Just a couple of photos to hold you guys over until Wekfest LA this weekend. I call this post “part 2” because there is already a post with this title before and it consisted of the same characters, cars, and story so I guess this will just be an ongoing series every time I stop by Rywire to see what’s new. I’ll attach a link below to the first post if you guys happened to have missed it…
As far as what’s been going on this week, its been sort of slow here online but there are plenty of things going on in “real life”… First off, I woke up to find that my buddy Jon Pham passed away earlier this week and pending an autopsy and toxicology report, we still have yet to know his cause of death. It was kind of a shitty day to start out the week with that news but as they say, such is life and we have to learn to cope. You probably have never heard of his name here on the site but he was an essential part to the beginnings of this site. Jon was the guy that originally cut my Chronicles decals and he would always go out of his way to get them done for me before an event so I could pass them out to people. Back then I wasn’t even selling anything yet because nobody knew what this site was. It was merely a means to get the word out there and Jon helped me out a great deal with that. I still can’t believe he is gone and I’ll miss his kindness and his ability to care so much about the people around him….
If there has been one positive this week that has helped me to keep a smile on my face, it is that Wekfest LA is coming up. The show itself is cool but the reason why it falls into perfect timing here in this unfortunate situation is because I get to see a lot of people that are from out of town. Everyone seems to be very busy with regular life these days so it is always important to make time to see them whenever they come to Socal to visit. A couple of the guys from ATS Garage in Norcal are now here for the show and my good friend from Japan, Takeshi Kobayashi, is also here for two weeks to enjoy the Wekfest and Eibach Meet festivities. I always enjoy hanging out with Takeshi because I love his enthusiasm. He’s very happy whenever he comes over here because he’s made some great friends out here and even though he is away from his family, he knows he has good people here to chill with. The ATS guys are always cool to see because a lot of them are older now so it has become even harder for them to be able to make trips down to Socal. It’s good to see that we still have events like Wekfest that can bring everyone together. I look forward to the weekend and to be able to capture the good times we have on camera. There are a couple of other folks that I hope to see this weekend as well. David Do from MayDay Garage and his good friend Joy Abdalla are flying out Friday I believe. Hopefully we can find a chunk of time to just be able to sit down and catch up…
Below are just a couple of photos from around the Rywire shop as well as from the shop next door, L-Con/Ballade Sports. I just figured I would snap some pics of what was going on over at the shop. Most of the cars inside Rywire are projects that are still pending and there are a couple of cars next door that are prepping either for FF Battle 4 next month or for this weekend’s Wekfest event…Enjoy…
Glory Days Part 1… (if you missed it…)
For a lot of folks, this would be a dream garage… an S2000, a E-AT Civic, a DA on Mugen wheels, an EM1 that is also “Mugenized”, and a track-prepped EK… For Ryan, this is simply “work”…
The two Ryans (Rywire and Der) along with a visitor from out of town, Hieu, taking a closer look at Rodrez’s S2000 engine bay…. Ryan is going to be starting on a full custom tuck on the bay soon and it will be interesting to see the end result…. Thanks Hieu for rocking The Chronicles tee…
Ryan from ATS Garage came down a couple days early just to hang out before Wekfest LA…
Layers of brake dust from his Brembo brakes just from his drive from SF to LA…
While chatting with DPK David inside the office, I heard a grumbling from what sounded like a K24 motor…I glance outside and I see Alex from Ballade Sports taking the Eibach Springs K24 KR-Z out for a test drive. They’ve been doing a couple things to it here and there in preparation for the upcoming FF Battle 4 event…
Another guy that was over at L-Con/Ballade Sports was Sam Ip and his FD2-converted Civic Si… Sam is a good buddy of mine and since he’s taken on full responsibility of his family business, I haven’t had a chance to see him much. He recently went to L-Con to get a custom splitter and canards fabricated. I pulled up to Rywire and saw that he was still over there so we stopped by to check out his new additions. He has stock wheels on at the moment because his wheels are getting redone, but the canards and splitter have been mounted… Ryan Der in the photo checking out Sam’s Civic…
Random interior snap of Sam’s Civic…
Since Takeshi was in town, I hit him up to see if he wanted to hang out at the shop with us… When we walked over to L-Con, Alex asked Takeshi if he wanted to take his S2000 for a spin and he hopped in with very little hesitation…
Another angle of Sam’s Civic with the new canards and splitter…
Takeshi all smiles after smashing on Alex’s S2000….
DPK David has been driving his Civic everyday lately since he sold his daily Lexus GS…
Rodrez S2000 back at the shop…
Surprisingly, there has actually been some progress on DPK Darryl’s EM1…
The engine bay is starting to come together. He just needs to have his custom brake lines made and a couple of other things here and there… Probably needs some sort of engine management but I’m sure it won’t be an issue…
Ryan Der sat on his baby chair and kept Darryl company while he stood over the engine bay and really didn’t do much, haha…
A customer’s DA Integra project that Ryan has been working on…
A shot of us just hanging out after dinner… Not sure why Ryan is nodding his head violently in the photo… Takeshi is snapping a shot with his new iPhone 4S, Der is all smiles, and Darryl is being Darryl…
That’s about it for today. Big weekend, coming up, more to come tomorrow!…
Amazing cars. Just about all of them!
<3 Alex's AP2 Vert..soooo good!!
I don’t know who Jon Pham is, but my prayers and condolences. Life just sucks sometimes. Never know when our time is up.
I like Sam’s license plate. I don’t know if it’s a nod to martial arts master Ip Man, but if it was, that’s pretty kool. If anyone is interested here’s a little info on the man that gave late Bruce Lee some training >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_Man
B-E-A-Utiful!! <3 civic ex,.. Hope to find another soon
We love you guys!
Im sorry for your loss man, My condolences to you and your friends…
That DA belongs to “DA Jellie” from nwp..really really nice car with such good attention to detail.
if you’re a DA lover like me his thread is here
http://forums.nwp4life.com/zerothread?id=13454&page=1