It’s been 12 years since I’ve been back and it was totally worth the trek…
Tag Archive for ‘Mugen’
The Battlecraft 10-Year Hyper Art Show in photos & video!!…
Happy New Year everybody! No better way to kick off the new year than to give you guys something to watch. I even updated the intro and everything. It seemed like the right time to just update everything so there are some small changes that I’m sure many of you regulars will notice. In the first episode of Season 11, I take you back to a few weeks ago when we were hosting the Battlecraft 10-year anniversary event. I can’t believe it’s been ten years already. Time really does just fly right by. The episode starts with me giving you guys some current updates, a little history on Battlecraft, and what our event is/was all about! Then it’s time to set-up, figure out where everything goes and hope for the best. We also had a special guest with us since we took Terry’s Integra out of Bowls LA to display at the Battlecraft 10-year. He decided to fly down to experience some Socal car culture and then we send both he and his car back to the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy!
The U.S. debut of the first Voltex Widebody GR86 and Exceed Japan FL5 Civic Type R…
After landing back at home in California, Yasu and I show up with a bunch of parts and only a few days to help complete the USA’s first Voltex Street Version II widebody GR86. Kristian and Jay had been hard at work on the GR86 over the last few months but I had been in Asia so even I had no idea how the car would look. Before I left, the car was literally in pieces. I was excited to see how much the car had changed and boy was I surprised but how far along the car was. We had enough time to even work on my FL5 Civic Type R! Since we had brought the brand new Exceed aero kit for the Type R back from Osaka with us, we immediately had to throw it on to see how it looked in completed form. Good thing I already had wheels waiting to be installed and a meaty set of Yokohama ADVAN tires…
Dave Chik’s Civic featuring the new Exceed V2 front lip…
A week before Wekfest San Jose, I had Dave’s Civic sitting here at the shop because we needed to install the new Exceed Version 2 front lip to debut at the show. He’ll be the first one to tell you that his Civic isn’t a ‘show car’ but myself and everyone around him thinks otherwise. It’s such an incredibly well-built car with some many nice detail touches. To us, it’s the perfect choice to run the new Exceed front lip. The Version 2 lip comes on the heels of the discontinuation of the original Exceed lip. It goes without saying, and it might be obvious to some, but the relationship between Exceed and Mode Parfume is now non-existent. The two companies parted ways due mainly to a difference in views and ethics so Yasu set-off to create a new variation of the popular Exceed lip…
What a busy weekend it was at Wekfest San Jose…
It really does feel like car things are happening non-stop now that we’re in the heart of the summer season. Not long after my trip to Seattle, it was time to prep for the San Jose stop of the Wekfest tour—which also happens to be the biggest. Yasu decided to make the trip for this one as well since we were set to debut the first two Exceed Japan V2 front lips in North America at the show. He finished up the new parts and literally had them overnighted to California so we would have the time to get them painted and installed. We carefully selected two of the nicest Civics in the West to debut the new Exceed lip and had a nice booth display right up front at the show! Before the show however, we had some prep work to do and then it was off to San Jose!…
Cutting up the Voltex GR86, Wekfest Seattle & first mods on the FL5 Type R…
Now that I’m back in the USA, it’s time for me to catch-up on all the stuff that’s been happening here at home. The moment I walked through the doors of Battlecraft, Kristian was already hard at work cutting-up our GR86 in preparation for the Voltex widebody kit. If all goes well, that project should be ready to debut by end of summer. A few days later, I re-packed my suitcase and hopped on a flight to Seattle, Washington for the annual Wekfest event. It was an incredibly busy weekend so I didn’t get much filming done, though I did catch a good portion of the early roll-in. When I got home from my trip to the PNW, I was already re-united with Yasu since he decided to make the trip to California for the upcoming Wekfest San Jose. He showed-up with the JDM headlights off of his FL5 Civic Type R and swapped them immediately since he’d been dying to get his hands on some USDM ones. Not long after, it was time to pay a visit to our friends at APEX’i since they had some special for my new Type R…
Chan-Oka Honda Meet in Japan 2024 Photos…
For the past two years, I’ve purposely extended my Spring trip to Japan so that I could stay for the Chan-Oka Honda Meet. The name comes off a little weird to us in America but it’s named by and after the guy who hosts it. Chan-Oka is a very-devoted Honda enthusiast who focuses primarily on tuning and styling from the early 2000s era of Hondas from the West Coast (California, Seattle, etc.). His group of friends absolutely love this particular type of style. They study it using whatever resources are available to them online and also by looking through old issues of Honda Tuning and Super Street magazines. Many of these guys have never been to America before but it’s actually pretty surprising how good they’ve become at replicating this specific look. I guess you can say the same thing about Americans or people from other countries and how they try to replicate Japanese car builds while never having set foot in Japan…
We brought the EK9 Type R out to one of the best Honda events in Japan…
Summer is here which means it’s time to put the EK9 away for the season! Haha, yes that sounds strange considering most enthusiasts put their cars away for the winter but if you know Japan, you understand how harsh their summer season can be. It’s just way too humid and hot to be outside which means I’m taking my ass back home to a slightly-less-hot Southern California. I’ve been here way too long so it’s time for me to go back to catch-up on regular life…
With me being gone, there’s no reason really to have my EK9 CTR outside so it’s going to stay in a nice comfy warehouse in Osaka. Before we do that though, Yasu and I decided to load the car up on a tow rig so we could safely transport it 7 hours to the Kanto-side of Japan. If you’ve followed me for the last few years, hopefully long before that, you know that I usually end my spring journey in Japan by attending the Chan-Oka Honda Meet. It’s a smaller event, but the quality definitely exceeds the quantity of Hondas inside this up and coing event. This small lot in Saitama holds some of the best Honda builds in Japan! There’s a particular style that these enthusiasts follow and it’s very much the more ‘USDM’, West Coast style of building Hondas from the early 2000s. These guys get all their inspiration from magazines like Super Street and Honda Tuning from back in the day. They execute the style faithfully and I can honestly say that they do their research. The Hondas here are legit.
Machine Check!!
Machine check!!
Now that I’m back home from Japan, it’s time to put the EK9 away for the summer until I go back. I figured now would be a good time though to give you all a breakdown of the entire build. Just to put a nice cap on this project for the time being…
Plenty of surprises on a trip with Sara Choi and friends…
Over the past year or so, I’ve been joking around with Sara calling her my ‘manager’ because she’s been trying to convince me to go back to Indonesia with her. I went 7 years ago and though it was a fruitful life experience, I can honestly say that I didn’t have the greatest of times. I don’t think I ever made it a secret either. Whenever people asked me if I would go back, I often said I wouldn’t. Not so much because I was treated poorly or anything, I think the people that invited me last time tried the best they could to give me the most positive of an experience. Circumstances just made it difficult for me to fully enjoy it. When Sara Choi decided that she’d start competing in a drift series down in Indonesia, I was all for it. I’m always gonna root for one of my closest friends. She planned to spend a bulk of her time down there to practice and train to be a better driver but there were definitely times when I think she felt homesick and wanted her friends there. She brought it up a couple times and at first, I wasn’t really trying to go. Just because mainly I’m pretty busy as it is with a loaded travel schedule and I had this preconceived notion that I wouldn’t have much of a different experience if I went back. But some time went by and it seemed like Sara was really enjoying herself down there and wanted me to see it for myself so I told her if she wanted to plan it out for me, I’d bring some of our other friends down there too and we’d make a trip of it…