Got some pretty cool stuff for you guys today…. I’ve been sitting on these pics for a couple of months now but finally had the time recently to go through all of them and clean them up. For the very few of you who are looking for Hot Import Nights Fontana coverage, I apologize but I did not attend the event this year. The whole idea of HIN piggybacking off of a Nascar event just didn’t seem at all appealing to me so I really made no effort to even try to go. Regardless, it was May’s birthday weekend anyway so there was no way I was going to pass up spending the weekend with her to attend HIN. If you guys are looking for coverage however, I do know of some people that did go and took photos. My buddy Sam Ip is an aspiring photographer and he also had his car there, so he was nice enough to provide some coverage for you guys to see. I’ve provided a link below for those of you that care. If you don’t give a shit, please continue reading to your schedule post today….

HOT IMPORT NIGHTS FONTANT 2013 COVERAGE… 

So anyways, back to the topic at hand… I received these photos not too long after my return from Japan at the end of January. Yasutaka from Tactical Art had messaged me about something else completely unrelated recently and it reminded me that these were hiding in my hard drive. So I spent a couple of hours going through them over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. As you all know, I had the opportunity to visit their shop when I was hanging out in Japan and got to check out some of their builds that were in the process of being completed. You guys will probably recognize them for their fleet of Civic hatchbacks but back towards the end of last year, they had completely dismantled all of them, minus Taku’s EK, for complete rebuilds. I was hoping that some of them would be done by the time we got to visit them but they’ve been so busy that they just haven’t had much time to finish 3, going on 4, cars. To my knowledge they are still working very hard on them and have barely even begun work on Yasutaka’s EG6 (the green one)…

The photos you’re going to see today are actually from the month or so leading up to my visit to their shop in January. There are some scattered photos of other Hondas in there as well but they are mostly focused on Atuki’s EG6. Atuki is the boss over at Tactical Art and the master technician and fabricator. He does a bulk of the work over there and all the custom metal work and full cages you see from them are all done by his hands. As a refresher, here is how his Civic look during the beginning and middle part of 2012…

If you’d like to see more, especially if you aren’t familiar with his car, check out this link here for some better photos…

Exclusive Content: Tactical Art Japan…Track day at Nakayama Circuit Coverage…

After their visit to the U.S. in November, they decided to tear down the car and essentially start from scratch. You guys saw his EG6 in mid-rebuild when I paid them a visit during my TAS trip, again, link attached below for reference…

The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 9: Our Visit To Tactical Art…

Atuki’s is the Civic with the white Work Meister wheels on it that was on the lift. While I was at the shop, Yasutaka mentioned that he had some photos for me of all the builds. I thought he meant that he was going to continue to document the build from the point at which we were there, but I guess something got lost in translation, because he had been covering the build the entire time. The photos you’re looking at today could be considered a “reverse build” post because it was pretty much everything that they had done the month prior; from the initial teardown to stripping the car, and re-caging it. Atuki had done a considerable amount of work to it over the years but I don’t think they’ve ever been as in-depth as it will be this time around. None of their cars are perfect, mind you, so there was quite a bit of work to do just to get them back to a “bare” state. It would almost be easier to start with a completely new Civic shell but hey, they love their cars so they decided to hold onto them and build them all over again…

I’m going to continue to update you guys with the progress of all of their builds but it will be completely dependent on what they provide me. They are a full-time business and also have customer cars to work on so there really isn’t a time frame for them to finish. Atuki and crew just work on the cars whenever they have time and probably save a lot of the work for the after hours when the shop is closed. I interested to see how they turn out but we all have to be patient. If they send me updates, you better bet I will post them up for you guys. With that said, let’s get into Atuki’s rebuild….

The interior was gutted already prior because it is a weekend track car, but they started by taking out everything else that remained, including his custom fiberglass dashboard. The plan was to strip the entire chassis bare, removing the cage that was there previously, and build a completely new cage…

Weight reduction has always been an important part of their builds, so they picked up some carbon fiber doors while they were out here in the States. Above you can see Atuki getting a closer look at the door…

The inside of the driver’s door getting inspected…

This was the old driver’s door, which had been completely gutted and cut down for weight reduction…The seals will be removed to be used once again on the new carbon doors…

Atuki and a friend taking a break to enjoy some canned coffee while his old parts were scattered all over the shop floor…

The trio of mid-progress builds that you probably remember from my Japan update. The furthest Civic on the left is Yasutaka’s, the middle is Kazuya Kawashima aka “Chibichan’s” Ferio, and the one to the right is Atuki’s. The parts scattered along the floor are his FRP dashboard, Chibichan’s trunk lid, and sections of Atuki’s cage that had been removed from the car…

You can see here how the interior looks with the roll cage removed…

Chemical stripper is applied to remove the old white paint from the interior….

The base plate of a portion of the cage is cut so the bars can be re-used. The old cage was a bolt-on application with dimple-die plates added to give it extra rigidity. Since the cage was removed, the plates were also eliminated…

The door seams spot-welded…

…as are sections of the floor after it was stripped clean of paint…

Atuki doing what he does best in the confined space inside his hatchback…

While that was going on, Chibichan’s Ferio was seeing some fresh air and sunlight after they painted the interior and cage….

With the inside cleaned and prepped, Atuki can finally get started on the new cage…

Beeyan Hamada and friend lent a helping hand by applying paint stripper to the exterior….

Beeyan scraping away at years of old paint and filler….

Parts of the new cage mocked-up inside the car…

…mock-up from a different angle…

New dimple die plates welded in place…

Definitely a far cry from how it looked before with the dark blue paint and Tactical Art graphic…

The rear section of the new cage added along with more dimple die plates…

The front and rear bumpers being stripped of its old blue paint…

Some work being done to strip the underside of all its coating while Atuki continues to work on the rear quarter panel…

The driver’s side section of the cage completed with gusset plates to brace for impact. You can see here how the passenger side of the cage is much simpler because there will never be a passenger or seat…

Gusset plates added to the base of the cage and floor…

The driver’s side revealing a different style of plating…

Everything is being redone, including overhauling of all suspension components…

The underside of the Civic chassis after it’s been stripped of coating and a shade of grey re-applied…

Atuki’s EG6 will see many more sunsets before it is ready for the track again…

Ample lighting is provided in all areas for when metal work or paint needs to be done…

Here you can see how naked the cabin looks prior to paint…

The cage extends also from the firewall to the front shock towers…

A shot of the firewall where you can get a better look at how the cage extends to the bay on both ends…

With the underside and wheel well re-coated in grey, it was time to start paint work inside….

The cabin primered with areas of the cage already with a coat of paint…

Paint applied and fans in place to help with the drying process…

The metal work and paint for the interior of Atuki’s EG6 completed…

The shell is placed on the lift and out of the way so Atuki can continue to work on other parts of the Civic like the steering rack….

Paint stripped off of the front bumper…

Atuki rebuilding the steering rack…

The EG6 shell hovering above…

New wheels for the build: 16×9/16×8 Work Meister S1s and Advan A050 rubber….

Tire and wheel mounted….

The motor is dropped back into place and you can see the addition of the carbon fiber headlight ducts…

B18C block/B16A head combo with individual throttle bodies from a Corolla Levin…

Rear wheel test fit with the beefy Yokohama Advan A050 tire…

Crux High Capacity Damper B coilover re-installed…

A random shot of Yanagi’s ITR…

I really liked this shot of the shop showing some of the guys working on their cars….I believe they were finishing up Yanagi’s cage at the time in his ITR while Chibichan and a friend work on his Civic Ferio… Here’s a desktop sized version since someone on Instagram requested it… CLICK HERE FOR DESKTOP SIZE (1920×1080)

That’s all for today. I actually got some more Tactical Art stuff coming this week so stay tuned!…