J’s Racing Honda Fit Joins the Battle!

August 19, 2021 / jasonhoang / 4 Comments

Some of you probably all saw my long ass adventure that I had last weekend… I hadn’t really said anything because with my luck, I would’ve jinxed it and something would’ve messed up, so I just waited until it was official.

Some back story – over the last few months I’ve been searching for a clean stock GD Fit and never really found anything worth starting a project on. It’s particularly tough in Alberta because most Fits have been used and abused (I mean, not to blame them – it’s a Fit) and they were either rusted or damaged in some sort of way… And when I came close to finding a clean one, it was either too high in mileage or in a color I didn’t want. I almost settled on Silver… Not that there is anything wrong with Silver but it’s just not for me.

Reggie (NRI) had posted his Fit for sale twice in the time I was looking. The first time, I passed it up because I was confident I would’ve been able to find a clean base and never came close. The second time, I messaged him and we ended up talking about it and came to a reasonable deal. With the approval from Diana, I had my plane ticket booked and the rest is basically history.

Reggie had built the Fit pretty much the way I had wanted it – some of the items I would’ve gone a different route like the wheels and wing but overall – it was a very well-rounded build with a nice J’s theme going on. To buy a stock Fit and then all these parts to and labour/paint would’ve cost me more than to just buy Reggie’s. Maybe I’m getting old but I’m not big into waiting for parts and getting them all installed or going through the bodywork process and everything else in between. There’s a certain sense of joy that comes with an already-built car that you just take the keys to and enjoy and this is it.

I just took a few shots in the garage before I do a complete detail on it inside and out. It definitely needs some love and a few extra fixings (in my eyes) to really bring it together. As a package, the car is pretty much take it and drive but the OCD in me can’t leave it as is… Here are some pics with bug guts and all…

The front end is probably my favourite. The J’s front is (IMO) the best looking front end for the GD platform.

TE37 CR Sonics. Guess I’m back with TE37’s… If Advan ever made GT’s in 15’s, I’d trade instantly lol. Maybe one day!

J’s Racing carbon duct and canards as well. Makes the slow car look fast.

J’s racing painted carbon hood. Also one of the better hoods for the GD platform… IMO…

The JDM headlights are also super clean. The USDM headlights that are color matched to the body are barf ugly lol. One day I might retrofit these but I’m digging the reflector look right now.

MOMO Monte Carlo steering wheel…

J’s Racing titanium knob and a Hybrid racing short shifter. Super solid and short shifts with this one.

And a J’s Racing carbon GT wing. It works because of the whole J’s theme going on so I dig it. I think I would’ve went with a Mugen wing but we’ll go with the full on race car theme. It’s growing on me.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be detailing the entire car and eventually coating it with Carpro SiC this time. I was going to use UK 3.0 with Gliss overtop but I thought this would be a good opportunity to try something new. Over time, I will be replacing certain seals and bolts to make it look a little more fresh. I’ll be shampooing the entire interior and I want to eventually replace the interior carpet if I can source one.

More pics of that when I start!

Out for a Quick Run

April 24, 2018 / jasonhoang / 2 Comments

On Saturday, I decided to take the FRS out for a quick leg stretch and to also break in the Brembo brakes. (See how I spelled the two words properly? Lots of people don’t lol). I initially didn’t want to take it out until I gave it a full detail and cleaned up some minor things but the weather was perfect and I couldn’t wait! I still have to a full detail and clean up the paint, put the TiBurnt valve stem caps on, replace the worn out level one sticker, and clean the tires and remove the browning. Right now the car is a mess – it’s just dusty and looks like it sat in a garage for 6 months lol.

Forgive me – I “think” I’m having some technical issues with my camera, or colour profiles and I have yet to figure out how to calibrate it all. When I edit these photos on my computer, they look perfect. However, when I get them onto my phone or a different monitor, they’re really dark and unpleasing to look at – or at least that’s what I see. I’m betting that you’re also seeing a fairly dark photo as well – and I promise you, that’s not how I intended it to be. I just didn’t want to hold off on the photos because then it just gets to be old news. Anyway, aside from the technical issue – it was just a quick drive off to some warehouses to get some sunset pics and show off the new set up as best I could. I’ve pretty much gotten comfortable with shooting people with the new camera set up, but shooting cars is a whole new ball game for me right now. I’m rusty as hell and at the time of shooting this, I couldn’t even figure out exposure lock – something I took for granted on my Canon 7D. It wasn’t until later that night after getting home that I finally figured it out… So I’ll go back out and try again sometime soon.

Anyway – just a few quick pics!

What wheels are those? Steelies?! damn it.

It helped a bit more when I was facing the sunset – but barely…

One thing I am finding is that the 35 f1.4 is an AMAZING portrait lens. This thing is a beast when taking pictures of people and things. But it’s a little more difficult with cars. I’m used to either using my 10-20 to get a nice wide perspective or my 135 f2.0 to get a nice distant shot. But with the 35, I’m trying to find the sweet spot and I’m not sure I’ve found it yet…

One last shot before going back home and after working the brakes for a bit. I’m lucky that I’ve got dead roads near home where I can just test the brakes and break them in properly with no issue. God, they just bite like crazy compared to stock brakes – to be expected – but when you actually use them, they’re amazing. They’re also loud as hell though cause of the pads that came with them – everyone around me thinks my car is broken haha.

Here’s where the 35mm shines. Close quarters where you want details of one main thing and everything else around it to be blurred out.

I miss this view… Thank god summer is finally here.

The Death of the Black Swan; Enter Bumblebee

April 16, 2018April 16, 2018 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

The day I’ve been waiting for months finally came. If you recall my previous post about actually getting the Brembo’s, you’ll know that I ordered it at the end of January and didn’t end up getting them for almost 2 months after. Even after getting them, I couldn’t put them on because of the shitty weather we’re having. As I type this, we are under a snowfall warning and expecting 10-20cm of snow – WTF – it’s the middle of April for Pete’s sake!

Whatever, I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about our century-long winter so let’s just talk about the exciting stuff. This last weekend ended up showing us a bit of mercy and we had +10C weather – nice enough for us to stay in the garage and wrench on the cars. Punit and JC came over and helped me swap out the brakes and flush the lines. You know when you have those projects/installs that should really only take an hour but one small thing goes wrong and it takes you like 3? It happens to us every time…

Anyway, I’ll talk about it as we go… On to the pics!

The Brembos all ready to go.

You (background) vs the guy she told you not to worry about (foreground). lol

We got started right away by removing the original brake line. This was the first part that really should’ve taken like 1 minute. The brake line was caked in gunk and seized a bit so when we took the 10mm wrench to it, it sort of rounded off the nut. We ended up taking two vice grips to latch on and turn. Cue the “That Was Easy” button press.

The weapons…

Removing the brake line bracket

Punit installing the Brembo caliper bracket to allow the caliper to mount properly.

Shot of the bracket on!

The dust shields were removed – they’re not needed nor will they fit with the new brakes. You can see the new rotor to the right as well.

The stock rotor came off with a bit of hammering and the new one slid on like a glove. We put some lug nuts on to keep it in place while we installed the caliper.

Shot of it all complete!

Another shot of the finished product.

The stock calipers and rotors

Next problem was that the TE’s didn’t clear the calipers. It rubbed just barely on a part of the brakes. So who you gonna call? Zokusha Tuning!

As soon as we realized spacers were needed, I slid into Eric’s DM and he met me within half an hour to give me these 5mm spacers. The one good thing about this over shops or online sites is that if they want to be, they could be open all day, every day. Where would I get parts on a Sunday afternoon otherwise? Thanks to Eric @ Zokusha Tuning for the quick service! Life saver!

We popped the spacers on and then the wheel – perfect! The next hard part was getting the car back on the ground without getting the jack stuck or wrecking the bumper on the wood lol.

I am SO digging the look though.

The next few shots are just of the car outside. I didn’t think I’d hate it as much as I have been saying it, but I really hate taking pictures of black cars with black wheels. I did a quick edit on this because I had no polarizer and it was just bright as hell outside so everything was either overexposed or underexposed.

And another…

One more…

Front quarter shot you might have seen on the Gram…

A bit closer…

Unfortunately, back in the garage. 😦

One last one before closing the garage and heading in. I suppose it’s OK – I’ve still got a little work to do before taking out. It’s been a while since I’ve done a full detail on the car, so I think I’m going to take a full day and give it a spa day.

I need to clay bar it, give it a 2-stage polish, seal and wax it up. I want to give the front bumper a little TLC – the grill is all chipped up from last year and I need to touch it up. I’m hoping some polish will get rid of a lot of the spots from a lot of the grime it’s picked up from driving. I’m going to be a bit more patient this year and wait until most of the rocks are gone. The combination of being a black car and being low is terrible for catching everything off the road. More pics soon!

Black on Black on Black (with a little bit of blue)

March 16, 2018 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

The pieces are finally coming together! When you’re busy, even some of the simplest tasks become complicated. You’d think putting together wheels and tires would be as easy as bringing it to a shop to get it done – and it is. Except I make things harder than they actually are sometimes.

I had to order two new tires, so I finally got my lazy ass to text Alex to see if he could source me some new ones. Boom – even delivered to Jackie’s shop for me. One down. The next piece was the valve stems… I wasn’t about to run red valve stems on the new black TE’s – not that anything is wrong with it, but it just wouldn’t match the look I’m going for. In my plea for help in trying to find black Rays valve stems without paying $100 for shipping, Errol said that he had some spares. Boom – Errol gave them to Jackie for me. Next was just dropping everything off to Jackie’s to get it done. Isaac finished it for me at lunch yesterday and that was that.

The point of all this is that I’m thankful for the friends in the car community. I mean, I could probably have gone and done all the picking up and delivering myself but I probably would have taken months to actually do it. It’s just the little things that matter – I’m grateful for that. I’m pretty sure the car would probably have just stayed on jack stands this year without their help.

Anyway, just a few quick shots of the wheels. I’m just waiting on ONE MORE big piece of the puzzle before the car gets to go back on the ground. It rhymes with “Dig Drake Bit”. Until then, it remains hoisted up with dusty ass panels until I find time to polish and wax it for the start of the season.