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Jul 30, 2012

Some people build cars and some people assemble cars and personally I have no issue admitting that I assemble cars, meaning that my car is comprised entirely of off the shelf parts and is easily re creatable.

The goal of course is to one day be like Jeff who at the age of 19 has already proven himself a car builder by creating a vehicle worthy of accolades from enthusiasts world wide.

Recently Chris Johnston got a chance to catch up with Jeff to not only take some pictures of the car but also get a bit of a back story on it’s creation.

Here’s Jeff’s car through Chris’ words and photography.

This ’94 Mini was purchased by Jeff while in high school after he worked a lot of shitty part time jobs to be able to afford it.

Originally a Japanese model that had already been converted to LHD when he got it Jeff figured he would leave well enough alone and just drive it, as we all do.

Eventually he supercharged the stock engine but soon after he was lusting for even more power so he started to do some research.

After a lot of time on forums he decided a b series swap would give him the power he was after so he followed an ad on kijji to a b18c motor.

To his surprise when he arrived to pick the new motor it was still attached to the car.

After a compression test checked out, he took the entire Integra home and began taking the parts off it including; ECU, wiring harness, engine, shift linkage, and all the other assorted odds and ends needed for the swap.

Other than the exhaust the entire car was built by Jeff in his parents garage and is beyond cool.

Photo/Text Credit Chris Johnston

A build thread on the car can be found here.

Event Coverage: Wickedest Slam 1.0

By

DaveT

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Jul 30, 2012

3

KJohn Car Innovations has been cranking out pretty low and loud cars from the Brampton area for a few years now -most notably their Accord Wagon and SRT-4– and this Saturday they had their first show, the ‘Wickedest Slam 1.0’.

Since Brampton isn’t all that far from me I decided to swing by after Candy and Chrome and check it out.

Being in the middle of a field once this show got dark it got, DARK so I wasn’t able to cover the entire show but I made sure to capture most of the more appealing or interesting cars that were in attendance.

Domestics

srt_cal — Can’t say I see a lot of Calibre SRT’s modified

blastro — Took a peek inside of this and, from what I remember 5 T2500 Fosgate Amps. one Lanzar Amp, one Sony crossover, and about 6 batteries all wired with 0 gauge….loud

Imports

accord — This Accord was in the sound off, it was really loud and the roof vibrated like crazy

supra — I think later in the evening this Supra was shooting flames

acura_mazda — The kit on the Protege was one I had never seen before and a heck of a lot of pieces

chris — Closer look at Chris’ car, big changes coming in time for Importfest

kjohn_accord — Not sure what happened to the old airbrushed hood

subaru — Very clean Subaru, aside from the bike rack

advans — Function on the left, form on the right

prelude_front — Very nice to see a fitted fifth generation Prelude locally

prelude_rear — Surprised I’ve never seen it before actually…

Datsun 620

First time I have ever seen one of these in person, the owner says it was originally a Cali truck (not surprised based on how clean it is) and he’s only had it here for a short while. Infinite potential here.

datsun_3 — Different set of wheels (thinking dark bronze) and that’s all it needs exterior wise

datsun_4 — Inside as clean as the outside

Limbo

I didn’t shoot the whole limbo contest just the more interesting vehicles, none of these cars actually ended up winning and s2000 took it due to it’s low ‘roof’ line.

limbo_4 — The SRT-4 trying to take it home

limbo_3 — SK said he wasn’t going to enter but decided to try his luck

The Lincoln

To me this Lincoln is perfect, It’s perfect because the owner doesn’t need to do a thing more to it.

It’s a timeless look, 5 years ago this car would have turned heads and 5 years from now it will still turn heads.

lincoln_2 — All of the chrome was in great shape, worked with with the Torque Thrusts

lincoln_1 — Setup this shot with the mini tripod and telephoto

WTF Friday: Domestic Sandwhich

By

DaveT

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Jul 27, 2012

0

I’ve seen wild front end conversions, wild rear conversions, and entire body swaps but this… this is a little weird.

The front of this car from a fifth generation Mustang, while the rear is from a C5 Corvette, & sandwiched between the two is the orignal car with is a fourth generation Mustang.

I guess the owner likes Ford and Chevy but didn’t like the Ford he originally started with?

Surprisingly everything seems to line up pretty well and the all the panel gaps look consistent.

It would be weird to see a Mustang coming up in your review and then getting passed by a ‘Corvette’ though.

Site Updates

Two shows this weekend both on Saturday and I should be at both because they are less than an hour driving time for me total which I like.

No free food that I know of though…

I’ve also got some feature content, and some photo shoot out-takes that might make their way up next week as well.

Flashback Friday

Here’s a look back to last years True Playaz show Parkin’ Lot Pimpin’ 5

Guest Coverage: Dropsicles Sideshow 2012

By

DaveT

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Jul 26, 2012

4

Mike McConnell is an awesome event photographer, like myself he is the kind of guy who will do multiple passes of a show to make sure nothing gets missed and he isn’t against revisiting the same car a few times in order capture those fine details.

His latest contribution is from theDropsicles Sideshow held in Lethbridge Alberta and while I had never heard of it before these photos have made it a show I am going to keep an eye on. Great variety and quality.

Maybe there is something to that cross Canada road trip Lyndsey wants to do after all…

Cars

Judging from the photos it seems like Sideshow was more of a truck thing but the cars were pretty sick as well.

chevy_impala — I find I don’t see these nearly enough

vw_beetle — It wouldn’t be a set of photos from Mike without a classic Bug

vip — BMW wheels continue to make their rounds in the Japanese market

srt4 — Did you know there is a fanpage dedicated to the hatred of SRT-4s? A bit much. I don’t mind them really.

vw_jetta_2 — One of the best application of these wheels I have seen

caddy_2 — Another Caddy about tucking lug

Trucks

I was previously unaware of the Alberta truck scene, looks pretty serious.

golf_kart_side — I was in one of these karts on the weekend, would have been infinitely cooler at this height

rat — Sideshow is a show for all vehicles

chevy_dually — You already know how I feel about slammed duallys

For some reason this immediatly made me think of brotocross.com (hilarious motocross blog)

toyota_1 — JDM sport truck? I’d love to see more trucks done like this

mazda_orange — The cap is a little crazy but damn awesome otherwise

A friend of mine has been telling me to pick one of these up for awhile, I didn’t see the appeal until now

chevy_s10_bumperswap — S10 4runner bumper… I think this guy is or was on Blazinlow.com waaay back

ford_red — I pretty much wrote off liking this generation F150 until now

chevy_c10 — Alberta uses sand right? Not salt? Is that why all these older trucks survive?

blue — Seriously if that is the reason I need to start a petition against salting roads

chevy_twotone — Awesome Silverado, if this is original paint I will be amazed

sideshow_3 — Love the painted roof, nice touch, fits the rest of the theme too

chevy_s10_under_cons — It’s always kind of a shame that work like this often get’s hidden under beds and fenders

datsun — Hopefully photos of this Datsun finished cross my path one day

sideshow_1 — The low part is taken care of

trophy — It’s always cool to see shows that go that extra mile with the trophies

mazda — This kind of looks like a Luv but I think its a 70s B series truck… also boost?

sideshow_5 — I think ‘neck break’ is overused in regards to vehicles but it appears to be happening here if you look in the background

luv — This is a serious piece of work curious how high he has to raise it to drive

mazda_shifter — On my third of fourth look through Mike’s photos I noticed the shifter in the truck… nice touch

chevy_orange_2 — Based purlely on the photos I saw this looks like the vehicle of the event in my eyes

chevy_orange_5 — Immaculate build front to back

chevy_orange_4 — As I said on the fanpage… pure automotive art in the bed

chevy_orange_1 — and absolutely stunning from the side

All of Mike’s photos from this event can be found here on flickr.

Thanks again Mike!

Behind The Scenes of a PASMAG cover shoot

By

DaveT

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Jul 25, 2012

3

About a month ago I received an email from Basit from Importfest asking if I would be interested in dropping by a Performance Auto And Sound cover shoot later that evening.

While the timing wasn’t perfect there was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity like this in the name of sleep so 11pm that evening I made my way back down town to a location that oddly enough I can see from my desk at work.

While the email Basit sent informed me that Harvin’s Amuse kitted, twin turbo, 370 was the subject of the shoot Basit made no mention that the car had changed significantly since the last time I saw it.

The familar car white and teal car I was expecting to see now looked completely different wrapped in matte blue pearl vinyl and sitting on dark Vossen CV2 wheels.

Worlds away than it’s previous look but a significant improvement to a car that I previously thought didn’t need improving upon.

After recovering from the shock of the 370’s new look I said my hellos to all of the people present; Rich and Q the production editor and creative director from PAS, Angelo from Focus Films, Harvin the owner, Basit of course, and famous local rig shot photographer Ste Ho.

Ste is one of the top automotive photographers in the area and the person you will see in most of the photos (that’s Angelo up above not Ste) so I was stoked he was cool with me having a peak behind the curtain, so to speak, at his process.

I wasted no time getting my gear out though I was a little disappointed in myself for forgetting my tripod.

Once all of the preliminary shots were taken Ste began to pulling piece, after piece, of aluminium out of his car and eventually this mass of piping and suction cups came together to assemble the biggest photography rig I had ever seen.

Rig’s don’t exactly put themselves together, and it was damn hot in the parking garage, but Ste didn’t complain once.

In fact throughout the entire four hours or so I was present for the shoot Ste was fairly quiet and remained focused on the task at hand, diligently working to get the best shots possible.

The rig ended up having to be configured twice, the long configuration above was used for the front shots while a shorter configuration was used for the rear of the car.

The location within the garage chosen for the shots was a ramp going from one level to another, and judging by the final cover I would guess this area was chosen for it’s simplicity and ease to manipulate.

After each round of shots Rich, Q, and Ste consulted on if adjustments needed to be made to the rig and which angles would be candidates for the final product.

At around 2am the shooting had come to a close and plans were made to pick up where they left off tomorrow at Automatrix to get interior and detail shots of the car.

A comparison of one of the shots from the shoot, and the final cover is below:

Thanks to PAS Ste, Harvin, Basit, and Angelo for having me out.

You can read about this car in the next issue of Performance Auto and Sound which should be in stores next week and see it at Importfest exactly a month from now on August 25th.

Theme Tuesdays: Honda Tech 8 Favourites

By

DaveT

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Jul 24, 2012

5

With no Honda Tech since 2010 presenting sponsor Teknotik decided bring it back with a bang in 2012 by hosting it at Mosport raceway.

As a fan of the Mosport facility and Honda Tech (which was one of the first events I was exposed to some serious Honda builds) as soon as it was announced I was looking forward to checking it out.

Unfortunately* I had a wedding to attend the same day and was therefore unable to attend so like Wekfest, H20 International I’ve compiled a list of some of my favourites from the event for this weeks Theme Tuesday.

ht8-18 — I’ve seen a number of NSX’s on LMS and it always looks good

ht8-19 — There were a number of cars with more modified than this one but whatever reason the simplicity of this stood out

Photo credit: Canadian144 on JDMRides

ht8-1 — Don’t think I’ve seen this s2000 before

ht8-2 — HT8 being at Mosport allowed people to show that their cars do more than just look good sitting still

ht8-3 — I think this car used to be red but since a few other things have changed I really can’t be sure

ht8-4 — Just because it is a Honda event doesn’t mean a few outsiders didn’t get in

ht8-15 — Love the fitment in the rear of this car

Photo Credit: 97lx on JDMrides

ht8-5 — Matt’s car has changed slightly since a week ago

Photo Credit: h46it on JDMrides

ht8-7 — Usually these wheels kind of look like giant lady fingers to me but in black on a black car I like them a lot

Photo Credit sashakthx on JDMRides

ht8-8 — Some of you may recognize this car from speedhunters

Photo Credit: b16aMedia

ht8-11 — Mooner’s Civic back on the road

Photo Credit: DannyITR on JDMRides

ht-22 — Javed told me to expect big changes from his car, and this is a big change

Photo Credit: jdm2envy on JDMRides

ht8-20 — click here to see a picture of Javed’s car previously it before

Photo Credit Lucky27 on JDMRides

ht8-14 — I think the owner of this car is a reader and once confirmed that he does track it

Photo Credit: Pürbread

Obviously with a rumored 1500+ cars I missed more than a couple in this list so keep an eye out on the fanpage for anymore I come across.

*Attending the wedding wasn’t really that unfortunate the wedding was for two of my best friends and open bar,congrats Scott and Melissa!

Featured Ride: Jon’s Mazda 3

By

DaveT

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Jul 23, 2012

16

Like a lot of other platforms the Mazda 3 community can be broken down into three groups when it comes to wheel fitment.

Group one consists of those who are quite vehemently opposed to stretched tires and shudder at the thought of camber outside of factory spec, while group two consists of those who are not afraid of making significant body modifications to push fitment to the limit of the chassis.

Somewhere between those two groups lies group three, those who find that spot between not enough and too much.

One perfect example of a car from this group is JDR’s 2004 GT and second is today’s featured ride: Jon’s White 2007 GT.

As an employee at Nextmod Jon is constantly surrounded by some of the best cars in the city including Nextmod’s own Varis STI and R35 GTR.

Since Nextmod is one of the top tuning shops in the area Jon had all of the resources he needed to build a car that would fit in with his peers right at his finger tips.

Jon’s car, like many featured here, has been an ongoing project that has progressed steadily over the years with modifications coming and going before it ended up looking how you see it today.

Gone is the race inspired look from years past and with it went additions such as as sideskirt exentions, rear flares, a carbon fiber front diffuser, and carbon fiber hood.

Retained are the modifications John felt worked best with the car like the DAMD front lip, Nextmod Windovisors, MS3 rear spoiler and BC coilvers.

The Advan RG-II’s that were on the car before fit it’s previous look quite well but for 2012 Jon decided that fitment is paramount so he went with a much more aggressive set of Hyper Silver XXR 527s in 18×8.75 +20 square fitment.

Wrapped in 215-40-18 Nankanag NS-II’s these new rollers just clear the fenders that have been rolled and pulled by Velocity Autobody.

When the car was in having it’s fenders massaged Jon also had the hatch shaved, which looks great combined with Speed3 lowever valance and set off by the unique Fujitsubo rainbow finisher tip and matching catback exhaust.

As a Nextmod customer, and Mazda 3 driver myself, it’s been great watching Jon’s car continue to progress over the years and I almost feel bad for Jon knowing that working where he works his car can only stay like this for so long before the mod bug starts to itch again and it’s down the road to another great looking revision.

Big thanks to Raymond Tran for working the lens on this feature and I hope to get the opportunity to work with Raymod and RayTran Photography more in the future.

Modification List

Exterior

DAMD front lip
Autoexe front grill
Nextmod eyelids
Matte black vinyl roof
Carbon fiber MPS spoiler
Nextmod carbon fiber spoiler add on
Nextmod JDM window visors
Hella horns
Shaved hatch
Mazdaspeed 3 rear valence

Wheels/Tires

XXR 527 limited edition hyper silver 18×8.75 +20
Nangkang NS-II 215-40-18

Performance

Fujita F5 cold air intake
Vibrant header
Custom straight pipe (done by Advanced Power House)
Fujitsubo axle back exhaust w/ Fujitsubo rainbow finisher tip

Suspension

BC Racing BR coilovers
Eibach rear camber arms

WTF Friday: Well now you’ve gone and done it.

By

DaveT

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Jul 20, 2012

2

PT Cruisers never really looked good, I mean they don’t look as bad as the Aztec and are not quite as impractical as the SSR, but all in all looking back at them I don’t think there are many who would say they are a great looking vehicle.

Good on Chrysler for making eventually making a turbo version to at least try and give them a little more of an appeal.

Bad on this owner however for sticking a cruiser front end on what could have been an quirky little truck.

On my list of things to do to an 80s or so ‘yota pick-up (which I am assuming this is based on the cab) the above is near the bottom,body work looks alright though…

This Rover has absolutely nothing to do with the PT Cruiser above but it made me laugh so I’m posting it as well.

Creative solution representative of the motor? Who knows.

Site Updates

I won’t be attending any events this weekend but here are two that are going down:

Flashback Friday

I am going to see The Dark Knight Rises after work today so here’s a look back at a VW with a Batman themed hood.

How much does a PT Cruiser go for these days anyway?

Event Coverage: 2012 CSCS Round 3 Part 2

By

DaveT

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Jul 19, 2012

2

Continuing where things left off yesterday today’s coverage consists of the cars that caught my eye in the pits along with coverage of the show and shine.

The Round 3 show and shine was actually a lot larger than these pictures illustrate but once the weather took a turn for the worse I focused my efforts more on track coverage and staying dry.

Big thanks go out to Erik and Nine-O-Five Rides for their help with the latter by generously offering up space in their tent for Lyndsey and I to camp out.

Pits

lexus_is300 — Kind of really like race prepped is300s

riley — Riley beside a very interesting e30

e30_1 — I never saw this car hit the track but it looks like it sees a lot of use

e30_2 — Does anyone know more about this car and how it performs? Video maybe…

fpc — Operation catch Spenser on the track: failed

nissan_jesse_2 — If I’m not mistaken he painted this all with rattle cans, he did a good job, not full of tiger stripes

Show & Shine

mitsu_evo1 — Jay of JDM Ego is probably stoked to have his plate on this car (excuse the double watermark which will be resolved later)

mitsu_evo2 — This Evo was from NY but he’s been intown for the past two weeks or so

vw_ian — Idub.ca has new stickers, go check them out

vw_hoodless — Jetta from Toronto Tuner Syndicate with no hood in sight

subuaru_beast — Looks like Leo and Beast got into a bit of a tumble during his last rally

scraped_1 — Scraped Crusaders Rockin the infield

santi — For those who ask why I don’t blur plates, see Santiagios initiative here

nissan_sky_1 — Skyline right after the rain

nissan_sam — I think this is the first time I have seem Sam (and his car) all year

nissan_harvin — Harvin’s 370 in the JVC booth… more on this car next week

nissan_bmw_wheels — At first glance these look like e46 wheels but the more I look at them they don’t…

mazda_speed3 — See this Speed 3 around my area everyonce and awhile

mazda_3 — This Toronto Mazda 3 member makes it out to most CSCS events

mazda_rotary_1 — Second CSCS in a row with a very cool vintage RX-7 in the show an shine

mazda_rotary_2 — Not sure what time capsule people are keeping these in

honda_matt — Matt’s no longer black s2000

bmw_2002 — After it rained this Wide body 2002 took Matt’s spot in the Meguair’s tent

ford_flex — Kiwee in the Standard Suspension booth

honda_8th — Also in the STD (tragic name) booth was this 8th gen Civic that has changed considerably since last year

brampton — Fairly sure these cars all have STDs too….

honda_civic_si — Not sure what the wheels on this car are… but I like them… different

wrapped_evo — Can’t decided if I liked this car before the wrap or after… leaning to before

ford_erik — Finally got to see Erik’s car in person sans kit and new paint

ford_erik_2 — I now want fresh paint, his car looks great

Event Coverage: 2012 CSCS Round 3 Part 1

By

DaveT

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Jul 18, 2012

0

Leading up to the second ever Canadian Sport Compact Series stop at Mosport Raceway the CSCS staff announced that both time attack and open lapping were full, and at the same time they let everyone know that there was a $500 prize for the largest show and shine team.

Combined these two factors lead to a very busy day at Mosport last Sunday, even after the rain tried to cool things down for everyone in attendance.

Of any all of the CSCS rounds Mosport seems to draw the most diverse lapping field and a very competitive time attack field due to peoples love for the challenging DDT (Drivers Development Track) course.

People also always seem to step things up a little more on this track (to the point of rolling over even) and the competition only got more interesting when the weather conditions began to change and rain began to fall.

The rain did eventually stop and the track dried for good but not before many drivers were forced to compete with conditions that varied lap after lap.

tony — Tony of Focal Point Concepts had to contend with some pretty wet weather during his runs

white_sil_1 — This was one of the first RWD cars I saw out after the rain

white_sil_2 — He managed to keep it on the track despite the traction issues

civic_2 — Stage Four Civc I’ve actually never seen before

stage_four_civic — This one I am a little more used to seeing

civc — Civic from the lapping earlier in the day before the rain started

jay_1 — I’m not sure how but Jay from Stance Factory managed to get the keys of a GT3rs for the day and drive it to second place

bmw_1 — Not sure if this was also a Stance Factory car, but I see BMW on LM’s and just assume

touge_1 — Richard Nadeau driven Touge Tuning sponsored car got second in unlimited AWD

nv_auto_1 — Dov Aronoff in the NV Auto 450HP Impreza got first

kimi_2 — Kimi Quinn was out to try and break a track record again this time in one of his Ferraris

kimi_1 — Didn’t happen but he did get first in unlimited RWD

defcon_teg_1 — Mark Botelho rips in this car

defcon_teg_3 — He ended up getting 1st place in unlimited FWD

defcon_teg_2 — Just a fun car to watch and shoot

The CSCS drift course at Mosport is basically completely downhill and incredibly challenging for drivers to get through without spinning out, and of the entire field only 11 cars managed to make it to top 16 without any sort of spin out or off track excursion.

Before the rain started the top 11 was whittled down to 8 and once things dried those 8 were run in rapid fire (which I actually preferred) until the final tandem consisted of two of the most consistent drivers in the series, Riley Sexsmith and Dylan Sharpe.

Though I was pulling for Riley (what can I say I love drifting trucks) Dylan edged him out for his first podium and first place finish.