We jumped a little out of sequence so I could show you guys a little bit more variety with the VTEC Club USA photos the other day but I’m back to close-out 2019 with some more photos from my trip to Sydney, Australia. For those of you who are new or haven’t been on the site for a while, I took a job and flew to Sydney to be an official judge for their Hot Import Nights event about a month ago. My gig consisted of me making appearances, judging the car show along with Sam Du from Super Street, and also doing some event coverage during the show. You can go back and look at the content I collected from the show if you missed it but I decided to stay a couple extra days since I wanted to maximize my time while I was in Australia. I don’t always go out there but since I do have some friends who live in Sydney, I wanted to visit them and do some more car stuff. They have a pretty diverse car community with really close ties to Japanese tuning so I knew I could possibly run into some interesting builds during my trip. It’s literally 14+ hours to fly non-stop from Los Angeles to Sydney and I wasn’t about to just hang out for a day or two and fly back…

My friend Yonas Liu from JDMYARD served as my contact with the HIN people leading-up to my trip and he suggested we do a meet the day after the show. He’s always down to hang-out with car people and he’s pretty well-known in the Aussie Honda community. I told him I was totally open to hosting a meet but since he knew so many people out there, I’d give him full reign to set up anything he wanted. There were no expectations on my side to do anything crazy and I just wanted to see as much as I possibly could. Whether or not the meet was big or a gathering of like five cars didn’t really matter much to me. I told him to just do whatever he wanted and he even got a friend to create the flyer and everything. I literally did nothing, lol…

What resulted was a fun gathering at a parking lot away from the city. I got to meet a lot of cool people, saw some cars, and ate some chicken. All around good fun. Here’s what I captured…

Yonas and I were cruising around downtown Sydney in his FK8 Civic Type R on bronze Volk ZE40s looking to kill some time before the meet. I really like trying to capture modified cars in more ‘natural’ settings the last few years so I thought this made for a pretty cool shot…

We met-up with some of the other guys and grabbed some lunch before the meet officially started. It was just hosted in a parking lot of a retail store, which might have been a problem if anyone called security, so we waited until the store closed that day to use their space. Luckily everything went well and nobody around us complained. The meet grew to a pretty good size, I think there were maybe 50 or so cars that showed-up and it was a good time overall. Nothing crazy. Just a chill vibe and people enjoying cars…

You guys are probably familiar with Renel’s Civic VTi-R by now if you’ve been following my content from Australia. He’s got the whole Spoon Sports theme going and it’s a classic look that can never fail when you’re building an EK…

His engine bay is mildly done-up, nothing too extreme like a full shave and tuck job. Just a functional bay with some accessories added to continue the Spoon-theme from the exterior…

He recently had this titanium intake pipe made with a nifty bracket to mount to the shock tower…

One of the more notable builds from the meet was Owen’s real Japanese-spec FD3S RX-7. The car was actually once a FEED (Fujita Engineering) democar from Osaka, Japan. It became available for sale via auction in Japan when someone from Australia purchased the vehicle, imported it into the country, kept it for a bit and later sold it to Owen. After he purchased the car, he went through it to fix the various issues it had, added his own parts to make it his own, and this is currently how the FD sits. Pretty cool to own a car that was once built by one of the more prominent aftermarket Mazda tuning shops in Japan…

Being that its from Japan, you won’t find a GM LS-swap in here or any other sort of fuckery. The 13B Rotary engine remains, tuned by FEED using some of their own products and components from HKS and GReddy…

Fujita Engineering throttle inlet for the 13B…

The factory twin-turbo kit remains with the addition of a classic HKS Racing Suction Kit with the iconic green filter elements…

Being a FEED FD, the exterior utilizes their rear over fenders and replacement front fenders…

Fujita Engineering Evolutional Development Afflux rear wing. Yes, that was a mouthful….

One more of Renel’s Civic VTi-R. A VTi-R in Australia is equivalent to say, a “EX” model Civic or for example, an Integra VTi-R would be like their “GS-R” variation…

Josh Nham’s EK which started out as a beat-up old shell that was unwanted and used for parts. Josh acquired the shell from a friend and transformed it into this Milano Red-look on black SSR Type-X wheels…

Theo Janssen’s EK1 Civic sedan which you saw in my Hot Import Nights Sydney coverage…

Turbocharged B16A2 set-up with some cool custom fabricated bits inside. Check out the breather box which is also used as a battery mount and there’s an aluminum shield for the inlet-side of the GCG rebuilt Garrett turbo…

So glad to see that Aussies enjoy their SSR Professor MS3 wheels. I hardly ever saw any sets of them when they were first released in the US, and being a former owner of a set of MS3s, I still hold them very dear to me…

Frans Kusuma’s Honda Integra VTi-R which won “Hottest Honda” at the HIN Sydney event. His Mugen front bumper is actually a complete reconstruction as he acquired the bumper in sections. You wouldn’t be able to tell now since the bodyshop did a good job of making it one again. The Mugen front ties into the Mugen sides while the J’s Racing vented hood also flows very well with the Mugen aesthetic. He’s got a J’s Racing rear wing also and a set of Ganador mirrors…

K20A swap under the J’s hood with a classic Carbing three-point strut bar, custom intake pipe for the RBC intake manifold, and air conditioning still intact for those insanely hot Australian summers…

One of the more interesting builds to show-up to the meet was Ram’s Japan-imported EF5 Civic all-wheel drive sedan. It looks completely stock from the outside but the car is not only carefully restored, it’s also turbocharged!…

The dual-cam ZC engine uses a Edelbrock manifold and a collection of other custom fabricated components to turbocharged it. As noted, Ram wanted the car to be a true “sleeper” and did everything he could to hide his custom turbo kit from plain sight. The intercooler is tucked behind the front bumper and all the piping for the turbo is hidden under metal shielding…

The manifold and turbo can’t even be seen with his custom made cover blocking it from view…

The interior is meticulously well-kept and looks as clean as it did when it was brand new…

The factory steering wheel has the Honda insignia on it with a “REAL TIME” logo to indicated the all-wheel drive system. Look closer and you’ll see the 4WD x A.L.B. (Anti-Lock Brakes) as well…

Even on the door the EF5 gets its own unique decal. The Honda “INTRAC” is the rear differential which makes the Civic all-wheel drive…

Neil Rodriguez’s Zenki Civic hatchback on Advan Racing RG wheels with an EK9 CTR-look which he plans on painting in the near future…

While hanging out at the meet I was introduced to Gello Agustin and his red Nissan S15 Silvia Spec-R…

Joshua Sohn’s Porsche Miami Blue-painted AP2 S2000 wearing J’s Racing front fenders and rear over fenders…

Nice wheel/tire/brake set-up on Sohn’s S2000 featuring a set of Advan Racing GT wheels, Yokohama rubber, and StopTech big brakes…

Falah Gatt’s ECR33 Skyline GTS-T with a GTR-esque aesthetic and 326Power wheels…

This white Civic sedan on SSR Professor SP1R wheels was pretty mint…

The ever-popular Spoon Sports-look on this EG Civic hatchback…

Another shot of Josh’s Milano Red EK. Those are actual EC Works mirrors on there which is a pretty rare sight these days…

Australian domestic market Honda B18C7 swap inside the Civic, which is equivalent to our North America B18C5 Type R engine, or if you’re in the UK, identical to the B18C6. He’s kept his engine bay relatively simple as well with just a refresh of OEM components, a painted engine black and transmission housing…

Before the meet ended and we headed back to Sydney for dinner, I had to get a shot of the boys who were involved with helping me get this meet together. From left to right is Joshua Nham, Yonas Liu, and Renel Pangilinan. Thanks to all those who came out for the meet, hopefully we can do it again if I ever make it back to Australia, and thanks to all of you guys for looking! Have a great weekend…