Category Archives: Cars

The Mini copping a LOT of attention!

Photos by Jayson Fong of Form & Function. More photos here.

Motoractive HQ.

Real Street BLVD.

Had a great meeting with the guys at Motoractive last Wednesday. These guys run Meguiar’s MotorEx (now in it’s 12th year) and they’ve invited us to take over this year’s Real Street BLVD on Saturday July 21st 2012. 60 car spaces and we’ll be representing inside too. We’re chuffed, excited to be working with such passionate car guys from a totally different scene to what we’re used to. Collab’s where it’s at. More news as it comes!

Before.

After. Massive progress!

Sergio’s been in the zone on the mini! More words and images here: http://zengarage.com.au/2012/03/zen-x-all-stars-mini-project-update/

Rad, right?!

John in the drivers seat.

HEAPS of space!

Love!

She’s so gorgeous.

Deep dish, 10inch, ADVAN’s too.

Whilst the paint is tip top on the outside, the interior needs a lot of work.

Check the hand brake lever, those little rings have numbers engraved into them, they act like a combination security lock, very nice huh?!

I heard it before I saw it :) Sounded like a motorbike! Sergio dropped in to Zen today with our Mini (we’re going halvies on this one). Love at first sight? Pretty much! She’s gorgeous! Interior needs a fair bit of work, but nothing major. The car came with new carpet (yet to be installed), we’ll need to replace some tyres too.

Of-course I took her for a spin. First thing I noticed was that I couldn’t see jack shit. Seriously. Blind spots are hardcore due to not having windows on the sides, there’s no drivers side rear view mirror and the silly decorative mirror on the passenger side os useless! Despite the car being so damn small, even backing out of the driveway was a nervous affair!

The gearbox is as vague as they come. The gear shifter returns to centre after every shift (very strange!). Grabbing first and second is fine, but 3rd is strange as it’s closer to first than you think and grabbing 4th is even more strange as you’ve got to come back towards 2nd! Crunch crunch crunch! The drum brakes are SO WEAK it’s damn dangerous. Stopping suddenly is just not a possibility so I’d like to look into whether or not that’s normal (ie: can be bettered as is), if not I’d like to entertain the idea of a disk brake set-up.

I only drove her around the block but I was giggling and smiling the entire trip :) SO much character, so much attention. She sounds fantastic and handles great too (go kart for sure!).

All in all, once we sort out some mirrors for better vision, and the brakes she’ll make for a much better ride! :)

Pick a ride: Choppers, American Muscle, Euro Exotics and JDM goodness.

Spotted this clean S15.

TSI R34 GT-R painted in Matte Black with arguably some of the hottest JDM wheels ever made.

Chevy project took me by surprise.

Drift toys out the back.

TSI’s new service centre.

Inside. Some of the stealthy custom fab work they’re doing is great.

TSI’s local haunt. Check the Rolls Royce of coffee machines. Awesome huh?

2 people in this tiny cafe made everything. The Moroccan Lamb was awesome, the prawns were too and the Pizza and dessert that came after was fantastic.

Cool Dads = Cool Kids. Both kids said “GTR!” more times than I’ve heard “GTR” all last year. This toy Hako, complete with OG I Love Skyline decals is made by Hot Wheels! I’ve already bought a few on eBay this morning :)

Top Secret Imports (TSI) are sponsors of the JDMST forums, and when they heard about our difficulties with having our JDMST End Of Month Meets (EOMM’s) shut down by the authorities they thought they’d go all out in trying to help us out with finding a suitable venue.

The great news is that they’ve managed to secure Eastern Creek as a venue for future JDMST EOMM’s. It’s massive news, one that I’m crazy excited about as Eastern Creek’s carpark is MASSIVE and to be able to hold an EOMM without being kicked out is a highly significant triumph, especially great for those who drive from great distances to turn up to a meet only to have to turn around and go home (sometimes before they even get to park!).

So last night I hung out with the boys from Top Secret Imports in Blacktown, mainly to get to know them. I got a tour of their impressive showroom and their new service centre but most valuable was getting to meet their families at a great sit down dinner at their local, it was truly a privilege, especially in this email and sms day and age.

My new car :) Can’t wait to drive the little thing… isn’t she gorgeous?!?! :)

My trusty (dead stock) DC2R.

The best time I could manage. I really wanted a 1.16. I was confident I could do it, glad I did it (last session too).

Yonas let me drive his supercharged EG Civic. I think I lost 5kg in sweat driving it, what a beast!!!!!

Mark Pakula let me drive his NA (again) and yes, fell in love with it (again). Found it harder to drive than last time, got caught up in some traffic too just when I thought I was on a flyer. I’m so rusty though (need more balls!).

Howie brought his 911 along, he was going hard all day too. Still the best car I’ve ever driven to date. Love it, lots.

Rad dudes. Ex-Autosalon staff Herman and Mark :)

Check the fucking hammock! So pimp right?! My Zen Garage work buddy John Lor lost his license a month ago, being driven to the track, driving on the circuit all day long, then being driven home = winning at life!

Awesome day at the track again today. Zi from JDMyard organised another private track day, where we basically own the track, to ourselves, for the entire day. 20 cars, so much track time it’s ridiculous.

The VWGolf.netg.au crew made up some numbers and tracked in style with an audio/speaker set-up at the pits, and a BBQ lunch. The west side boys (John lol) brought a cars made out of 5 cars, and a hammock too (which I admit was pretty damn pimp!).

I got to fang Yonas’ JDMyard Civic and damn fucking shit it was hard to drive. I even came off on the last lap… what a beast! Crazy responsive, no power steering made you fight with the wheel all the time, get the line right and it powers out in a nice slide, get it wrong and understeer fucks you up hard. It’s so fast it hits the rev limiter before you’re ready (it whips into high rpm’s!) and getting all that shifting and braking done from 5th to 3rd is so hard… what a challenging car to drive.

I also got to drive Mark Pakula’s NA MX5. I’ve been in love with this car for ages and I’m still in love with it (last time Mark let me drive it I refused to pitt!). I’m just so rusty with a rear wheel drive car though, and Mark’s new 6-Speed gearbox had me mis-shifting a few times too. I thought I absolutely nailed some corners, only to stuff up in other corners on the same lap, or come across some traffic so I failed to stitch together a clean lap unfortunately.

And finally my own car, my stock DC2R with a massive 170,000kms (still going so hard!). I aimed to get a 1.16. I started with 1.22′s. Staying in 3rd gear in turn 2, the hairpin and the last corner just didn’t work, tyres were too shit. I ended up having to shift into 2nd for all these corners and I finally got my 1.16 on my last session. Wasn’t easy… been way too spoilt with modified cars with semi-slicks for way too long!!!

Anyways I’m home now and still soooo fucking pumped! SO PUMPED! Damn I needed that, so pumped!!!!!!!

John and Tate at Pheasants Nest. 5am we were on the road, so fucked up!

Sergio had only 1hrs sleep last night trying to get his S15 onto the trailer (epic fail). He was running on these huge cans of red bull.

The red bull went through him fast, haha.

We saw a lot of flooding on the way, a couple of trucks had aquaplaned off the highway too.

Rob + John’s AW11 in convoy.

Tate was the designated driver, as John has recently lost his license (silly boy!).

Fuck fuel is expensive, why didn’t we just fly instead?!

The apartment Sean had put us up in was super new, nice and clean, what a relief.

What a pimp workshop. No rest for the wicked, we were off to the RTR meet before getting the chance to settle down.

Carbon doors hung up as art, yes.

We set up a little boot sale on the night which went really well.

Marty’s nugget! Marty from Mighty Car Mods was staying in the same apartment as us, he’s a champ. Was great to get to know the guy.

This Evo X caught my eye, what a great daily driver it would make.

Anth’s from Build Threads Dato, so amazing.

Reppin.

I’d wear that on my chest!

this MX-5 Clubman was so right. Makes me miss mine terribly.

Tough black on black Skoda representing VWGolf.net.au.

It was late, we didn’t want McDonalds (again) so we stopped at the nearest takeaway to the apartment (in Essendon). Pasta was AOK!

Ovi representing. Unfortunately Ovi had a huge crash, first out, first to smash into a wall too. :(

Amazing AW11, so hot! Fuuuu!

Yes!

Time Attack!!!!!

Big Red.

LHD MKIV Golf was tough, sounded amazing too.

Modified GTO, not something you see everyday.

Nigel’s S13, so hot.

Sergio and I snuck out for a spot of shopping on Chapel St. + lunch at Chapelli’s.

Rain rain go away.

We called a Maxi-Taxi to hit the town.

We failed to get into Chin Chin’s, too busy, so we settled for ribs at Beer DeLuxe, Fed Square instead.

Historic, Bathurst R32 replica, movement in groin area… amazing. Day #2 show and shine was great as the sun was out to play.

So clean.

So mean.

Nice green.

Loved this S14.

Old school Dato Skyline with an RB26 transplant took out best of show.

Cleaner than most modern cars at the show!

Zen Crew + Just Car girls.

Sean announcing winners and giving out prizes.

Marty from Mighty Car Mods walked away a winner.

Yes, it’s real. My fave car of the entire event.

Some of the locals suggested we dine at Nobel Greek Tavern, about 1km away from our apartment, for dinner. Food was great! Since it was our last night we wined on, good times!

Just got home from an epic drive back from Melbourne. Sergio did ALL the driving, he’s a trooper. I teleported most of the way (ie: I fell asleep, a LOT) but despite the sleep I’m still super exhausted!

Despite the weather dampening the first day of Forum Battle (hey that’s motorsport?!) the sun came out for Sunday’s Show & Shine and Melbourne brought out some rad cars. SAU took out the top forum display, never seen so many tough R34′s in the one place!

I doubt I’ll be in a hurry to drive from Sydney to Melbourne ever again. Not that I’m pimp or anything, but fuck me dead… plane next time for sure!!!

Chilled out ClubITR BBQ @ Zen Garage yesterday. More pics here.