Makes

It's been awhile since Mazda 3s have been the subject of a Theme Tuesday. The last one for the naturally aspirated 3s was in September 2009 and the boosted Speed3s last got their time in the spotlight July of 2010. Since then a lot has changed in the land of Mazda 3s. A whole new generation was released with a lot of people jumping ship to the happier generation and those who have stayed with the first gens are pushing the limits in regards to ride height and aggressive fitments.

Today I'll continue running down the list of events I attended in 2011. Hopefully you enjoyed the look back at the first twelve, there will be thirteen more today to cover all 25 from 2011. I enjoyed all of the events I attended this year but I am always up to check out new ones so if there is a local event that you think I should attend feel free to let me know via the comments or an email.

What a year 2011 was event wise in Ontario. It seemed like there was something going on at least every other weekend, if not every weekend, often with two events occurring at the same time. While I did my best to make it to most of the major local events (as well as some of the underexposed ones) it was pretty much impossible for me to attend them all, luckily a few people helped me out with great Guest Coverage again this year. This post will be a chronological run through of the first twelve events I attended in 2011.

The year coming to a close means that one of my favourite threads (most hacked/ugly shit ever seen) on s10forum is also coming to a close. Yesterday while giving the thread one last read through the following incident randomly jumped from the recesses of my mind. Since it happened in 2009 I forget the exact chain of events I read at the time but the pictures do a great job of filling in the blanks.

I was pretty surprised yesterday when I went to leave Joyride and was greeted with a snow covered car, with Christmas being so green I just sort of assumed we were not getting snow for awhile. With snow comes a lot of things that suck: extended travel times, frozen doors, reduced visibility and worst of all salt. However snow also brings with it some good like drifting (or e brake sliding), snowboarding, and most importantly the return of Winter Wednesdays here on SIE.

In about twenty or so minutes my house is going to be full of people and food for round 2 of Christmas feasts so I don't really have a heck of a lot of time. However there isn't really much that needs to be said about this incredibly awesome custom (looks like Ford based) hot rod that Team Penguin spotted in September. According to the post the owner built what he wanted and doesn't seem to care if people love it or hate it.

Amazed, and confused. Both of those words describe my initial reaction to seeing a rear wheel drive, supercharged v8 powered, Chrylser Intrepid. I guess its not all together ridiculous.Intrepids can't be worth all that much these days and they do happen to have very large engine bays. I've also came to learn that the exhaust tunnel can double for a drive shaft tunnel provided you route the exhaust elsewhere.

Turns out I need to dust off my Bimmer Forums account because apparently sleeping on that forum has resulted in my missing cars like this unreal Laguna Seca Blue 2002. Good thing Jay at Stance Factory has got my back and forwards along the good great stuff. This 2002 is incredible and perhaps the best use of LSB ever?

Last week in jest I made the following comment when posting that clean Fiesta: "when was the last time you saw a car with hydraulic suspension that didn’t have wires?" After reading that a few people on the fan page urged me to look a little harder into the land of hydraulic (or Hydropneumatic) suspension to broaden my horizons. So I did. While I had guessed a few people outside of the traditional lowrider community were dabbling in the land of juice I was surprised to see how widespread the use of hydraulics is over a variety of platforms.

Two weeks ago sifting through what seemed like endless amounts of Hot Import Nights coverage I stumbled across a photo in my reader posted by eyegasmic cars that caught my eye. Intrigued I set out to find the original photo and more on the car. After tracking down photographer Scott Kroeker I was able to not only get permission to re-post the photos but also obtained the contact information of the builder Brent.

There is a build thread I am reading on Stance|Works (one of the better threads of late) that talks about unorthodox tanks for air ride setups. The original posters plan was to run a multiple piece rectangular tank stack and there has been a lot of helpful (key word) discussion about how he should go about doing so safely. Many mentioning the importance of pressure testing the tanks to avoid blow outs like this.