It’s been a minute but I had a chance to stop by Stanceworks Garage last night to see the current progress on Mike Burrough’s K24 turbo swapped Ferrari 308 GTBi. This is one of those projects that has probably taken longer than expected but it’s not like there are just a bunch of K-swapped Ferrari out and about. Great things take time especially considering the amount of custom fabrication involved and so many little one-off minute details.
Everything seems to be coming together now for the IS300 daily cruiser project. The car is finally sealed-up with a […]
I really liked how these photos came out for the latest Meguiar’s project so I thought it’d be nice to […]
Well, it’s been a long time coming but the IS300 Sportcross is finally back at the shop and we can finally start throwing all the goodies on there. The first thing we had to do right away was to put the Advan wheels back on and fully overhaul the worn-out suspension components. I was pretty excited to see the Exceed big brake go on the car finally as well but was slightly nervous about brake caliper to wheel clearance. Once that was all dialed-in, I started tinkering with other ideas and also swapped-out my interior for rare Modellista Qualitat stuff. Check it out, I can’t believe the car is actually back!!
After I finally finished going through all the photos a few days ago and watermarking all of them, I came to the realization that I really didn’t shoot as much as I thought I did that weekend. Sure it had a lot to do with the heat but perhaps this two-part series isn’t the best representation of all that happened at Final Bout Special Stage West this year, lol. I’m not saying the photos are bad, they are far from it, and I’m not just tooting my own horn. What I captured is pretty good, it just doesn’t present the most diversity. The reasoning behind this is because I only went out on the track for one or two sessions and both times it was with run groups that featured the same cars. And when I wasn’t on track a different run group went out and the cars that I shot in the pit area are the same ones that came back from the same group that I was out on the track for. I wasn’t trying to do this but it just worked out that way. Mainly because I didn’t want to die. Carrying a big ass camera with a towel wrapped around my head in 100+ degree temps is no fun, no matter how much I want to be out there shooting. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that my body isn’t as resilient as it once was and I’m just more susceptible to my environment. I still feel like I’m more resilient than most but long gone are the days when I can sleep for four hours and be up for two days straight shooting or traveling from city to city. I’ve learned to pace myself now and understand that my body needs rest for me to truly successful in my craft. Most of you understand that as well and if you don’t quite get it because you’re younger, boy are you in for a rude awakening one day, lol.
This year’s Final Bout Special Stage West event seemingly came outta nowhere for me. I knew they were doing an event out here on the West Coast this year but didn’t realize it was happening in July until I saw that their event in Oregon was going on the week before! It was a bit of a bummer for me personally because I’ve always wanted to shoot at PARC since it is such a scenic location. Just the idea of cars shredding through this beautiful forest-looking environment seems really cool to me. That and I’ve never been to Oregon before so it would have been a perfect time to get away for a weekend. Of course, I didn’t know the actual date of it so I missed it. That just happens sometimes when I’m just stuck in the shop working on a myriad of things. I wanted to make sure not to miss the California stop of Final Bout so I contacted Simba to see if he could squeeze me and Der in last minute for some media passes. Normally this would probably not be a good idea to bother someone during the week of an event, but I’ve shot a couple of Final Bout events in the past that have worked out pretty well so I’m sure there is some mutual appreciation there, lol. I wasn’t sure he’d respond but he was actually pretty prompt and was more than willing to accommodate us…
I don’t think very many people remember, but when I first started getting into photography back in 2008-09, Jared Aguila (@dpk_jared) was one of the first people I had the opportunity of shooting. You can see those photos HERE actually. Back then he had an S2000 and I had a $600 Canon Rebel dSLR starter camera. Over the years I’d like to think we’d gotten a lot better—him at life and me at photography. We became friends after that day, we ate at Portillo’s, eventually I got to watch him get married, and now I get to see him put Desmond Regamaster EVOs on a Porsche 964. What a life, huh?…
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!
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.
I haven’t figured out what to call this series of videos yet, some have suggested some interesting names, but I’m just glad everyone seems to be enjoying them! This week, we head over to Zero Auto Factory where Yuta is doing an install on our friend Steve Nakamura’s Lexus IS200T, and then Rodney Moenadi, another good friend of our’s, cruises by the shop to show us his 1JZ-GTE powered Toyota Cressida drift car!
