look on the gills behind the front wheel…$40,000 for a aero kit is fucking crazy but man, it drastically changes the look of the GT-R…

Akira Nakai from Rauh Welt debuted his newest Porsche project, deemed the “Spearmint Rhino”…I’m sure it has to be a recent inspiration of his from his trip out to Las Vegas last year…Peep the Fatlace/Illest booth at TAS 2012, Mark is doing it BIG these days…

Now onto some parking lot shots…

Love how simple this Toyota Chaser/Mark II is…I would rock this shit ALL DAY…

Everytime I see a Toyota Celsior built like this it makes me regret owning a Y33 Q45…haha… Man, I love it. If I saw this thing while I was in Japan for TAS, I don’t think I would have gone inside because I’d be staring at this car all day…

I also really liked this Toyota Crown on BBS LMs…

Not sure what these vans are but they look pretty sick…I’ll take either or, don’t matter…

I’d have to do something about the exhausts though…haha but everything else is perfect. I just like how they are all parked perfectly next to eachother. I wonder if they practice this and just go everywhere in perfect symmetry…

This on the other hand, is hideous…cool yes, in a old man creepy way, but totally hideous…

I noticed that in a majority of the photos, there are people sleeping in their cars…The Japanese must be big on afternoon naps, haha. In reality though, preparing for such a huge event like this probably would take a lot out of anyone…

Closing out all three parts of the TAS 2012 coverage of possibly my favorite car of the show, and it wasn’t even inside… This Nissan Skyline 2000GT is on point! Everything about it is just money…

That’s all for today…thanks for looking and I hope you have all enjoyed the overseas coverage of Tokyo Auto Salon 2012…Thanks to Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art for making it possible!

Thanks for looking…