**There are one or two images below that may possibly be “Not Safe for Work” (actually they are just in poor taste haha) so you’ve been warned…**

The 2012 Blox Open House event was another one of those events that I had heard about in the past, but never intended on going to. I had heard that it was a pretty big event for Norcal, but I never really had too much interest in going because it was quite a distance from where I stay and I try to only make one trip a year to Norcal. That one trip of course, is the annual Wekfest SF event. You’ll find me there every year with a booth and doing coverage and what not but it usually takes a lot for me to make the trip up there because I have a lot of stuff to prepare before I can leave Socal. The idea didn’t even pop into my head to attend the Blox event until one of their guys emailed me a personal invite to go. I didn’t know the date, location, or anything about it up until that point. I thought it would be cool to check it out because a personal invite usually means that somebody wants you to show up. That and having a booth there would be good representation for the site and a chance for me to make some extra cash. I really wanted to do a booth but the timing just wasn’t right. They were filling up spots quickly and I had just purchased a camera, which basically ate up most of my resources for the month. The camera was important because I use it for work and for the site so it was worth not having money for the rest of the month to purchase it. Having a booth would have probably helped to recover the funds that I used for the camera but I also didn’t have anyone that was down to run the booth for me. The people at Blox probably wanted me there so I could do some coverage of the meet but if I had a booth and no one to work it, I would have been stuck there all day moving merchandise…

The beginning of last week was a bit hectic because I had work to do anyways so there wasn’t even time to cut stickers or put anything together for a booth. I decided against it and was on the verge of not even going up north. It was last minute as well so I didn’t even bother trying to get a bunch of people to go. I told myself I would make the trip if I had a shoot up north for work and if I was going to use some photos from the event for magazine coverage. I let Rodrez know that I would possibly make the trip and he said that he would need some photos for Honda Tuning and there was also a Datsun 510 that I had spotted at a show a couple months back that I wanted to shoot for Super Street. The owner was up north so if I could arrange for him to meet up with me after the meet, I could knock out two birds with one stone. The owner of the Datsun was a friend of Ryan Der from ATS Garage and Ryan helped me arrange everything on that side, so I gotta give him a quick shout-out for making the shoot happen. By late Wednesday, early Thursday, everything was coming together and it looked like I was going to drive to Norcal. The only problem was trying to find people to go so I wouldn’t make the trip on my own. May was busy that weekend with a bridal shower for her best friend from high school so she was out, and DPK David, who is usually down to go anywhere, was also busy that weekend so I had to count him out. I hit up a couple others and the only one who could really go was Salem from Phaze2. He said he would try to rearrange his schedule to make the trip so I went ahead and rented a car late Thursday for pick-up on Friday afternoon. Ryan from Rywire and a few others were going to Norcal as well but they planned on staying the whole weekend and I wasn’t trying to really stay up there for more than a day. I’m not a big fan of bothering people and staying at their house over night and I didn’t have the funds to rent a room, especially by myself, otherwise I would have just gone with them…

On Friday Salem notified me that he wasn’t able to go due to a personal matter so that didn’t leave me any time to try to find anyone else. I didn’t really mind going on my own, it was just a long drive and I didn’t want to fall asleep on the road or anything. I figured I had a lot of stuff on my mind and a lot of planning to do for Nisei, so I just made the choice to go up to Norcal on my own. I didn’t want the rental car to go to waste after all so I said “fuck it”, I’ll just make the trek. There are advantages of doing stuff like this on my own; I didn’t have to wait for anyone first of all, and being that I had to work anyway, I didn’t have to go by anyone else’s schedule but my own. I could do whatever it was that I had to on my own time and just go home whenever I wanted to. After I packed up all my gear and camera equipment, I drove over to May’s to spend the night. She’s further north than I am and leaving from her place would save me a lot of time. The only issue left was the fact that I have never been able to sleep early. I tried to go to bed at 11:30pm Friday night and just rolled around in bed for 2 hours. By the time I finally fell asleep, it was time to wake up already…this drive was going to be tougher than I thought…haha…

I grabbed my stuff along with some snacks that May had put together for me so I could eat on the way up. I looked up the address on my phone, set my GPS to my intended destination, and started the drive….

In hindshight, I should have looked up the directions earlier that day… For whatever reason, I thought Fremont was far as hell and that it was going to take me 7 hours to get there. I was going to leave at 3:30am and possibly get there at around 10am. This would give me some time to shoot before the place got super busy so it made sense. Once I set my course on my phone though, I noticed that it was only 5 hours and 48 minutes….not 7 hours, which meant that I could have had an extra hour of sleep. Oh well…I was already up and ready to go so I took off…

The drive itself wasn’t bad at all. I had no problem staying awake and just listened to music on my phone the whole drive up. I rented a car from Avis which was supposed to be a compact car like a Ford Focus or some shit, but they didn’t have one so I got a “free upgrade”. “Free” of course, is only good if you didn’t have to pay for the extra gas that came with a larger car. The rental spot gave me a Kia Optima which was fairly new at just 8K on the odometer but again, much larger and not typically known as a gas saver. I’d never driven a Kia before or ever cared to, but I was delightfully surprised by how good of a car it was. The only downside was that it was noisy as shit but man, that fucking car was good on gas. I had a 339 mile drive and my fuel meter showed that I had 516 miles on a tank. Not only could I get up there, I didn’t have to gas up at all and I could even drive around everywhere without worrying about not being able to find a gas station. It was a good car. Would I ever own one? Ehh, probably not. Would I rent one again? Sure… it served me well…

I got to Fremont, CA way before the 5 hours and 48 minutes that it was supposed to take. I think I got there in just about 5 hours and was left with nothing to do for a couple of hours. Fremont isn’t really a place I’d ever been too so I didn’t know my way around so I decided to drive by the venue to see where it was  so I could go back later and not have to worry about looking for parking. When I pulled up, the event was already pretty busy! They were setting up by then and cars were everywhere. There was no point in leaving since there was plenty to look at so I found parking in an adjacent lot and pulled my gear out…

I have some thoughts and opinions on the Blox Open House but I’ll save that for tomorrow. I think you guys have plenty of reading to do as is today so we’ll just save it for later…

This VW bug was one of the first cars I spotted upon arrival… I ran into DSR Loreto Garcia around that same time and he told me that this thing is slammed like this all the time and also driven daily…For pure street cred reasons, that’s cool, but safety? Ehh…haha… I am not down…Cool looking VW though, I dig it…

Factory-produced Mugen Civic Si sedan looking good on some Enkei NT03s…

Really subtle DA Integra on classic white Mugen RnRs…

DSR Loreto’s Civic aka “Sharkie”, which is currently for sale…

K-swapped CR-X drag car representing  Team Lightspeed Racing and DNR Project…

When you need your friends to follow you around with wood so you can get over a speed bump at a car meet, you’ve got some serious first-world problems, haha…”too many slammed bro”…

I walked in and spotted the Wek’Sos guys setting up their booth area at the event. Also got a chance to get an in-depth look at Ken from Wek’Sos’ Junction Produce LS460 for the first time…. You know the Wekfest series is doing well when you’re cruising around in a Lexus LS460 with a full Junction Produce lip kit…

…and custom one-off 22-inch Junction Produce Scaras…

Adam from Wek’Sos helping Ken by applying his windshield decals incorrectly…haha..

I walked by outside because I forgot something in my rental car and spotted this really nice Datsun 510… Love the color and the flares with meaty tires… Click here for a Larger Version (1400×933)

Absolutely love the JDM Bluebird taillights on this coupe… I have some other photos of it coming later but if you’re wondering what wheels they are, they are gold Work Equip 03…

This shot is from later in the day but it makes sense for me to show you what is under the hood of the 510 above… SR20DET for those that aren’t in the know…

Ken setting up his Airrunner flags by his Lexus…

When I first pulled up to the venue, I saw Gerald Reyes from Royal Origin right behind me in my rear view mirror. I was busy and totally missed his car at Eibach earlier this year so I made sure to stop by to take a look at his updated engine bay at the Blox event…

Gold-plated valve cover, intake manifold, and exhaust heatshield courtesy of DippedParts.com… A lot of people will probably wonder why he still has the A/C hooked up and how it takes away from the overall look of the bay. Well, that’s because he lives in Vegas and actually drives his car around. I don’t blame the guy for retaining the air conditioning, considering how he has to deal with heat in the triple-digits…

Lexus LS400 from Endless Projects with (what I believe is) K-Break aero…

Lexus LS460 on VIP Modular wheels and wearing Wald aero… Love the overall look of this kit with the Wald fenders…

Mike Trevino from Bandits recently had his Enkei NT03s redone in black and I think it suits the car much better than the blue previously…

Jimmy Neitte’s K20 EG from Bandits…This shot came out pretty good so I included a larger version for you guys that like to right-click save… Larger Version (1400×933)

The build that was probably the talk of the Blox event was this rear-wheel drive converted DC2 Integra with an S2000 F20C1 engine swap… The rear flares make the car look kind of goofy but it’s a cool build nonetheless…  Click here for a Larger Version (1400×933)

The entire swap and RWD conversion was all done by Ziggybuilt, whose logo looks a lot like the Rywire logo, just sayin’…haha…Really clean swap and the work looks to be executed well. I have a couple more shots of this DC2 coming later. People were crowding this car all day asking questions and staring so I had to come back a couple times just to get the shots I wanted… Click here for a Larger Version (1400×933)

One of the most random things I saw all day was this Miata owner who decided to bring his fat ass cat out to the meet with him. The guy even brought a litter box and placed it right in front of the car, haha… fucking random…It would have been money if someone took a photo of his car with the cat taking a shit at the same time…

Love this E-Class Benz from SF Krew…

While hanging out with the ATS guys, we spotted this young lady rocking the Borat one-piece…

Another Datsun 510, this one on “Hayashi Street”-style wheels…I’d really like to think they were authentic Hayashis but I’m not gonna hold my breath… Clean little old school cruiser though…

Loreto brought me over to the Halloway street wear booth and was kind enough to hook me up with a nice black tee. I really want to rock it but it says “Fuck Thieves” on the front and with my luck, I’m going to run into thieves on the street and they’re gonna try to stab me or some shit… If you see me wearing it and you happen to know some thieves, let them know that it wasn’t my choice for the shirt to say that. I’m just sayin’. Support these guys though, they got some good stuff and they really don’t care for thieves…

The Blox Open House also played host to some very unsavory brizzles… I mean…come on..look at that… good lord. There was a whole group of them too and they all looked pretty much like this… I referred to them as the “GBMs” or “ghetto baby mommas”… The whole point of dressing like this is to give the illusion that you might not be wearing underwear. Well, it’s kind of hard to pull that off when everyone is trying to imagine you with some pants on…Batman says “Err Mah Gawd”…

Camera angles helped these two GBMs a little bit… I can’t help but think, however, that the dude in this photo has this girls sweat pants in his back pocket…

RHD EG Civic with some white old school Volk C-Ultras…not really a big fan of 3-spoke wheels on Civics but props for making them minty…

Clean tuck with ITBs and SPIIIIIIKES…

Ashley Vee…

Yeonji Cho came out just to represent Inspire-USA and It’s JDM Yo!!!… Click here for Larger Version (1400×933)

White EK on white Evos…

Fake Sprint Hart CP-Rs aka Rota Track-Rs with faux “Sprint Hart” decals… Nice try pal…

This was terrible… no hella hellaflush camber either, the wheels were actually going the other way… Sorry if you guys are new to the site and aren’t aware of my negativity, haha…you can either deal with it or leave…There are plenty of generic, diplomatic, stance blogs out there for you guys that just want to stare at photos (of crap)…

CD Accord looking beefy on these Work VS-XXs… H22-swap as well…

Volk TE37SLs and Work S1/S1R look good on just about anything… this Subaru on SLs is money. Love the red trim around the grille that accent the red on the wheels. Nice attention to detail…

One classic wheel that I’m happy to see uncopied are old school Rays Garcia Tune Speed Choppys… Always loved how quirky these wheels looked and how good they look on EF and EG Civics…

Hella Norcal NOS girls… Larger Version (1400×933)

Lexus IS350 from Endless Projects…

ATS AJ’s baby boy taking a stroll with his godfather and fellow ATS member Ben Huey…

Sunny Wong and Rywire Ryan…

ATS FCB aka Fred Chapman’s son Jaylen with new ATS Garage member, Supertwinz John, in the distance…

CR-Z on air…

One of my favorite IS300s sitting on bronze Work Meister S1R with Vertex aero…

Lloyd Morales’ Vertex Kouki S14… LOVE this build and how well-rounded it is…

Don’t see too many coupes these days with H22-swaps in them…this one is interesting because it has the Mugen air box at the end of it…

K20 EG Civic on Mugen MF10s with a nice meaty tire…

Never been a fan of the OEM intake manifold cover but I guess it adds to that “OEM” look…Nice job on the bay with the mild tuck…

3GS Lexus from Endless Project on black-faced Work Meister S1R…

The original, complete, U.S. Junction Produce demo car built by John Liwanag from Endless Projects…

Acura NSX, also representing Endless Projects, on Advan AVS Model 5s…

Closing it out for today with a shot of some of the guys from ATS Garage… I still have a ton of photos to go through so stay tuned for much more… Thanks for looking…

Oh wait, forgot these other shot of the fat ass cat tied to the Miata…haha