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The Scion FR-S Chronicles: Part IV - The Return

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Nearly one-thousand days after totaling my Scion FR-S on the race track, I finally got it back together and road worthy.

At the beginning of The Scion FR-S Chronicles: Part III, I attempted to make sense of the emotions I felt in the following months after the wreck. Part of the reason the tension was so strong was that I had a decision to make - do I let it go, or do I rebuild it? Given time, effort, and financial inputs, that decision wasn’t easy.

Even after purchasing the vehicle back from the insurance company, I was still undecided on how to move forward. Friends in the auto body industry [correctly] told me I would be crazy to rebuild the car. It would be very expensive to do properly - like purchasing the car over again.

I was also provided some convenient “outs” to not rebuild my FR-S, were I so inclined. First, a buddy of mine had 2013 FR-S with a blown engine that offered me his car for a good price. I could drop my engine into that and not worry about the chassis. Secondly, Toyota released the next generation GR86 - I could carry some compatible parts over to a new car and sell the rest. And finally, I had purchased a new daily driver and a Miata, so I could always just sell my tattered FR-S and save some money.

Despite all of this, my heart ultimately chose to rebuild. I’ve heard many stories of men and their first cars - often bookended by saying I never should have let that one go. That wasn’t going to be me.

Initially, the FR-S was sent to DRP Collision for frame repair. Had they told me that it was too far gone, the decision to move on would have been made for me. That wasn’t the case, though, so I brought the car home to perform all of the repairs that I could do in my garage.

One of the first items to address was my front suspension. After hitting the tire wall, the front of my car was spun high into the air and slammed down onto the pavement. This shot the pillowball straight out of the pillowball mount, destroying the Raceseng camber plate.

Thankfully, the manufacturer of my coilovers happened to be just down the street, and after some correspondence with my buddy Devin Herndon at Fortune Auto, I dropped the fronts off for a rebuild.

Since my front bumper was toast, I guess I had to upgrade, right? Initially I hunted for an APR GT front bumper only to learn production had ceased and it had quickly become unobtanium. That snowballed into me purchasing a Varis Arising II front bumper, rear bumper, and sideskirts. Given that they’re made-to-order parts from Japan, we could have had a child before it all arrived.

I had to test fit it, of course.

After getting the Varis kit on US soil, my FR-S made a return trip to DRP Collision - this time to have everything done - a door replaced, a fender replaced, various dents and scrapes undone, the Varis parts modified and fitted, and finally, the whole car repainted.

DRP Collision was the obvious choice for me because of my relationship with their painter Chris Johnston. He previously did a killer job painting a fender on my car and I trusted him to do it again - plus, if you’ve seen his Mazda FD3S RX-7 as seen in my feature on Fortune Auto’s 2022 Open House, or, you know, greater publications like [PIT+PADDOCK’s feature on his car, you would immediately understand he has an attention to detail.

Chris generously provided me with nearly one hundred photos and videos during the repair process. Whenever I got a message from Chris, I was always excited to see what progress was being made.

DRP was kind enough to shave off the antenna and modify the front bumper to not have the Japanese-sized license plate mount and fill in the holes where the sidemarkers would go.

In late August 2022, DRP Collision called me up to come check out their completed work. What a thrill! The car had turned out awesome.

It's alive!

While I was filled with excitement, I knew I wouldn’t be driving it any time soon. On top of the normal maintenance and work to be done, I still needed to get it inspected, retitled, registered, and aligned.

The first step was getting my Virginia vehicle title straight. Before I could apply to have a rebuilt title replace my salvage title, I had to get the car inspected. Since the car wasn’t technically road-legal, I opted to get an inspection at the closest place to my house I could find. Even in this poorly-aligned state, if was fun to get it back on the road again for a short trip.

It passed the Virginia State Inspection without issue, and in an attempt to move the process along as fast as possible, I delivered my application and payment to have my rebuilt title examination performed directly to the DMV office downtown that evening rather than waiting for it to make its way through the postal system.

Flawless paint and rusty rotors hint that the car didn't see much movement

A little more than a month later, a Virginia State Police inspector visited my house to perform the examination. I was pretty confident going into this, but I also did not know what to expect. How stringent would the examination be? Would my absent front license plate mount, lowered suspension, lack of sidemarker lights, window tint, modified exhaust, or something else I hadn’t yet considered be an issue?

To my surprise - the rebuild title examination was a bit of a joke. The inspector never really even reviewed the car - just verified the VIN under the passenger seat matched the one on my salvage title and took a picture of a single receipt showing repair work was completed.

Within a couple hours of the officer leaving, I had already put the car on jack stands, pulled the rear Fortune Auto 510’s, and dropped them off at their headquarters to be rebuilt. There was nothing particularly wrong with them, but if I needed an alignment anyway, I might as well have them restored.

In small incremental steps, that “last 10%” came together over a few months. In addition to many other non-driveline related chores, I replaced the front wheel hub assemblies, replaced a rear upper control arm, reinstalled the rebuilt coilovers, and took it in for an alignment.

Since the car had never been aligned since the accident, there was a little uneasiness going into this too. What if the car’s frame still wasn’t straight enough? Of course, those worries were for nothing, and I was able to drive the car home spiritedly for the first time in years.

Before I could really use it, though, I dropped the car off for a final round of work at DRP Collision to prevent the driver’s side door from ever so slightly crimping on the sideskirt when a little dirt built up - problems you have when you start putting aftermarket body parts on your car.

On March 13 of this year, I was able to pick up my car again from DRP, and this time, for good. Like the other little trips I had made in the car, driving it home felt surreal. Immediately upon getting it home, I pulled the front bumper and stayed up late replacing the stock headlights with freshly clear-filmed Morimoto XB LED retrofit headlights.

Conveniently, our monthly Team Reasonable meet was the next day. I had been silent about getting the car back so that I could surprise my friends who were there by unexpectedly arriving with the finally roadworthy car. It went over great - and while most of my friends had known the car before the accident, the repair process been so long that I had made a few friends since June 2020 that had never seen the car at all!

Better yet, just a couple days later was March Madness with NASA at VIR! I made the 150-mile trip down and worked on the grid with my car proudly parked next to pit out. This was especially fun because my NASA family, many of whom were at Summit Point when I destroyed it, got to see the car in its renewed state.

Love - it's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru

While I was taking these pictures, my friend Chris Larson swung by with his S2000. You may recognize it from another post of mine, although it’s received some tasteful modifications since then to better suit it for track duty, which I’m all about.

In the time since, I’ve put a bit over 1,000 miles on the car over no shortage of little adventures.

It's never done, you know.

One of these little adventures was to our local Cars and Coffee’s first meet after the organization’s long hiatus. The developing mall where the event was previously held could no longer house our growing crowd, so a new location had to be selected that could fill our needs.

Of course I spent half the event taking pictures of my own car that I, you know, could just take pictures of at home.

Another highlight was being asked to have the car in the “show parking” area of this year’s Fortune Auto Open House. I can’t say I had the time to take enough photos to do a full feature on this event like last year, but it was still very special.

I couldn’t stand the look of the car without the front badge, so I spent several hours the week preceding this event painstakingly attempting to get a new flat-backed OEM badge to fit on the convex-shaped Varis bumper. I tried everything, and eventually got it to fit pretty well after some time with a heat gun and a basketball.

Most recently, Ruby and I took my FR-S on our little date out to the Blue Ridge Mountains where we got to see the famed Norfolk & Western 611 and cruise Skyline Drive. This was a blast, and I took many pictures.

Happy to report the car still shreds the back roads, and I’m amazed at Ruby’s superpower of being able to sleep while I drive spiritedly.

Not apologizing for train content

The abandoned Inn at Afton makes a great backdrop...

...but it's got nothing on the Shenandoah Valley

And that brings us to today! The car’s fairly clean right now and hiding in the garage. There’s still more to do, but at this point they’re all fun things and not needed-for-the-car’s-survival things. The next “major” change will be swapping out the still fresh Morimoto XB headlights for some OEM RS2.0 headlights I have being clear filmed. The Morimotos are excellent in every way but I just can’t get used to the smoked headlight look. It’s just not for me.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever catch up to the modern day on my website, so this is also a little accomplishment.

Thank you for reading. I think I’ll go for a drive. ❤

FR-S Chronicles Index

The Scion FR-S Chronicles: Part III - The Incident

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 17:00:00 +0000

Heart sink.

Destroying something you love sucks. On June 3, 2020, I picked up my FR-S from Blackops Auto Pro after receiving a full paint correction and ceramic coating. On June 28, 2020, I delivered my FR-S directly into a tire wall exiting turn five at Summit Point.

Twenty-five days is all it took for my car to go from better-than-new condition to totaled.

The feeling is very hard to express. Most people aren’t gearheads - and even out of those that are, most haven’t formed a real attachment to a car. They’re fascinating little projects that come and go.

When I was very little - maybe two or three years old, my parents got rid of an ugly old chair that had resided in our dining room. If memory serves me correct, it was a hideous yellow recliner, tattered and reinforced with aged duct tape. It was just a chair. There was nothing measurably or even sentimentally valuable about it - but to my toddling self it was a fine chair that I had never experienced life without, so I plead for its poor life to my mom as my dad chopped it to bits next to the house to fit it in the trash can.

Ok, I’d like to think my FR-S was a little more special than that unredeemable old chair (and was certainly in better shape). Even as adults, we can form that child-like attachment to something eternally insignificant. But at the end of the day, it’s just a car created to be mass-produced and sold to bolster Toyota’s brand image and investors’ pockets.

Yeah, but this one was mine - and not just one car randomly chosen out of a sequence of neat toys, but the first car I ever owned, my daily driver, the car that connected me to many of my closest friends that I have today, the car that got me into motorsports, the car that I got my first (and only! knocks on wood) speeding ticket in, the car that I learned to wrench on, the car that I got in my first accident in, the car that took me on adventures to Florida, Vermont, Kentucky, and everywhere in between, the car I slept in when I drove down to South Carolina to see the solar eclipse on a whim, the car that was my artistic canvas, the car that was my mobile photographic subject, the car I dumped way too much money into, the car that I brought to dozens upon dozens of car meets, the car that I slept in the night before I met Ruby, the car that I sweat bullets in for eight hours on my trip to propose to her, and the car that my friends decorated for us to drive away in on the day that she told me “I do”.

And even after all of that, it’s just a car.

This sort of back-and-forth over whether it’s just a car or something more is exactly what went through my head on repeat for the following days, weeks, and even months after I wrecked this car.

So - how’d it happen? I’ll let the video tell the tale.

I was having an awesome weekend. Summit Point’s Main Circuit feels like it was built for a car like this. The front straight runs roughly .6 miles while the remaining 1.4 miles of the 2 mile road course are filled with gratuitous turns and elevation changes. In the front stretch I was pointing cars by all day - it’s no secret that the FR-S is not known for its power. On the rest of the course, however, the car thrived. Typically, by turn five I would be closing in on someone - and there wasn’t a single lap where I wasn’t closely following another car by turn seven.

Seven of eight sessions into the weekend, I finally got that break. In the lap prior, I was able to pass a Camaro SS, a WRX STI, and a Fiesta ST, such that there was not a single car in front of me. This was going to be a great lap.

I began to accelerate out of turn five at the apex - first tracking out on the right, and then tracking left as soon as possible to get a good entry into turn six. Unfortunately, my eager right foot led my rear tires to lose traction and the car began to rotate left too far. Textbook mistake. As soon as the tires had audibly protested what I had asked of them, it was too late - the nature of this being a hairpin turn meant there was little to no run-off. I braked hard to shed what little speed I could and braced myself.

Hard impact into the tire wall. That feeling will be forever ingrained in my memory - some feeling in the tongue and the back of my neck. The car continued to rotate and even twisted in the air. In the moment, I thought the car was going to flip.

Ruby and her dad watched from the stands and were able to see the entire bottom of the car as it flew through the air. (And she still lets me race today - I couldn’t ask for a better wife)

Finally, the car slammed to the ground with the rear bumper against the tire wall. I immediately cut the ignition. If there was any fire from the accident, I wouldn’t want to be pumping 93 octane to it.

I gave a thumbs up out the window to let my wife and the corner worker (who was behind me out of view) know I was ok, and remained in my car as the rest of the field drove by.

EMS arrived and asked me where I was. Confused, I answered “turn five?” before realizing this is the race track equivalent of asking your buddy who just got a concussion “how many fingers am I holding up?” Once the track was cold, I was allowed to get out and walked over to a truck that would carry me back into the paddock.

Ruby, knowing the care and sentiment I had for the car, says it was like watching someone accidentally back over their own dog.

Error 404, Track Not Found

This was the first event NASA Mid-Atlantic hosted during the COVID-19 pandemic. While there hadn’t yet been a vaccine, we knew you can’t transmit a virus from car-to-car contact, so the event carried on with the caveat that there was no in-car instruction. Instructors were to drive on track with the students in the HPDE session and recap once we came back into the paddock. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s what we had to do at the time.

My instructor this weekend was Hoyt Brown. Hoyt and I have become close friends since this incident - you could say our friendship was my consolation prize. Hoyt, a seasoned instructor and holder of an “Instructor of the Year” trophy assures me that had he been in the passenger seat, this probably wouldn’t have happened.

But that’s all water under the bridge, and while I wish I could point to an oil slick or mechanical failure to blame, at the end of the day the error was mine.

Before stepping out of the car I expected the damage to be far, far worse. As it would turn out, tire walls are quite effective at cushioning impact. My airbag didn’t even go off, surprisingly.

It doesn’t actually look that bad, does it?

While it appears much better than the video would have you believe, there was a little bit of damage…everywhere.

The TWS T66-F wheel in the photo above is ruined beyond repair. The driver’s door gap with the rear quarter panel implied frame damage underneath. The hard impact after being airborne meant the driver’s side strut tower is warped and the pillowball went straight through its housing at the top of the coilover destroying the Raceseng CasCam plate in the process.

Down the passenger side of the car, the door is ruined, the rocker panel was bent up, and even the gas cap was dented. Every panel had something going on, but the frame tweaking was by far the biggest problem.

Even with both fender liners robbed of their positions, the freshly detailed engine bay still looked great.

Despite all of the damage, I was glad that I hadn’t taken anyone out in the wreck or hurt myself phyiscally. At the end of the previous season Ruby had convinced me to upgrade my helmet. It hadn’t actually played a role in this accident, as it wasn’t nearly that bad, but I was still thankful for it. I avoid spending money wherever possible, but this investment was worthwhile.

If you look very closely, a little fly decided he wanted in on the ride

Speaking of finances, how does this work out? Does my normal insurance company cover accidents on track?

No. Thankfully, however, I had purchased Lockton HPDE insurance for the weekend (this is not a sponsored bit). I was nervous about going through the insurance process, but it ended up being relatively painless, unlike the experience I had with State Farm in a road accident a few years prior where I was pretty sure my representative had either gone on a three-week vacation or had died.

First, I had to figure out how to get this car off of Summit Point’s property. The NASA family is awesome, and time trials driver Brian Clarke, whom I had never met, came over and generously offered to tow it with his truck and trailer and park it in front of his house just a few miles away until I got everything sorted.

So, on it went.

After unloading the car at Brian’s house, I grabbed my dash cam and my shift knob out of the car and told him I’d get his new lawn ornament sorted out as soon as possible.

And that was that. After five years of owning the car and building all of these incredible memories with it, we unceremoniously drove away to probably never see it again.

It felt horrible, but what else could I have done? It’s a car, and it sucks, but this is how cars sometimes die.

It wasn’t all bad, though. When one door closes, another one opens. I had tried the whole “daily your racecar” thing unsuccessfully, so I went on to replace my FR-S with two cars - a 1997 Mazda MX-5 Miata M-Edition to flog on track, and a five speed 2009 Toyota Yaris to daily drive.

I did end up seeing my FR-S again, though. One of my oldest and closest friends Eddie Morris and I dragged the car from Maryland to DRP Collision in Powhatan, VA for the damage to get appraised. They returned a very hefty repair estimate and the title was branded “totaled”.

The only rational action was to cut the cord and move on. So naturally, I purchased my FR-S back from the insurance company to have it rebuilt.

Stay tuned for Part IV.

Some things you just don’t let go of. ❤

FR-S Chronicles Index

Fortune Auto Open House 2022

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Almost every modern automotive build has one modification in common: adjustable suspension. For some platforms (e.g., the FR-S/BRZ twins) it’s an obligatory step in the process.

Coilover suspension from Fortune Auto was the first serious modification I made to my Scion FR-S in conjunction with 2.5” wider TWS wheels and SPL rear lower control arms (necessary for rear camber adjustment). The changes made the already fun car factors more exciting to drive and set off an avalanche of other modifications to round out the car.

I have the luxury of living just a half hour away from Fortune Auto, so when I purchased my 5th Generation 510’s back in 2016 I was able to pick them up in person and meet the crew at their headquarters in Powhatan, Virginia.

Given their close proximity to us, attending their annual Open House is a no-brainer. Andrew, Landon, and I squad-rolled in our Miatas along with David in his IS300 Sunday afternoon.

One of the first vehicles to catch my eye was Chris Johnston’s Mazda FD3S RX-7. This car is no stranger to attention, especially after its PIT + PADDOCK SEMA debut in 2021. This is a car that has endured many forms over the years under Chris’ ownership which started in 2009. Years ago, we saw this car on the back of a trailer at Cars and Coffee with no windows, mismatched body panels, and cardboard aero. It’s come a long way and now sports a medley of R Magic, RE Amemiya, and Klaus Composite aero pieces.

I originally met Chris in 2019 when I brought my FR-S to his paint shop in Midlothian to clean up some minor rust spots from rock chips on the trailing edge of one of my front fenders. He ended up repainting the whole fender as well as straightening out my lackluster fender rolling job. The paint-matching and body work was nothing short of perfect - so when I had to get my whole car repainted this year (more on that later…), bringing the car to where he currently operates out of at DRP Collision was the most reasonable thing to do.

Given his proficiency as a painter, it’s no wonder Chris’ personal creation is breath-taking in all the small details.

Given that this is a Fortune Auto Open House, I feel inclined to point out the visible remote canister for the Dreadnaught PRO 2-way coilover in this photo

Situated front and center were these two white all-wheel-drive beasts. To the right was an immaculate Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R, and to the left was Ben Thorne of Gears and Gasoline’s 500 whp monster of a “daily driver”.

I hope this engine lasts a while.

There's a great road trip series where they take this car and Ben Lin's Time Attack Mitsubishi Lancer Evo to Alaska

This is one of the coolest Audis I’ve ever seen - Nicholas Flom’s Audi RS3. Although it might not look like it, this started as a street car and not a factory DTM racer. While the FD3S has many painted-over carbon fiber panels, Flom Motorsports chose to leave the carbon fiber exposed.

Keeping with the all-wheel drive theme, one of the oddball builds found at the Open House was this Mercedes-Benz GLA45 AMG owned by Fortune Auto’s own Devin Herndon. With a turbo 2.0L engine and all wheel drive, you could think of it as a luxury Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution that never was. It’s not just good on paper, either - Devin competes in time attack events with GRIDLIFE regularly with it.

Devin’s GLA45 wasn’t the only GRIDLIFE contender - also present was Ross Smith’s infamous daily driven Sundae Cup car. Andrew was excited to pose with it since he also has a manual Honda Fit that he loves (albeit a second generation model).

Not everything in the main show was strictly for road and racing performance - also in the main show area were the Sumospeed drift C6 Corvettes as well as the Roadstar’s Miata drift gang - all of which looked fantastic despite being driven hard.

This yellow NA caught my eye the most. I had never seen an NA Miata with a standard front end but no pop-up headlights. I believe the headlights are implemented where the turn signals would normally be. Some western Miata enthusiasts may scream sacrilege over an NA Miata without popups, but with the hardtop spoiler and WORK Equip 02/Equip 01 combination, there’s a real theme being adhered to.

Given that Fortune Auto’s coilovers are ride-height adjustable, there were also many stanced and VIP cars. Personally, I’m a little partial to Junior’s Honda Element on a set of Rolls-Royce wheels. It’s just such a cool flex.

So, how about the actual coilovers? Inside was a display of some of the different models of coilovers that Fortune Auto offers. From left to right there’s a Muller MSC coilover, a 500 coilover, a 510 coilover, and finally a 520 coilover. The Muller MSC coilovers are marketed more at luxury marques. 500’s are Fortune Auto’s entry level option but they’re still a very capable and high quality product. The 510’s are much like the 500’s but offer compression adjustment and wider rebound adjustment. If you haven’t heard of the 520’s you’d be in good company since they haven’t officially launched, but from what I understand they fit in between the 510 model and the PRO 2-way model. The remote reservoir on the 520 isn’t as big as the ones on a PRO 2-way, so I’d assume it has independent compression/rebound adjustability, just not as much.

I bought a shirt, too.

Just inside is a wall of springs - some as soft as 4K and as stiff as 20K. I can spot some base model springs, Hyperco springs, and Swift springs.

Across from the shelf of springs is where all of the magic happens. All Fortune Auto coilovers are assembled at this facility and individually tested. Speed Academy has a pretty cool video demonstrating this process.

I dig the vintage Fortune Auto sticker

I didn’t actually explore the rest of the facility, but the rear pair of 510’s from my FR-S are somewhere in there ready to be rebuilt!

Back outside were a couple more cars that I paid special attention to. First was this Mazda RX-8 with a cool cell-shading effect. I’ve seen this online but never in person - it actually looked really cool and you can tell it was done very well.

Hat tip to Steve being patient with me using his hood to add to the foreground of this shot

Speaking of things I’ve never seen in person was this cool Nissan Skyline R30 wagon! It is by no means a performance model but is nonetheless still cool to see stateside. Having seen a couple hundred imported legends at this point, I tend to get more excited to see the mundane models that nobody cared to preserve. This one happens to be powered by a four cylinder diesel engine.

While that’s all I can write about in detail, I did take many more photos while trying to hang out with everyone. Despite being at the Open House for almost four hours, I found myself wishing I could have spent a little more time with everybody. Being a photographer and a turbo-extrovert is a hard balance!

Thanks for reading and see you next year! ❤

Bonus Photos

The headlights on this IS300 SportCross came off of David's IS300 parts car - small world!

The owner of this Fiesta ST has threatened to turn it into more functional build. I support it!

Left: Zack (who works at Fortune Auto now!) shows us some of the prototype parts for Toyota Supras, Teslas, and Honda Fits. Right: Ben's AE86 looking fresh

Matt, whose Civic is on the right, towed my FR-S home for me on his low-car-friendly trailer not too long ago. Matt's a good guy. Be like Matt.

You might recognize the S2000 in the center from the In Richmond with Roadsters post

This is exactly how I'd have an S14

Good friends

The retractable hard tops on these look a little weird to me, but the meaty wheel and tire setup absolutely slaps

This is, apparently, actually gold plated. I'd be 200% more afraid of this Honda being stolen than the average one.

All of these photos and more can be found and downloaded for free here!

The Scion FR-S Chronicles: Part II - Bit by the HPDE Bug

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 17:00:00 +0000

The first two years of FR-S ownership were a blast, but there was so much more to do. One of the original reasons I purchased an FR-S was that I wanted to try some motorsports activities, and autocross had only somewhat scratched that itch. As often as I frequented our local Cars and Coffee, it was only a matter of time before I met a local gearhead that siphoned me into paying for a weekend driving at Virginia International Raceway with NASA Mid-Atlantic.

Sometime between signing up for this event and attending this event, I lost my magnetic numbers I got for cheap, hence the giant 69

The experience was incredible. Despite it being my first weekend on track and being on 300TW tires, I was able to turn a 2:25.91 lap time. The fact that my instructor, Ahmed Lufti, was a Time Trials competitor with a highly modified Scion FR-S contributed greatly.

Much of the time on track was spent in traffic. I ended up only needing to give one point-by all weekend, and it was to the 911 behind me in the photo above (who returned the favor). Later, she let me rip her car around the backroads of Alton, Virginia, which just added to how great that weekend was.

After the last session on Sunday, the excitement continued as I drove down to South Carolina on a whim to view the 2017 solar eclipse under the line of totality. I got there around 2:30 AM and since hotels had been booked for months (and I’d be too cheap to pay for one anyway) I ended up camping behind a church in the trunk of my car with the rear seats folded down. This car really does everything. When I woke up I was surprised to find I chose to spend the night next to a graveyard. Up until getting married, this was the best weekend of my life.

In addition to the local track rats, I also befriended other 86 drivers in the Mid-Atlantic 86 club. One Saturday we all met up and did a cruise down the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Shoutout to the guy in the Civic who posted up in the lineup with 19 86's

You may have realized my license plate changed since part one. By 2017, the Don’t Tread On Me plates had earned some connotations I did not want to represent so I eventually settled on my first custom plate - SPEEED - which I still run today.

At the turn of 2018, Andrew and I drove down south to Florida to attend the 24 Hours of Daytona - a multi-class endurance race that continues non-stop for 24 hours. The winning team ended up turning 808 laps in that time frame, logging just under three thousand miles.

We drove the FR-S down, and despite how pleased I was sleeping in the car before, we elected to camp in a tent.

The choice of tent camping was ultimately to our detriment when we found our tent flooded at 8 PM Sunday night (#justFloridaThings). On a whim we decided to head North and see how far we could make it, and aside from a 90 minute nap at a truck stop, I ended up red-eyeing the whole trip home. I would not recommend doing this directly after staying up for 21 hours of a 24 hour race.

Photo quality should improve around this time as this is when I purchased a Canon 6D Mark I and a 24-105mm lens. The 24 Hours of Daytona was an excellent event to break it in (you can view those photos here).

I hate salt

Photography and cars made me some forever friends - two of which are Chris and Matt. At the time, Chris drove this pristine Toyota Celsior imported through Japanese Classics, and Matt drove his beloved and remarkably capable Volvo S60 T6.

Virginia moved inspection stickers to the bottom corner of the windshield in 2018 - a much appreciated change

Chris (above) has a wealth of photography knowledge and occasionally ropes me into experimenting, hence the infrared long-exposure shot using a filter of his below. Matt developed into a detail wizard and has helped all of us keep our cars clean.

One quality of life upgrade I made during 2018 was this cheap BaysonR front lip. I didn’t want to spend too much money on a part that ends up becoming a consumable due to its low proximity to the ground.

I was right. This one eventually met its fate to some debris on I-195. The second I ruined on some curbing at Summit Point Motorsports Park. The third…well, you’ll see that in Part III.

One of my favorite places to take cars to shoot is this cool alley downtown - mostly because it features an external staircase which you can use to take aerial shots. I later returned to this location to shoot a portion of In Richmond with Roadsters

In this time frame the FR-S made many long trips out to Louisville, Kentucky and everywhere in between to visit Ruby when we were dating. Here she (the car, or Ruby? you decide) is looking great after a slow six mile trek up a rocky logging trail to access a great hike in Duffield, VA - the Devil’s Bathtub.

On one of those long treks, I brought an engagement ring. I proposed to Ruby in front of the Louisville skyline on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. I had my camera set up as if I was shooting the city, but I actually had it prepared to record our engagement. The ring was hidden in a modified 18-55mm lens which she held unknowingly while I awkwardly poured out my heart.

If you ignore the barge, it's great. This is what happens when you have to choose an engagement spot from 550 miles away.

Shortly after returning from the engagement trip, I picked up these 18x9.5 +45 Advan Racing GTs for a killer deal. I fell in love with these wheels after seeing an identical set on the Synergy V8 swapped Jun BRZ and later HKS’s TRB-03, a car developed specifically to break the lap record at Tsubuka in Japan (TRB = Tsukuba Record Breaker). It did just that, lapping the track at 49.445 seconds. There’s some debate over the importance of this record break (former records were set on street tires), but that’s a discussion for another day.

At any rate, these wheels quickly became iconic on the platform.

I had them wrapped in 300 treadwear, 265mm wide Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. Here they are, absolutely filthy, on VIR’s skid pad. Around this time I also ditched the front plate and never went back.

Despite loving the gold TWS T66-F’s, I was happy to be committing to a simpler color palette for my daily driver setup.

VIR added a metal fence around the skidpad since these photos which makes the spot far less photogenic

My T66-F’s became assigned to dedicated track duty and I mounted some 200TW Hankook Ventus RS-4 tires on them. While the Advans are far from being heavy wheels, the T66-F’s are the lightest 18x9.5 wheel I am aware of at a mere 15.6 lbs a corner, so it just made sense to hit the track on these.

After working a few NASA events for driving credit, the FR-S got to turn Summit Point Motorsports Park for the first time in June of 2019. I wasn’t very focused on taking pictures, but did record evidence of me looping it in turn 3 and going off track in the grass - my first off! Thankfully, the only casualty was my front lip as hinted at earlier. I learned a lot about tire pressures that weekend - specifically, don’t have too much of it when going out on track.

Marty can't believe how wide these tires are

A few months later, Ruby and I got married! My groomsmen did a great job carefully decorating the FR-S for our getaway. I had planned on doing a fat burnout, but being ridiculously shaky knee’d after dancing for hours and you know, getting married, I opted to just dump the clutch and send it up the hill. I did not want to end the night stalling it!

Tune in next time for Part III! Thanks for reading! ❤

Bonus Photos

When your girlfriend lives in another state, you do what you must to see her.

Fun in the FR-S using the Kuji Cam app

Zack and I took the FR-S on a couple local urbex adventures

This is Russell, my dash dino who judged my driving. He eventually escaped via the passenger window.

Nobody cares how dirty your car is if it's a racecar. Photo by Mike Lee.

Another photo by Mike Lee. Andrew can be seen in his NB2 Miata in the background.

FR-S Chronicles Index

One for the Cars and Coffee Diehards

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here in Richmond, Virginia, we’re blessed with an active Cars and Coffee community that meets every two weeks. If I’m in town, you can guarantee I’m around somewhere - more recently in my NA Miata, ‘87 AE82 FX or ‘72 F-250.

Attendance is more or less directly related to the weather forecast, and if it’s bad enough the organizers will postpone the event until the next Saturday.

Weather was not looking favorable on Saturday. When I woke up at 6:45 AM it was pouring, so I turned my alarm off and went back to sleep - surely it was not going to be held. But when I woke up a tad before 8 and it wasn’t raining…I knew I had to at least see if other people were going to show up.

You have to crest a little hill when pulling into the parking lot where Cars and Coffee is held - some days you wonder where you’ll be able to find a place to park, and other days there’s only a few cars in the lot.

To my surprise, there was a nice little turnout!

I normally bring my camera to Cars and Coffee, but if I’m honest, I typically don’t end up using it. It’s normal for me to get out of my car, immediately strike up conversations with friends or strangers, and next thing I know it’s 10:30 and I’m among the last to leave. That’s no problem for me - it was never about the cars.

Before leaving home, I reached out to my favorite groupchat and asked if anyone was going but only received nays, which meant it was a good opportunity to actually use my camera.

And so I did.

One of my favorites this weekend was my friend Jordan’s Toyota Corolla AE82 GT-S track car. It’s much like my AE82 - you know, except totally track prepped, manual, and has the hotter 4A-GE engine.

At some point, Ruby and I had an Isuzu Rodeo that we loved, but ultimately sold it because we didn’t want to deal with the inevitable future engine problems those typically have later in life (imagine oil in the engine, except everywhere but inside the engine). That problem appeared to have been solved in this Isuzu Amigo that ended up parking next to Jordan with this LS1 swap.

Speaking of LS swaps, this BMW E39 5-series is powered by an LS that not-so-subtley protrudes through of the hood.

On the other side of the row of BMWs is this cute little 316 ti. I’ve always thought these were a little funny looking, but that makes me appreciate them even more.

I’m not a huge C8 Corvette guy (sorry), but this one had the popular “Lambo door” mod installed which is kinda novel.

Conversely, because I own an FR-S, any of those cars get my attention. The first was a ‘15 or ‘16 FR-S that looks like it’s starting its journey similar to mine - clear sidemarkers, license plate relocation, and Valenti tail lights. I wonder what the future of this one holds. The second was a new 2022 Toyota GR 86. I got the opportunity to drive my friend Brett’s GR 86 a while ago and I was very, very impressed.

Stock #1

When 10:00 AM rolled around, I started my Miata and tucked away my camera in the passenger bucket. But right as I was about to get in, one last car arrived that I had to take a few pictures of.

This is a 1984 AMC Eagle, and while the wheels are from an Oldsmobile Alero, it rode that high straight out of the factory. I made some good smalltalk with the owner (fittingly wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jersey), who has what sounded like a dozen odd projects like this one.

Turns out this is the same excellent 4 liter inline-6 engine that comes in the Jeep Cherokee XJ

Thanks for tagging along. Below are a few more photos. ❤

Bonus Photos

Still seeking more, or wanting high resolution downloads? View the whole album on Flickr.

gkubed.com is Moving to guyon.io!

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After some consideration, I decided to pull the trigger on a different domain name - guyon.io. In the event that you have gkubed.com bookmarked or a subscription to it with RSS (💕), do move those to guyon.io. This is because guyon.io is way more memorable than gkubed.com, and most people don’t know what gkubed is (I’m Guyon the third - G³). Additionally, on bigger screens, images should now be bigger and higher quality - and load faster too! In fact, every image on the site was tracked down and re-exported - which took forever but was time well invested.

The Scion FR-S Chronicles: Part I - Early Ownership

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 17:00:00 +0000

I put off documenting this car entirely too long and for a couple of reasons. First - it’s a large undertaking - one that’s time consuming and one I really want to do justice to. Secondly, it never really felt like the right time to put it together, as the next “stage” was always just around the corner. Well, finally it really does feel like the right time and I’ve managed to wedge this task into my schedule to get it done. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Note: Many photos in this post are unedited cell phone shots or really bad pictures I took with my DSLR when I was a total novice to photography. I think they suck as much or more than you do! The cover photo is good because it was done by Ethan Stein.

I recall the moment I realized I was going to get an FR-S. I was dinking around on Autotrader and stumbled upon a 2013 Scion FR-S for $13k. For a two year old car (this was in 2015) that was pretty good! Sure, it was probably a salvage title and the highest mileage two year old vehicle in the hemisphere, but this meant that they were at least obtainable.

Fast forward half a year and I was actively shopping for an FR-S. In my searches, most actual FR-Ss on the market hovered around the $20-22k mark - but the bug already bit me, I was going to get an FR-S. After checking out a few used examples, I ultimately started checking out new 2015 models at dealerships. It’s funny how money gets away from you, isn’t it?

At first I had my eyes set on cars in Dark Grey Metallic (61K). Looking back, I can’t believe I did, as it’s probably my least favorite color. My local dealer had one I was set to see, but as it would turn out, someone at the dealership had borrowed it for the weekend.

But there was another one…

The very first picture I took of my FR-S before I bought it - my first car!

And that’s how I came home with my 2015 Scion FR-S in Ultramarine (E8H). Technically, my dad drove it home since I hardly knew how to drive a manual. Prior to this, my only experience driving manual was poking around in a parking lot with my friend Andrew’s 5 speed Mazda Protegé. I learned on the FR-S pretty quickly as it’s a very forgiving car to learn in.

Despite not having driven manual in a couple decades, dad knocked it out of the park and looked great doing it

Initial ownership was awesome. Coming from a lifetime of automotive enthusiasm but only really having driven minivans at that point, I was on top of the world.

While the FR-S is really meant to be the spiritual successor of the late 80’s Toyota Corolla AE86, practically speaking it feels like the next Nissan S-chassis. Obtainable, manual, front engine, rear wheel drive, lightweight, and a high revving engine. I’d seen so many highly modified Nissan 240SX’s that it was the unmodified ones that would blow my mind. I could see the exact same thing happening to the Scion FR-S, so I decided I’d try my best to keep it as original and clean as practical.

The structure in the background was demolished sometime between June 2018 and July 2019

My initial modifications were clear sidemarkers, a license plate relocation kit, and an air intake tube that removed the sound tubing that was piped into the cabin. I had an itch to supercharge the car, but it would cost roughly $5,000 that I didn’t have sitting around to blow on car parts. And hey, didn’t I just say I was keeping it stock?

Times were awesome. Andrew and I lived in an apartment together, and when the boys (Eddie and David) were over it was really like our high school dreams come true.

Remember when Gadsden flag didn't have such a negative connotation?

However, just a couple days after this picture, my dreams were a little crushed. After a good night celebrating my sister’s birthday at my parents’ place, I began my drive home in the rain. While driving straight down the road, a woman coming the opposite way took a left hand turn directly in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, but my tires were compromised on the wet tarmac.

Womp, womp.

I couldn’t say how fast I was going when I hit her rear passenger side wheel, but I’d guess around 15 mph. After the accident I hugged her and said it would all be ok - insurance would cover it. The police came and we gave our reports.

It was a bummer, but only got worse when I learned through my insurance company (that we both had, so either way they’re paying out) that she was claiming I was at fault and she had a witness at the scene (she didn’t). Great, now I get to combat insurance fraud. Eventually I received a summons in the mail to be a witness to my own accident on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia to testify against her. I feared that if her ticket was dropped, insurance might put me at “equal fault”, so I came prepared with clear printouts of satellite imagery that showed how the accident happened. This all correlated with the officer’s notes, and she thankfully plead guilty.

Not one to waste an opportunity, I made sure to have fun capturing the car in it’s temporary drift missile appearance.

While my car was out of commission, Andrew and I went to what would have been my first autocross event. While he competed in his bone stock NB2 Miata, I took photos and daydreamed of how I was going to modify my car for motorsports once I got it back. After all, it’s already been in an accident, it’s not like it’s really original anymore.

After six weeks that felt like sixty, my FR-S returned from McGeorge Collision Center. Some told me that after an accident, the car would never be the same and that I should get rid of it, especially if I was going to do motorsports.

Andrew is in the background working on Suki, an NA Miata he briefly owned

But I couldn’t do it. After all, it’s my first car! I knew that if I got rid of it in just under a year with only 9,000 miles on it, I would kick myself for the rest of my life.

Shortly afterwards, I went back to Richmond Raceway for the next VMSC autocross event. I competed in almost entirely stock form but still got bumped into STX class because of the intake pipe I had installed. I was not competitive at all (especially in STX), but it was stupid fun.

Numbers 7, 77, and 777 were all reserved

And that’s when the parts started rolling in…

Despite the FR-S being known for its excellent handling in stock form, I sought to improve it more by installing Fortune Auto 510 coilovers, SPL lower control arms in the rear, and TWS T66-F wheels in 18x9.5 +45 (much bigger than the OEM 17x7’s).

The coilovers I got pretty lucky on - I visited Fortune Auto just down the street inquiring about a set of 500’s, but they had a set of 510’s on hand that they used for prototyping on the platform. They rebuilt them for me and gave me a killer deal.

TWS Forged (not to be confused with TSW wheels) is a wheel manufacturer in Japan that produces racing wheels. It’s not uncommon to see their wheels being ran in WEC or Super GT. The big selling point for me was the weight - an 18x9.5 wheel that weighs only 15.6 lbs is unheard of. Normally, I would never have access to wheels like this, but my lurking of FT86Club finally rewarded me when someone in Philadelphia listed a set (wrapped in Michelin Pilot SuperSports) for effectively half off in the classifieds. After a couple months of debate, I ended up making the trek and bringing them home.

David, Michael, and I threw it all together in David’s parents’ garage. Working on a car with friends is way more fun (and safer) than working alone.

Putting these parts on the car is when the fun really started. Having gobs of grip and less body roll made even the most mundane trips an event. I also started pointing my camera at the car much more.

Around this same time, the power bug was biting me again. The FR-S/BRZ has an infamous “torque dip” - that is, a range low in the powerband where the car feels a little unresponsive. It’s not a huge deal on track where you’re not dipping below 5,000 RPM often, but for scooting around town or doing autocross, it can be a buzzkill. Adding more tire only emphasized this.

Unconvinced that forced induction was the only way out of that problem, I invested in a JDL unequal length header and a Stage 2 tune by Zach Tucker at Delicious Tuning. The added speed was great and it didn’t take long for me to also throw in a high flow front pipe and tune for flex fuel for even more NA power.

Installing my JDL header with David. Here he is, smiling as big as he can.

Around that same time, I also threw a Wilwood big brake kit on the car. I never advise people to hop straight to a big brake kit, but I couldn’t bear to see the little stock brakes behind the open faced 18” TWS wheels any longer.

Photo by Ethan Stein from the first real shoot anyone had done of my car

This was unfortunately a little bit more of a disaster than anticipated. I got a local shop with a good reputation to install the kit since I didn’t want to do the work in our apartment complex and I wanted it done right. Everything seemed good and well until the next morning when I walked out and realized a ring of paint had been stripped around the barrel of a wheel - indicating a fluid leak. Sure enough, brake fluid had been leaking and ruined the finish of the wheel.

This was all pretty lame, but the shop did go out of their way offering to make things right. Looking back, I hope it was just a fluke experience.

And this is where the car sat in mid 2017. Two years of ownership and it’d been in a light accident and had few but semi-aggressive modifications done to it. The car had seen half a dozen or so autocross events and somewhere around 25,000 miles. I loved the car and felt like I was just getting started.

9.5 inch wide wheels means I got bumped from STX to CSP in SCCA class rulings. 69 wouldn't have necessarily been my first choice, but this set of magnetic numbers was virtually free to me.

That’s all for this one. Part 2 will come soon. Thanks for reading! ❤

Bonus Photos

Andrew again in the background, working on Suki, seemingly with the whole dashboard out this time

David, Matt, and I paddocked at Autocross

One of my fondest memories with the car was taking my grandma to her church's Easter Cantata. She was a great sport about it being low.

Working on my car wherever there was space - in this case, rolling my fenders. I nailed it on the passenger side but did pretty bad on the driver's side

Owning only one vehicle and having a roommate who only has a Miata means you get yourself in tricky situations when you need to move big objects - like this cat tree I got off Craigslist

Zack riding shotty while I put in some laps at autocross

FR-S Chronicles Index

In Richmond with Roadsters

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 20:00:00 +0000

Over the years I’ve befriended people with some really cool cars here in Richmond, Virginia. Given all the time in the world, I’d love to schedule shoots with everyone and put together articles on this site for each of them, even if it meant hours upon hours of figuring out how to compliment the pictures with words. All that said, my time is not infinite, so when an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone appears, I take it.

This is Chris Larson’s 2003 Honda S2000 (AP1). The last time you saw this car was in my last post back in October. Given that in that album it’s pictured looking largely stock, you can trust that Chris works on his car a lot faster than I can churn out posts.

Around that same time, Chris let me take his S2000 for a spin on the roads outside VIR and it was a blast to drive. With the wider wheels, stickier tires, and better brakes, it’s gotta be even more fun now.

And this beauty is Steve Killmon’s 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata (ND1). It’s largely stock compared to the S2000 (whose mod list is said to be longer than my leg, according to Steve), but it has all the essentials. And it’s a Miata after all, it doesn’t really need anything.

Perhaps most notably, Steve wrapped his Miata in an XPEL Stealth Satin paint protection film. It looks as great in person as it does in the photos and greatly contrasts the mirror finish of Chris’ Silverstone Metallic S2000. In the wheel department, the car rests on bronze 17x8” König Ampliforms wrapped in 225 width Pilot Sport 4’s.

I have a version of the photo on the right without Steve's head, but it has far less personality.

We met for burgers before our shoot and headed downtown, ditching my NA Miata (more on that car at a future date, hopefully) in a nearby parking garage. This alley is one of my favorite spots to shoot at, and I’ve never seen another photographer use it to date.

I was a little afraid these photos would be unusable as there was less light left in the sky than I anticipated. Shooting at 1/20 isn’t impossible thanks to a lens with image stabilization, but I was still relieved to get home and see they came out pretty sharp.

Did you know that light bar under the trunk wasn't OEM? I didn't.

We booked it out of the alley in pursuit of shooting elsewhere while there was still daylight and quickly found ourselves shooting by The Martin Agency.

Shoutout to my boy Zack who expertly removed a gamebreaking No Parking sign from this photo.

Chris recently mounted a set of 17x9” WedSport TC105X’s on his car with my favorite 200TW tire, the Hankook Ventus RS4. Just the day before our shoot he redid his brakes with DBA rotors and Project Mu pads. The calipers were rebuilt and recoated locally by TaikyuSpec.

If I had to choose one, which would I take? I have no idea.

We continued our trek east and made our last daylight stop at Richmond’s Main Street Station with the S2000 in the spotlight first. You wouldn’t think a sports car prepared like this one would look so at home amidst 1901 architecture, yet here we are.

My favorite detail on the S2000 is the EVS Tuning carbon/magnesium GTLM mirrors. What a vibe.

All the while I was shooting the Honda, Steve’s Miata sat patiently nearby. Isn’t it just adorable?

“You should get a photo with that guy in front so my car looks cool” - Steve

Finally, it was the ND’s turn at the bat, right as the sun was reaching the skyline. Richmond really is a breathtaking city, and having a Miata in the foreground only makes it better.

I love the dark, warm, almost tavern-like mood of this one.

If you're wondering, that's Summit Point Circuit, Virginia International Raceway Patriot Course, Dominion Raceway, and Virginia International Raceway Full Course, clockwise from the top.

When it became too dark for me to handhold the camera, I broke out the tripod for some detail shots of the S2000’s engine bay. Chris has gone to great lengths to make this vehicle as beautiful on the inside as much as it is on the outside. It features the AutoTeknic carbon cooling plate, the Nightrun Garage coolant overflow tank they developed in-house, Renegade Motorsports VTEC solenoid cover and titanium battery tiedown, as well as other goodies. The accessories are neatly attached with Dress Up Bolts hardware.

Before heading out, I snagged a few more pictures of the Miata.

To end our night, we followed I-95 South from below and took a few shots in Shockoe Bottom and then some obligatory photos at the Church Hill Overlook, where I had more fun taking pictures of the cars blurred in motion than I did them sitting still. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but I hadn’t taken photos at night since H2Oi 2018! I think I got the hang of it though, eventually.

The distant rainbow strip you see in the background is the top of the event space connected to Main Street Station seen in the background of some earlier daylight pictures

It was a good night - especially since we finished it by enjoying some ice cream at Sweet Spot Ice Cream Cafe. Thanks Chris and Steve for letting me shoot your cars, and thank you, dear reader, for following along. Below you’ll find their respective mod lists and more bonus photos at the end ❤.

Chris Larson’s 2003 Honda S2000 AP1	Steve Killmon’s 2016 Mazda MX-5 Club ND1
Fortune Auto 500 coilovers with 10k/10k spring rates	Koni Yellow Shocks/Progress RoadsterSport Springs
WedsSport TC105x in 17x9 +49	Progress Sway Bars
Hankook Ventus RS-4 255/40/17	Good-Win Racing front shock tower brace
Taikyu Spec rebuilt calipers, DBA rotors, Project Mu pads	17x8” König Ampliform in bronze
EVS Tuning carbon/magnesium GTLM mirrors	225/45/17 Michelin Pilot Sport 4
Spoon-style side splitters	Wilwood DynaPro 4-piston front calipers
AIM Auto Salon JDM clear turn signal conversion headlights	Porterfield brake pads
2020 Honda Civic Type R shift knob with rebuilt OEM shifter	XPEL Stealth Satin Paint Protection Film
@Joedirts2k carbon shift knob surround	XPEL Prime XR Plus window tint
Honda Access floor mats	Cobalt stainless dual-tip axleback exhaust
Lexus footwell LED lighting	Blackbird Fabworx ND RZ Roll Bar
Renegade Motorsports titanium battery tie down
Renegade Motorsports VTEC solenoid cover
Koyo radiator - powdercoated flat black upper tank by Jaysfab
Powdercoated valve cover and coil pack cover by JaysFab
Dress Up Bolts throughout engine, engine bay, and trunk
HKS radiator cap
Modified factory air box with aFe filter
AutoTeknic carbon cooling plate
AP2 valve spring retainers
Nightrun Garage coolant overflow tank

Bonus Photos

Our charming Richmond

Still seeking more, or wanting high resolution downloads? View the whole album on Flickr.

Nightrun Garage Open House 2021

Sat, 30 Oct 2021 22:00:00 +0000

As you’d rightfully assume, I love my cars. They’re all special to me in their own little ways, despite none of them being new, shiny, or expensive. Most of them are old (averaging 26.4 years since new) and all but my FR-S were purchased for no more than $5,000 USD. Despite having little monetary value, I’m still pretty particular about them, and I don’t just trust anyone to work on them.

There’s only a handful of shops in the greater Richmond, VA area that have really earned my trust, and today we’re going to look into my favorite - Nightrun Garage.

In mid-2018 my Scion FR-S (more on this car another day, I promise) needed some work that I wasn’t quite capable of doing. A few friends of mine had work done through Nightrun Garage before, so I decided to give them a shot and I’ve been coming back ever since.

Nightrun Garage is a shop located in Ashland (just north of Richmond) ran by Ben Willis and Chris Larson, and while not exclusively a Toyota shop, most of their work is on Toyota and Lexus cars. They are perhaps most known for their expertise with cars powered by Toyota’s legendary JZ family of engines found in third and fourth generation Toyota Supras.

Speaking of the JZ family of engines - remember that time I wrote about us purchasing a 2JZ-GTE from JSpec Auto for David’s IS300? Well, wouldn’t you know it, the engine is in the car and it’s just getting finished up at Nightrun!

Previously naturally aspirated from the factory, it’s now running Toyota’s higher performance 2JZ-GTE engine with the twin-turbocharged setup replaced with one big ole BorgWarner S363SXE turbo. It’ll make in the mid-400’s as far as wheel horsepower goes.

My personal favorite car inside the garage during the open house (besides David’s, of course) was this beautiful third generation Toyota Supra powered by a 1JZ-GTE and resting on a set of Rays Volk TE-37’s.

In addition to turning wrenches, Nightrun Garage also produces some parts in house. Some, like David’s custom exhaust, are made on demand, while others are produced for sale on their website.

If I’m honest, the machines in this corner of the shop interest me as much as the ones outside on four wheels.

Moving outside was a hodgepodge of all sorts of cool and iconic Japanese cars. Here’s a taste.

Two interesting swaps caught me eye - a cleanly swapped 2JZ-GTE BMW E36 M3 and a Toyota 4Runner with a 3.8L turbo V6 out of a Buick. Whodathunk?

And of course, I couldn’t post this album without including some photos of our Team Reasonable cars, could I?

I drove my 1987 Toyota Corolla FX, while Andrew brought his NB Miata. Nightrun Garage is actually responsible for getting my Corolla running, so bringing it to the meet felt like the obvious choice. When I purchased it, the OEM carburetor was gummed up pretty bad and I opted to replace it with a Weber 32/36. While I threw it on myself, I didn’t understand enough to get that project across the finish line. Nightrun figured it out over no more than two hours of labor.

Andrew’s Miata wears its new hardtop pretty darned well, even if it’s a not the ideal color.

Lastly, one of my favorite vehicles driven to the event was our local Datsun 620 SSS - this time with a paint matched Honda bike in tow. So much style in one package.

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to browse these photos ❤.

Bonus Photos

Still seeking more, or wanting high resolution downloads? View the whole album on Flickr.

I Purchased My Dream Car! - Introducing My 1978 Toyota Cressida

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved the MX32 Cressida. My parents have had one longer than I’ve been alive, and I naturally grew a great attachment to it. It’s never been a particularly good example, and was parked at some point around 2009 and hasn’t moved since. Every time I visit my parents I check it out and its decreasing condition is always a little depressing.

Dad driving the Cressida to work, circa March 2006

In the more recent years, I came to the conclusion that the better approach would be buying a nicer condition Cressida and starting from there and using my parents’ as a parts car. Ever since, I’ve been keeping tabs on the market using whatever means I can find. At any given point, I could typically turn up one to three MX32s up for grabs in the United States. In more recent searches, I hadn’t been able to find any at all. This made me begin to worry that maybe I missed the boat and I’d never be able to rationally afford my Cressida dreams.

In a moment of weakness, I cold messaged someone in Tennessee that recently picked up a Cressida and asked if he’d be willing to sell it. One thing led to another, and 11 days later my great friend Matt and I headed up towards Knoxville, Tennessee to hopefully pick up a Cressida.

And pick up a Cressida we did!

The new MX32 loaded behind Matt's trusty Tahoe. Not 5 minutes before this photo was taken, we were in a light panic as the car was bottomed out on the trailer, not starting, and seemingly dumping coolant. We got it up after I tried to start it as Matt whacked the starter.

First impressions on the car - it’s actually a little nicer than the photos led me to believe. Driving it was a little difficult without power steering and having questionable brakes, but I was able to smoothly row through all the gears and the rust situation is better than I anticipated.

I tried to haggle a bit, but the reality is when you travel 425 miles one way and you show up with trailer, the seller knows you’re unlikely to go home empty handed over a couple hundred dollars.

So here it is! It’s home, and so far I’ve had it on the road twice. The first time I took it over to show my guys at JSpec Auto Sports and shoot these photos of it, and the second time to Cars and Coffee Richmond. As fun as it is to drive, it will need some work before I feel it’s ready (read: safe) to be driven frequently.

For my first shoot of the car, I really wanted to capture all the little details exactly as the car was delivered to me. The only difference is the Team Reasonable R sticker on the rear driver’s side window that Andrew snuck on.

A little history on this car - it was apparently owned by an older man in Knoxville, Tennessee for a long time until it was purchased by an individual named Justin, who was a tech at the local Toyota dealership. Almost all of the modification occurred under Justin’s ownership, including a brief period of being powered by Toyota’s 2JZ-GE powerplant. This engine blew up, and the original 2.6L 4M inline six was rebuilt and swapped back in, retaining the 5-speed W58 transmission that went in with the 2JZ.

Early this year, the car was purchased by Justin’s friend Vee, whom I purchased the car from. Vee reportedly didn’t drive the car that much in his ownership.

When going through with the sale, Vee told me that the car had been a bit of a staple of Knoxville car meets, and he knew that if he had to sell it, it would have to be to someone who wasn’t local that he could trust to not ruin the car.

Justin, Vee, I hope I do you well.

So - what are my plans? Many have asked me what my plans are for the car, and answering that has been difficult. My initial goal is to clean up the body some. Rust can destroy these old Toyotas, and if I can quickly tackle that problem I can take my time on everything else.

As far as the vehicle’s purpose goes, I aim for the car to be the best that I can make it. Think Guyon’s non-millionaire take on Singer Vehicle Design, who is known for their meticulously thought out classic Porsche builds. Speaking of which, most of the styling inspiration I have for this car is from Porsches I’ve seen over the years.

This will take a very long time to follow through on, and will ultimately mean the car will go through multiple stages of great transformation.

This was some of my logic for doing such a detailed initial photo shoot of the car. I love learning the history of a vehicle, and I hope to preserve this stage of the car as appropriately as possible.

I don’t plan on pursuing any form of motorsports with this car. It would be fun, but I already have two other cars for that purpose (which, like my other vehicles, I’ve totally failed to document on this website).

At any rate, allow me to get more in depth on the vehicle itself.

Under the spring-supported hood lies the aforementioned Toyota 4M. The earlier 1978 models received this carbureted version of the engine, while the later 1978 models received the 4M-E, which was Toyota’s early take on fuel injection.

For such a narrow car, there's plenty of extra room in the engine bay.

The OEM carburetor and associated emissions system has been replaced by the Weber 32-36, which is conveniently the same carburetor I have in my 1978 Toyota Corolla FX. The throttle cable appears to be fed through a braided brake line, presumably to feed it to the throttle lever in a manner that doesn’t put stress on the cable itself.

There’s an electric fan on the radiator that is operated via a mechanical switch on the dashboard that I must remember to turn on if the car is idling in place for an extended period of time. No power steering or AC equipment is to be found here, though I do have it all in boxes included in the sale.

You may have noticed the suspension top hats in the full engine bay shot. I don’t have a full suspension breakdown, but the car is apparently dropped on MaXpeedingRods (what a name!) coilovers that I’ve been told are intended for a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

They ride right harsh, and some light research reveals these can be purchased for as little as $312 for all four. On one hand I think “Wow, these are junk!”, and on the other hand I’m impressed they’re making any profit selling them. At any rate, these are on the short list to get replaced. I don’t have any further information with regards to what else is going on with the suspension, other than that the steering wheel isn’t straight, so I can assume it was never aligned.

Power is put to the ground through some 14x6 wheels borrowed from a Nissan 280ZX wrapped in P205/60R14 Yokohamas which I probably don’t want to know the age of. Thankfully tires this small can be had for mere pennies it seems. I plan to switch these wheels out with something which will probably be another 14” wheel - and definitely no larger.

The fitment isn't right where I want it, but I am content with the ride height itself. While it would look pretty sweet, I am happy that the car wasn't even lower.

The interior is better than I expected, but will still need lots of work. This cracked dashboard is pretty bad but somehow still better than the one in the parts car. Overall, I’m pretty content with its state, and the interior is one of the areas I’m most excited to upgrade.

I’m not sure what’s with the bent tachometer and speedometer needles. The tachometer and the temperature gauges work, but the fuel gauge and the speedometer do not. I don’t expect the warning lights to work either.

Part of me thinks it would be fun to swap in the gauge cluster from the parts car, as if this car is in some way a continuation of that car’s legacy. The other part of me would love to see a clean implementation of an AiM unit or something similar in its place.

Considering the 5 speed swap, I hope to never see the OVER DRIVE light illuminated.

The door cards are dirty and stained but are surprisingly complete - a great starting point.

The real selling point for this car in particular is the W58 transmission swap - it has an awesome shift feel, knob, and stepped rubber boot. I doubt that the 4M engine is in here for the long haul, and the presence of the W58 encourages me to swap in a compatible engine like another 2JZ-GE or a 1UZ. The W58 was naturally mated to the 2JZ-GE in the Lexus SC300 and Toyota Supra. The 1UZ was never natively mated to the W58, but [expensive] aftermarket adaptor plates exist. The clutch pedal feels nice and appears to be an OEM part.

In the back is a pair of VIP trays affixed to the back sides of the front seats. As gnarly as they are, I may end up removing them. It is said that they are from a JDM Toyota Estima (known to us as the Toyota Previa in the states).

While I still don’t have the garage built that I’d like to properly tackle this project in, I am stoked that I finally have an MX32 worth putting some time and money into!

Below you’ll find plenty of extra photos with a plethora of extra little details.

No side mirrors were included on the car. JDM fender mirrors run several hundred dollars. I am not sure how to deal with this, but being a 70's vehicle blind spots are not really a thing so I'm not in a major rush to resolve this.

There's some foreshadowing here - two days after I took this photo, I got to drive a school bus. It was a blast.

While the car is destined to get painted in the future, I love the patina that it currently has on the trunk and hood.

None of the three horn buttons currently work.

The missing sections are where the AC controls, cigarette lighter, and rear window defrost controls would go. The metal plate with the fan switch is where the OEM radio would be located.

I bought an extra MX32 grille earlier this year on eBay since I knew the parts car one was only in fair condition, but this one appears to be just as good!

I love the locks on these, but they do get in the way when you're cruising with your arm out the window.

I didn't notice until after the purchase, but I do appreciate how this is MX32 #5555

The headlights on this car do not match, and I believe that this is the aftermarket one out of the two. I shouldn't be surprised that Toshiba once made sealed beam headlights.

I would take these retro AC vents over the touchscreen controlled vents in the Porsche Taycan any day.

#TeamReasonable

The complete 145 photo album may be found on Flickr here.

As always, thanks for reading ❤.