After a busy night in the ER, I woke up in the late afternoon and was itching to relax by driving my GTI around town and take some photo shots. Being Christmas Eve, most stores were closed and few cars were on the road, so the timing couldn’t have been better.
Living in Houston, I met some pretty cool friends that own some really nice VWs. I went to my friend’s house to do some fender work, then we decided to do a mini photo shoot in the freezing December winter. Anything to do with cars Im game for! Plus I get to practice my photography skills!
Sooo, I bought some Enkei RPF1 for my GTI for a really good deal…. The problem was the bolt pattern is 5×114.3. Now if you have a MK5 VW or Mercedes or Audi the bolt pattern is 5×112, unfortunately it wasn’t going to work out. But I had several options: I could get wobble bolts, or I could get the rims re drilled to 5×112, or I could buy adaptors. Wobble bolts are great because there are relatively cheap but i would need to bore out my rims in order for the wobble bolts to fit. My RPF1 is 17×9 et35 so i could have gotten my rims redrilled but I didnt because I wanted a more aggressive offset and stance. Which brings me to my adaptors…..
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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Im here to do a review about my Status Seat. I actually found this seat on a craigslist ad, and the guy was originally selling 2 seats with the Status bracket and mk4 r32 seat rails for 1200$. Thats was a pretty good deal since the seat alone is worth 1000$. I was originally going to buy two but after talking to my fiance (she didn’t want non reclining seats on her side) and saving money for a wedding I decided to get one. So I txted the dude and i dr0ve to Austin to pick up the seat, later my boy Thaison picked up the 2nd seat. The owner told me there were many people that wanted to get it didnt buy it because they were to big. Im a slender guy and I would definitely say if your waist line is 34 or higher you will not fit. The seats were overall in very good condition. The black cloth faded a bit but no tears, or cracks. Just goes to show you how good the quality of build the seats are. Plus its American made so Im supporting the local business too! The carbon fiber weave is immaculate and beautiful!
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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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Well its been awhile since I upgraded my GTI but Im getting older and my priorities are changing. Unfortunatly I cant spend as much money I would like to as i did before. So while browsing the internet I found a cool little $2 upgrade. With some tools, pb blaster and a $2hole plug I deleted my rear wiper. I don’t really use my rear wipers since it hardly rains in Texas. The upgrade made the rear hatch look more clean and flows better with the lines of the GTI. After deleting my rear wiper it got me thinking to debage the “GTI” on the truck on and front grill. That too was a simple do it yourself. Overall the car looks more simple and more OEM+.
Next I did was added LED taillights. For $50 I got the Ziza led lights. Its a simple bolt on upgrade but updates the look you are car. Also LEDs are brighter and uses less volts too. But I do believe not all cars should do this because Ive seen some other cars with LED license plate lights and it just looked rice. On this car it wasn’t the case. The LED really updated the look of the gti, and it reminded me of the newer BMWs that came stock with LEDs.
A couple months ago my left fog light got cracked. So while i bought the LED lights i also got OEM projector fog lights. Theses are brighter and shines more distance than my old fog lights for those adverse weather conditions.
I’m sure most people might not notice these upgrade buts that’s a good thing. Its not flashy like those cars with chrome rims with under glow and suicide doors. I would say my car is subtle with little tweaks here and there like those limited edition models that came out from the factory. Its all in the details.
Im glad to be a member of Natsukashi garage. As long as i can remember I’ve always been into cars especially euro cars. My current car is a MK5 GTI, and i bought this car stock right after college and getting a real job. It was a gift to myself for graduating college. At the time I was looking at older VWs and BMWs but when I test drove the MK5 GTI i knew I had to had it. Its a 09 MK5 GTI and has the TSI motor (the improved FSI motor from the older MK5 GTIs) and the same motor that is in the MK6 GTI. People say the MK5 GTI is the best GTI since the original MK1 GTI. The GTI is already a great car stock but being a gearhead it wasn’t stock for long. Within two months I had on BBS LM replica rims, then a month later I had Neuspeed race springs and VF engineering air intake. Then i bought a carbon fiber lip to make the car lower. But since I like to be slammed, i wasnt happy how low my car was so the next month I bought H&R Ultra Low Coilovers. I was slammed and rubbing hard haha. Then I saved some money to money to buy some CCWs because I wanted to have some poke. But I spent that money on a plane trip to the Philippines for vacation and to see my girlfriend. It was money well spent. When I came back, i scored a great deal on some Mercedes Alphards on craigslist. It was like a substitute to CCWs. Now Im slammed, tucked, poked, and stretched. I recently bought a exhaust and euro rear fog light for that OEM+ look. Within one year my GTI was completely transformed. Right now I would say Im 90% finished with my car, just driving it to big car meets with the Natsukashi garage crew!
Rolling on BBS LM reps and Neuspeed race springs
Gotta love those Alparhards
Mayday Garage status!
Natsukashi Garage 