Sunday Funday: Guns, ‘Murica, and Turbo Diesels

June 6, 2016June 6, 2016 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Decided I’d throw up a few pics from this weekend where I channeled my inner Call of Duty side and a bit of whatever kind of nature-type personality I had in me. My neighbour has been asking if I wanted to shoot guns with him for a while but I was also too busy to come. I finally had the day yesterday to go out and do some shootin!

I really wish I had brought my camera for better pics, but I didn’t wanna look like a loser lugging my camera around while we were shooting guns LOL… So you’ll have to just enjoy iPhone pics. Nothing too special, I just thought it was cool to be able to do something like this outside of a shooting range…

On the way out… He has a sick lifted turbo Cummins Diesel. We headed out about 1 hour out of Airdrie.

When we finally got up to the spot, it was up a small hill and out of the way of anyone that might be hanging out. Beautiful view.

A better shot of his truck. I like.

2 of his 7 guns he brought out yesterday. He had 2 shot guns and 5 rifles. The rifle on the right – (the SKS – the only one I remember the name of LOL) was my favourite.

Bullets and more guns.

My first few shots about 100 ft away. Decent…

With some more practice, I started to get the feel of the guns and how to aim down the iron sights. It’s not as hard as it sounds, but it’s not as easy as it looks either… I guess Call of Duty does not count as supplemental training for real life…

The set up for the day.

An update on the targets after a few more shots and different guns. The big hole you see was from one of the shotguns with a slug and it just went straight through the target and tree behind it. I was able to get a few bulls-eyes through the scope about 150 ft away… No American Sniper magic, but decent enough for my first time.

We laid out in his truck bed to do some shooting. The heat yesterday was crazy…

Another of the many rifles… This one had the most kick to it since the bullets were pretty big with metal jackets.

It got a little too hot so we camped under the truck with plenty of room and lots of shade. The 10 minutes I spent under that truck was the one of many firsts for me… One, to be staring down the sights at targets about 200 ft away and holding my breath to keep the movement minimal; two, my elbows anchored in the ground into rocks and dirt trying to maintain stable; and three, big ass bees buzzing around my head literally inches away and not being able to flinch. If anyone knows me, they know I’ll run from bees if I even hear them, let alone get close to me. LOL

Another shot of Max’s truck. Love this thing.

Another target that we shot a bunch of shit into. All the smaller pellets are from the other shotgun. Imagine being hit with all of those… Jesus.

And one quick video of some of the shooting! Fun times!!

Sunday Funday: T1R Power Header Install!

December 20, 2015 / jasonhoang / 4 Comments

Another successful install day is in the books today! Installs during the winter months are always a love-hate… It’s good because you get all the new parts on your car and it’s super exciting to finally be able to hear or see it on, but it sucks because you can’t truly enjoy it until summer comes. In this case, it sucks even more because it’s not something I can just look at and enjoy, it’s something I have to hear.

There were a few minor set backs and some frustrating times with the install – namely a nut that nearly got stripped and forced us to make a trip to Canadian Tire for… Next, we didn’t have a 20mm wrench to remove the O2 sensors, so that was yet another trip… Lesson of the day is to be prepared!

Anyway, took a few quick pics of the progress when I could…

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We started at 930AM and it was still a bit chilly out. I worked on getting the car on jack stands while waiting for everyone.

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Punit was early so he was supervising as per usual…

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Another shot of the headers!

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Gopesh and Punit doing work

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Got the bumper off while they were getting the stock headers off to prepare for something bigger…

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Quick shot of the work area.

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One of the nuts we were trying to get off that connected the front pipe to the over pipe was almost rounded off and before we made it worse, we made a trip to Canadian Tire and got these set of wrenches. We got back and they were off in the first wrench with these bad boys.

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Waiting for Punit and Gopesh since they had to go and get bigger wrenches to get the O2 sensors off. You can see the stock header laying there with the sensors still connected.

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Almost got the new one all in.

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Look at that shine!

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Just hooking everything back up.

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After the first start up… Sounded awesome! Smokey!

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And back in the corner it goes sans the front bumper – you can see it sitting up top.

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Hopefully I’ll have an update on the new additions if the shipment arrives on time this week!

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One last shot of the headers from up top from the engine bay. Love it!

Sunday Funday: FR-S Coilover Install

January 18, 2015 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Sunday funday is back! This officially marks the earliest we’ve ever decided to do something to our cars and where the weather was decent enough to let us do so. The suspension has just been sitting in the garage, the Cusco arms were in my living room and the car was on jacks… It’s been so long since we’ve all got together to do some wrenching so this was the perfect time!

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see it down on the ground just yet… There are still a few more pieces to add to the puzzle. If all goes well, an exhaust will go on there soon and I’ll be picking tires up from Alex in February. By the time I get all my shit together, it’ll (hopefully be March) and it’ll be time to wake her up again…

Anyway – we started at around 11:30 and while this is no difficult job, we finished faster than expected. I think a part of all of us was hoping that it would have taken longer just so we had an excuse to be in the garage a little longer… Ah well.

There she is under my ghetto covers and on jacks for the last 3-ish months. I gotta get a car cover next year…

The new parts begging to be put in. Cusco lower control arms and ST coilovers.

It wasn’t long before we got all our stuff out and were ready to finally get working.

Punit ended up bringing in his AME’s so that we could take the faces off so he could re-finish the barrels.

Love these wheels.

It took a bit for us to get started… Mainly because it was still a little chilly…

But we paired up and each took a corner.

Punit taking off some strut bolts. The best part of working on a new car that hasn’t seen salt/snow is that everything is hella easy to take off

Once we removed the stock suspension on the front, we disassembled them, took the top hats off and assembled them onto the ST’s. Easy peasy.

These were in super quick. We pre-adjusted them to have 3 threads left on the fronts. We’ll see how that goes

JC and Gopesh on the other side… JC putting fingerprints on my fender. Clearly he has never owned a black car…

Next up were the rears. A little more work because we had to take the stock control arms off, but still pretty straight forward.

JC and Punit taking the rear lining off and oh there’s JC again, putting finger prints on my quarter panel now…

Gopesh getting down and dirty taking off all the control arm and strut bolts… My side finished.

Comparison of the Cusco arms to the stock arm. Love that Cusco blue.

A quick shot of the stock control arm off and all the stock junk still hanging there. I do plan on replacing all these pieces in the near future… I just don’t know when lol.

A comparison of the stock and ST rear pieces.

And once again, we disassembled the stock suspension and re-used the top hats for the ST’s, then mounted them on… Like so.

Punit tightening the top strut bolts.

Punit ended up picking up the camera and took some candids as well. I actually love when people pick the camera up and attempt to take some shots – whether it’s for fun or not. It’s a nice surprise when I go to edit them and it’s cool to see it from their perspective. That’s really the only time you see me on the other side…

Another angle – you’ve probably seen this shot on my Instagram. This was an awesome shot, Punit!

And there’s Gopesh wedged in the corner doing the passenger side rear…

The FRS is also plugged into a trickle charger for those that are wondering.

JC on his phone while I’m breaking my arms down there. First shot of 2015 of his antics…

A fun fact: Punit only gets down and dirty when none of us can get a bolt out or if we need some muscle lol. This was one of those times… It’s rare though.

A shot of it all in and done! Love the color combo.

Gopesh trying to find the right size key to remove the wheel hardware…

Little did we know that some of the hardware was previously “messed” with from the previous owner – so some of them were stripped. Problem number two was that we didn’t have the right size key… So no progress was made on the wheels today, unfortunately.

Punit trying to look for the right size so that we can tackle another day.

Some close up shots of it all together.

Looks great together

We left 9 threads in the rear… Again, not sure where that’s going to put me, but we’ll see!

Last shot of the front. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the allen key locking the collar in place versus the dual collar… But I guess we’ll see. I think I’ll be picking up a can of fluid film to spray on all of this before I take it out just in case. Back when I had my Civic, I sprayed my Buddy Club N+’s with fluid film when I first installed them and months later, they were super easy to remove and adjust.

Anyway, a few more parts incoming so stay tuned! We’re almost through the winter blues!

Thanks to JC, Punit, and Gopesh again for the helping hand!

Sunday Funday is Back!

March 9, 2014March 9, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

EDIT: This is my 500th post! Woohoo

I’m still alive! I think this is the longest I’ve ever left the blog alone and had no content. We have been getting the shittiest weather the last few weeks up until this weekend – yesterday was about +9C and today got up to +13C I think… It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it was practically summer and it was time to work on cars. I’ve been itching to install my exhaust ever since I got it, originally I was going to wait until I moved to the new place and do it there, but I couldn’t wait any longer. JC and Punit came over to lend a hand and we got it done in no time.

With that said – let’s just get to the good stuff!

You can see it’s a nice, sunny day and the LS got to wake up a little bit to get some goodies on.

Oh man it’s been so long since it’s moved from it’s sleeping spot…

Punit meant business and brought the business today. His tool box to work on getting an exhaust on. Good stuff though hahaha

That new new. Joe Z/PTS exhaust

Up and ready to go.

A shot of the old clunky system.

Within a few minutes we had the left side out and the new one was good to go. Super simple and easy – no broken bolts, no stripped nuts.

The best shot I could take with the new system in. Shiny!

Another shot of the driver side.

The two old clunkers. I bet these cost a fortune too… lol

Next up was JC’s car – we decided to slap on the Mode Luxe pinstripe on as well!

Dirty dirty dirty

The first time the LS has seen the sun in over 6 months. It was actually nice to see it back out again.

Punit’s GS – lots of good things in store for Punit’s GS in the next few months… Can’t wait!

The pinstripe all on. Looks great… It’ll look even better with his wheels on.

The other side. Slick!

The mean girls together for the first time in 2014. Gonna be a good year! I can feel it!

I know a bunch of others were working on their cars too… Rightfully so, because it was a beautiful day. Hopefully just a few more weeks and the roads will clear up a bit and I can stretch the LS’s legs.