Poorform: Jimmy’s 2JZ Lexus GS

October 21, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

OK time to start the week off right! And what better way to do it than to end off the PoorForm triple threat photoshoot with Jimmy’s 2JZ GS!

I was originally supposed to get this up on the weekend but I ended up getting caught up in a bunch of things – my broken phone being one of them. However, this was one of the shoots I really wanted to share the most. Of the three cars I shot that weekend, I got the most shots of Jimmy’s GS. I would also like to add that I didn’t intentionally try to take less shots of the others at all – it just happened that a lot of the spots we went to were more suited for his GS.

There’s just so much to this car that it’s impossible for me to list it all out without it sounding like a magazine feature or article. Ultimately that’s not what my goal is on the blog – it’s just to showcase the cars that are happy to come out and let me point my camera at them and for you guys to see. A lot of the guys that I ask to come shoot with me have put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and most importantly – money, into their cars and I appreciate them giving me that opportunity. I know it’s nothing close to a magazine feature but it’s enough for me to keep doing what I love doing. The best part of it all is that I get the even greater pleasure of shooting cars that don’t come out all that often – some only come out to shows. Some are garage queens that only see the owner to come wipe them every few days. Others get driven hard and are recognized by the community. Whatever the case is, it’s always a great time – Jimmy’s GS is one to go down as one of the crazier builds I’ve been able to shoot.

Let’s see why…

At first glance you’ll see a huge Greddy intercooler sitting up front and rarely seen Rotiform super concave NUE’s for shoes.

Out back is the meatiest tire ever and I absolutely love it. The wheels out back are 13″ wide and even the 325’s look stretched on them. Wait till you see it from the rear…

Shot of his fronts. Jimmy’s got an Endless Race 6 big brake kit with E slit rotors. It’s hard to see in person but the fit and finish of the Rotiforms are amazing. The colour of the centers reflecting onto the lip give it a slightly darker tone and it’s awesome.

Shot of the rear. Here you can kind of see that “slate/grey” tone in the lips.

325’s… Monstrous.

Up close and personal with the Greddy intercooler. Behind it sits a Koyo race radiator that you’ll see in the engine bay pics later.

That shot from the rear. Very minimal camber so that Jimmy can put as much of the 325 tire down as possible under the custom rolled and pulled fenders. Another awesome part of the rear is actually the Junction Produce 3 piece spoiler that’s been molded in. It’s seamless up close. To compliment the JP spoiler, he’s also got the L-Sportline roof spoiler as well.

The view from the front… or your view when you see it coming up in your rear view mirror. Jimmy’s plans for the headlights are to retrofit LS460 projectors in to finish off the front and compliment the TRD grille.

Profile shot of his wheel/brake set up.

Rolling from the rear quarter.

While we’re at another full body shot – a few other plans Jimmy talked about was getting his Vertex aero kit installed paired with an HKS Kansai hood and have it all brought together and repainted using the Lexus LFA 1F2 metallic silver. That should be the creme de la creme for it all once it’s done.

A shot of his engine bay and the monster 2JZ-GTE VVTi. There’s really just way too much to list, but if you’re really interested then you can post in the comments and I’d be happy to share them since Jimmy shared it with me. But in between the plethora of HKS goodies, Jimmy has quality parts left, right and center. I’m sure you can see a bunch just by looking at the picture… HKS T51R Turbo, HKS SQV, Cusco strut bar, a few custom PoorForm parts like his motor mounts and 30-40LS transmission.

Another shot of the wheels. Can’t get enough.

A shot for the ricer in me.

That big ol’ turbo.

Cusco strut bar…

His suspension – a set of Zeal Function PF custom short stroke coilovers have been custom valved to his liking.

On the inside, the HKS goodies don’t stop. He’s got the HKS AFK wideband/knock amp.

Over on the right side, he’s got the HKS EVC 5 boost controller.

Jimmy’s cockpit doesn’t get overlooked either. This GS is more of a sport-VIP look and I can totally dig it. He’s got a Bride Vorga CF seat with a Takata 4 pt harness. Up front is a Nardi steering wheel (Ridox Orido Edition – which is #1/200) mated to a Worksbell hub. His cluster is a TRD Aristo 320K cluster that was wired in by Jimmy.

Up close of the weave. It’s all in the weave, don’t you know?

A closer shot of his customer rolled and pulled rear fenders. Nicely done.

Again, it doesn’t stop at the engine or the wheels or even his interior, Jimmy also made sure to include some audio too. Ranging from Focal, Steg and Pioneer pieces.

The final shot of the shoot was the three PoorForm cars together. The final post to all of this!

Thanks again to Jimmy and Steph for coming out and spending the afternoon with JC, Rich and myself and letting us shoot the cars. It’s not everyday you get to shoot three Lexus’s that are all on point!

Again – there are way too many mods to list, and I missed a bunch so if anyone is interested, post in the comments and I’ll reply back with it.

Favourites: Ricky’s Volkswagen GTI

August 5, 2013August 1, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

It just dawned on me that I hadn’t posted these shots of Ricky’s GTI from last summer since they were waiting to be published elsewhere. I think a year is long enough to showcase his beautifully bagged GTI.

I’ve followed along with Ricky and his build, put a fair share of sweat and tears, and discussed hours upon hours of his build from the very beginning. The one thing you don’t usually get is the feeling of accomplishment that the owner gets when the car finally reaches this stage. Often times, readers just see the final outcome but they can’t appreciate the amount of work has gone into something. The little things like what needed to be done to fit a certain part, or the sacrifices that had to be made to actually make it to the product you see in photos. Luckily for me, Ricky’s GTI was one of those cars where I can say (I think he’d agree) that I know the process. I think he could say the same thing about all of my builds as well. For those of you that don’t know, Ricky is my cousin – so that’s part of the reason why we’re able to share that pain we all love when building cars.

The unique thing about Ricky’s build – and I use the term “unique” loosely – is because ever since the beginning, Ricky’s GTI has been semi-inspired by a lot of JDM builds. Most of the guys we all hang out with started out with the JDM-phase – building Honda’s, Toyota’s, etc. You’ll see very quickly that there are aspects of his GTI that make you think that Ricky should’ve built a Honda instead. From his SSR Professor SP1’s to the Bride carbon kevlar Gias seats. The mixture of Euro flavour and JDM inspiration comes together extremely well, and while there is some distaste among his fellow VW owners, there’s no denying that this is one of the best GTI builds out there.

The first thing you notice about his GTI is the beautiful set of SSR professor SP1’s in the awesome spectrum silver finish. He was one of the first to finally slap them on and at the time, it was rare to even find pictures of them on the internet. His Oettinger bumper is aggressive and flows well with the lines of the car.

His fitment in the rear.

Comparison shot.

Ricky was also early to the game of bagging his car in the city. There are a few that have done it, but it’s costly and most people prefer just to do static. Thanks to Concept-1, they got his GTI sitting nice and low and looking awesome with Accuair components.

His OSIR carbon fiber duckbill spoiler. This was one of the pieces that we had discussed for a long time about how the paint scheme should be. We talked about painting the whole thing, painting it slightly to show the weave through… Eventually we came up with keeping the bottom unpainted to show the carbon weave and then the top to match with his roof. It turned out awesome and the install took us a while, but the final outcome was worth it. Dave at Screamin’ Paintworks did a great job with the paintwork all around for Ricky’s car.

OSIR carbon insert side skirts as well.

The look of spectrum silver when it’s not in the sun. Simple gunmetal.

A look at the back of his carbon kevlar Bride Gias seats. Again, something that was a little odd to think about adding to the GTI initially, but once they were in – perfection.

Again with the JDM flavour – TI license plate bolts paired with a JDM EGO frame. Perfect!

A side profile shot showing his stance.

The rear with the sun shining right down on the spectrum silver.

Awesome monotone.

His dual chamber Forge carbon fiber intake.

Final shot of the beautiful SSR SP1.

While these shots are somewhat dated, his car still remains the same for the most part. You may remember seeing my post about it a few months back with his car on BBS RS’s as well. You can see it here

https://lifewithjson.com/2013/03/21/enter-rickys-gti/

Throwback: Giuseppe’s Nissan Skyline

July 13, 2013July 3, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Ah the final throwback. Giuseppe’s super immaculate Nissan Skyline. Giuseppe is one of the most down to earth and nicest guys in the car world that you can meet. Personally, I’m one of those guys that can damn well appreciate most things unless it’s straight up butt ugly and it looks like it came out of the dump. Giuseppe is actually (most likely) a nicer guy than me – and I don’t admit that often – that I have never heard him hate on anyone’s car, even if it came out of the dump and looked butt ugly.

I met Giuseppe for the first time during my first car show in 2008 and at the time, he still owned the Skyline and it was still in mint condition. Over the years, he’s made minor changes like removing his wing, changing up the wheels and for this particular shoot, he just had a full color change done – it used to be gold before. Whatever state it was in, it was always immaculate and it’s hard not to respect Giuseppe’s car.

A quick funny story during this shoot – we were all parked in a lot and ready to roll out to the shoot location. He was backing up, I also started backing up not knowing he was behind me and he was yelling my name, and as I was rolling back he started yelling louder and louder until I stopped. I looked into my side mirror and he was freaking out because I almost backed into his door. I was literally maybe an inch away before I actually hit his brand new paint job. I felt so bad the entire shoot and I know he was probably freaked too, but knowing Giuseppe – he probably would’ve bought me pizza at the end of the day anyway. Ha!

No rolling shots of this beaut though… Still nice to look at 🙂

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Perfection. There aren’t too many Skyline’s around here in this condition. In fact, I think Giuseppe’s Skyline is the cleanest in the whole city.

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Love the color.

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Unfortunately that’s all the shots I got of his car since three of us were shooting that day and it was blistering hot. I wish I had gotten more but nope.. 😦

Done for throwbacks! Hopefully that kept the blog somewhat updated while I’m in Mexico. When I get back, I’ll post pics of the trip!

Throwback: Adnan’s Honda Civic

July 11, 2013July 3, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Another one of Calgary’s cleaner builds is Adnan’s Honda Civic. I met Adnan on the 8thcivic forums when I was also building my 8th gen Civic – after a few meets, we became good friends and we followed each others’ builds closely. Within a short amount of time, Adnan put together a very clean and well thought out Civic.

Adnan re-wrapped his whole interior in red Bride gradation fabric to match his seats. His CCW’s paired with Neo-Chro Project Kics lugs were a great combo for nighthawk black pearl and he was sitting on a great set of Buddyclub N+ coilovers. He had the full HFP lip kit and put the finishing touch on it with his retrofitted projectors – something that is awesome to see when done right.

I believe Adnan still has the Civic, but could possibly be working on other things – I’m not sure – however, this one makes me miss my Civic in it’s final form pretty bad… T_T

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