CT200h

If I Could Call it a Drink, Call it a Smile on the Rocks

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I’m pretty behind on posts… To be honest, I completely forgot that I had taken pictures on Friday of some of my time at Jackie’s shop and then of JC’s grill install (hence the title of this post – courtesy of Diana lol).

It was about time that I had my oil change, so I stopped by Jackie’s to get ‘er done and took some snaps while I was there. Haven’t really taken pics so I’m a little rusty lol.

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Jackie’s crazy track build. He acquired this bumper about a week ago – a custom, one-off bumper made from a Subaru bumper. The build quality of it is pretty legit and it looks absolutely crazy in person. It literally sticks out a good 15″ if not more. Not sure how he’s going to get up ramps LOL

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On the other side… The car going up

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Kinda liked this shot… The red and black worked way better than I had imagined. Glad I kept it red.

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Some other detail shots of Jackie’s bumper.

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The carbon is pretty good and well put together.

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The canards molded nicely around the bumper. Very sturdy construction. Kudos to whoever made this. It’s super nice.

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From the rear quarter of the bumper. Mad downforce.

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Now some artsy photos while I waited…

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Upstairs is Jackie’s previous set up for the ITR – a C-West bumper with Top1 canards.

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Diana bored as hell lol

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Next up we got back to my place and tackled JC’s new grill install. Stock shot here.

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Sunken Battleship!!

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Removing the stock grill and headlight washer lines.

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Gopesh’s car…

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Bottom grill removed. Pretty easy.

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Touching up some paint on the sideskirt. Shot courtesy of Punit lol

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These locking star washers were probably the hardest part of the whole job. There’s no real way to actually remove it without ruining the tabs on the emblem. Gopesh managed to get them off pretty quickly and still got away with being able to re-use them.

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A shot of the grill-less bumper.

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Dat hybrid emblem.

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Punit unpacking the new spindle-type grill.

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The emblem goes back…

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Comparison shot o the two. The difference is actually night and day when you see the two side by side. The old one was just really cheap looking. The new one brings a lot more character to the front and updates it with a newer look.

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Top one installed in a jiffy.

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Bottom one in. Cool shadow/light pattern of stars on the ground lol.

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Boom. An updated front end – attention to detail is what matters the most!

Wheel Swap! TE37 x VS-XX

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The guys came over last night to chill – something I haven’t really had time to do in a long long time so that was nice. While we were waiting for Punit to come, JC and I swapped wheels really quick since he’s been wanting to switch up his wheel game for next year. We’ve been talking about doing it but every time we meet up, we either forget or we’re too lazy. Part of the reason we did it was because Justin did all of the work for JC lol. So I guess that just means JC is lazy…

Anyway, just some quick shots – we may end up switching wheels on Sunday for a week or so just to see what it’s like…

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Haven’t had my car jacked up for a while. It’s been so meh lately lol

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JC and Justin outside with Gopesh in the back there. Justin happened to have a low pro jack with him lol.

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Taking the wheel off…

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JC’s 215 vs my 245 lol.

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Justin putting the TE’s on the CT…

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The VS-XX’s on the car…

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The TE’s on JC’s car looks surprisingly good. I did photoshop it a few weeks ago but it doesn’t ever look as good as it does in person. JC’s going for the “sport” look next year so we’ll see how that goes. I do dig the TE look though… In any other color than red, I think this would be killer.

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Lowered the FRS back to the ground

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I kinda dig the look. I don’t think I’d rock a multi-piece wheel on the FRS but it looks cool. I still love the faded gold on JC’s wheels – it makes it look like rose gold in the light.

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Dopeeee

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A quick shot of Justin’s S2

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I liked this shot – good shadows and check that concave. So dope.

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Up close! TE’s look good on everything!

A Taste of Summer

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So I finally had a reason to pick up the camera and take some shots – albeit, nothing spectacular since it was more a chill sesh, but still some content…

It was +27C today so we all decided to cruise in the evening to get some ice cream and then we randomly showed up at an S2000 meet. Pretty random, but the weather today was too amazing to just sit inside. It’s practically the first time since we’ve all just hung out and done something rather than work in the garage.

Anyway – just some random shots of this mid-week hang out.

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En route…

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Diana got a few random shots in. Looks like I’m about to pull the e-brake for a mad drift… Not.

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Met up at JC’s. Diana always has to photobomb shit.

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Rich’s car with the fresh VOLK/RAYS stickers applied on his LE37’s

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JC’s car with his new additions – Modellista front lip and Tom’s rear lip. The front part of the lip has a chrome addition that you can barely see but it’s dope.

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Punit’s Integra… His GS is going under the knife soon…

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One of my heap

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This shot turned out all polaroid and shit. Punit was on his phone the whole time – someone tell that guy to get bluetooth…

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JC rollin’

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Punit…

Sorry Rich – by the time I realized that I didn’t adjust my camera properly to get your wheels spinning, it was too late to get one of your car

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Diana got JC and a little bit of Rich in the side mirror…

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Prime parking for Village.

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This is the hipster hang out. Notice the bikes parked on the mid-left there…

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Gang signs and spoon licking. I’m not a huge fan of ice cream (despite my Gelato post yesterday) so I just came to hang.

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Bad pic cause of the shadows. But – note that couple on the right there – JC’s car was breaking their necks the whole damn time we were there. By the time we were ready to go, they practically pounced on him and asked him a bunch of questions. JC’s turn to shine was today.

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Another.

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I liked the shirt.

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Two people unimpressed in this pic… So we just left to go check out the S2000 meet…

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When we got there, we were greeted by Charleston (Justin’s dog)…

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It was a pretty small meet – probably just a little hang out. Whatever, it was good weather, so why not?

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We parked on the other side so we wouldn’t look like posers.

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More chillin’ pics

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Rich wanted a majestic shot. The sky helped…

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Diana wasn’t so majestic…

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Some quick shots of the S2000’s… Corey’s S2000 on bronze CE28’s

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Justin on Corey’s previous set of black TE37’s

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A few more shots of our cars

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Last one all to myself and JC photobombing.

Happy Tuesday!

JDM Install Party!

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After a long week of waiting, our small JDM pieces that JC ordered finally came in from NigelJDM. We were checking the tracking like no tomorrow – as I’m sure most of you do when waiting for parts – no matter the size…

The last time we had a JDM install party (that I can remember) was when we installed the third brake light on my STI a few years back. More often than not, it’s the little pieces that make up the whole picture and for these little pieces – that’s what it was for me.

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On my way to JC’s place right after work – thunderstorm incoming and all. I didn’t care – those badges were going on rain, shine, hail, blizzard – didn’t matter to me.

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Got there and ironically, JC pulled out his Dad’s AE86  so we could work in the garage quick.

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Still so mint. I will need to do a shoot with this when I finally have some worthwhile mods to give me a reason to take a picture of my car.

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Snapped a quick shot of JC’s car

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And it’s time to get started!

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Ugly ass badge. I hate it so much – even before I bought the car I knew I wanted to get rid of them.

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Didn’t take that long to pry the actual emblem off but it was a bitch to take the 3M residue off. Probably took at least 20 minutes and a shit load of Goo Gone before we got it all off.

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Clean and gone! Looks better already hahaha

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The back badges were cake to take off. The only thing I could have lived with was the FRS badge haha

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Shot of the rear off.

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Shots of the badges all minty!

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The Toyota badge with an aligning foam. Pretty cool

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GT86 badge – Don’t see it too often because I usually see just the Toyota emblems to keep it simple. But I liked the whole combination.

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Just placed the emblem in the holes to check… Already looks better.

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On! Love it.

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And the rears on! Makes me love the car that much more.

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Next up was JC’s car and his JDM visors.

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Love the LED headlights so much

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Ran outside as they were prepping JC’s car… snapped a few more shots.

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Punit and his GS

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Rich’s new car – Audi S6. He sold the WRX and has moved onto his new project. Quite a change – almost on the other end of the spectrum. But so far he loves it and it ain’t no slouch either…

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Rich and JC getting to work.

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The visors include the chrome strip to keep it looking uniform with the stock chrome edging.

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JC peeling off that blue tape! The best part.

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Nice and shiny! I think they flow nicely.

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Punit unwrapping the rest of the visors.

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Random shot.

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Finished the other side fairly quickly.

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Voila!

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I didn’t get a chance to get a full shot of the visors with the car out of the garage, but you’ll see it soon enough…

Yay for JDM goodies!