If we were in the 56K-era, this post would take probably 4 days to completely load…


If we were in the 56K-era, this post would take probably 4 days to completely load…

Wekfest San Jose was a whole movie…literally…

Wekfest Seattle in a traditional photo format for those that enjoy reading with their photographs…

It feels good to be back in Chicago again after a three year hiatus. Now, let’s see what’s new…

Becoming an S2000-owner definitely was not on my list of 2024 projections when I started the year but things must happen for a reason because here I am with an AP1 that I acquired for a mere $50. Life is random and interesting that way but you know what? I’ve fully embraced my role now as a caretaker to this former track car. It has some wear and tear but for the most part, it’s still in very great condition and with the S2000 came a ton of parts. The suspension work is quite thorough and the engine is healthy. Nothing much had been done to the exterior other which is perfect for me because I had every intention of changing it up. Mainly because I just can’t leave anything alone but I also wanted to make this AP1 feel more like ‘mine’. About a week after taking ownership of the car, I already began looking for stuff to do to it. It just started to snowball from there. I already had a pretty good idea of how I envisioned it to look in my brain, I just had to have the patience to wait for stuff to show up. As it turns out, I actually have come to really like having this S2000. It’s been so much fun to work on so I decided to dedicate an episode to us changing this $50 S2000 from former track car to a sleek SoCal street-cruiser….

While I was in Japan one random evening about a month ago, I was laying in bed just doom-scrolling away on my phone when I came upon a post for a S2000 raffle back at home. I never join these things because frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever win. Are these things even legit? Who actually wins? For whatever reason, I decided I’d purchase a spot. What’s the real harm in spending $50 to support a fellow enthusiast? If anything it’ll be fun and I can join in on the collective disappointment with my fellow car people who participated…
…but there’s an actual chance I could win, right? Even if it’s a .001% chance, that’s still a possibility, right??….

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…

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!…

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…

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…