The Internet Sensation: Jackie Law’s Honda S2000

August 21, 2015August 21, 2015 / jasonhoang / 2 Comments

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Jackie’s S2000 has been in the scene since before I even started and he’s continuously pushed the bar higher for himself. If there’s one thing that I’ve gotta give kudos to Jackie for over the years, it’s that he builds his car for himself. I know that’s saying a lot, but it’s extremely rare to find someone who truly builds their car void of outsider opinions, ideas or criticism. In fact, I think Jackie is still the only person that I’ve met that has built his car because he doesn’t give a damn about what anyone else thinks.

Admittedly, Jackie has been a source of good information and inspiration for my builds. I used to hang out at Speedtech every week for hours on end talking cars with Jackie and discussing parts and the pros and cons of this versus that. I think my love for GT wings was spawned through his S2000 – 7 years ago, GT wings were ricey as hell and really looked down on at the time. Nowadays, everyone and their mom is trying to get the biggest GT wing they can find with as many support rods, cables, and reinforcements as possible. The scene evolves and tastes change, it’s crazy to think that GT wings are not a thing of race cars, but rather an aesthetic go-to now.

A big part of my attitude towards real parts versus fake parts come from those early days of mine – I don’t hate fake parts, but I try to steer clear of them. Building a quality car takes time – Jackie’s S2000 is the perfect example of that – quality is what people admire. It’s gone through it’s phases and it’s eventually reached a point where Jackie truly believes it’s complete and that no more money is going into it. Of course, that’s what we all say but something new will come along and he’ll have another reason as to why it’s not done yet…

For those of you that have seen Jackie’s car before, you’ll know it’s no stranger to the scene. This has been his biggest overhaul to date – so while we were in Vancouver, we made the trip over to Victoria to hang out for a few hours…

First up – a roller as per usual!

We got onto the Ferry nice and early and it was packed. It was a nice day though so a lot of people were up on the top deck.

Diana can’t resist her selfies.

The view was nice – much different from when I was here a few months ago. It was all gloomy and rainy…

Blue skies all the way!

When we got there, Jackie picked us up and we made the trip back to his place to pick up his S2…

The cool thing about Victoria – or BC in general – is that the landscape and scenery is just so rich and vibrant. There’s a ton of places for photoshoots… It definitely beats our loading docks and dirt in Calgary…

Of course we get to the first spot and the girls go to play on the playground.

Now we get to the good part. Jackie’s new set up is immaculate in person. The way the colours all go together is great.

Probably the most noticeable change is his vibrant, custom blue TE37’s paired with T1R titanium lug nuts and a new AP Racing BBK set up in place of his T1R BBK he had for a while.

And for the biggest change – Jackie’s turbo set up. It matches perfectly with his Spoon hood…

Craft Square mirrors.

Double Spoon bucket seats

And for those that have been following Jackie’s build over the years – the most obvious change is his switch from the ASM bumper to the Voltex Race bumper. Much more aggressive.

To continue with the flow of colour, Jackie has a set of titanium wing stands for his 1700mm J’s Racing GT wing. The piece that was responsible for my love of GT wings…

Fun fact: the Ti bolts that Jackie has holding down his wing are my old bolts from my Civic. Good to see he still has them… Now how do I convince him to give them back to me? lol

Jackie’s gone with a more functional wheel/tire set up – probably cause he’s sick of messing up his fenders all the time. But it still looks great.

And yet another aesthetic change you might have noticed is the full body colour change – he went from the OEM Sebring silver to the “JDM” Moonrock grey metallic. It’s a bit darker but it’s definitely a nice shade in person under differing light. It’s grown on me…

The TE’s shining through…

Oddly enough, one of my favourite shots – the colours just work so well together here.

Off to the next location – if you remember way back when I shot Ben and Chris’s cars, I mentioned that there was really only one stretch of road with nice scenery and two lanes. Victoria is fairly small so we took this road a few times until I got the shots I wanted.

Speeding away to make a U-turn for another round…

under the hood, Jackie got Sheepey to make him some custom pieces for his turbo set up. A nice addition.

He recently also changed his red valve cover out for ab lack one to match the engine bay a little better and added an ARC plate as well.

One of the mods Jackie was quite proud of was his Mugen radiator. A pretty rare piece to acquire…

You can see the Mugen Power stencil on the front of the rad here…

One more shot…

We had to stop to fill up so I got the typical gas station shot. Every car guy likes these, right? I sure as hell do.

Couldn’t help but add the obnoxious wide angle pic of the wing to make it look even wider lol.

As we moved closer to the scenic area, the sun started to get more harsh. It’s definitely tougher to shoot in these conditions, even with my polarizer, but it turned out well.

All of these pictures show all of the different spectrums that moonrock grey metallic can go through depending on light.

Another shot of Jackie’s wheel/tire/brake combo.

I liked this shot as well – got a JDM angle going. I try to avoid it, but sometimes it just works lol.

I lied. Another JDM angle shot.

One more shot to show how bright the titanium stands are.

Close up of the detail on the Voltex carbon lip.

And alas, the Spoon hood everyone wants to get their hands on… This is the Spoon prototype race hood, and I believe there are only a handful of these that some people are fortunate enough to have. Jackie being one of them… I know that there are a bunch of individuals who have tried to take the mass-made Spoon hood and mold it to look like this, but haven’t seen a good copy yet. Either way, it’s something that I don’t think Jackie will be letting go of any time soon.

And one last one to finish this off like always. Huge thanks to Jackie for taking us all around and letting us drive your Hybrid Highlander. Sorry we couldn’t stay longer like I promised – NEXT TIME, we will plan for the whole day and we won’t have to rush! I’m hoping I get the chance to shoot this again in the near future… Until then…

Extras: Civic x NSX

April 7, 2015 / jasonhoang / 2 Comments

Been a while since I had time to get on here again. Time is hard to come by nowadays… Anyway, I found a few more extras from Ben and Chris’s shoot where I took some shots of their cars together. Not a whole lot, but enough for some content 🙂

I’ll hopefully have some updates on the FRS soon… I’m awaiting one more piece to the puzzle after almost 2 months of waiting… If I’m lucky, it’ll be here near the end of the week and I’ll be installing on the weekend! Until then, enjoy some shots of two of Victoria’s best together.

Limited Edition: Chris’s Boosted J-Swapped EG

March 27, 2015 / jasonhoang / 4 Comments

At long last! The first of my two photo shoots from my visit to Victoria, and the first one up is Chris’s boosted J-swapped Civic… It’s quite different from the everyday K-swaps that are ever-so-popular in the Honda community. How could I have passed up the opportunity to shoot one of the island’s cleanest and most unique builds? I couldn’t – and the best thing about Chris’s car is that it’s a car that you’ve probably never even heard of unless you’re close to him or his friends.

I’ve seen Chris’s cars through pictures that Jackie has sent in some of our chats and could really only admire through those pictures. It’s one thing to appreciate a well-built car through iPhone pictures, but it’s a totally different feeling to see it up close and admire the work that has been put into it. My trip to Victoria was well worth it and the two cars alone show that the island literally at the end of Western Canada does have something to show, and they aren’t any half-assed builds either.

Chris hasn’t really had a true photoshoot that has been shared on social media or anywhere for that matter, and it’s surprising because a build like this deserves recognition. Chris is a super low-key guy and I get the sense that he really just does what he does because he enjoys it and nothing more. Him and his wife, Tiffany, were super friendly and accommodating while I was there – I’m looking forward to coming back during the summer!

Enough of my chatter… I’m sure you guys are dying to see this as much as I am dying to show you!

We’ll start off with a roller to get this going like always.

The best thing I found out about this build was that it was Chris’s first car that he purchased back in 1997. Great builds take time and patience and this is another great example of exactly that…

The biggest head turner of Chris’s Civic is the massive J-series engine from a TL Type-S bulging from the center of the hood and a Vortech charger connected right beside it…

Part of the LEVEL one family.

Password JDM canards on the front bumper to help make the front end aggressive.

Chargespeed wide fenders

Even from the side, Chris’s EG is mean as hell. You can see the piping from the hood, the canards and First Molding lip flow to the Chargespeed fenders and the lines flow all the way to the rear Spoon wing.

With the hood opened, Chris replaced all of the stock plastic bolts for some better hardware…

And the custom Vortech power plant in all it’s glory.

The J-series straight from the 2003 6-speed Acura TL Type-S.

Another cool tidbit about Chris’s car is that this obviously hasn’t always been the only engine Chris has ran… This is actually his fourth engine. His first engine was a D-series, the second one was an turbo LS, his third was a built B16 turbo, and now a boosted J-series. Quite the progression, if you ask me!

The back has been gutted for room for his Auto Power drag cage.

For you diehard Civic fans out there, you might have noticed by looking at his front bumper that it’s not a typical EG front bumper… Any guesses? Look carefully – if you scroll down, you can confirm your guess or find out if you’re stumped…

The answer is – the vents are from a 99-00 EK bumper. Chris actually does body work and molded those in himself and they look seamless as you can see from the above two pictures. You’ll also probably notice the Vision type DC mirrors swapped in too.

Another look at how aggressive and beastly this car looks from afar…

Jackie and Chris swapped cars to get to the next spot so he could give me a ride in it. The car is currently pushing about 400whp and in a light and small chassis like the EG, that’s no joke. Jackie mentioned that it was difficult to get traction in the lower gears but once it gets going, it goes…

Side note – you can see the JDM EG6 cluster as well.

The Spoon SW388 wheels suit any classic Honda perfectly and this is no exception.

Here you can see a perfect shot of how massive this engine is in the EG chassis.

We ended up finding a nice spot near the entrance to the area after the Ferry that made for good spot lighting.

Some behind the scenes shots… The group is trying to find the best dual lane road to take rolling shots on. Turns out Victoria doesn’t have many dual lanes but we ended up finding some good stretches of road! Sneak peak at my next subject… 🙂

The chariot for the day was Jackie’s lowered TL on some spacers that even rubbed! LOL… Jackie is notorious for just dumping everything.

A pit stop and another preview shot of the second photo shoot to come…

These rolling shots were next to a nice and peaceful lake. Suited these shoots perfectly.

One last shot to end it for Chris’s car. I will admit that I do have a few more, but I will have to revisit those later and repost them up when I get the chance. I know Chris and Ben have been itching to see the shots… The other shots will serve as a good refresher later!

Scott’s Honda S2000 – Batmobile: Work In Progress

October 3, 2014 / jasonhoang / 7 Comments

Finally!! I can’t believe the last post was on September 19th… I feel like I just posted that yesterday.

Been a crazy few weeks trying to get stuff done… It’s always around month end where things get hectic and there’s always a bunch of errands to run. I was up in Edmonton this past week for work and I wanted to shoot someone’s car while I was there. I really want to try and get out to shoot cars in different places because it doesn’t happen often. In particular, I want to head out to Vancouver and Toronto to shoot their local talent – which IMO is far superior than ours. I may be biased though because I’m so used to what our city has to offer or I just never see it enough.

I’ll be blunt – Edmonton is bland. There’s nothing to do except go to West Edmonton Mall, eat, or drive on their shitty roads. However, there are a few tuners there that pop their head out once in a while… I’ve been following Scott and his S2000 project for a while, and even before that, he was working on his GE8 Fit. Scott’s project appeals to me simply because it is different – it isn’t going in the same direction as a lot of the S2000 builds you see lately – no stance to make her dance, no “low as you can go” deal, not that I hate it or anything, but it’s cool to shoot something different.

Right now Scott is kind of in the awkward stage of his build – where he’s waiting for some key parts but he still wants to drive it. It happens sometimes and you just love the car so much that you don’t care that it’s missing it, you just want to drive it. Fortunately enough for the sake of me shooting his car, he’s missing his front fenders which coincidentally make it look quite aggressive given the amount of tire he’s rolling on. That’s what I like about Scott’s car – it looks different, not by design, but because of function and the lack of parts needed to complete it.

We’ll start off with this roller as the sun set…

A view from the hotel room – which isn’t all that special. Where we stayed it was mostly industrial-type areas, so this is pretty much all you get for as far as you can see

Chillin’ watching The Big Bang Theory waiting for Scott…

That was the catch for a photoshoot – I needed to be picked up from the hotel and if they wanted rolling shots, they needed to bring a friend. Scott was happy enough to do both so he got both haha

Wasted no time and we were on our way.

Now for some detail shots of his S2000…

Up close. You can see all the tire and it’s “actually” touching the ground.

335’s out back with CG rear over fenders. I love wide tires.

A shot from the side sans front fenders… It gives it quite an aggressive look which is what appealed to me the most.

From the back you can see there is very minimal camber and a lot of contact patch. Just looks so aggressive.

The CCW’s in full black are also quite a rare sight to see… You usually only see the classics in full polish.

His front end is pretty track-inspired as well with the splitter, brake cooling ducts in the bumper…

Scott also created vents in his hood on his own which turned out quite nicely as well.

Another shot of his vents – you can take a peak underneath too

All that gloss.

A shot of the rear. He’s actually on stock suspension with springs – it ends up working quite well because of how meaty his tire is…. The ride is quite comfortable.

Sun flare pictures!!

Another from the back. My favourite view.

A little blurry, but I still liked it…

Voila!

Thanks again to Scott for giving me the opportunity to shoot this and say I’ve shot a car in Edmonton… My camera hasn’t really been anywhere else to shoot cars but I’m hoping to do more of it soon…

I got a couple more shoots coming up shortly so the blog won’t be so stale in a few days… Stay tuned.