Import Alliance End of Winter Meet

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When I first found out about import alliance back in high school I made it a goal of mine to make it to one of their meets. Ideally I would want to go to the Nashville or Atlanta ones since that’s where all the heavy hitters attend, but money and time always lead me away from it. To my luck, however, they hosted one at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth and a few of us Natsukashi guys (and gals) took to go.

The quality at this meet was outstanding. Yes there were the typical fake parts and no heart builds but you can really see the cars that shine with their creators heart. It’s the builds and the people behind them that constantly remind me of how fortunate I am to be apart of this scene.

P.S. I took a stab at editing photos for the first time, any criticism is welcome!

We decided to stay at the Best Western in Roanoke, Texas. This was the first time that we were stationed at some place that wasn’t way off in the boon docks. It was great!
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throwback thursday — slammed on 14’s

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Welp, since TBT or “throw back thursdays” are the new cool thing to do on social media on thursdays… I decided I’d hop on the bandwagon today.

I’m gonna take things back to Nov. 5th, 2011. The day I took my little hatch all over downtown Austin, TX for a photoshoot. I had gotten tired of my 14″ low offset wheels and was about ready for widebody and Angelina Jolie lips on my hatch. So I decided to take it out on a shoot so that I could remember the way it looked back in the day…

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CCM 15

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It’s that time of year again. Another CCM down. This time a few of the boys and I drove/rode to Houston to gather for CCM 15. The cool part this time was that we got to stay with big brother Vinson in his Houston diggs for the weekend. We tried to keep it nice and clean…. besides breaking his garage door and having Joseph pass out within the first few minutes. My non consumption of alcohol led me to be the first one to fall asleep and luckily not be held responsible for these travesties .   This weekend marked my first big trip on my motorcycle (900+ miles in 3 days total) and I found out a lot of things about motorcycle riding including the frequent need for rest stops. On one of these such rest stops we even met a guy on the outskirts of Houston who turned out to be quite the character. After first rolling up in his 5.0 soft top he made Thaison and I stay there so he could go home and get his older Celica. We didn’t think much of it until he returned in a purple older gen celica (Thaison help me out here) which was completely gutted and swapped with a 4runner motor. Needless to say the car looked like a lot of fun, and the owner had tons of fun doing the only thing you’re required to do in rural America…. burnouts. Shortly, we made it down and stopped at Mai’s restaurant in down town Houston. Little did we know the place was all kinds of fancy and we were all under dressed ( me in a motorcycle jacket and Thaison’s ripped shorts didn’t help our case). The food however was great and we sure did eat it all. We left there and made it to Vinson’s house to get ready for the next day.
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Slammed life

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So as of recent, I’ve been missing how my 86 drove and felt when it was just hammered to the ground. Back before, I ran slammed in m celica supra 14″ wheels. Needless to say, it was lowlowlowlow.

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After I threw my 15’s on I decided to raise it bc it was soooo harsh driving around town. But I soon realized I wasn’t happy with that height Continue reading →

86 Day in Texas

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So every year, 86 day is celebrated around the time of August 6th.  This year, 8/6 landed on a Monday, which makes it difficult for many people to attend an event on the actual day — bc of work, school, etc.  So all of us local Texas 86 guys always celebrate 86 weekend, usually the weekend before 86 day.  This year, we decided to celebrate August 3-5.

This year, we decided to all meet in Austin and enjoy 86 festivities in this beautiful city.

Day 1 — 8/3:

Mark & Jonas were the only out of towners that made it this year.  Mark drove all the way down from Dallas.  Jonas trailered his hatch all the way from Houston.  They got in Friday afternoon and came down to the pho shop to meet up with Joseph and I.  P.S. most of the pictures in this blog post are shot with a Minolta MAXXUM 7000 35mm camera.  Circa 1985.  What better way than to celebrate an 80’s car with a period correct camera!  All images unedited.

here’s mark & his coupe

jonas & his hatch

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CCM14 Dallas

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Here we are again. This time the Natsukashi crew decided to head out to CCM14 in Dallas which was hosted by Tiffany Troung and Ty Nguyen as usual. The trip was one that was to be full of great times and surprises and the creation of the first Natsukashi Games.  Though we kept to our usual antics we did not forget the main reason why we came up there, for the meet. I love going to these things. The people you meet and friends you make last a life time and those are things I never want to change. The downside of this meet was the heat. It was a blistering 105+ on the pavement but, as the boys and girls of Natsukashi Garage will tell you, I sucked it up to get some shots of some great cars for you all. My apologies this round for not getting every car, but due to the heat and the amazing turnout that was there I had to limit my shots. Again these are unedited much because I still haven’t had time to learn much about photo editing, nor do I like highly edited photos much. On to the show!

Things started as usual when we travel north which resulted in us meeting at my place over in Round Rock. This time we had some other great friends of mine join us which made the trip all the more enjoyable. Please excuse my good friend David for being a creeper.
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There are a lot of things that can motivate or kill that motivation when it comes to doing a big car project.  This 20v swap in my ae86 has proven to be a rollercoaster of that.  Starting out with really strong motivation and drive to get my swap going, followed by a dry spell, back to motivation.

As of the last couple weeks, I hit a wall with my swap.  The engine was in the chasis and was awaiting all the little things.  But I simply just did not have any motivation to get it finished.  I KNEW it was just a bunch of small things that were left to do…but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.  My motivation was lacking.  There were nights where Joseph was going to come over and help me finish the swap, but I told him I was too tired after work to do anything. Continue reading →

motor is in!

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So on my day off this past wednesday… I ran around picking up little parts I knew that I’d need to finish my motor.  Sadly, I got called in to work around 5pm :[  Story of my life.

I worked a few hours and Joseph came to the shop and grabbed some sushi.  Once business died down, I was free to go and it was homeward bound to drop my motor in!

After some Dreyer’s Dibs ice cream that joseph picked up from the gas station, it was time to get going on the motor.

ready!

I had to be really careful with the engine, so I don’t scratch the paint on the bay.  But as careful as I was, once it was secure in the mounts, the engine leaned backwards and my fuel return barb gauged the back of the engine bay :[  Luckily it’s behind the engine, so it’s a bit more difficult to see.

After a couple tweaks here and there, I got the headers in just to see what it would look like!  (in case you’re wondering about the headers, I got them used from club4ag.  they’re old JSP Fab headers.  Made by Formula Drift driver John Russakoff.  I think he might have run them in his old 20v competition 86)

go pho it!

 

By this time it was like 2 or 3 in the morning.  Joseph and I decided to call it a night.  He had to get up early for work and we were hungry as heck.  So we went inside the house, nommed on some eggrolls leftover from work — which wasn’t enough so I made some spring rolls to fill our bellies.

All that’s left to get the motor running is hooking up the radiator/oil cooler, finishing wiring up my coil on plugs, tucking the harness, then brake/clutch lines.  Almost there!  Everything that’s left is just super tedious.

in all its glory