Archive for ‘S2000’

A Surprise Appearance At An S2000 Car Meet In Mie Japan!…

A Surprise Appearance At An S2000 Car Meet In Mie Japan!…

The day after Wekfest Japan, we jumped out of bed and into our friend Eishi Suzuki’s Voltex S2000 to attend an all-S2K meet at a parking area in Mie. This was a special occasion because Eishi passed away a couple of years ago and he was once the organizer of this particular meet. His close friend still hosts the meet every year in his honor and Yasu thought it would be a great surprise if we brought his car out for it! I don’t think anyone expected it to be there but everyone was stoked when we pulled-up. The car hasn’t been brought out in public since his passing so it was important that the car be there for the gathering he once hosted…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Hmm… I, uhh, kinda don’t have anything else to say about this event. Lol. I think with the previous post and it circulating online as well as through social media, I developed a good understanding of how people feel about it. If you’re on the inside, you’re gonna defend the position of those who were and have always been a part of this event. If you’re not, you either have a good grasp of what I was trying to explain or simply do not care enough about it to give it your time. Some of you are just here to see photos. I wouldn’t say that there was a wrong or a right. It’s just all dependent on perspective. If anything, I saw it as a small social experiment to see how people would react…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Hopefully many of you have seen the Vlog episode about this event and have heard some of my thoughts on it. I was expecting a more polarizing response but I suppose people are familiar enough with this event, since its been around for some years now, and have already formulated their own thoughts on it. I was never even supposed to go to this event and was brought in last minute as a guest of sorts, so I won’t be too harsh about my criticisms, lol. I’ll actually be very nice about it, okay? Because overall, it’s a good event. Correction: it’s a very VERY good event—if you happen to own an S2000, an NSX, or an FK8. If you don’t own one of those models, you don’t have to give a fuck about this, because they don’t give a fuck about you either. And that’s as blunt as I can put it. I feel like it would have been necessary to call this the “Honda Homecoming” with an asterisk at the end, because it’s not really “Honda” vehicles as a whole. It’s just those three particular platforms I mentioned with a sprinkle of Integra Type Rs and display vehicles brought in by vendors.

Cruising Through Osaka With Yanagi’s EG6 and Masashi’s S2000…

Cruising Through Osaka With Yanagi’s EG6 and Masashi’s S2000…

Typically around this time, the only visitors at Yasu’s shop in Osaka would be me. Wekfest Japan is usually happening during this period and I’d be over there getting ready to go to the show with him. Because of the global pandemic, and numbers still rising over in Japan, the border has been closed off to foreign visitors and I haven’t been able to return as I would usually. From what I saw online, like the rest of you, Wekfest Japan was a great event. There were less cars and the crowd was likely smaller than usual, but it was expected with the way things are going right now. With Yasu being so busy with work, not wanting to catch anything, and me not even being there, he decided it would be best if he just stayed behind this year…

Brandon Kim’s S2000 CR Build Photos… Part 1…

Brandon Kim’s S2000 CR Build Photos… Part 1…

I haven’t done a build feature on this site in awhile, since we typically cover most of this type of stuff on the Vlogs these days, but I decided to capture some photos of Brandon Kim’s S2000 build so both you guys and Brandon can see detailed updates as Yuta moves forward with it. It just made sense to get photos to document everything because Brandon actually lives in Hawaii while his S2000 spends a majority of its time here in California. The car was shipped over via boat a few years and is a resident here at our shop. After Yuta Akaishi came back from Arizona after working at HKS USA for a year, the two of them decided to install an HKS GT2 Supercharger on the CR. Along with the install came a bunch of other stuff that eventually will make its way onto the car. It seems like new things are being added every day as Yuta continues to go through the car. Most of the info and technical aspects of this build-up will be detailed on future episodes of the Vlog but periodically, I’ll toss up some photos as well. Here are the first batch of photos that I captured recently at the very start of the build…

Ryan Der’s NEW B16B-Powered Civic Project!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #2…

Ryan Der’s NEW B16B-Powered Civic Project!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #2…

REJOICE! Der is finally back in a Honda!! After a decade plus of not working on a Civic, one of the best car builders I know has finally found his next project. The BMW E30 M3 was fun, but it just didn’t give him that tingly sensation inside to keep his motivation to make it anything special. When I got the text, I was honestly a little surprised. For one, he would always troll us on April Fools Day telling everyone that he bought a new Civic, and secondly, he just never seemed that intent on starting another project. When I realized that it was actually going to be a reality, I was pretty stoked, and I don’t get excited about a lot of things. This is an all Honda-dedicated episode, featuring Der’s new purchase, a quick stop over at Club Racer to check-out Andrew Horn’s amazing Civic build, and major updates on Brandon Kim’s S2000 CR. 2021 is looking up!! I can’t wait to see what Der does to this thing!!…

New Year, New Projects, The IS300 Gets Painted & More!! Chrncls Vlog 2021 #1…

New Year, New Projects, The IS300 Gets Painted & More!! Chrncls Vlog 2021 #1…

Happy New Year!! With a new year comes some new changes to our video series, mainly with the overall look of the Vlogs from this point forward. If you’ve been an avid watcher of the series over the years, you’ll probably notice the changes right away but one of my focuses this year is to really improve how each episode looks in terms of color grading and what not. I hope you guys enjoy it! Anyways, on this episode, the season 7 premiere, we introduce you to some new projects at the shop, my IS300 Wagon is finally getting painted, and other happenings at the shop, including a birthday!! Here’s to good fortune and lots of prosperity in 2021 everyone, thanks for watching!!

John Tran’s S2000 From Club Racer Reunion Weekend…

John Tran’s S2000 From Club Racer Reunion Weekend…

After getting some photos of Jose Mejia’s FK8 CTR on the track, I noticed we had some sunlight left which allowed us to bring one more car onto the scenic Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. There were some pretty nice builds at the Club Racer Reunion event so I had plenty of cars to choose from, but I wanted a car that really ‘popped’ against the orange glow of the setting sun. I had already shot a white car with Jose’s FK8 so it seemed only fitting to add some color to this photo set. Throughout the day, one of the cars that immediately caught my eye was John Tran’s S2000. Like Jose’s Civic, it had also once been white but he recently had the entire car wrapped in a very vibrant red/orange vinyl. I normally am not a huge fan of vinyl-wrappped cars but I do appreciate them a great deal when they are done right. Sometimes the wrap can just look a little flat where you can tell its obviously not paint but John Tran’s S2000 looked fantastic. At a glance you couldn’t even really tell. Add to that a good collection of aero and a wheel/tire combo that helped the car sit just right. John pointed-out that his front splitter had been damaged from racing throughout the day which caused it to sag a bit. I told him it was okay because it is a race car after all and nobody expects it to be perfect. Some battle damage would actually add to the aesthetic of the car anyway and people wouldn’t be credible to say that it was just a ‘show car’ on the track merely for photos…

The Exceed S2000 Hits The Track For Some Testing!!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2020 #24

The Exceed S2000 Hits The Track For Some Testing!!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2020 #24

With the S2000 all prepped and ready for some drifting, we head to Apple Valley Speedway in the middle-of-nowhere California for a private test day. There are still some parts we’d like to install on the S2000 but Phil really wanted to get some seat-time in the car before further changes. Unfortunately, AVS has no night-time lighting and the sun is coming down extra early these days as the seasons change so we didn’t get as much footage as we wanted. However, the car is running great and we had a blast out there!

The New S2000 Project Car & An Update On The TSX!!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2020 #23

The New S2000 Project Car & An Update On The TSX!!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2020 #23

We’re really starting to have some fun now getting fully adjusted to this summer heat and figuring out ways to keep ourselves entertained here at the shop. On this episode we introduce you to our friend Philstar’s S2000 project that Yuta has been tinkering with the last few late nights. The TSX is all together and ready to head-off to our friend Ken Suen’s shop for some custom fab-work but before it leaves, we decide to get it on the scale to see where we were in terms of reaching our goal weight of 2500 lbs. How close are we and is it even possible to get a CL9 chassis down to that weight while keeping it streetable? Watch and find out!…