You know how I know I’m getting old? I went outside in the sun at Buttonwillow for about 40 minutes and had a headache for 3 days after! Fuck. I’m semi-joking of course but holy crap am I not equipped to be out in the heat these days. There was already a bit of hesitation on my part to even drive out to Buttonwillow for a track day but my friends requested my presence, so who was I to say no?…
It’s been hot as hell out here in Southern California lately so I was slightly reluctant when my friend Robert Chew invited me out to Buttonwillow Raceway. He wanted to take his Tesla Model S out on the track for a shakedown to get a feel for how the car would perform and coincidentally, our friend Amir was hosting a small track day in August. The whole concept of tracking a Model S is pretty strange, considering how the platform is not necessarily one of those cars you would want to build to be competitive but it is important to look to the future sometimes to see the potential of electric vehicles. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into other than getting the car prepped with the bare minimum of new tires, an alignment, and upgraded brake pads. What you’ll see is a daily-driven Tesla Model S P100D with KW Suspension, Volk TEs, and a full TDG carbon lip kit out on the track for the very first time. Amir pilots the Tesla and gives us some feedback as well as some info on the issues that he encountered. It’s definitely different considering the weight of the car, it’s electric motor, and how the car makes absolutely no noise. Check it out!
Some updated photos of the TSX summer project after the first initial test drive since it was put back together (kinda). No E-brake but it’ll go back in, ride height is set and just needs to be aligned, engine bay is most situated with the loudest intake ever, and the interior is basically what it’ll be until it is resprayed. Andrew, the owner of the TSX, recently picked up a lip kit for it and eventually a carbon fiber hood and trunk will find its way on here whenever it gets here. Also installed the new Hybrid Racing CL7/9 shifter unit thanks to Battlecraft. Yuta’s goal is to hit 2500lbs (1134kg) and we will have a better idea where the weight is at when the car is aligned…
Originally I had compiled this footage to be used in the previous Vlog with Esteban’s K-swapped Fit but we ended-up with so much good footage that there was no room for it. In hindsight, it worked out perfectly because I had so much footage of us working on our own projects that it was more than enough for its own episode. There has been a lot of progress on Andrew’s TSX since we last saw it with the roof cut-off and Yuta is almost ready to button this thing up to send it over to Ken’s spot for some fabrication work. I on the other hand, have been busy doing some work on my IS300 wagon, as I prepare to get this thing to pass smog inspection before I send it off to the body shop to get resprayed.
Esteban’s Spoon Sports-themed Honda Fit was featured on the Super Street website not too long ago, but I wanted to get my own photos of it when he came by last weekend for our YouTube Vlog “Drive-By” series. The car has seen some changes since its feature so it was important for me to capture its most recent iteration. This is probably one of the more anticipated cars we’ve put on the site as of late and likely one of the better builds to come out of 2020 thus far. I first saw it in-person when Gonzalez brought it to our one and only Chronicles and Coffee event this year. The Fit was pretty much done by that time but he mentioned that he was having more work done to it soon. A week later, I found out that the car was actually with our friend Ken Suen. He was tasked to put a new radiator in it and to fix some things to help alleviate some cooling issues it was having. For whatever reason, having a K-series inside a GE8 chassis presents itself with the engine running hot with increased intake air temperatures…
I’d be the first one to tell you that we don’t highlight very many Honda Fits on this channel, but this one is a special one. We first spotted Esteban Gonzalez’s K-powered Honda Fit at our Chronicles and Coffee gathering a few months back. I was highly impressed with the collection of parts that it had, as well as the amount of work that went into it , that I knew it would be an ideal choice to have on an episode of our “Drive-By” series. Coincidentally enough, Esteban watched our first episode and was intrigued by our friend Ken Suen and his Civic. He needed some custom fabrication work done to his car so he contacted Ken and the Fit went over to him not long after the meet. I asked Esteban if he was interested in bringing his Spoon Fit by when the car was ready and he was more than happy to let us dig into it. Since Ken had become so familiar with the car, I asked him to stop by when we were filming as well so he could provide some of his own insight and also detail the work he put into it.
I suppose I should start off this latest entry to my “Unfeatured” series by letting you all know that Brian McAvoy’s Civic is probably only one of two cars that I have ever shot on two separate occasions that never made it to print like I had planned. Like the other features, how they ended-up not being in a magazine was not any fault of their own—it was all on me. This was a particular strange time for me as I found myself at a transitional stage of my life and ‘career’, I guess you can say, and a lot of the work that I had done which I had planned to submit just never came to be. Looking back at these photos now, I feel a bit of regret. These photos in particular came out pretty good, in my own opinion, and I was quite satisified with what I was able to churn-out on the color-toning aspect of my post-processing…
Thought I’d stop by real quick to drop-off some photos that I shot over the course of the last few weeks. Even without any events in the middle of summer here in Southern California, things are still pretty active and busy here at the shop. This is what I compiled while Yuta was doing some work on Kevin Lee’s FK8 Civic Type R and the JRZ/Exceed coilover install as well as the roof swap which we covered in the latest Vlog episode on Andrew Banh’s TSX. Ken Suen stopped by to help out as well since he loves doing this stuff and it’s always entertaining having him around the shop. No need for captions really, all the photos are pretty self-explanatory. If you need any further information, please watch the Vlog episode in this previous post!…
Our neighbor Andrew recently bought a TSX and was trying to get “better gas mileage” so he let Yuta do pretty much whatever he wanted to it, even things that sound completely unreasonable, to get the car down to a certain weight. Our friend Ken Suen decides to join in on the fun and what results is the the ultimate mash-up no one knew they needed! It’s like the broke car Avengers, lol. More surprising is that they actually got along and didn’t ended-up fighting each other! Also there is plenty going on at the shop so we catch you up on recent happenings. Oh there’s also a Boost Blue FK8 Civic Type R inside our shop. This one is a lengthy one because there is so much to unpack and things escalated so quickly. Everyone wear some eye protection and join in on the fun!
A while back, Duane from RCompound USA and Kristian from Battlecraft decided to link-up to do a limited run of Volk TE37SL wheels for fun. With the original TE37 wheel mold destroyed and off the market, the boys thought it’d be cool to take a more modern TE37SL wheel and do them in a classic colorway. The sizing on these wheels would be limited specifically to one size; a 15×8-inch wheel with a +35mm offset in a 4×100 bolt pattern. They are geared towards the Honda/Acura market of the ’90s because that’s a majority of their demographic and they wanted to ensure that they give some love to the Civic and Integra enthusiasts who opted to not go the popular 5-lug route…
