Import Alliance 2011 Coverage…Part 6…
Somebody jerked off in the parking lot….
That’s all you really have to know about the type of shit that goes on at one of these post-IA parking lot parties at the La Quinta. Apparently, somebody thought it was hilarious to beat off in the parking lot in front of everyone…and that was just on the first night before the event even took place. Haha, whether it’s true or not, I’ll never know. I actually don’t want to know. If somebody decided that it was cool to whip that shit out and start attacking it like it owed him money, then be all means, have at it…but I don’t want to see or hear about it, haha. The fuck is wrong with people these days? Really…For the most part, the partying the first night was pretty uneventful. Hotel management asked the police to come by and shut it down and again, for the most part, people chilled after that. The second night was a bit different, and I’ll tell you more about it further down in this post. May actually really wanted to come to IA with me but since my whole trip was so poorly planned and airfare wasn’t exactly the cheapest, I thought it was best to just tread the IA waters with a couple of the guys, just to see how it was like. Plus I really wanted to get that “complete” experience you know. Figure out how everybody else does IA and see what they were raving about. When it came to Import Alliance, I couldn’t have been happier with the event. When it came to the parties and extra curricular stuff outside of the actual meet itself, I was less than impressed. It wasn’t like the dude jacking off in the parking lot or whatever turned me off from the whole thing, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s just because I’m a bit older now and I’m over the partying stage. From 21-25 or so, I did it all you know. What these guys were doing at the hotel is pretty much an equivalent to like the “college” experience, where you get drunk and go to frat parties or house parties and just act like complete assholes. It’s cool, I get it and again, more power to you but it’s just not for me anymore. Some of the stuff was humorous but the other stuff was just plain juvenile and childish…oh and also pretty dangerous. I think if we had brought the girls along with us for the trip, they wouldn’t be having more than 15 minutes of that shit. Not that they aren’t down, because these girls know how to party too but being in a crowd of what is probably 80-85% males who are drunk and acting retarded is not the best environment for women to be in. I really just wanted to get a sense of what things were like so we stuck it out and hung out with everyone to experience the parties at La Quinta…
If anything I feel bad for the manager of the hotel. We actually stood at the front desk and talked to her for awhile just to see what she had to say about it. She admitted that she knew what she was getting into with the whole Import Alliance thing since this was her third straight year hosting a majority of the crowd. The money is good. I don’t know how busy that part of Nashville gets but I doubt they have that significant of a crowd every weekend booking up all the rooms there. We asked her if there were other people staying there that weren’t apart of the IA crowd and she said that there indeed was. I ran into an older couple who were waiting for an elevator and some dude like blew one of those plastic trumpet-style horns right into her face and she was pretty upset about it. The manager said that when people book rooms that weekend, they are notified of the “conditions” and what goes on there so they have fair warning of what’s going on. So the people that chose to stay there, I don’t feel bad for, because they knew what was going on and less than a mile down the way, there was a hotel that’s nice and quiet and half the price (where I stayed). They could have easily stayed there but the manager said they opted to stay there anyway. What’s terrible is the amount of clean-up that goes into these type of events there at the hotel. One of the elevators broke after the first night so everyone was stuck riding one elevator where the lights were pulled out so people were crammed into one elevator and stood there in the pitch dark. Fire extinguishers were all fucked with, the parking lot was a mess, and the list just goes on…I can’t even imagine what the rooms looked like. But apparently it’s worth it to the La Quinta management because they continue to put up with it…
Anyways, let’s start the coverage, I’ll tell you more about the parties later on. We’re picking up around the time when Big Mike, DPK David, and I were walking on the other half of the lot right next to the main section. This section as I mentioned in Part 5, hosted some of the more uhh…”whatever” cars. There were some gems in there but you had to look for them. The rest of them were either incomplete or like, relics from the early 2000s style of imports. Halfway through my walk, I indeed found some gems. And these three cars were perhaps some of my favorites of the entire weekend. Nothing too crazy, but style doesn’t always have to come in brunches. You can build a nice, simple car, and it’ll send a bigger message than any crazy over the top project…
Love at first sight…man, you know how you go to a club where there are like tons of wack ass looking girls and you see one that’s decent-looking but in that moment, she’s incredibly hot? Well that’s called “hot by association”. When you come back to the real world she’s no longer that hot anymore but in that moment, she’s a 10/10. There were a ton of builds like that at IA. Not “great” by any means, but in that moment, it was one of the best builds there…these three cars…are by no means “hot by association”. These cars are the ones that you can appreciate at any event, in any state, on any coast. Very strong words, I know, but simplicity is the key…
FD3S, nothing crazy on the aero-side, just Volk TE37SLs without the red spoke decal and under the hood…
..GM LS1-swap…don’t really need much more after that. It’s a beast…
This was actually the first car I spotted out of the three. I went up to it and just stood and stared at it, then the owner, Kyle Smith, came up to me and asked me if I was StickyDilJoe…I said I was and he told me he was a big fan of the site, which I was kind of surprised by and said that he’s been following it for quite some time. I told him that I appreciated it and he was just a real quiet, humble type of dude. I told him how much I liked his car and how it made my day to see the three of them parked out there. The car is very straight to the point. It has an SR-swap, which he said looked terrible so he didn’t pop his hood, bronze TE37s, and a complete JDM OE 180SX Type X kit. I don’t know if many of you are familiar with this but the 180SX (or our 240SX hatchback) was in production in Japan up until 1998 when it ceased production. The Type X (and also a Type R model) was the last incarnation of the 180SX and had this front bumper, front lip, sideskirts, rear valance, and taillights. You want to talk about “JDM” style, it doesn’t get anymore “JDM” than this right here…and he doesn’t even have to wear a stupid ass t-shirt that says JDM on it…
The front end with the Type X front and what I call the “double Forest Whitaker” …you know, the lazy eyes…haha…so fucked up…
Late model 180SX JDM tails and rear add-on pieces…perfect wheel fitment too…
Kyle’s buddy was the owner of the black 180SX convert, which was featured in Modified Magazine awhile back…this one is probably the more refined one of the two but both are great looking S13s…
TE37s in what looks like “Formula Silver” finish…
Ever seen a Nissan with a NEXT! Miracle Cross Bar?…
The interior…note the APEX’i Power FC control unit, Bride door panels, floor mats, and gauges…very nice…
This photo came out kinda shitty cuz I had high hopes for it…
After stopping and chatting with those guys for awhile, we moved on to see what else we could find…
J32-swapped CR-X…I wish I could show you a close-up of the motor, it was so worn down and corroded…looked like the car that this motor came out of was submerged in water for a long time or something…still cool nonetheless…
This was cool…I think at that point CCWs were like a sharp pointy knife slowly digging into my rib cage but it look good on this hatch. Bay is decent, tucked but still needs a couple things here and there like a custom fuel set-up and some moving of certain items. Good looking car though…I have another shot of it from the second day of IA that I really liked but I’ll post that later on…
240SX drift car (I’m assuming) on a trailer…
I thought the wheels on this Civic were cool…even the smaller bolts along the lip were spikes as well….
Accord wagon and Civic from V Race Works…
Widebody S2000 from Illmotion…uhh, I’m sure there’s a joke or caption I could toss in here with the girl hold the pole and her hair waving around in the breeze but I’m just going to leave it alone…
Joe Maguschak once again…At this point a lot of people had left so I could finally get a shot of this car from a distance…
Really liked this shot of the firewall on his coupe…
I’ve always had a vested interest in this NSX because it resembles Phaze2 Tony’s NSX in many ways. Both were red at one point and both are rocking Sorcery aero, with this one being different because of the flip lights… I didn’t really expect it to be at the event but when it showed up I went over to take a closer look at it…
Great looking build overall, in many ways it’s much more refined than Tony’s. Tony’s NSX is more raw and just sounds really intimidating. This one is much more subdued, and everything is more streamlined. I really like the rear diffuser on it as well…
19-inch Work S1 2-Piece wheels…the true 3-piece has a different face with exposed bolts…
One of the rare VIP-themed rides at IA. This one is a Y33 Q45 with a Version Select kit and AME Shallen FX wheels…
…next to it was an even rarer sight…a VIP styled Acura RL…
Subaru STI on some aggressively sized Enkei RPF1….
Boosted single cam Civic…
C-West-kitted RX-7 getting worked on…
Honda Fit on some purple Mugen wheels…
Civic on some 949s…
The IS300 that I took a bunch of photos of outside moved into the paddocks towards the end of day one…
Supercharged RSX on Wedsport TC105N at the Hybrid Racing booth…
LS1-swapped G35 at the Chasebays booth. I didn’t take a shot of the rest of the car because it was like stock height and incomplete…
Matt Tucker’s EK9…Someone told me he had like 5000 friends on Facebook so I checked….this dude now has his own fan page…haha…Guys got more friends than Big Mike and HeyMikeyyyy. He’s like the Tila Tequila of Facebook…
K-swapped DC2 at the K-Tuned booth…
One of my favs again…Anthony Smith’s EG6…
PG+K Moe…
Zerolift booth with stock that on the west coast, would be the seized-property of the state of California…haha…
BonB from PG+K’s Civic as he was getting ready to take off to go eat at Tiger’s Pho spot…
Shot with my 10mm lens, that’s why it’s all crazy distorted looking. It’s actually just a normal Work S1 wheel used to hold Mike Zusin’s business cards…
Corvette at the Track.One booth…
Mike Burroughs and friends…If the name doesn’t sound familiar, you’ll probably remember one of his more recent builds, which was the rusted-out Bimmer that’s been posted all over the web. I guess his garage or something caught on fire and he’s been rebuilding that car, but he recently picked up this silver 2800CS coupe…
Every time I tried to get a good shot of it he was driving away so here’s a shot of him driving away…
S2000 on classic Work Equips…
Jordan McCord putting his hood back on as the day was coming to a close…
Thus ends the first day of Import Alliance 2011…can you believe we’re already at part 6 and it’s barely the close of the first day? Haha…there’s more to come but definitely not as many photos as day one. The second day was a smaller event so there weren’t as many cars and a lot of them were the same from the first day. There’s still a couple parts left but not as vast as the previous. So anyway, after the event came to a close, we hopped into our friend Arthur’s CR-V and headed back to the hotel. There we took a break, showered, and regrouped for the rest of the night. DPK David and I were at the other hotel down the way, but we changed and what not and walked back over to the La Quinta to see what was going down…
…and the party began…
This was what the La Quinta parking lot looked like when we got there. The whole lot front, side, and back were filled with cars and people. Even the Holiday Inn or whatever lot next door was filled with people. Guys and gals were drinking, hanging out by the pool, etc…You can see how close people were to the cars. To the left of this photo you can see Jay’s S2000…
For the most part everything was pretty chill. The Nashville Police cruised up just to see that everything was cool and it was… but it got crazier later on in the night…The further the night progressed, more drinking occurred, and more drunk ass people were walking around in the parking lot. At one point some drunken fool got right up in DPK David’s face all belligerent and said “Hey you got a cigarette or am I gonna have to slap a bitch?!” All crazy and shit. I mean, it doesn’t really matter who you are…if someone is going to be inches away from your face shouting drunken bullshit at you, the first reaction is obviously just to crack the dude in the face and be done with it. We weren’t drinking, but it doesn’t mean it’s cool to get in someone’s face and act like a punk bitch. David, is not one of those dudes that just lets things slide. In fact, when he gets angry, he’s almost down to do whatever it takes to fuck someone up…that’s just the type of guy he is. I was really close to putting the camera down and just locking down a nice rear naked choke until the dude passed out but I saw that David remained calm… We were in a different state, with younger people who were drunk, and didn’t want to ruin the “ambiance” of the La Quinta party so David got right back in the guy’s face and said “Why the fuck would I have a cigarette for you?” and then the dude gotta got the hint and backed off. DPK David said he thought that he was trying to call him a bitch at first but apparently the dude was already mad at some girl so that’s why he went off in grand fashion, too bad it was in the face of the wrong guy and it almost got him a good stomping. This is the same guy later on, that thought it was a funny idea to dance in front of a police car when the police were trying to get through the lot and then ran away like a little bitch when the cop got out of his patrol car….
At one point, the hotel management told the police to shut it down and so the police attempted to do so…Before that however, there was racing on the freeway on ramp next to the parking lot and everyone was drinking and watching….even the police. DPK David walked over to the officer and asked what he thought of all the racing that was going on and the police told us that he loves drag racing so he didn’t have a problem with it… Go ahead and re-read that last sentence, I’ll wait…
Okay, he said that he was cool with people racing on the highway. This was when the Civic coupe was running down a street bike. The officer was even telling us that he knew the street bike was going to lose. David then told him that if this was going on out in Cali, people would be getting shot at by the police and shit would get shut down immediately. Realistically, you can barely even drive a lowered car out here and not get fucked with by the police, let alone drinking in public and racing on the freeway…or even beating off in the parking lot…shit is definitely different out there… The cop was just like “we’re the nicer folks” (compared to the cops out west) and that they are more chill and just let things slide unless hotel management says something to them, since it was there property. I can dig it though, I don’t know how much shit the cops have to deal with on a everyday basis but that part of Nashville seems so quiet without IA being there that they probably don’t have much shit to do normally. I mean, during rush hour traffic there was a total of like 6 cars on the highway, the other cars were people arriving from whatever state they were coming from for Import Alliance. It’s just slow there so I don’t blame the cops for enjoying some illegal street racing and letting kids drink publicly and make asses of themselves…
Eventually when more Nashville PD showed up, people retreated to their rooms. It took awhile for that to happen though because kids were busy trying to put stickers on the police cars as they drove by, dance and act like assholes in front of the police, and do that stupid fucking planking thing everywhere. One dude even got arrested for trying to plank on top of a police car. I’m pretty happy that these kids weren’t on psychedelics or cocaine and shit cuz who knows what they would be doing if they were on some mind-altering shit…haha. We actually listened though and went back up to Rywire Ryan’s room to watch the mayhem ensue from above…
This is a shot from the balcony before the police started rolling up from each side. This shot is kind of deceiving because you don’t see the rest of the people that are spread out throughout the rest of the parking lot…
Ryan looking shocked as people raced back and forth on the highway. There was actually a race happening on the highway at one point, and on the other side of the highway, there was a police car pulling over some random person for speeding…how ironic…The officer that we spoke too even admitted that they love pulling people over for just having a taillight out or something stupid and minor like that. Apparently it’s okay if you want to race people on the freeway and drive like a fucking maniac….as long as all your taillights are functioning…
Here’s a shot from above when one of the police cars started circling the lot and had the lights on, in an effort to get people to go to their hotel rooms. It’s funny to see that when the police shows up, a bigger crowd forms…that’s some shit that you will never see here because police would have riot gear on and would be busy firing rubber bullets at people…haha…
One a majority of the people went back inside, that’s when the mayhem inside the hotel started. The majority of the people went to their rooms to hang out on the balconies. There they heckled people and hurled GLASS beer bottles at people that remained in the parking lot. One of the bottles even went as far as to hit one of the 350Zs in the lot. If you cherish your car, don’t ever bring it to the La Quinta because there is a highly possible chance that some shit will fly at it… Not really sure how people came up with the notion that it was cool to throw glass bottles at people, 3-4 stories up, but at these La Quinta parties, anything goes. Some guy actually tried to be a tough guy and was taunting others into throwing bottles at him so that he could go kick their ass. That proved to be a stupid ass idea of course, and the guy left his cell phone on the ground as he tough guy-walked his way upstairs looking for someone. We were just in the balcony staring at the dudes cell phone sitting on the parking lot floor before one of the PG+K guys ran down there to grab it…
The shit that was going on was just absurd. People than ran around in the hotel damaging hotel property, taking fire extinguishers and spraying them, etc. I looked at the ice machine on the floor where Ryan and Big Mike were staying and that shit was fucked up. Then people started setting off their car alarms randomly because they thought it was cool…
Here are Arthur, Chris, DPK David, Rywire, and Big Mike watching everything go down from the balcony…If pictures had sounds, you would probably hear someone banging on the door at this point. Zach “Rogue” Poland was screaming at me from another balcony to open the door for him so he could come hang out with him but he was so drunk that I just told him that he was an unpleasant drunk and we didn’t like him, and told him to go away…haha…We met up with him later on though when he told us that someone stole his beer cooler. We all actually watched this happen but we just thought the people that rolled his cooler away were his friends. I just thought it was weird how his friends looked like the limp-wristed dudes from 30 Seconds to Mars…
Over on the balcony next to us was Mexican Zac Efron aka Frankstar, aka Bolt Dudes aka Downstairs Frank. We call him “Downstairs Frank” because someone at the show really asked him why he was selling stickers that said “Downstairs” (when it actually says Downstar Inc.) on them, in which I replied “because that’s where your nuts go”….anyways, he was yelling at us from his balcony and wanted us to go over to that room because Ben Torres aka B.L.T. was just fucked up out of his mind…I really didn’t know what he had been drinking the whole night, but the fact that there was someone fucked up and passed out meant that it would make for good photos… Now to truly grasp what Ben had been doing with his free time the whole night, I had to turn to PG+K member Stephen Burke, who recently uploaded these photos of Ben…
Oh Ben, drinking Crown Royal like it was a liter of nice cold Coca Cola…
Here is Ben partying it up in the Elevator with people whom I’ve taken the liberty of protecting the identities of, just because I don’t know if Ben had did anything to them in his inebriated state…
So we know the culprit was a bottle of Crown Royal and probably like 6 30-packs of Bud Light…Now throughout my years of drinking, I’ve always known one rule to be true….“Beer before liquor, makes you sicker…Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear…” I had seen Ben walking around with a couple of beers throughout the night, so when I saw him downing a bottle of Crown, we all had a pretty good idea that he was going to be fucked…
Hi Ben. The first thing that came to mind when I walked into the bathroom was why he was sitting in a tub of water. Not even a full tub, just a little bit of water, like enough to just soak the backside of his body, making it easier for someone to take his kidneys out and sell them on the black market. His friends told me that they wanted to cool him down…I don’t know how laying him in a little bit of water was going to really cool him down, but I stopped asking questions…The other thing you should be asking yourself, is are those Durex condoms photoshopped into the photo, or are they actually there? Haha…
Frank was in the bathroom and was all smiles, so I asked him how many times he planned on having sex with Ben and that above, was his response. I reminded him that sodomy with a passed out male was still date rape and highly illegal…but Frank replied with “Come on homie, they’re street racing and drinking outside like everything is fair game…Bankhead shawty CAW CAW!!”….He’s from Cali so why he always reps Bankhead and makes bird sounds, I’ll never know…. He then wanted to know if I wanted to photograph the events that followed and then I threw up in the tub where Ben laid, and then I ran for my life…I found the officer that we watched the races with downstairs and told him what was about to happen in the bathroom of room 267, and he said “I got next”….
Good thing they got condoms to protect themselves…
All in all, the whole night was pretty fucking ridiculous. In Nashville, from pure observation…you’re allowed to street race, drink in public, violate private hotel property, and hurl glass bottles at unsuspecting people…oh but you can’t plank on top of a police car because that is wrong. The parties remained inside until the police left and then someone thought it was a good idea to pull the fire alarm inside the hotel, which called for an evacuation, that then allowed everyone to once again drink and party in the parking lot of the La Quinta. Was it a cool experience? Ehhh…Would I do it again? Probably not…I think next time I’d rather just prefer to have a quiet night and go explore downtown Nashville or something. As exciting as it is to hear that someone got impaled by a bottle of Corona, it’s not worth losing sleep over and putting yourself in danger just to have “a blast”…
We didn’t really want to deal with all the bullshit that was going on at the hotel anymore so we just headed over to the Waffle House down the street to kill some time before we called it a night…
When we got to the Waffle House, we were greet with trail of puke that was trickling down the sloped parking lot and that was definitely the first thing we wanted to see before we ate…I ordered the biscuits with country gravy because that is certainly the thing that resembled vomit the least…that is called sarcasm…but yes, I did eat that and it was fucking delicious…
The people that worked there were super generous and asked us about Import Alliance and what it was all about. I told him that there was a guy named Ben Torres in the hotel getting sodomized by a guy that sells nuts and he smiled…Then he went on to talk about how great his Corolla FX16 was for what seemed like 4 hours before we finally managed to escape and go back to the rooms to get some rest…
That will draw a close to today’s coverage. Hope you enjoyed it…Everything I said was factual about the parties at La Quinta, except for the raping of B.L.T. I don’t really know what happened because I left. It could have totally happened though. If a man can jack off publicly in a parking lot thinking that it was entertainment for the masses, anything is possible at the La Quinta IA parties…
Back with more tomorrow…haha…thanks for looking….
Import Alliance 2011 Coverage…Part 3…
I’d like to offer a welcome to the many new viewers that have traveled over to these parts since the Import Alliance 2011 coverage started. One of the key reasons for me going out there was to show support for the import automotive community outside of the west coast. I’ve always kept up with the builds out there and though my content has always been predominantly of Hondas out here, I definitely have my eyes on other builds from the rest of the country and other parts of the world. Today marks part 3 of the coverage and it’s going to be more image-heavy so I’ll keep the introduction to a minimal. In part 1, I told you all about how the flight was and what traveling to Nashville was like for me. Part 2 I discussed the food and the people down south, and today I’m gonna give a quick word on the builds themselves and the cars as a whole out east/midwest/south…
I took a shit ton of photos…bordering at right around 700 photos. I’m still going through a bulk of them but you will notice that I took a lot of shots of the cars I liked at the event. There are a bunch of shots of certain cars from different angles because I didn’t want you guys to just see one photo of a particular build out there and just move on. By showing you guys different angles of the cars, you get a better idea of what the car is actually like. I also took a bunch of photos because I also went out there for work. In the print world, we try not to use repeat shots so if I run the photo on The Chronicles, you definitely won’t see them again in the magazines when they go to print. I figured it was better to take a ton of photos that end up not getting used than for me to not take enough and wished that I did. It’s one of the rare times I leave California to cover an event the size of Import Alliance so I went in with no regrets. I think I got a good sense of what the builds are like so if this trip ended up being the only time I ever went out there, I made it worthwhile, you know?
When it comes to coverage like this, you will and should only see the best builds that the event has to offer. There are guys who go to the events and just take photos of every every car in sight but then you as a reader have an incredibly hard time focusing on the good cars because you’re just filtering through the ones you don’t want to see. With an event like Import Alliance, it’s absolutely impossible to take a photo of every car because there are so many cars out there. There are areas of the event that I didn’t cover because I just didn’t get a chance to get to it. The cars you see here are what I feel represent IA the best because I feel these are some of the best builds that that portion of the country has to offer. No matter how you want to say it, being completely diplomatic or not, you as an enthusiast has to understand that the Import Alliance event is definitely more quantity than quality. If you feel that statement is made in error, than that is your opinion. There are many, many, MANY great builds out there, but there are also a fucking shit load of crappy ones. When you get so many people together, you’re obviously going to see some cars that aren’t favorable to your eyes. Different people like different things, it’s only natural…It’s okay to admit that there were shitty cars at Import Alliance. If you didn’t, you’re lying to yourself. For those of you who weren’t out there, let me tell you, there were some shit boxes out there…haha. I will be an asshole about it because I’ve never been one to sugarcoat anything…
The builds you see here are in my opinion, some of the best there or the most interesting. If I somehow missed your car and you don’t see it on The Chronicles, it’s probably because I just didn’t get a chance to see it. There is also a slight chance the photo came out shitty too because I’m not that great of a photographer and there were millions of burnt and over tanned people walking around in front of my shots. I may have just missed your car because you were parked on the track, where I didn’t venture out to, or I just didn’t see it at that particular moment. If you personally feel like you have a great build that I missed out on, then my bad…I just didn’t catch it. I walked about as much of the event as I could and I definitely didn’t go to certain areas. I’m just saying…if you don’t see it here, it doesn’t mean I thought your car was a shit box or it sucked, or whatever. My opinion shouldn’t really matter anyways so don’t be offended if in the following parts of the coverage, your car is absent.
The ones I did like, I went back every chance I could to get the cars at a different angle or to get a closer shot of certain details that I liked. There are still a lot of photos coming your way so please bear with me. I took about 700, say like, 50-75 of them went to publication, 100 of them went into the trash, so that still leaves like what…500 or so? We’re doing 45-50 shots a day in each portion of the coverage so you should already be able to add about how many parts are still coming….I wanted to be thorough and comprehensive…what can I say?…
Also, let’s not forget that Import Alliance is NOT a car show. It’s supposed to be a meet and gathering of enthusiasts. It’s people getting together to hang out and check out each other’s cars. Naturally, it begins to look like a show when it’s reached a level of success and you start to have vendors, and booth cars, and what not. With that, you begin to expect a certain level of build quality because it “looks” like a car show. It’s underlying goal is to have a place where enthusiasts can gather and enjoy the company of others. As long as the people running it don’t turn it into a cash cow and try to simply make money off other enthusiasts, then it’ll continue to be successful…
Now, on with the coverage…
Clean DC2 on Regas at the Track.One booth…
Track-spec EK from Papaya Motorsports…
One of the best reasons for traveling out to a part of the country that I have never been to is seeing things I’ve never seen before. I had heard about this car before and I’ve seen an JDM Accord wagon in photos but this was the first time I’ve actually seen one in person. Definitely cool to look at it up close. I like how the front bumper and lip are different from the sedan Euro-R and how the rear end looks. I almost think the wheels hurt this car though because the aggressive sizing of the rear makes the whole wagon looked really raked. The front is pretty aggressive as it is and has a nice concave face already so it would have looked perfectly fine if it was non-staggered. Just imagine if it had a nice set of Volk CEs or TE37s on it…or maybe even a NSX-spec Regamaster EVO or something…still cool nonetheless though…
This Civic pulled up with the wagon and it also caught my eye…
The kevlar hood and front Spoon Sports lip is cool but I thought the most interesting touch was rocking four drag (Exospeeds?) wheels as regular driving wheels…Not sure how sturdy those wheels would be driving around on the streets but it’s a cool look…
S15 Silvia on Volk GT-Us from the La Quinta hotel…
TSX, Supermade S14, and Tiger’s boosted EP3 at the CCW area…
Really liked this Mugen-kitted Accord on CCWs…
Don’t know shit about street bikes but the wide ass rear tire on it was cool…Didn’t make much of a difference in terms of contact patch though from just looking at it… 
Side view of the JDM Accord wagon…
J’s Racing-themed S2000 with Chris Drnek’s EF…
I really like Chris’ EF, nice, simple, and has a timeless feel to it…I know his name because he recently added me on Facebook, otherwise he would still be “the guy with the green EF on Mugen wheels”…
Turbocharged RSX on Volk CE28s…isn’t it crazy how you almost expect every engine bay to be tucked now and feel a little strange when you see one that isn’t?…
Danny Dang’s boost single cam at the Track.One booth…
Big Mike rocking his Big Mike Eefect tee…
K-swapped EK on CCWs possibly owned by arm crossing guy in the background…
VIP-styled GS rolling through…
Another EK on CCWs…
Two-toned bays are slowly dying out here but they are still really popular out there. I really liked this boosted DC2 with the gold bay….on CCWs…
I know you’re noticing a shitload of cars on CCWs but this particular area was where the CCW booth was so there was a large group of vehicles rolling on their wheels…
The Supermade “Instant Gentleman” aero kit is probably one of the best kits every made for the S14 chassis. The lines are just so simple and elegant and not wild and bulky like many other kits made for the car…This is also on a set of CCWs…
CCWs on a meaty tire…
Slammed Prelude on either Fittipaldi or Borbet wheels (I think…)…
Seen It! stickers were everywhere at IA…
Another stanced-out Prelude, this one on Zauber wheels running a really aggressive stretch in the rear…Tucked, sparkly gray engine bay is a nice touch…
White on white boosted S2000…I have a couple other shots of this car that will come later…
If a Champ White EK9 had a liver, this is what it would look like if it had Jaundice….haha…Yellow errrr-thang…If you don’t know what “Jaundice” is, you should probably look it up, especially if you were at the La Quinta drinking 85 Bud Lights in one hour…
I love CTRs, I just don’t know how I feel about the yellow Rega EVOs….I’m a man of contrast so I like offsetting colors. The whole yellow on yellow look is definitely different, but I’m still uncertain about the look…
Orange J’s Racing-equipped S2000…
Yes, fuck…it’s Dut’s old CTR…somebody was bound to ask. The owner probably hates this car because all people ever do is ask if it was Dut’s car and there wasn’t even anything done to the car that made it as noteworthy as it was when he had it…
Harlequin VW Golf…
A couple more quick shots of Joe’s Civic coupe…I have other shots of it coming later but at this point in time, there were all kinds of people swarming the car so I couldn’t get a good shot of the whole thing…
First time I’ve ever seen a three-toned Honda…The owner went a little over the top trying to match the Takata green and red of the Bride seats…I feel like it takes away from the entire build itself because you’re so distracted by all the colors. He’s got some good mods on there too but it’s hard to focus on them…
That’s all for today. Hope you guys enjoyed the photos. Back with more tomorrow and I promise, less CCW…I know it really seems like every car had them but it was just that particular section because of the CCW booth…still love the wheels though. Anyways, stay tuned…
Import Alliance 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
Hmm….let’s see what should we discuss today about the trip…Ah, yes… I got it. I was eating lunch earlier and something came to mind that I thought I should touch on. Today, we’re going to talk about two very interesting topics from the Nashville IA trip; The culture and the food…
Culture Clash…Now I have done quite a bit of traveling in my lifetime, don’t be mistaken but traveling to Nashville, Tennessee was a completely different experience. Thanks to my parents, I’ve been able to see Hong Kong, Japan, China, and many parts of the United States. I’ve been to the tri-state area as well and even Canada, but Southern folks are very interesting people. Los Angeles and Cali in general is a pretty diverse state with many different ethnic groups and cultures, but we still have that general California/West Coast attitude. When I got to Nashville, I was really surprised by how nice people were and got a sense of what true “southern hospitality” really is. This isn’t really from talking to the enthusiasts of course, because they came from all over the central and east coast. I’m talking more about the people that were actually from the south. The people that worked at the Waffle House I went to and other restaurants were really nice, talkative people. I guess it’s because things are a lot slower out there and people aren’t always in a rush to do something or get somewhere that they actually take the time to be human. Over here, everyone almost seems as if they are always in a constant state of panic because there is so much going on. In the south, people are more patient and willing to just talk to you and give them a sense of what they’re like. Even the police out there are unbelievably nice (I’ll discuss this more later on) and let people get away with practically anything. I can’t even think of one person I spoke to out there that gave me a hard time. The manager of the La Quinta hotel that everyone was literally tearing apart was still very kind despite watching her property being destroyed at the hands of drunken morons. I’m just saying, it’s just different out there…
The southern accent is also something that was very interesting to me. Everybody talks that way out there so it didn’t seem unusual to them at all but for DPK David, Big Mike, Ryan, and I, it was a crazy to hear everyone speak that distinctly. It was really easy to pick up though and like I was telling David, if I somehow stayed here two days longer, I swear, I would start speaking with a southern accent too because it stays in your mind. It still trips me out sometimes how guys like Jay and Bon from PGK have a southern accent because we never hear asian dudes out here with accents like that.
All in all, the people were a great experience for me personally. Everybody was willing to give us a ride whenever we needed one, which was great because we saved some money from not having to rent a car, and all the people we encountered while there treated us like we belonged there. Well, except for one guy who was drunk and got in DPK David’s face and almost got his life unearthed from his body but again, I’ll talk about that later…haha…
Fine Dining…The food is definitely something I should touch on. They fucking love sugar, goddamn. I thought people out here for crazy about putting sugar in there shit but people in the south love their sugar. Everything I drank tasted like I was drinking a bag of sugar, and trust me, I love ice teas, and what not that are flavorful. The asian food is really good out there too surprisingly. I never imagined that I would go to Nashville and eat Asian food but some of the spots we went to were so good that I ended up going back. With that said however, I really wanted to speak on the food out there because people FUCKING LOVE JACK IN THE BOX. Holy shit, it was one of the most random fucking things ever. When I got to the hotel after Jay picked me up from the airport, I was hanging out in the parking lot with them by the pool and saw a couple empty Jack in the Box wrappers and boxes, etc. I didn’t think anything of it other than the fact that I found it interesting that they even had a Jack in the Box out there. I still remember the days when Jack in the Box was exclusive only to California and parts of the west coast. Anyways, after Big Mike arrived, he was hungry and was asking some of the people there about what was good in the area. PGK Jay’s cousin was like….”Well Waffle House is pretty good but you guys gotta try this one spot…it’s called ‘Jack in the Box’…” Big Mike and I looked at each other with a non-vocal “what the fuck?” We didn’t say anything after that and just went to Waffle House but while we were there, I brought it up and he too thought that it was strange. After we finished eating, we went back to the hotel again to hang out and some people asked what we ate and we told them that we ate at Waffle House. These guys were like…”Oh yeah, that place is good….but have you tried JACK IN THE BOX?” Ahhhhhh….mind fuck….haha. When David and Ryan arrived, they were sort of hungry and asked what there was to eat and at that point, I explained to them the fascination with Jack in the Box out there and they didn’t believe me.
The next day while we were at the event, DPK David, Big Mike, and I were helping Ryan set up the Rywire booth that was apart of Loi from Sportcar Motion’s Skunk2 booth. One of the guys from Function Garage, Brian, walked over to the Skunk2 booth and asked Loi if he wanted to do dinner after the event. He was like…”Hey, you wanna do dinner tonight?” Loi said he was down and then Brian was like “I gotta take you to this one spot, it’s called….JACK IN THE BOX.” And the dude was like super excited about it…It was one of the craziest things I witnessed while I was there. Loi had no idea so he kinda just looked at him and smiled and then turned over to our direction and we kinda laughed. Shit is wild man, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I fucking love Jack in the Box, but I’ve had it all my life and it’s like a typical fast food spot for me. It’s a preferred spot for sure, but they talk about it like it’s gourmet dining…seriously, I can’t even make that shit up. We had other moments out there where people came and asked us if we had tried Jack in the Box as well. I almost wanted to go to the Jack in the Box out there to see if there was anything different from the one we have out here. Do they serve you two 99 cent tacos and an Ultimate Cheeseburger on a plate or something? I literally got one like a mile from my apartment…shit ain’t that fancy, haha. I guess it’s like a new hot spot out there for them and it’s just one of those things that shows you just how different the culture is out in middle America…
Another thing I noticed is how much people love to drink beer out there. Holy fuck, everyone was walking around with a Bud Light 30-pack like it was attached to them at the hip. I’ve done my fair share of partying when I was younger but my friends and I never consumed this much beer. We were always more into drinking hard liquor because it got the job done quicker… I think Import Alliance is the sole reason why Budweiser is still in business down south cuz people drink that shit like it’s water…. I thought when I heard stories of all the crazy partying at the La Quinta it was because people were on some hardcore psychedelics like mushrooms or something or pounding down bricks of cocaine but it’s all the product of Bud Light consumption…haha. While drugs would have made the night much more interesting and outright dangerous, I’m glad to see that these guys are drinking only beer and not partying like they were at a club in Hollywood…
Okay, on with the coverage. When we last left off, we had just finished eating at the Waffle House and headed back to the hotel to hang out while we waited for DPK David and Rywire to arrive. Jay’s cousins had dropped us off and went back to hanging out with some of the other folks there and Big Mike and I were just walking around and looking at the cars that were there. It was already hot but we got tired of standing in the sun so we headed up to PGK Jay and Franks hotel room to hang out. Jay was at the car wash with some of the other PGK guys but we had the room key so we could put our bags up there. A fully air-conditioned room sounded amazing so we just hung out in the room and looked out of the balcony while people continued to trickle into the La Quinta lot…
This couple that Jay knew came up to the room as well and brought some ice cold Bud Lights. Big Mike and them hung out on the patio but it was hot as fuck so I stayed inside where the A/C was and pretended to be a part of their conversation…
Eventually I sucked it up though and stood on the balcony and got some shots of some cars…this is that widebody S14 that I posted in part 1. You can really tell how much wider it is than stock with this overhead shot…I really liked this S14. I was going to hit up the owner to see if he would have been down for me to shoot it possibly for a future story in Super Street but I later found out that he was in the latest issue of S3 magazine…oh well…
A couple of PG+K vehicles…The STi belongs to Stephen and the blue RHD Integra belongs to Be and this was actually the car that Jay showed up at the airport with to pick my ass up…Seeing this car reminds me of bad the roads are in Nashville. Be’s got a pretty stiff suspension and there was a point when Jay hit this bump so hard that I almost flew out of the car…
The dude on the far left is Zach “RogueEG6″ Poland. This dude talks so much and is so loud, that I swear I can still hear his voice in my head…haha…Seriously though, he does talk a lot. Nice guy though…
A couple minutes later, Ryan and DPK David show up with Arthur and Chris, who are friends of Ryan’s from Canada…Throwing down the beer in this photo is Stephen from PG+K…
We hung out for a little bit and got Ryan and the rest of the group caught up on everything that we had done since we got there. We then headed out to the balcony and saw that the “Civette” showed up. If you guys are unfamiliar with the build, it’s a Civic shell that’s been mated to a Corvette chassis. We went down stairs to take a closer look at it and here’s a shot of the engine bay. The rest of it is outright hideous so I didn’t get a shot of the whole car…
The others were hungry since getting in from their flight so they took off to go eat at the Waffle House while Big Mike and I stayed behind to walk around.The weather was starting to cool down a bit so it wasn’t totally unbearable…
Another shot of Nick Weir’s K-swapped VW truck…
Here’s another shot of the silver track-prepped EK who belongs to Justin or username; “wEaK Squad” from the NWP4Life forums…I’m showing you this shot because I wanted to show you…
…his massive rear shock tower bar…shit is beefy-looking…
I saw this S2000 a couple days before I left for Nashville on the web so it was cool to actually get a closer look at it in person…
The rear fender treatment isn’t for everyone but it’s wild in person. The bodywork looks pretty good too and makes the rear of this S2 extremely aggressive…It’s so wide though that I think it almost throws off the front end of the car. It’s definitely different though….
Color-matched Cusco cage is a nice touch…
Rear quarter shot of Jay’s S2000…
Seen It! S2000…
Matte Red Volkswagon GTI…
Big Mike discussing engine bay ideas with the guys from Grade A Garage…Zach Poland taking a beer nap in the background…
Joe Maguschak’s engine bay…Had to be one of the cleanest, best assembled engine bays of the Import Alliance event…more on that later…
DPK David talking to Matt aka “Bad 350Z”. Matt is the one that did the bulk of the work on the engine bay above…
Jay’s S2000 was pretty dirty but he’s a track guy now so it’s okay to be filthy. Just ask his dirty mustache that he grew out for the weekend…
Honda Fit on some CCWs…
As soon as DPK David and the rest of the guys came back from eating, David and I grabbed our luggage and went to our hotel to check-in. We had heard all the crazy stories about the parties at La Quinta so I wasn’t about to try to sleep over there. In hindsight that turned out to be an amazing idea because it got pretty bad over at the La Quinta pretty quickly. Our hotel was walking distance to the La Quinta so we had the best of both worlds. We got to hang out at the parking lot party and also got to sleep peacefully after…Name the wheel in the above pic and you win absolutely nothing…
The first night of partying wasn’t so bad. There was some debauchery that went about but for the most part it was pretty chill. Just people drinking beers in the lot and talking…
The Nashville Police were present the whole time but were only there to keep an eye on things and get cars to move if they were blocking the flow of the parking lot. They just drove around and hung out with people there….
A couple hours went by and the cops were asked by hotel management to shut down the party outside early so people retreated to their rooms. I didn’t really take very many photos at this time because it was pretty dark in the lot. The last couple hours consisted mostly of people drinking beers and staring at cars and shit. It was pretty uneventful. At around 10:30pm, we decided to head out to downtown Nashville to grab some dinner…
The Hard Rock sounded good and was one of the first spots we saw so we made it our dinner spot…
It was kinda late in the evening already so the restaurant was pretty dead. We ate, talked, and then went back to the hotel to get some rest. We only had a couple hours to sleep so we made the most of the 3-4 hours that we got…
I guess the parties continued on while we were resting, including some dude who apparently was just jacking off in the parking lot or something in front of everyone. Whatever the case, I’m glad I wasn’t a witness to any public male masturbation…fucking weirdos…
The next day, we got up at 5:30am, got ready, ate some breakfast, and set off to Nashville Super Speedway for the first day of Import Alliance 2011. The lines rolling in were massive but we had vendor passes so we just drove right in and parked…
Right when we parked, I looked outside and spotted Bon B’s Civic, which I haven’t seen in over 3 years. I still remember the first time I met Bon when his Civic was still blue. He had driven out to Eibach and blown his motor then and I met him at Do It Dyno. Crazy to see how far the car has come and how it’s now finally close to completion…
He’s now K-swapped and his entire car has been repainted a Porsche GT3 green…
Looking good so far but Bon was the first one to admit that he still had a lot to do before it was finished. The engine bay that connects through the firewall still needs to be completed and his intake manifold has been left untouched because he soon plans to acquire a set of Kinsler individual throttle bodies…
One of Bon’s axles was binding as he was driving, which resulted in the C/V boot ripping and grease spraying all over the bay. Here he is attempting to wipe it down before the gates opened…
Tim Shultz from Hybrid Racing chatting it up in front of Bon’s Civic…
I found out from a Chronicles reader that this yellow CTR belongs to Matt Tucker. Here he is wiping his EK9 down…
I wanted to give you guys a glimpse of what was behing the vents in the rear bumper but I suck at that…
Really liked this Nissan 370Z from Import alliance…The Wedsport SA55M with the matching color inserts and the overall stance of the vehicle is just a great look…
Walker Japan…
Matt Tucker’s K-swapped CTR engine bay…
Not really sure why this happened or what purpose it serves…
The engine bay of Nick Weir’s K-swapped VW truck…
Big Mike chatting it up with Shocker Joe Coville…
Gonna close it out today with one of the best IS300 builds I’ve ever seen. I still think my boy Billy Shea’s HKS-themed IS300 is the best of all time but this one is right up there with him cuz this shit is the business…I remember seeing photos of it floating around on the net from various events in the past but it’s crazy to see it in person….
Lots of custom bodywork on the outside and you can already tell from the cut-out on the hood that this turbo is pretty massive…
Right-hand drive Toyota Altezza conversion…Vertex floormats, Bride seats, custom center console, color-matched trim, etc…shit is sick…everything that you would want an an award-winning show car…
Shaved and tucked engine bay with a 2JZ-GTE swap…
Big Mike talked to him and I believe this IS made around 1048whp….
That’s all for today…thanks everyone for looking and I hope you guys come back for more…
Summer days…
Got a couple new photos for you guys today…I had some spare time during the day after I finished up a story for Super Street magazine so I decided to head down to the Rywire facilities to see what was going on. Big Mike had also hit me up earlier on in the day and wanted to know if I wanted to hang out so we just met up at Rywire. There’s been a couple of ongoing projects at the shop so I picked up the camera and snapped some photos for you guys. These aren’t like customer cars or anything, just a couple of friends who asked Ryan if they could use his shop space to work on their cars since he had some extra room down there.
Supertwinz John from AEM has his red EA hatchback there while his other project, a white EA, is up in Norcal in preparation for paint. This red one is supposed to be a tad more tame than his white one and this one is supposed to be his weekend track car. He’s going all out on his white one and I’ll update you guys on that build once it comes back from Franklin Autobody. The other car currently there getting worked on is an EM1 coupe owned by DPK Darryl or D-Rail, who works over at JHPUSA. His car has been down for awhile and he’s torn it apart to get a K-swap and tuck…
Here’s a shot of John’s EA…As you can see, the B-series barely fits in there and clearance is at a minimum, especially since the half-radiator is going to have to sit off to the side…
A shot of John’s Kinsler individual throttle bodies…These will eventually go into his other white EA Civic. He just has these on this motor now to see how things look as far as fitment goes…
I thought this was pretty cool, it’s easier to see in the second photo but that anodized gold fitting is actually a fuel line quick disconnect. You don’t really see these used that often and it’s definitely a cool touch…
John’s 15×8 949 wheels just came in recently and are sitting at the shop in boxes. Those will probably go on as the car gets closer to completion but for now, he has a set of Mugen CF48 wheels on and lurking behind the hideous face are Wilwood brakes…I don’t care what you say, those wheels may be classics but they are ugly as fuck. They look like old fan clutches from like, a small block Chevy from the 80′s…
Ryan’s CR-X was sitting on some filthy ass Kosei K1 wheels because he participated in a small track event at Buttonwillow last weekend. The car is pretty dirty but at least you know it’s being used. It ran very well at the track too and did a 2:04.584 when it was driven by Ryan’s friend Charlie…
Ryan and Big Mike going over some details on Darryl’s Civic Si…At the rate this rebuild is going, it should be done right around 2015, and he will be the only Honda left on the road because cars will have the ability to fly by then if you follow the timeline from Back to the Future Part II…
You guys already know whose car this is…not much to report here, just some minor touch-ups that need to be completed…
Japan Relief Gathering Coverage…
Just a couple of shots from this past weekend’s Japan Relief Gathering which was hosted by Jimmy Doan and the rest of Team Praxis. I got there at a completely random ass time and I heard a bunch of cars had left, but when I got there with May, it was still pretty busy. I mean, it wasn’t totally crazy or anything but there was a decent turn-out. I was talking to Big Mike when I got there and he mentioned that a raffle had just ended and some people took off. Jimmy did a great job putting this thing together and getting a big variety of cars to show up to show support for Japan. Donations were taken throughout the day, raffle tickets were sold in which the money went to charity and there was generally a good, relaxed vibe. The weather was a little hotter than it has been lately and the sun was beating down, so I didn’t want to get burnt again like I have the last couple of events we have been too. Shout out to the Praxis guys and VIP Modular wheels for putting the event together. On with the pics…
A shot of May with Phaze2 Bert and Dabbie in front of the Dos Chinos food truck. Big Mike, who is pictured, didn’t give a shit about the picture because his food had arrived so he subsequently ignored all attempts to be in the photo…
Big Mike’s Prelude of course, nothing really new with this thing lately other than a repaired oil leak which stopped the vomiting of motor oil all over Rywire’s floor…
The Team Praxis line-up… Above is Linda’s Matrix and below is Jimmy’s FJ Cruiser and the rest of the crew…
What a world of difference air suspension made on this TL…looks really good now…
Tony from It’sJDMYo!!! and Ken Myoshi, the man behind Import Showoff…
Spotted this NSX behind Big Mike that I don’t think I’ve seen before…
Not really sure how I feel about the wheel/brake color combination. I mean, with a white base you can match anything with it pretty much but the blue wheels on the tealish Project Mu brakes just looks a little odd together. Would have been cool if he color-matched the TE37s the same as the brakes but what do I know…even white TEs would be cool, or black,…it would just really make the brakes stand out so much more. If you have Project Mu brakes, you better be sure somebody sees that shit you know…I guess in that case the blue wheels work cuz it makes you look at it but I’m just saying in terms of color flow..eh, again, what do I know…
Hyundai Genesis reppin’ Prestige Marketing…
This was cool to see because DPK David has been talking about doing something to his daily GS300 for awhile now and this is the type of simplistic style that he was aiming for…Has the front add-on lip that he wants and all and even has the same AME wheels as I do so he can see how his GS would look with them on…
Speaking of GS chassis, this one had to have been one of the best builds at the event. Custom red GS built to full track-spec. 2JZ-GTE swap, interior is gutted out, caged, everything…this thing was SICK. Interior is battleship grey too, really nice build…
Engine bay is wire tucked and everything…
I’m a huge fan…
This one was also very well-built. While the red one is built to be a track car, this one is dedicated more towards the aesthetics and VIP-theme with the custom widebody and wheels. I’ve seen this GS before and never even realized it had swap…
So cool to see VIP build with swaps and customized engine bays…
Spotted this 1GS as he was leaving the event. I believe this GS belongs to “CubanGS” on the VIPStylecars forums and it also used to be green…
Phaze2 Noel and Travis…
Here’s a shot of DPK David’s engine bay. You should all be familiar with it by now. He did some minor fender work recently so that his car could go a little lower and not rub when he takes hard turns but the only shot I took of it at the event came out absolutely horrid so I’m not going to post it up…haha…
Clean LS on Leon Hardiritt Ordens…
NSX with what looks to be a VeilSide kit…
Z33 on Eurolines…
Civic hatchback with a Domani front-end conversion…
Acura TL on classic Work Equips…if I had a daily that was a TL, correction, if I could afford a TL to drive around in…this is probably how it would look…maybe without the Equips though. I love Equips and they are one of my favorite wheels of all time but I figure if I could afford a TL, I would be in a lot of debt and couldn’t afford the wheels. Yes, I thought about it thoroughly…
This S13 fastback was nice but every time I look at this picture it fucks with my mind because I can’t figure out why that a-pillar is purple and the rest of the car is grey/silver…
Seen this Celica a couple times, not bad..
Milt’s 350Z on Garson (Deep Racing Ryugi?) wheels…Too many fitments cuz his fender is cracked…
Really liked this TSX…
I was walking around with Rywire Ryan and he was telling me about this Mini truck. He said he peeked through the hood vent and could see it was a K-swap but didn’t get a chance to see it with the front-end of the car off. Cool little build…It even has a S2000 cluster in the dash…Not sure where it’s from or who built the car but it would definitely be cool to get a more indepth look at it…
The hardest working import model in the business…Natalia Marie was out all day at the charity car wash for Big Abe washing all kinds of cars in the sweltering heat and the next day she was at this Japan Relief event handing out NOS drinks and MCing the raffles…
Big Mike putting his front license plate back on his Prelude as we were getting set to leave…
Ms. Natalia reading off some raffle numbers…
Tony and Big Mike talking to DPK David as we were leaving…
That’s about it. After we left we just all headed back to DPK David’s house to hang out for the rest of the day. May and I had to do a oil change on her car but that was really the only thing we had to do. Big Mike and Ryan were over to chill too and we just chilled and ate dinner and what not. You know, the usual stuff…
Thanks for looking and have a good week…more content for you guys this whole week…
Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 Coverage…Part 6…The Finale…
Here it is…the last and final part of the 2011 Wekfest Los Angeles coverage. By this time, the event was winding down and the awards were starting to take place. There has been a shitload of photos but hopefully you guys enjoy the indepth coverage that I usually do for all the major events. Today’s closing coverage will include the rest of the cars that I missed, the awards, and what we did after the show. It’s always good to see the guys who come in from out of town so I wanted to make sure to spend as much time with them as possible since we don’t see each other that often…
Lambo Murcielago LP640 from ProMax…
Voltex-equipped EVO…
F50 Q45 that Ross from Midnight Garage did quite a bit of work on…I believe they even had custom rear arms made so that those VIP Modular wheels could fit under the rear quarters…
Goldmember Anthony used to have a white Scion xB on yellow/gold BBS wheels but he has since ditched that project for his new Toyota “Lowlander” equipped with Rotiform wheels…
Junction Produce Previa…
Reza Yaghoubi and his lady friend…
My better half and the future Mrs. DPK David…
…and now for some of the winners…
Phaze2 Tony hasn’t brought his NSX out in awhile but he showed up with a set of bronze TE37s and won 2nd Place Acura Class…He actually had his eyes closed in this picture so I threw on some Ray Charles sunglasses to make the picture less awkward…
Jeremy Duarte and his DB8 Integra won 1st Place Integra Class…
Chris Sakai surprised no one by winning 1st Place Civic Class…very much deserving of the honor…
Mike G. placed third in the Civic Class and Bolt Boys/Downstar Frank (Not pictured), placed 2nd in the Civic Class. I would have flip-flopped those two in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, but I wasn’t a judge…Congrats to both though…
Big Mike won a 3rd-consecutive 1st Place in the Honda Class at a Wekfest event, which now qualifies him as a Wekfest Dynasty…on another note though, I really like those F2 Autolife t-shirts….just a simple yet genius design…haha…I dig it…
Anh Truong from ATS won 3rd Place Acura Class and was all smiles…
Ejay pictured here with Big Mike and Sheeps…Ejay won 2nd Place in the make-specific Integra Class and Sheepey won 2nd Place in the Honda class behind Big Mike…All deserving and a huge congrats to all the winners…
After the awards ceremony came to a finish, people began to get in their cars and take off so I scrambled to get whatever else I could, especially some of the cars around our area that I overlooked…
GS with a Job Design kit…
Another GS, this one featuring my huge shadow, which ultimately fucked up the whole photo…
Sheeps taking off in his S2000…
Angel and Fred Chapman taking a different approach to helping Ben re-install his hood…
While Angel was doing that I was busy snapping more shots of his S2000….which I have also included Larger Versions of (1400x933px)
…and another… Larger Version (1400x933px)
Mike and his wife Renee taking off in his Ferio…
A couple more shots of Tony’s NSX…
…and another one of Chivas’ coupe…
DPK Jared’s S2000, now with the hood back on…
Ka Wong’s AE86…
Loved this RX-7…
Travis Mercado’s Honda Fit…
Phaze2 Corollas…
May really liked this shot of Chris’ EK…
F20C-swapped 1st. Gen Toyota Celica…
Andrew aka Slappy from MayDay Garage holding up Chris’ hood…
Noel’s Corolla…
Mikeyyyy looking at the Jayde Nicole Playmate of the year issue of Playboy that he found in my Q45…
DPK David and Salem staring at some big girl that was rocking booty shorts and roller skates…seriously though, that happened…
Henry from Phaze2 talking to Big Mike…
A trio of ATS S2Ks…
Big Mike rolled up to our area after the guys from Function Form shut down their booth… You can see how the grass field was mostly empty now. The only people that remained were either getting photos still or just hanging out and talking…
May, our friend Chris, and HeyMikeyyyy hanging out in and by my car…
One final shot of the Phaze2 NSX… Larger Version (1400x933px)
DPK David with Long Beach in the distance…
Getting set to leave the venue…
Keith aka Keychain from Its JDM Yo!!! rolled up to chill for a quick minute before we left…
Angel set to take off in his S2000…I really liked this shot so I included a Larger Version (1400×933)
After we left Long Beach, we all separated and went different directions to go drop off the cars as well as shower and get ready. Since it was going to be the last night most of the ATS guys were in town, we decided to hit up a local favorite of ours, Brodards in Westminster, for dinner. They have the best vietnamese spring rolls there and everyone loves that place and hardly has any issues with eating there…
All of us eating at Brodard…it’s hard to get a table at that place even for small parties, let alone a party as large as ours so May, David, Jackie, and I got our own table right next to the large party…
After dinner, we all decided to go to Tastea right down the street so that Chris Sakai could get another shot at trying to get our favorite Gone Bananas drink. If you don’t remember, the last time we were there after the 2011 Eibach event, we all got the Gone Bananas but Chris got the last drink, which turned out to be the most watered-down one. He got the short end of the stick and was left with just ice coffee so he wanted to redeem himself…
..and then we got there…
…and well…
…they ran out of bananas…
Haha, we honestly had like probably 20 people trying to get a drink and they only had probably one banana left so we all let Chris cut in front of us so that he could get the actual Gone Bananas drink with bananas and all…So hopefully he got a chance to taste the deliciousness that is the Gone Bananas from Tastea…
Big Mike chillin while everyone ordered their drinks…
Nick disgruntled after hearing that there were no more bananas…
ATS Fred waiting for his drink…
It got a little crowded inside so we got our drinks and hung out in front of Tastea…
Once everybody got what their order, we all headed back to the Rywire facilities to hang out…Here they are looking DPK Darryl’s engine bay of his EM1 coupe…
Nick and Ryan Der discussing aero efficiency…
DPK David, Chris, and Ryan discussing important matters…
It was getting pretty late and May had to go to work the next day so we headed home. The guys stayed behind for a while longer and then also went home to get some rest before their early morning trip back to Norcal. That’s pretty much it. Hope you guys enjoyed all 300 photos of the Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 event…thanks for looking…
Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 Coverage…Part 5…
Happy Monday everyone…back with Part 5 now of the Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 coverage. The coverage is winding down now and the last couple parts will cover some of the cars that I missed earlier in the day as well as the awards ceremony and stuff we did after the show. Today will be focused on cars mostly and little random things that found it’s way into the coverage. Enjoy and come back tomorrow for more….
A trio of S2Ks…
You guys probably remember this S2000 from the Skunk2 Unmeet 2.0 coverage from a couple months ago. I believe the owner’s name is Lee…
Another S2000 you guys should be pretty familiar with…Looks so much better without all the vinyl graphics by the way…
Peter and Theresa LS1-powered S14…
Justin Fong’s widebody Civic coupe…
PlusOne Danny’s Civic finally out in public again after months and months of aggravation…
Junction Produce LS with JP everything, wheels and probably about 8-9K worth of brakes…
Chrysler 300 on VIP Modular wheels…
Jeremy Duarte’s DB8…
…and his buddy James’ EG…
Big Mike and his randomly Almond-colored valve cover…
Mike G’s “Tank”…
Evasive S2000…Love this thing…
This Vertex S14 is always one of my favorite cars everytime it pulls up to an event…The color scheme, kit, everything…perfect…
John Liwanag’s Junction Produce GS…
JonJon’s IS350…
White TL reppin’ Autofashion…I don’t believe that I’ve seen this TL since Nisei of last year…
5Axis/Airrunner GS…
5Axis Prius…
Weksos Adam’s BMW on Work Brombacher wheels…
Evo on Advan RG-Ds…
Nice to see a classically VIP-themed ride that doesn’t have ridiculous wheel fitment…
Tjin Edition Camaro…
JP’s Civic that was posted right up front as people walked into the venue…
Mugen-equipped CR-Z…
AS1 Brian Arias’ Civic…
Infiniti M from Platinum VIP…
Lexus LS from Platinum VIP on Weds Kranze Bazreia…
Amy Fay and company along with an asian sailor…
Figured you guys would like a larger version so here it is… Larger Version (1400x1200px)
Z33 from Platinum VIP on Work S1 wheels…
Really liked this LS that was parked over with the guys from Platinum VIP. I believe this LS won an award at the end of the day too. Looks fairly simple aesthetically but if you take a peek under the hood, it’s supercharged…
EVO on CCWs…I loved the Varis EVO X next to it and really wanted to take a bunch of pics of it but the cars in this area were parked so close together that it made it difficult to get a good shot of it without large portions of the other cars in the way…Kind of a shame actually because I really wanted to get a better look at it….
Love this Porsche on Work Meister S1 3-piece wheels…
Walked back over to our area but noticed that everyone was over by the stage for awards so I stuck around to get some pics…
The stage…
Junior getting set to announce the winners…
Okay, that’s another batch of pics that’s coming to a close. Tomorrow we’re going to be taking a look at the rest of the cars that I missed as well as some of the winners from Wekfest LA….Stay tuned and thanks for looking….
Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
Okay, so I was going to do the part 1 1/2 or whatever of the coverage last night since I didn’t get a chance to finish earlier on in the day but decided that it would just be better if I bombarded you guys today with like 50 images from the event. With that said, this is part 2 of the Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 coverage. I took a gang of fucking pictures this time around because I didn’t have anything else to do but stand around and take pictures that day. When we last left off, we had just come back from our magical (and also fictional) Sea Doo boat ride to San Diego. It was an awesome trip but we were all tired and had to roll-in early in the morning so we gathered up the troops and headed down to Fire and Ice in Anaheim for dinner. It was a pretty good spot that DPK David always tells us about that we finally got to experience. You basically like, have a buffet area of all raw foods and ingredients, then you pick whatever you want and take it over to the grill area in the center and they cook whatever you want. Pretty cool concept. You can even make like hamburgers, hot dogs, and Philly cheese steak sandwiches. What does this have to do with Wekfest? Well, not really much of anything but whatever… I would have taken photos to show you guys what I’m talking about but I was too busy eating. After dinner we all just kinda went home to rest up…
The next morning, it was off to Long Beach for the Wekfest event. I’m usually never on time for anything so I thought that it would be a better idea for May and I just to cruise down to the venue by ourselves and not meet up with the rest of the Phaze2 family. I’m not really that far from the venue anyway so it was just easier for us to go by ourselves. When I pulled up, roll-in was fairly simple and the rest of the homies showed up around the same time as I did so we just drove in and parked. Whenever I do massive amounts of coverage I usually like to start off with the 70-200mm lens as sort of a “warm-up” to get my uncreative juices flowing. I usually start off with that lens because I’m rather lazy in the morning as well from lack of sleep and it provides me with a good range of photos without me really having to walk around anywhere.
May and Tina decided to go get something to drink/eat or whatever so they took off and did their own thing. I had to bring Big Mike his stickers that I had cut for him the night before and soon realized that he was parked all the way on the other end of the show so I started my walk towards the Function/Form booth where he was at and started snapping photos as I walked…
I didn’t get a chance to really speak to Bisi in the morning but he caught up with me at the end of the day to tell me how delighted he was with the story I did for him in the current issue of Super Street. Apparently I’m a better writer than I realized because Bisi was pretty excited with how the feature all came together…
Jeremy Duarte’s DB8 parked by the Function and Form Autolife booth as they were setting up…
BMW 1-Series in the ST Suspension booth..
Bolt Boys killing the “banner on the fence” game…
There was a BBQ spot on hand at the event selling all kinds of stuff to people. They had these like re-fried chips or some shit that looked like it would give a newborn a heart attack…shit was fuckin greasy. Looked like it would slide right down your throat and straight through the asshole…
Can’t really think of what to write for this one so pretend I made a generic reference to this 350Z that somehow ended up with a witty humorous comment. You laughed and I moved on to the next photo…
I believe this is the late Mike Urbano’s Supra that his brother always brings out to events…Really great build that always wins at events…
ATS Jason’s CR-X…
Every time I go to a show or meet I always miss out on an opportunity to snap pics of this guy’s Civic. In the early morning of Wekfest, it was like a ghost town because roll-in was so easy and the gates weren’t open yet so I had all the time in the world to snap away…
Limited edition glitter face DPK David face decal…
Enrique’s Civic with random ass throttle cable placement. I went over to take a shot of his bay and I almost strangled myself on that thing…
Chivas and Ejay…
Ryan Der and Anh…
I believe this is Ryan Ordinario’s brother’s Integra…
More Ryan Der…
Sheepey officially debuted his new S2000 engine bay set-up and it was a hit…A bunch of one-off custom fabricated pieces and an overall crazy turbo set-up. I have a bunch of pics of this coming up…
A shot of my front end digging into the grass…
I never have any money to do anything new to my car so I did what every poor kid does and just added new stickers, haha…Basically it’s just a roll call of all the people that show me love on a regular basis. Had to give a shout-out to my boys Takeshi from Type_K and Tetsuya from USDM Jam…I really liked the way it came out. I had a white on gold chrome vinyl layout before but it faded from being out in the sun so it was nice to change it up…
Dina from ATS debuted her new air suspension set-up on her S2000…It’s a work in progress and wait until you see the final product…
Nice Evo X on orange TE37s…I love how the Xs look without the rear wing…
Phaze2 Henry’s Corolla…
I went over to the Function and Form booth again to go tell Big Mike something but these days, it’s hard to see this guy at an event without a camera in front of him or some sort of video business going on…Here he is with Ken from Wek’Sos getting interviewed for a Honda Tuning magazine video…
DPK Jared’s S2000 fresh from the Rywire facilities…Everything was so nicely tucked away and hidden that people were probably wondering if the car even ran…
ATS Ben’s 450+ horsepower turbo S2000…
Some more shots of Dina’s S2K…between her car, mine, and the other Phaze2 homies, a lot of grass was killed that day thanks to air suspensions…
I took a bunch of pics of Angel’s S2000. Why? Because I have a man-crush on this S2000…
Oh, here are a bunch of shots I got of Sheepey’s engine bay… One of them has a link to a larger image so click on that and study the shit out of it if you want…
Not bad right? Haha…I think I have a couple more detail shots of it coming later on as well…
Chris “Gone Bananas Hates Me” Sakai’s award-winning Civic…
Will from Circuit Hero’s Civic…
The homie Arn’s Integra…
Ejay’s DA…
C-C-C-Combo Breaker…Had to throw some pics up of this LS on HREs that wasn’t too far away from where all our cars were…
Mike’s Ferio representing the garage at Mike’s house where he parks his car…haha…
That’s 50…gonna stop here for the day, otherwise your internet connection will be totally fucked if I throw up more pics… Back tomorrow with more. Thanks for looking…
Eibach Honda Meet 2011 Coverage…Part 3…
Ugh…what a last two days it’s been. Honestly I’m surprised this update is going to go up today. Shortly after I updated yesterday, my computer was hit with some crazy Trojan Malware virus that managed to undercut my anti-virus program and completely takeover my computer. I don’t know how it happened and at this point I don’t care, but I almost wish that it was porn related so that I could at least see some dirty stuff after all the trouble I went through to get my computer working again. It basically took most of the night and by the time I had got through all of it, I was beat. It’s a good thing that I’m very computer-savvy and know my way around computers so I was able to fix the problem on my own. There was a point where I thought my hard drive had been wiped out, and all my work and what not had been erased but luckily I didn’t panic and realized that the virus had merely hidden my files. In any case, I thought that was finished with and my day would get better but of course, things inevitably got worse….
The computer was working again and back at full strength but then when I decide to go cut stickers to fill orders and to get ready for the It’s JDM Yo!!! Anniversary event this weekend, my vinyl cutter takes a shit. It had started to cut but then I noticed that it was incredibly wobbly. I stopped it from cutting, took the cover off and realized that the cutting unit that sits on the guide had cracked at the joints and one of the rollers was not even on the machine anymore. Now I’m in the process of trying to correct that whole issue so that I can fill orders and I’ve even taken the liberty of ordering an entirely new rolling unit to fix the cracked piece. If you guys have stuff on order, please bear with me, it should be a quick fix once the part comes in from Arizona. For now I went and bought some JB Weld and plastic adhesive to try to fix it temporarily…
Okay, so back to the topic at hand which is part three of the 2011 Eibach Honda Meet coverage. Today we will take a look at some more pics that I took while I was walking around. We left off at the ATS Garage/DPK area and these pics are from the row directly behind them…
Saw this clean del Sol right behind DPK David’s coupe rocking HellaSUNK, Chronicles, and NWP4LIFE stickers…
This DC2 was pretty nice…I never really understood why people put stickers over scratches and scuffs though, if anything I always thought that it would draw more attention to the damage. I like the white Work Meister S1s though, it’s a good look…
4-door with Mugen accessories…
I liked the simplicity of this grey EK on Regas…
Spoon-themed DC2…
and Old Skool’s Mugen-themed DC2R…
Starting to see Bolt Boys’ spikes everywhere now…Frank is no longer killing the spike game, he is merely distributing the spike game evenly throughout the community…
Stunna Ben came out from across the country in his freshly painted K-swapped Civic coupe…It’s a good look compared to his previous set-up, the only thing that kinda irks me is his front bumper fitment. The OEM lip seems to be a little off and the bumper sits a little recessed where the headlight is…
TSX on some BBS wheels that, for a change, aren’t LMs…
Bryant’s TSX from San Diego…
This is one of my favorite TSXs out right now. I know it’s nothing crazy but I really like the red on SSR Type-Cs. You know see where many TSXs on these wheels and it looks good. Actually, I think I still owe this guy some stickers that he ordered a long time ago…oh shit..I gotta follow up on that…
TSXs had a pretty strong showing at Eibach, kinda like the RSXs but the TSX guys all came in one large group and parked together…
Walked back over to the booth for a bit to see how things were going and saw Rodrez talking to the guys from ASC Speed Metal about the work they did to the Honda Tuning CR-Z…
I sat down for a bit and ate some Carl’s Jr. that Phaze2 Arnel had brought earlier in the morning and took a break. The booth was pretty busy all day so I actually sold a couple things while I was there. Tony and May did all the work of course but there were some brief moments where I actually did something…haha… I wanted to go check out what was going on inside the vendor building so I let Tony and May take the reigns once again at the booth while I left to go get more pics for you guys…
While I was heading to the vendor area, I stopped to get some shots of OldManJames’s red S2000. He recently got some more aggressively-sized Volk CE28s for his car and it looks much better in the rear…
Made my way inside and got some shots of Arn’s DC2. I’m sure you guys have seen plenty of pics of this car on this site so you should all be very familiar with it…
Next to Arn in the Falken booth was Big Mike. I actually didn’t get to see Big Mike a whole lot that day, compared the other events where we are usually just standing around chillin’….I hung out with him a little earlier when he was talking to Tim Shultz and some of the guys from the other end of the coast but that was about it for most of the day…
Here’s Big Mike talking to Enrique from SD and his lady friend…I asked Enrique who the best looking dude at Eibach was and he answered right away without hesitation…haha…
Mike G.’s Tank which needs no introduction…
…sporting a new C.O.P. (coil over plug) set-up…Take note of how the coils sit on a plate that sits flush with the Plan:B Motorsports valve cover…pretty neat…
A shot of the entire bay…bullets and spikes are starting to be the new dress-up accessory in engine bays. I wonder what’s next, machetes and grenades and shit? haha…Bay looks great though on Mike’s “Tank”…The C.O.P. set-up changes the whole look of the bay…
Eibach 2011 also marked the debut of N1 Concepts’ newest project, which they dubbed the “S3200″. It’s Spoon Sports-themed S2k rocking a 3.2L Honda V6 motor. I look forward to seeing more of this car and it’s progress, I just hope they get rid of those wheels…shit is killing me! haha…
Speaking of wheels that are killing me…here’s the Tjin Edition Fit…I love me some Tjin Edition projects and I’ve always liked this Fit. The wheels…AHHHHHHH!!….
Morgan Jade’s CTR in the Sportcar Motion booth…
Walked outside and finally thought I had a chance to get a shot of Bolt Boys Frank’s Civic, but then Giant O’Shanty decided to step into the picture…That’s not really his name, I don’t know what it is…he’s clearly not that tall nor is he Irish…but whatever…
Oh okay, so you guys know this is Leon Casino’s CR-X. Well one of the two that he owns anyway but there was a pretty funny moment with him earlier in the day when cars were rolling into the Eibach facility. Leon always helps out every year with the parking and never asks for anything in return. I mean, if you guys see how many cars come in, then you’ll know how much of a pain it is for someone to have to check the list for names, direct traffic, and make sure that the right people go in and out of the building. During the mist of the whole car-towing situation, things were getting a little hectic and everyone was trying their best to get cars inside before the cops had to step in. A couple guys go in and a car pulls up to Leon and Leon has the list in hand to check if the dude is on it. I was standing a couple feet away from Leon, taking pictures of everything that was going on and I hear Leon ask the guy if he’s on the list and for his paperwork. The guy gives him an attitude about how his friends just rolled in and he’s with them and trying to get loud with Leon. I mean, if you don’t know Leon, he’s a quiet dude but he will not hesitate to fucking punch someone in the mouth. He was surprisingly calm at this moment when the dude was giving him attitude and I fully expected Leon to blow up and smash on the kid. Leon looks at the guy and says something along the lines of “I don’t give a fuck if you’re with your friends, if you keep giving me attitude, I’m going to kick you out right now”, in a pretty stern tone…Man, I swear to you, I have never seen someone shut up so fast…haha. The kid like doesn’t say a fucking word afterward and hands his paperwork to Leon and Leon sends him on his way…oh man, it was so great…haha, you just had to be there….
One more shot of Reza’s Integra…
The Eibach CR-Z parked up front with people lined up to get free shit…
Talk about dedication…we had just left Bisi’s wedding the day before and he actually showed up for Eibach the morning after…
Kinda bugged me how disrespectful people were and just leaning and touching all up on people’s cars at the meet. I don’t really understand why people do it. I had other people telling me that a bunch of random ass people were touching stuff in their engine bays and everything…Whatever happened to the saying “look with your eyes, not with your hands”…
A better shot of Gilbert’s EF engine bay that I didn’t get a chance to get earlier…
…as well as a shot of Will’s J’s Racing fenders…
Really liked this K-swapped hatchback…again, not a real big fan of the Mugen front lip but it looks good on this build…
This yellow was was nice also…Kinda reminds me of the yellow EG in Japan that also had Work Meister S1s on it but that one had waaaay more aggressive fitment on it and it almost looked cartoonish. This one is much more subdued and cleaner…Looks good…
Walked back over to the booth once again to see how things were going and got a shot of my two helpers that day…
Also hanging out at the booth was Ken from Wek’Sos…He came down to hang out and hand out flyers for the upcoming Wekfest LA event…
That’s all for today…need to get back to work and try to get this vinyl plotter working again, otherwise I’m fucked…Gonna close it out with another shot of Arnel’s Civic. Check out the front license plate frame…Tetsuya from Japan was kind enough to give us a couple of his USDMJam license plate frames and Arnel was super excited to put one on his car….Thanks Tetsuya!…
Back with more tomorrow…thanks for looking…
Hontune 2011 Coverage…
This post would be more appropriate if I titled it; “A Windy Fucking Day at Hontune” because it was cold, and the wind was STRONG that day. So strong, that I didn’t even bother to put up the canopy because I knew it would fly away and land on somebody’s car. You want to know just how windy it was? Well we had the garage area to set-up the cars and the booth so it was pretty much indoors with the exception of the garage doors being left open. We left the canopy out of my truck, but it was still folded and zipped up inside it’s container. It was so windy, that the wind actually knocked the canopy over and almost landed on Big Mike’s hood, which probably would have done some considerable damage. Luckily it narrowly missed it, and instead landed on a couple cups of coffee so now my tent is dirty…
You probably haven’t seen much coverage of this event because, well, to put it frankly, there weren’t too many people there. I don’t know what it is about track events and getting non-track guys to come out and chill, but like every event similar to this, it ends up working out where the “meet” portion of it has relatively low numbers. Doesn’t really make sense to me because the track or “race” side of the community has always been a foundation of the Honda “scene”. You can plan a meet at a fucking parking lot or something where businesses need the space to operate and a million fucking cars will show up, but when there’s a race event where they offer more than the allotted amount of space for an actual gathering, cars don’t show up. Makes no fucking sense. This Hontune thing wasn’t even posted up short notice or anything. It was posted up on many different forums and also promoted by one of the best promoters in our community (Big Mike) and still, the turn-out was not that great. It’s come to the point where I already expect a shitty turn-out and I was actually pleasantly surprised by how many cars did show. In any case, I hope this changes some time in the near future and we as enthusiasts can learn to support more facets of our community. Race guys can go to car shows and enjoy themselves, and car show guys can show up to race events and just chill and enjoy the event. I mean, seriously, you can fill up a parking-lot at Super Autobacs, which fuckin failed in the U.S., but not track events that are put together by actual enthusiasts who are your peers? Really? No matter what type of event it is, you should always try to show your support by making the effort to at least come out…
The annual Super Street FF Battle is coming up this summer and I certainly hope that attendance improves. It’s a great event and it’s put-together by one of the leading magazines in our industry. Like events similar to Hontune, it also needs your support. It’s just like a normal meet in some parking-lot but, cars that are doing fly-bys and going fast are allowed to, and not done by idiots who are trying to show up by smashing the opposite direction on the street…
Anyways, on with the coverage. The usuals came out and even though we expected the turn-out to be less than spectacular, we came out anyway to support Big Mike as well as just to chill and spend time with one another. Plus the Kogi truck was going to be there so there would be food for us. We got there early to set-up and then just kinda sat around. I had merchandise for sale and people actually bought some stuff to support the site, which was cool…
Just an example of how windy it was that day. I set up a banner but the wind was pushing it up so far that you could barely even see it…
The Rywire booth was right next to mine so we decided to tie both banners together, in an attempt to add some rigidity since it was so windy…
The weather has been so weird lately that the backdrop for the event looked like something completely outside of California. Look at all the snow on the mountains next to us. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t even believe me if I told you that this was in sunny Southern California…
While I was busy staring at the mountains, Bisi showed up with his trailer and 500hp CR-Z to set-up his booth…
Keith aka Keychain from ItsJDMYo decided to come hang out with us for the day…
A legit right-hand drive FD3S RX-7 on JIC wheels was making runs on the track throughout the day. I don’t have any actual pictures of it on the track so you will just have to take my word on it. I actually didn’t leave this area to go to the track because I had to watch my booth. It was extremely cold that day so it was best for the girls not to have to sit around the whole day to run the booth so they took off to go to the mall and grab food and what not. They needed a day to themselves anyways, being that we were just one week removed from the madness that was Wekfest…
An older gentleman enjoying some details of Big Mike’s Prelude…
Bisi in the paddock…
The guy with the camera is Sean (If I remember his name correctly) from The Narita Dog Fight blog. If you haven’t seen it before, you should probably check it out. It’s a cool site that he started and he shoots in Japan and captures all kinds of interesting stuff…
Danny actually came down from Norcal to set-up his booth to promote his new clothing line, Ignited Soul…
DPK David, Keith, and Ejay enjoying a laugh…
Really liked this S2000 that came back and forth from the track throughout the day…
I liked this photo I took of Ejay’s Integra so much, that I’ve even attached a larger version for you guys to click on…Larger Version (1200x800px)
Ejay and Ryan applying a Rywire decal to Ejay’s windshield…
You should all be well-acquainted with his H2B set-up by now…
Purchase this shirt HERE…
A couple of random shots of Big Mike’s bay because I was bored…and well, it’s not like there were that many other cars to look at….haha…
This EJ1 coupe was being tracked throughout the day and David and Ejay went to go check it out…
And then some people finally started to show up…
Big Mike kidnapped Ryan on his way over to the Kogi truck…
If you saw my recent Norm Reeves coverage than you probably remembering seeing this 4-door…it’s, ummm, getting there…
Another shot of Keychain’s Accord and his fitment…
I was trying to get a pic of this S2000 throughout the day but he kept moving so this was the only shitty pic I could get of it…
A couple of other random shots…
We were so close to the mountains that we occassionally ran into snowboarders that were just passing through…
Another S2K, this one adorned in ASM aero (or possibly ASM-like aero)…
Big Mike holding another one of his hourly seminars on the art of Prelude…
Meanwhile, DPK David was cold…
Norman from AS1 cruised out with the wife and kids to see what Hontune was all about…
Bisi on his way to take some laps around the track in the CR-Z…
The backdrop makes it look like we’re somewhere in Alaska…
Big Mike…
Some other Civics that came out…
Another one of Danny’s Laguna Seca Blue 4-door…
Not really sure where all the people came from but there was a pretty big line for the Kogi truck…
I saw a bunch of stickers on the Kogi truck so I decided to put one of The Chronicles stickers on it. Funny because a week or so later, when I was on the 101 freeway, I saw the same Kogi truck broken down on the shoulder at night and could still see my Chronicles sticker on there…
While Sid is busy putting his DA back together, he’s been occupying his time by doing some minor things to his Honda Fit…
Another shot of Norman’s Civic…
Spotted this hanging on David’s rearview mirror…
Ejay enjoying his beef short-rib burrito that he waited in line for hours for…
This ITR belongs to Jared Reyes who helped organize the whole Hontune event with Big Mike and Speedventures…
Busted out a different lens so that I could get some more pics from other angles…this one is another shot of Keychain’s Accord…
The front of Ejay’s Integra…
…and his bay…
I had no idea that there were going to be awards given out but there were. Half of them were based on votes that were submitted on ballots by people that attended the event, and the others were for cars that were being tracked throughout the day. They were cool little awards and we also did a raffle and gave out some prizes to the people that were there….
By that time the girls had come back so we had Jackie read out the raffle numbers while Big Mike MC’d and announced the awards…
Norman won for Best Family and most kids loaded into one Civic at a Hontune event…
I don’t know which order these guys won in but they both one for the People’s Choice category…the guy in the background of the last picture apparently disagreed with the choice…
After the awards, it was time to clean up and head home…
Ejay and David messing around with Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door project. I posted up a picture of this in one of the NWP4Life threads and somebody posted up a comment like “I wonder how low it is without the people in it” or something like that…well, it’s pretty much the same, because it’s on air…
…here’s a better shot of it without the guys standing in front of it… and a Larger Version (1200x800px)
That’s a wrap on Hontune…thanks for looking…
Wekfest 2011 Weekend…Part 5…The Finale…
Well, it’s time to officially wrap up the Wekfest 2011 coverage on The Chronicles. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it thoroughly and had a chance to see how the trip went from our perspective. Everything went so smoothly and the show itself was absolutely amazing. Today’s last bit of coverage features some cars, some random bullshit, and well…some shots that will probably end up being the most clicked on of the year I’m sure, because my audience I’ve noticed, are huge pervos. Most of these pics are actually just shot from the area around my booth. By this time during the event, it had just gotten so ridiculously crowded that there was no point in me attempting to walk around to take pictures of cars. That and I had a consistent flow of people walking by to purchase stickers and shirts so I just had no time to walk around. People that I knew that wanted to hang out had to come by the booth even, and it took them quite awhile just walking from the back of the building towards the stage area, up to the booth by the entrance where I was…
Look at this crowd…you can barely even spot the cars because there were so many people…
DPK Jared was having a blast and had a couple of drinks, which usually leads to him acting a little crazy so he decided to stand at the booth and attempt to sell my merchandise by yelling at people that were walking by. As crazy as it sounds, it actually kind of worked. Well, it made for some awkward conversations with random ass people but some people actually did decide to buy something. You can see in the picture above that when Jared drinks his hand speed increases ten-fold. He was moving his arms around so fast that he eventually lifted into the sky and he flew away…
At one point he convinced this girl to come by and he tried to convince her to buy something even though she had probably never heard of The Chronicles before. I don’t know if she had been drinking as well or not, but she kept like, trying to fix her shirt and everytime she did that she like pulled the back of her shirt down and she was accidently showing us what was going on up front, if you know what I mean…the shirt was getting pulled down a little too low. Jared of course, didn’t notice because he was too busy waving his hands around and being a DJ in mid-air…
…Sheepey noticed though…
At one point Jared started talking to this dude that was rocking a “Crenshaw” t-shirt. Crenshaw Blvd., for those of you unfamiliar with the area, is not one of the safest and best areas to live in if you’re a resident of the Los Angeles, CA region. This guy was actually pretty cool though, I don’t remember if he bought anything because we were all a little worried that Jared was going to get stabbed or beat up…I don’t know how comfortable the guy is having Jared so close to him but Jared probably doesn’t even remember…haha…
Phaze2 Tony…
Genevieve Chanelle was the headlining model at Wekfest alongside Christine Mendoza and I’m sure there are probably hundreds of pictures of her all over the net from the event, but nobody got a picture of her…
…perched up face-first on the wall…
Here’s a pretty bad picture of two other models…
Often times, I look up the search terms that people use to find this site and for whatever reason, I always see “Christine Mendoza nipslip” or something similar. I don’t really know how that relates to my site or how Google or other search engines decides that it is relevant to The Chronicles, but I like to please my viewers, so I willed it to happen. I don’t want people to use that search term and get disappointed when they somehow land on this site so I made it happen. Okay, I really didn’t but I did somehow manage to snap this picture accidently…I’m sure you guys want to see a larger version so CLICK HERE (800x1200px)
Speaking of amazing nipples, here’s Wek’Sos Adam rocking the brand new Chronicles tee…
Here’s Ryan picking up some cupcakes from ATS Phil’s girl Judy. She was offering the cupcakes to spectators to raise money for a good cause which is much better than what I was doing, which was watching Jared yell at people passing by in an attempt to get them to buy merchandise…
With an hour or two left in the show, I decided to make one more trip outside to the second building to see what I could get pictures of before we closed up shop. It didn’t last long of course, I don’t think I even made it into the other building because there were still so many people flowing in and out…
I did get pictures outside though. Here’s a GS on Kartier wheels…
I ran into Danny Hernandez and his Laguna Seca Blue 4-door. He looked cold and angry so I decided to ask him about his engine bay…
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering why he had this carbon kevlar sheet mounted on top of his intake manifold so I decided to ask him. I don’t exactly remember what he told me but it had something to do with him deciding to mount a carbon kevlar sheet on top of his intake manifold. All you need to know is that it is definitely not a part that is offered by Spoon Sports because the kevlar weave is too nice…*zing*…
Another shot of Mike’s engine bay and his painted engine bay and transmission. Like I stated in the previous posts, I’m boycotting taking pictures of the exterior of his car until he takes those Volk C-Ultra wheels off, haha…Big Mike and I actually saw him at the Hontune event this past weekend and even voiced our displeasure for those wheels in person to him. He however, didn’t seem to care and looked at us like we were crazy…
Here’s a shot of DSR Loreto’s engine bay…
…as well as Downstar Bolt Boys Frank’s Lambo green engine bay. I would have liked to take some pictures of the cars themselves, but there were so many people in front of their cars that I felt like I was inside of a Japanese subway. I tried to bend down to take a better picture of Frank’s bay and I ended up with 4 asian dudes sitting on my shoulders…
After my futile attempt to walk into the other building, I decided to go back to my booth. I saw this STI on the way and decided to snap a pic. I love TE37SL wheels on basically anything. I’m trying to love this wheel as much as I can before Rota comes out with a Rota SL or some shit with a pink label on it that says Rota Super Laps or whatever…
Here’s James Balizan from Wek’Sos and 137 Wayne. Waynes been saying that he’s growing his hair out for charity for the longest time now but I’m starting to get a little sketchy about it. Not because I doubt him doing it for charity but more so because I’m not sure if anyone would want a donation of a large bag of curly brown hairs…
Speaking of curly brown hairs, Justene Jaro is completely absent of all of it, at least from the pictures I’ve seen online. Would you like to see a bigger picture of the one above? Sure, why not, CLICK HERE (800x1200px)
Here’s Ryan Der’s Civic on Work Meister S1 wheels…Not sure how I feel about them since I loved the aggressive TE37s so much, but hey, Ryan Der has like thousands of sets of wheels so he doesn’t care what I think…
One last shot of Dina’s S2000…
Bisi’s CR-Z…
Arn’s DC2 with Arn apparently dancing in the background…If you’re wondering why a valve cover is laying on the floor during a car show, that’s actually Big Mike’s. That doesn’t explain why of course, but scroll up to look at the Christine Mendoza picture and you won’t give a shit anymore….
I was able to take a couple shots of the cars at this time because the show had begun to clear out and the awards were being announced. I didn’t get to really watch the awards because I was too busy trying to clean up so that I could get the fuck outta there. It was cold as shit by then and I really wanted to just go back to the hotel and take a shit and eat a burrito. I know a bunch of ATS guys won, Salem won, and umm…oh yeah, Big Mike won. It was cool, congrats to all of them but it was really time to get back to the hotel…If you want to see the awards ceremony and the pics with all the winners, head on over to JSJbrothers.com after you finish reading this and you can see all kinds of pictures…
Here’s the burrito I ate. I think I really had to shit at some point during the night but I knocked out before that could happen. I was kinda waiting for people to hit me up to chill after they had finished their dinners but I was so tired that I just fell asleep watching a replay of the NBA All-Star game…
The next morning, it was time to pack up and head home to Socal. May and I got up and went to grab some free breakfast that was offered by the hotel, and we ran into everyone else there. We sat down and ate, talked about Wekfest and how many people were there and then we went back to the room to get ready. Some of the guys were already outside taping up their cars and loading up…
Phaze2 Bert’s STI…
DPK Chuy’s Integra, which you didn’t get to see a whole lot of because he didn’t make the drive up with us…
Big Mike, who doesn’t need blue tape because he invested in a clear bra…
Oh, I really didn’t get a chance to snap a photo at the event, but here’s the Honda Tuning CR-Z with all the new custom fabricated stuff from ASC Speed Metal…
Big Mike and May listening to a story that Rodrez was telling us about how one of the judges at Wekfest was trying to school Rodrez on Big Mike’s car, not knowing that both of them had known eachother for almost a decade now. According to this guy, Big Mike has been building his Prelude for 11 years now and he recently got rid of his Mugen eyelids. In reality, Big Mike has probably had his car for like 5-6 years, and has never once owned a pair of Mugen eyelids for a Prelude. But that’s okay, I’m sure Rodrez enjoyed the story and being educated on a car that he’s very familiar with…
The rest are just random shots of whatever I saw when I had my camera out on the way home to Socal. We took breaks along the way home to get gas and eat, so I just took out my camera whenever I could…
Chillin’ while we waited for the girls to get coffee at Starbucks…
Brand new Wilwood brakes on the CR-Z…
The “face” of DPK…
That’s pretty much it. We got back to Socal late Monday night and parted ways to go home. Overall, man…I couldn’t say anything but good things about Wekfest 2011. The event itself was unbelievable. The venue this year was great and the turnout could not have been any better. I saw a lot of people complaining about the wait times in line, but shit, that’s what happens when there is so much hype and excitement behind an event of this magnitude. You know how you solve that problem? You show up earlier so you don’t have to wait as long. I’m sure there are ways to improve this event and the Wek’Sos guys are already working hard on it to make it better than ever next year. They’re already planning for the Wekfest Socal event this summer as well as a nationwide tour in the future…
People I should really thank are…
The entire Wekfest staff for being so hard working and easy to deal with…
Ken, Adam, and Junior for putting this all together…
My Maybelyn for helping me hold down the fort and organizing my merchandise so that it was easy to operate the booth…
Tina for helping May and I set-up…
HeyMikeyyyy and the rest of my Phaze2 family…
Rodrez for offering his Element to transport all the goods and luggage up there, as well as helping me get my booth spot in the first place…
Tes for finding all the good food spots to eat at and always finding directions and better routes to get places…
DPK David, Jared, Ryan, and the rest of the DPK guys for embarking on this adventure with The Chronicles…
The ATS family for always being so generous and helpful…
Greg at Trendy Threadz for pulling through in the clutch and getting my shirts done in almost zero amount of time…
Big Mike for organizing his gigantic food meet and getting enthusiasts from all over the country together (even though I couldn’t make it)…
Christine Mendoza for wearing that shirt…
…and to everyone else who either picked up Chronicles merchandise or just stopped by to even say what’s up. I love you all for always continuing to support this little site known as The Chronicles…
…oh and I can’t forget to congratulate Big Mike on once again, winning Best Honda at Wekfest. That’s two years in a row now. All he needs is one more and I think he’s going to be considered a dynasty….haha. Thanks for looking everyone…that’s a wrap on Wekfest 2011 NORCAL….
EEFFECT APPAREL Wheel Headz Artist Series 1 – “Big Mike Edition” Tee…
While I’m not a big fan of blatantly advertising other products on The Chronicles, I thought I would make an exception in this instance because it’s for the homie Big Mike. He’s been a devoted follower and supporter of this site since the very beginning and he’s one of my close personal friends so I have no problem vouching for his endeavors. He recently collaborated with Eeffect Apparel to create their first “Wheel Headz Artist Series” t-shirt. Though the company isn’t that well-known out here in the west coast, I’m sure you guys have seen their shirts at various places as well as in advertisements in your favorite magazines. They produce these cool cartoon characters with the faces being popular wheel designs and that is one of their signature style of shirts. The Artist Series I guess is a new line that they’re doing where they take one of their favorite car (no pun intended) heads from each corresponding coast and dedicate a specific shirt to those individuals. For the west coast, they decided to go with Big Mike, and for good reason. No man has had a bigger presence in the Honda community in the last year or so and has made such a huge push to get himself out there. I know this because I’ve been alongside the guy this entire time. I don’t think I know very many people who have nearly as much passion about anything than Big Mike so I couldn’t be happier to see something like this Eeffect tee come to fruition. Many of you probably have heard of this shirt already because Big Mike has made a strong push on various outlets to get the news of his newly released shirt out there.
I know he wouldn’t ask me because he knows me well enough that I wouldn’t just push anything but I decided to do this because it’s honestly a really cool idea and the shirt itself came out pretty great. It has one of his favorite wheels of all time, a Volk SE37K, as the face and the rest of the body of the character consists of all of Big Mike’s signatures, like the corduroy slippers, watch, etc. It’s very well designed. Even if you don’t know Big Mike well, the shirt itself is still cool enough to rock as is. They recently sent Big Mike’s shirt to my place actually and I got to see it in person first hand and it’s a good quality shirt. If you don’t choose to buy it, that’s cool too. Just thought I’d throw it out there that something like this was done and that there are companies out there who support privateer car builders as well and not just major industry guys.
Here’s the link for those of you who would like more information on the shirt and how to purchase it….
READ MORE ABOUT THE EEFFECT APPAREL BIG MIKE EDITION TEE HERE
Pretty cool right?
Here’s an actual picture of Big Mike rocking his shirt…
Buy it, don’t buy it, I don’t know, do whatever you want….still cool nonetheless though and cool to see Big Mike continue to do big things…
Super Street FF Battle 2010…Day 3…
Back for more…this is the last batch of pics from the FF Battle. I didn’t stay very long because I had a prior engagement and had no idea what other cars came out. If you’re not pictured, sorry, I wasn’t around…
The competitors at FF Battle minus the Hasport Civic, white coupe, and Morgan’s CTR. The playing field was level and much more interesting from last year. Runs were close…
Jared finally put all four of his wheels back on and decided to come hang out…
Big Mike’s Prelude of course…
Morgan’s CTR…
Everyone was interested in the J32 swapped Civic from Hasport…
Henry Dekuyper and the SS crew were doing bay shots for the FF Battle spread that’s going to be in a future issue of Super Street…
Circuit Hero DC2…and my cousin came all the way from San Diego to check things out and probably snap pictures for his site…
949 wheels up front, Mugen in the rear…
Circuit Hero tent…
DPK David decided to roll up along with…
…Darryl from DPK…kinda rare to see his car out because he usually riding along with Carlos aka Mugen Boy…
The two of them looking at something…probably listening to Sheepey talk about how confused he was with the concept of racing where cars turn…
Sheepey…
Jared…
Ryan aka Rywire…
Whatever Ryan was saying, Morgan apparently was entertained…
More Circuit Hero DC2…
Still looking pretty good after battle…
Parked for a photo…
Jonathan Wong going over some results with Elton from Raceline…
Big Mike…
Knight Rider program in the Raceline Civic coupe…
Phil and his wife…
Circuit Hero family…
Synchronized walking…
Ryan Der making use of his General Tire tee…
Just one more wouldn’t hurt…Can’t get enough of this thing. Can’t wait until he gets his Chargespeed fenders on and new wheels…
Random shot…
Another one…
David meets Phil…
As I was leaving, I saw this yellow hatch roll up… Pretty nice car, just needs a front lip to really set it off…
That’s about it. The event wrapped up later that day and the official layout and results should be available in a couple months to everyone. Then you guys can find out who won and what car ran what and how they performed out there. I honestly don’t even know but from what I saw I think I had a fairly good idea of who eventually took the whole thing. I could be wrong though. All I know is that this years was much closer than last year and overall the cars were a lot more competitive. I talked to Charles Trieu for a little bit and asked him how he felt about the event overall and he felt that the cars were “much cooler” than the year before. I gotta agree with that. This is just the second year and it looks to be on the rise. It’s gonna be cool to see what kind of Hondas come out for 2011…
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.
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 25…
Starting to get a little worried about this one,….Today was the first time I texted Big Mike and he didn’t text me back and/or call me and talk to me for like 2 hours haha….Shit is coming down to the wire and it’s starting to get real. So much more stuff to do before show time. I’m hoping that he’s got more done then he’s leading on and gonna surprise the shit out of all of us. If you’re reading this and you’re nervous, welcome to the party…
So many people showing up to help….Here’s Ryan with Timmy, who is usually doing the commenting on alot of the Big Mike posts. He’s actually there lending a helping hand now which is cool because it shows everyone how close we all our out here. Sure competition is fierce but people help eachother when needed you know…
Here’s Jimmy and Linda from Team Praxis helping out as well…
Last shot of the interior before the carpet goes back in…
Shot of the interior harness…
Brand new OEM Honda carpet installed…
Rear panel reinstalled. The hole there is for the roll bar…
Ryan and Timmy doing the Walbro fuel pump install. Probably was a bitch to do too. I remember when I had to do mine and drop the tank…fuckin pain in the ass…
Speaking of fuel, here’s one of the fuel connections…
…Fittings for the fuel filter and regulator…
…and here’s the custom chrome dipped brackets for the fuel filter and regulator.
Mocking up the lines…
“Big Mike Edition” mil-spec harness!..haha…
…made by Rywire of course…
The ground for the harness…
Somewhere along the way a bolt fell into the timing belt area and had to be pulled out…
Big Mike’s friend Ralph putting in work as well…
Shots of the header after he got it jet-coated and a pic of it on the car…
Sunroof is all coming together…
For those of you like me who have been anxious to see how the seats came out….
Oh man, with so much left to do, it’s definitely gonna be interesting. 25 parts, over 500 pics, I sure hope this thing gets done by Saturday. Would be a bit of a waste if it didn’t but I’m confident in saying that Big Mike wouldn’t let that happen. Can’t believe it’s almost time…oh man…kinda nervous now…
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 24…
Running a little short of time today but thought I’d get this up since we only have a few days left before Nisei. Pretty crazy how quickly it came up, but I guess that’s just how it usually is with these type of shows. Can’t really comment on every single picture but this is basically what’s going on….The motor is basically all finished and ready to go, axles went back in, as well as fluids. After Big Mike finished up with that, the car was sent back to the bodyshop where they cut, buffed, and polished the new paint. Big Mike got ahold of some brand new OEM carpet as well as his new clutch kit. At the end you’ll get a preview of Big Mike’s front seats…Enjoys guys, I am out.!
Heading home…
Foglight bezels all painted and ready…
Rywire doin work…
Brand new Honda OEM carpet…
A preview shot of Big Mike’s seats…
…And this guy showed up, moved the broom around a little bit just so he could get on The Chronicles…
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 23…
Finally…part 23. Before we get started though, I just want everyone who was inquiring about our friends condition to know that he is doing much better now. He looks to be returning to good health but will be in there for a couple more days just for observation and what not. Only thing that bugs him is being in there with a bunch of tubes strapped to him and not being able to move around. I’m sure it get’s irritating being stuck like that all day, but he shouldn’t be in there much longer…
On with the updates…
Today we’re gonna be focusing more on the custom fabrication side of things as well as the tucked radiator…
Here’s the custom made radiator that will be tucked away in the Prelude. I think the only time you’ve probably seen one of these is on Rywire’s personal car…
Here’s the mock-up of how it’s gonna sit, just need the fabricator to fab up the mounts and shit…
Before I show you that stuff Big Mike wanted to say a few things about his fabricator…
“The name of my fabricator’s company is True Berserk Fabrication. He has been a welder and a fabricator for well over 10 years, and his work and work ethic are second to none. This man can design and build virtually anything one could ever want/need out of metal, and do it in a beautifully crafted, structurally sound manner. All of which is evidenced by the work that he has and will continue to put out. If anyone is interested in having work done, contact me directly. Thank you.”
Here’s the fabricator mocking up some mounting tabs for the radiator that will utilize the stock mounting holes on the car…
The center support had to be cut and smoothed-out to fit the radiator properly…
Here’s the ARP bolts that Big Mike will be using throughout the entire bay…
Big Mike’s fittings and his to-do list for Rywire…
All black -AN fittings and lines…
This next part is pretty cool for me since I always wanted to do it when I shaved my valve cover back in the day. Big Mike’s doesn’t need to run the PCV system since he’s on ITBs and gonna run a catch can/breather system so he had his fabricator weld a piece over the cover where the PCV used to go…
So much cleaner with that part filled in and filled correctly. It’s gonna look really smooth once it’s all plated or whatever Big Mike plans to do with it…
While that was going on, Big Mike was busy removing injectors from Bisi’s engine because his weren’t in yet. He’s not gonna run them in the car or anything, he just needs them for the mock-up process…
Big Mike’s custom chromed clutch slave cylinder with stainless braided soft line…
S2000 clutch master cylinder side to side with the stock unit. If you remember in an earlier update, the S2k unit was sitting a little too close to the firewall, which was causing fitment problems so Big Mike had his fabricator create a spacer for it…
Came out perfect…there should be no problems mounting it up now…
This is the fabricator’s drawing of how the fuel filter will come out…
Finished product compared to the drawings…
Final product mounted up to the fuel filter and fuel regulator…
A washer was all fabbed up for the battery terminal to add structural ridigity…
Thats it for now. Don’t know what’s going on but the car is back at the bodyshop once again….it’s nearing crunch time and hopefully everything comes together and it’ll be able to make it’s Nisei Import Showoff debut….
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 23…A Preview…
Haven’t had a chance to go through all the stuff that Big Mike has sent over to me but it will be up later today. I was super tired yesterday and KO’d the fuck out. I’m actualy still sleeping while I’m typing this. I just got it like that. Anyways, here’s a preview of what’s to come for today….
Is that tucked radiator? And why does it look like Big Mike is scooping up his nuts like Raisin Bran Crunch? All this and more, later today….!!
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 22…
22′s son, do work! Oh man, we are starting to cut it really close… I haven’t been too worried about it at all as I’ve been following the progress along with you guys and everything seems to be in order. Well, Big Mike text me today to let me know that the Prelude was back at the bodyshop again and I was like “Whatttt? What now?” Big Mike then told me that this was the plan all along. Get the thing painted, get it back, drop the motor in, and then send it back so that they can cut and buff the entire car. Okay, that makes sense…only problem is, the Prelude was already at the bodyshop longer than expected. Because of the time lost, we’re starting to cut it really close to finishing this thing. Like paper-thin close…whatever that means. There is just so much that is left to be done. All the parts are in and that’s what we’ll be focusing more on today, but just the other little things add up you know? It’s not like everything is just gonna bolt up the first time in or there won’t be little mistakes here and there. I’m confident that Big Mike will get it done though, and hopefully he does, because I’m not really all that excited about having to sit here the day after Nisei and explain to you all why the car wasn’t there.
Anyways, today we’re gonna be spotlighting some gangster shit. Not gangster bowel movements, but some new custom one-off shit that is most certainly 2 major factors of this entire build…
First would have to be the new Bisimoto header. I know you guys got to see a small preview of it when the build first began but this is the actual completed header that will eventually find it’s way onto Big Mike’s F20B…
Let’s let Big Mike tell you more about it…
“This Bisimoto header is 304 stainless steel, has tri-stepped primaries, built-in venturi, BURNS collector, and these pictures are off the unit before it was sent out to be Jet Hot coated.”
If it doesn’t look impressive enough already, just imagine seeing this thing in person. According to Big Mike, he swears to me that this header is “re-damn-diculous”…
Pretty crazy right? The work and quality of this header is incredible…excuse me…”re-damn-diculous”…
So while the Prelude was off getting buffed at the shop, Bisi gave Big Mike a call about a package that showed up…
Kinsler Fuel Injection? What could that possibly mean?…Well…One of the original plans for the engine going into this rebuild, besides the header of course, was a new set of individual throttle bodies. Not just any ITBs though…This new ITB set-up would be created by Kinsler, built to Bisimoto specifications, and with a custom finish…A “Big Mike Edition” ITB set-up. A set-up that was to be specifically created for this build.
The following pictures are pictures that were taken by Kinsler Fuel Injection. Big Mike felt that the only way to truly present this product to the world was to use the pictures that Kinsler took. These pictures aren’t for any catalog or anything of the sort. They were taken by the guys at Kinsler, sent to Bisi, who sent them to Big Mike, and now they are in my hands. This is the first time anyone will see these ITBs and the pics are of the actual individual throttle bodies that will go on Big Mike’s Prelude…
The first thing you’ll notice off hand is the top feed/direct feed fuel set-up…
The primary fuel rail and injector set-up is in its “normal” position and the secondary rail and injector is a top feed set-up which delivers fuel directly into the throttle body…
So what exactly makes these the “Big Mike Edition” ITBs? Here’s Big Mike to tell ya…
“From powdercoating, to mirror polishing, to machine finishing, I had these units aesthitically customized to my specification. Bisi worked with them on designing them internally, and the outcome is ridiculous. They are quality man, QUALITY. You can tell immediately upon looking at them. If anyone is wondering, try to find another set of KINSLERS that are like these. These are completely one-off BIG MIKE edition Kinslers.”
Pretty crazy ain’t it? How many builds do you know that feature custom one-off ITBs build specifically for the owner? Damnnn….With all this crazy one-off stuff, I really hope that it’ll be finished up by Nisei so everyone can get a chance to see all this stuff in person….Stay tuned.
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 21…
It’s crazy to think that Nisei is pretty much 2 weeks away. Things are really starting to come together though as far as this build goes. Kinda reminds me that I need to start working on my own car soon. By working I mean, actually cleaning it and maybe even driving it around. Big Mike and his league of extraordinary gentlement went to work this past weekend and got the engine back in. Plus brake and clutchlines should be completed. Big Mike has been telling me how crazy all the new Bisi stuff is so I can’t wait to see it. Time for pics…
This is how the evening began for Big Mike…
Engine set to go back in…
Polishing up the rear engine mount bracket before it goes back in…
Bracket re-attached. Take note of the Greddy relocation pancake adapter because it’s coming off and being replaced by…
…this Bisimoto pancake adapter.
Work dragged on into the evening and they were basically putting this motor in with just a single work light providing visibility…
Rywire happily putting his life on the line to get this thing in…
Engine in…
After that, they began to work on mounting up the fuel system components…
All set up with the filter and regulator…
Ryan also bend and fabbed the hardline for the clutch master cylinder…
The line required an old fashioned hand-bend before it would line up perfectly with the fitting …
Another shot of the hardward being used to mount the cylinders…
Distributor cap no longer need and replaced with an AEM unit that controls the individual coil packs…
Back with more very soon. Time to start grinding and getting this thing done. Should be seeing all the custom Bisi stuff too, can’t wait for that…
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 20…
I’ll be at the Super Street FF-Battle today so if you guys wanna stop by and chill, you know where to find me…Anyways, back with more of Big Mike’s Prelude rebuild. Basically just assembly of new engine pieces and maintanence here and there before the F20B goes back in…
Brand new Bisimoto cam gears…
Timing belt, windshield clips, grommets, spark plug seals, cam seals, valve cover shit, cowl clips, etc…
Big Mike’s homie Ejay came by to help out…
Old Skunk2 cam gears and timing belt coming out…
…and replaced by the Bisi cam gears, orange of course to match the custom orange exterior,…
…and new OEM timing belt…
Fitting for the custom clutch lines…
Mocking up the clutch master cylinder…
Bit of a minor set-back with the reservoir being too close to the firewall…
ARP 12-point stainless steel mounting hardware…
More stuff being mocked up for fabrication…
By the next update the motor should be in the car. While that’s stuff is going on, here’s some shots of the wheels that are getting refinished…
If you guys are wondering, no these won’t be like super aggressive low offset wheels. That’s not Big Mike’s style really. We tried to convince him but he’s more of a old school guy and he doesn’t want to do crazy fender mods to get wheels to fit any what not. What can I say, it’s not for everyone. Definitely shouldn’t take away from the build though….
Back with more as it comes in…
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 19…
Dammmmnnn…part 19 already. Before I begin though, I thought I’d mention that I make my writing debut in the new issue of Super Street that’s out on newstands now. I’m grateful for the opportunity and happy to expand my horizons in the industry. If you see it make sure to pick it up. My homie Chris also makes his debut in this mag too, but as a photographer. I’ve known the guy for awhile now and he’s also one of the few guys in the Accord community that doesn’t hate me. Haha, I don’t blame them though, I guess, success usually tends to breed contempt. Just how it is. Anyway, Chris is a hell of a photographer and I’m happy I convinced him to come out to Socal cuz it kinda helped him get his foot in the door. How fitting that we both make our debuts at the same time. I’m still freelance of course so I continue to do work for Honda Tuning as well so if you’re wondering, no, I’m not jumping ship. I’m like a hired gun, so to speak… So far so good over at SS though, Jonathan Wong is a cool dude…
What better way to kick off the start of my work over at SS then to show a picture of me drinking while sitting on top of a toilet. It’s almost poetic…Damn, I almost miss that ridiculous hair…
On with the build shall we?…
This will be the 19th of the series so far…which will be dubbed…”The Rywire Section”. Black and white for dramatic effect, and obviously to hide the fresh orange paintjob. I also made it black and white because Rywire doesn’t see the sun much with all his wiring duties, so he has an unusual pastel white glow about him when photographed. B&W is the only way to make him blend in. He’s so white he glows is what I’m trying to say. He’s doing all the work and it’s much appreciated. Anyone who’s willing to drive back and forth from Norcal to Socal week-to-week to do work is a down ass mofo. Gotta give him props for doing that…I can’t even stay awake walking from my car to my apartment so I can’t imagine driving almost 15 hours round trip all the time…
Rywire surveying the filthy interior after it came back from paint, trying to figure out where to start…
The mess….
The only time the words “Big Mike” and “scrubdown” will ever be used and used in a non-creepy or prison-love context…
Ryan puttin’ in work…
Break-time…
After the under-dash wiring was cleaned up, it was time to move on to the engine…
AEM CDI Pencil Coil conversion…Basically used as a type of individual coil-pack for each plug, like newer models that are DIS, or distributorless ignition systems…These are used for better spark delivery and to run in conjunction with AEM engine management. Big Mike tells me that he basically ordered the entire AEM catalog….
Ry-wired up…Using only the best stuff of course. Gotta have the DR25 Raychem stuff…
Booster delete to manual brakes…. After Ryan finished up the coil pack wiring, next up was custom brakelines…
The results…
Big Mike also managed to find an OE Prelude car cover…
…Here he’s demonstrating the Big Mike Scrubdown after clubbing Rywire in the head with a dumbbell…sick.
More to follow as it comes in…thanks for looking…
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 18…
Ahh…time for part 18 of the ongoing Big Mike Prelude rebuild…
So Big Mike decided to clean up some suspension stuff before putting the pieces back into the car and rolling it out of the bodyshop…
Gotta have the new toothbrushes so that the steering rack doesn’t get cavities…?
Post-cleaning…
Also, cleaned the control arms, coilovers, etc…
Crossmember was pretty dirty too so that was also cleaned up…
Steering rack re-installed…
More OEM stuff…
Random stuff that came back from chroming…
After all that cleaning was done, it was time to head back to the bodyshop to get the Prelude home…
Officially done with paint and flawless…
Before getting the car out, the steering rack had to be re-installed to be able to roll out of the shop…
Rack and crossmember back in…
Since the car is semi-back together, here’s a shot of the chromed door hinges…nice touch…
Ryan aka Rywire guiding the car out and onto the trailer…
…and finally back at home…
Now is when the real fun begins…full reassembly, motor work, installation of the lines….stay tuned.
Exclusive Content…Big Mike’s Prelude Build…Part 17…
Back in the paint booth for the last time….welcome back to Big Mike’s rebuild…part uhhh….17…
After Big Mike looked over the car for the final time, the bodyshop went and repaired all spots Big Mike deemed to be “unsatisfactory”…
You can see from the discolored sections that they’ve been sanded down and primered…
He wasn’t happy with the way the doorjambs came out either so he had them take the hinges off and repaint that section…
And here it is fresh out of paint:
Both seats are now done as well. After the paint work was finished, Big Mike even brought the Prelude home so it’s sitting at his place now ready for reassembly…
Glass has gotta go back in too, so of course OEM glass pieces were ordered as well as moldings…
Back next time with more updates. It should be sitting at home now with Big Mike and the homies putting it back together. Paint was quite an adventure but I’m sure the reassembly won’t span another 17 parts. Everything should be straight forward from here….
