Things have been pretty mundane the last couple weeks, in terms of car life anyway. Regular life is good, I can’t complain. I’m working, eating good, and spending time with the people that are important to me…I couldn’t ask for much more. You’ll never hear me say that I’m doing something non-car related because my life is pretty much surrounded by cars. I work in the magazine industry where I’m constantly on the look out for cool cars to feature and do stories on and when I’m not working, I’m busy trying to keep this site going. When I’m hanging out with friends, they are car guys too and no matter how hard we try to differ from the topic of cars, somehow it always manages to come up…

There hasn’t been much else going on lately though and it’s been raining the last couple of days. The last two nights I’ve been working on completing some stories for Super Street and after I finished, I decided to work on my own car for a change…well, sort of. Those of you who have followed The Chronicles for a length of time now probably know that I own an Infiniti Q45. I’ve done some stuff to it but when I first bought the car, I had every intention of going all out with it and turning it into a big project. It didn’t work out that way and life sort of interfered in the process and modifications to the car have been slow. I’m happy with the car, don’t get me wrong, but compared to the pace in which I built my Honda back in the day, I would barely even call this car a build. I’ve slowly added parts to it to get it to where I want the car but work and The Chronicles has consumed a majority of my time. Whatever free time I have I spend with May or with friends. My project car just hasn’t been that much of a priority. I drive it every now and then, maybe take it to a car show or two, but that’s about it. I love the car, I just wish I had more resources to do everything I want to it. Now that most of the events are done for the year, I finally have some time to change things up here and there on the car. With the help of some friends and industry supporters, 2013 might be a good year for my Q45…

The last time you saw it, I had a set of custom built Work Equip wheels on there. When I originally had them re-barreled and assembled, I honestly wasn’t really happy with how they came out. The sizing just wasn’t what I wanted and the whole process of having to redo them again just turned me off from the whole idea of owning Equips. I took them off the car and sold them after less than a year of owning them. It would have been great had they worked out but little things about the wheels just bugged me and I just didn’t want them anymore. I flipped them for cheap and actually lost money on them…Oh well, life goes on…

These last few months, the car has just been sitting in a pile of its own dust and filth. I’ve been itching to take it for a spin but there are no wheels on it other than some HFP Civic wheels that I borrowed from Rodrez. My car has just been sitting there because I recently picked up a partial sponsorship through SSR wheels and they gave me a really good deal on a brand new set of wheels. The only down side was that I had to wait a couple months for them to arrive from Japan. No big deal, the car was sitting anyways so I got some cash together and placed the order. Danh Vo over at SSR was super helpful and the wheels ended up showing a month earlier than expected. Since they arrived the week of Thanksgiving, I just didn’t have free time to go get them mounted so they sat in their boxes. When I finally had a chance, I took them down to 714 Tires along with my Falken tires I had saved from the old set of wheels. I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty excited about my new wheels. To finally have something brand new on my car and being able to drive it was awesome, that is until I heard the bad news. The guys over at 714 informed me that whoever dismounted the tires from my old wheels had damaged the bead on the tires and they didn’t recommend that I mount them on my new wheels. I was pretty bummed because the tires still had like 90% tread on them and were practically brand new. I never drove the car so there was probably less than a thousand miles on them. It had been a couple months since I had the wheels dismounted so I had doubted that the place that did it would own up to their mistakes. I just took it as a loss and put everything back in my truck. The guys at 714 were cool about it and told me to just come back whenever I was ready…

Tires aren’t cheap, wasting a nearly new set of Falkens didn’t help either. I called up my buddy Robert from Falken Tire and informed him of the situation and he was quick to help me out. The guys from Falken Tire have always taken care of me and I’ve got nothing but good things to say about them. They offered me a great deal on tires so I was back in business….

Below are just some cell phone shots that I took of the entire process. Since it’s raining, I’ve yet to actually mount the wheels but I should have them on by early next week…

A shot of my brand new SSR wheels straight from Japan, the day I took them out of the boxes to look at them for the first time.. Tanabe/SSR USA gave me a bunch of extra shit too when I got my wheels….

A glimpse of the Falken Tire warehouse in Fontana, CA when I picked up my tires…

Replaced my Falken FK452s with a set of brand new Falken Azenis FK453s…

Went to 714 Tires to get my wheels and tires put together… If you guys ever need tires or need something mounted, these are the guys to go to. They’re really careful about taking care of your wheels and the whole staff there is very helpful…

One of the guys at 714 Tires working on my wheels…

The wheels back at Rywire after the tires were put on… Can’t wait to get these bad boys on when the rain clears up…

Huge thanks go out to Tanabe/SSR USA, Falken Tires, and 714 Tires for making all this happen!!