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October 13, 2016

Probably the most anticipated event of 2016 for me was the weekend of October 15th. Even before i joined up with the David and the rest of the guys in Final Form, there was talk of David and the Final Form crew making the trip up from Texas to attend First Class Fitment. The first time i heard about it was back when i was still rebuilding my car. Unfortunately, it never happened in 2015, but David made good on his promise to Dave Tormey, the co-founder of Canibeat, and the 2016 trip was a go! I helped scout a hotel for the guys to ensure there was adequate parking for their cars and trailers. Luckily i found one near my house which also happened to have a covered parking area for all the cars.



With social media getting wind of this rare appearance in the East Coast, it was soon dubbed the #rotaryrivalry. To make sure our out of town guests were rewarded for making the 1000+ mile trip from Texas to NJ, i helped plan out activities for each day they were here. Not wanting to waste any time, for the day they arrived, i enlisted the help of the guys at Prime NYC to organize a cruise through Times Square. The event was promoted on social media under the banner, Street Icons. As expected, we got off to a late start due to the fact that the transport carrying David and Khiem’s car showed up late. Not only that, but both cars arrived with damage to bumpers and fenders. After getting off work, i picked up the FD and drove over to meet up with the guys at their hotel. When i arrived, everyone was busy working on David’s car to raise it enough so he could safely drive it through Times Square. This being my first time meeting the Final Form guys in person, we had a few brief introductions. Riding shotgun with me was John from Defined Lifestyle, who wanted to shoot some footage of the cruise.



The media coverage for this event was pretty extensive, so instead of rehashing it all here, i’ll provide some links below for anyone who wants to see more. Overall, the night was a huge success and i can’t thank Edwin and Prav enough for putting it together and making it happen. Best of all, not only did Street Icons make the pages of USDM FREAX magazine, the event, as told by Edwin, made its way onto Speedhunters! Dreams do come true!

August 7, 2016

Back in 2014, when i first finished my car, the first car show i ever drove my car to was Wekfest at the Edison Convention Center, not as a participant, but rather as a spectator. Back then, i never thought my car was quite up to par with the rest of the show cars i witnessed there that day. Although, on the way to that show, a few people outside the showed yelled to me that i parked in the wrong place and i should’ve been parked inside. On a side note, Wekfest 2014 was also the first time i met Ted. Fast forward 2 years later, Ted shot me a message a few months prior asking me to register for Wekfest…according to him, this would be my gift to him as the show usually falls on or around his birthday. Of course i didn’t have much choice since he put it that way, so i registered for the show. By now, i knew (but still don’t really understand) that people liked my car, so i never really doubted that i would get into the show, but when i got the acceptance email, i was still grateful and excited that people haven’t seen past the veil yet.

Roll-in shot by Chris O'Neal Photography


Roll in for Wekfest was around 8am on Sunday. I was hoping to be able to drop my car off, go to church, then come back for the show, but now i know better that there just isn’t that much downtime. You would think you have a lot of free time at car shows, but turns out it’s quite the opposite. I met up with Ted at Dunkin Donuts in Piscataway, then we drove down together to the Edison Convention Center. This being my first indoor show and me being the noob that i am, i arrived with a little over a half tank of gas! Anyone who’s done an indoor show before would know that due to fire safety regulations, show cars aren’t supposed to have more than a quarter tank of gas. Being scared that they wouldn’t let me into the show, i drove back out onto 287 and revved the crap out of my car, which is highly uncharacteristic of me as i normally baby my car big time when driving on the street. I managed to get it down to just slightly over the quarter full mark by the time i got back to the convention center. Luckily our crew, team Regiment Zero, was still sitting outside in the parking lot waiting to be called into the building.

Team Regiment Zero chilling outside in the parking lot waiting to be called in


Team Regiment Zero making sure RX-7s had adequate representation at Wekfest. Photo by Jeffrey of JLiu Photography.


After taking a few group photos and chatting with some of the teammates, we finally got called in. On another side note, freakin’ Ted decided last minute not to enter his car in the show because he was embarrassed by the paint of his new front bumper. Everyone on the team tried to make him bring the car in. I even threatened to leave if he didn’t, but alas, he wouldn’t budge. He said he did it as a sign of respect for the event coordinators because he didn’t want to bring down the level of quality at the show. I guess i can respect that mentality as i feel the same way about my car.

A shot of Ted's mismatched front bumper by FrankiFohdoh of AllThingsProper. Really doesn't look bad at all.


I never thought i'd see the day when i actually got to park next to 2 GT-Rs from different generations. Dreams do come true!


The gracious crew at Wekfest gave Regiment Zero a huge corner of the building and we got all the cars lined up in a U-shape. Ted even had them place me right at the front next to the team’s omori flag. *blush*

Photo by Jeff Liu of Jliu Photography


Photo by Jeff Liu of Jliu Photography


Once we got all the cars set up i got a chance to look around at some of the cars in attendance. To be honest, that’s probably my favorite part of going to car shows; being able to look at all the cars before the large crowds come in and make it hard to get a good look.

Photo by Jeff Liu of Jliu Photography


Photo by Jeff Liu of Jliu Photography


Photo by Jeff Liu of Jliu Photography


Photo by Jeff Liu of Jliu Photography


As i’ve already seen a majority of the cars in attendance, there really wasn’t anything that jumped out at me. Ironically enough, the one car that i was really excited to see was a stock car. Well, technically, it’s not really stock, but it is OEM as that’s how they come from the factory. And that car would be the NISMO R35 GTR. Turns out there were actually two in attendance, but the one i preferred was the stock one. Lucky for me, the car was part of Regiment Zero so i had plenty of time to look it over and take pictures.





Ok, i take it back, while i've already seen Phil's car many times at various events, every time i see it in a new setting/lighting, i still get just as excited as the first time i saw his car. His build is perfect on so many levels...exterior, engine bay, interior...he's ticked off all the right boxes for a proper RE-Amemiya style build. I dare say his paint is even better than some of the RE-Amemiya built cars! (blasphemy i know!)

Photo by FrankiFohdoh of AllThingsProper


Photo by FrankiFohdoh of AllThingsProper


There was just something about the way the indoor lighting hit his paint and changed the tone of the car, but the color just popped out right at your face. It was hard to miss that's for sure. Seeing his car in that atmosphere and lighting, it's not hard to see why he won 1st place Mazda at Wekfest.

When the time came for the awards ceremony, i headed over to see which cars won. Normally i’m not too concerned about awards because i don’t go to shows to win trophies, but recently i’ve been feeling like it’s disrespectful to the event organizers not to attend the ceremony, so out of respect for the people who work so hard to put the show together, i walked over to observe the award winners. The ceremony took quite long as there were many categories and they awarded two winners per category, a 1st and a 2nd place trophy. The most surprising winner of all came when they called my name for 2nd place Mazda. I’ve never really won a trophy before so i was pretty shy walking up to collect it. But i admit, it was nice to have friends congratulate me as i walked back with my trophy. I’m grateful for having my car recognized at such a high profile show like Wekfest.



With Wekfest coming to an end, everyone was now looking forward to the next big event, First Class Fitment. This was an especially exciting event for me as well as the rest of the east coast rotary community because the 7th annual First Class Fitment was soon to be tagged as the #rotaryrivalry of 2016. Stay tuned for more.

Some shots of my car that i liked. This interior shot was nice because i rarely see any shots of the inside since there's really not much to look at. Shot by Kyle of FrontStreetMedia.


I liked this rear shot of my car showing off the new rear cut outs that others have complimented me on, but i'm still not 100% sure about them. I do like them more than a couple of months ago but it's still not perfect. Shot by Kyle of FrontStreetMedia.


And here's my favorite shot from the show, if not my favorite shot of all time by Christopher James. It's hard to believe this was actually taken at the show and not in some studio. I've seen other similar shots from similar angles, but none compare to the dynamic lighting that Chris did on this shot in post processing. Incredible.

After 7’s Day, the next big event was Wekfest, which was really my first car show of the year. Before the show there were a few things i wanted to take care of, not huge things, but they needed to be checked off my To-Do list. First up was finally installing my RE-Amemiya front tow hook. I dragged my feet on this one because i was a little hesitant to cut my front bumper. I eventually gave in because i knew i needed it in case i ever had to tow my car, i would have nothing to grab onto because i removed the OEM tow hooks. The install was fairly easy, but required removing the front bumper which i had to do to fix my coolant leak, but more on that later. Once i figured out where the bracket was supposed to be mounted, i just used a marker to mark the inside of the bumper where i would need to drill the hole. The cut wasn’t exactly on point, but it was close enough that once installed you couldn’t really see the hole which is what i was aiming for. Ultimately i was planning to bolt a tow strap to the mount, but since i hadn’t found one with a bolt hole large enough for my RE mount, i decided to just use the hook that came with it for the time being.

Here's a picture of the mount installed without the tow hook that came with it. Instead this is the bolt/spacer setup i made to accept tow straps.


As mentioned previously, i had a coolant leak that needed to be fixed, which is why i took my front bumper off to begin with. When i first put the car together, i wasn’t able to find a good radiator hose due to the custom radiator set up. I ended up using some old hoses with a pipe extension to connect two separate hoses. That’s where the leak was coming from. To fix the problem, i picked up a flexible radiator hose from Pegasus Auto Racing. It had enough flex in it that i could make it work with my set up. I’m glad to report that since i replaced my radiator hose i haven’t had any leaks! In addition, i no longer need to constantly check/refill my coolant! I once thought that my engine was eating coolant and would require a rebuild because i had to keep adding coolant every so often. Looks like my engine is healthy *knock on wood*.

Next on the To-Do list was getting a harness to go with my new roll bar setup. I scoured the internet for months trying to decide which harness to go with. Although i had originally wanted Takata harnesses, the whole sponsorship thing left a bad taste in my mouth so i decided to go with someone else. I was looking for a blue 6 point harness as ultimately i wanted to be able to use these on the track and i’ve heard 4 point is not always accepted. A few of the brands i was considering were Schroth, Willans, and Sabelt, with Sabelt being my top choice. Unfortunately, after i contacted Vivid Racing, i was told everywhere was out of stock and it would be months before they could get anything with everyone in Italy being on holiday the month of August. At this point, i was pretty much settled on going with Willans since they had blue harnesses and Pegasus Auto Racing seemed to have plenty in stock. In one last desperate attempt to find Sabelt harnesses, i hit up eBay (i know, i know, but as i already said, i was desperate!). To my surprise, i found Hoerr Racing Products, a legit auto racing products distributor, was selling 6-point Sabelt harnesses in blue with the only caveat being they were bolt in and not clip-ons. I contacted them directly via phone and they confirmed they had them in stock. To really sweeten the deal for me, they found out that the harnesses were old stock and were expiring in 2019 so they knocked off another $80 off their normal price...each! Since i wasn’t planning to race the car in sanctioned events, having dated harnesses wasn’t really a concern for me, especially since they were brand new anyway. After rationalizing to myself that bolt on would serve my needs better than clip ons due to the lack of space in the FD cabin, i jumped on it and ordered two sets.

I love unboxing photos...the suspense!




I managed to get the driver’s side harness installed in time for Wekfest, but didn’t get around to the passenger side until afterwards. I did as much research as possible to ensure i was installing the harness correctly. A couple tips for people looking to do the same:

1. If the should straps extend back past the seat more than 18 inches to where they’re secured, the straps need to be crossed (X)
2. Make sure the mounts have collars that allow the harness to swivel from the mounting location.
3. If bolting through the floor pan, use back plates underneath the car with a nut welded onto it to evenly distribute the pressure.

Luckily my Bride seat rail had mounting provisions for the lap belts which made installation a breeze. The hardest part of the install was measuring and drilling holes for mounting the substraps. As mentioned above, i installed back plates underneath the car which was a huge pain trying to do by myself. I ended up using a jack underneath the car to hold the back plate in place so i could bolt in the strap mount from inside the cabin. The last order of business to complete the harness install was finding a way to secure the shoulder straps that were wrapped around my rear harness/strut bar. (On a side note, typically you’re not supposed to use the rear strut bar as a harness bar since the OEM FD bar isn’t strong enough to withstand the force of impact created as a result of a crash, but Samberg provides a replacement strut bar that doubles as a harness bar with new mounts that are strong enough to support a harness.) I had originally ordered foam designed for wrapping around the rollbar to protect people from possible contact with the steel bars. I was planning to cut a small piece and put it between the straps wrapped around the harness bar, but while doing some google searches, i found a picture of a Ferrari with a roll bar and a harness wrapped around it. At first it looked to me like there were special mounts created for each wrap, but later i realized it was simply two c-clamps on each side of the strap which prevented and side-to-side movement. The setup looked much more legit than my ghetto foam padding so i measured my bar and ordered some c-clamps for it. This is what i ended up with:

Foam Pad Setup


C-Clamp Setup


The hard mounted c-clamps really give me more piece of mind that the straps are fully secured, which is crucial with any safety related components.

And here's the harness installed


I really pleased with how it turned out. Turns out the whole Takata debacle was a blessing in disguise because i'm really happy with the Sabelt harnesses in terms of quality, color, and style. The finishing touch to complete my harness set up was to install the matching Sabelt tow strap to my front RE-Amemiya tow hook. I was so stoked when i found out Sabelt offered a two strap with a big enough bolt hole for my RE tow hook mount, that i ended up ordering two straps, one blue and one red, for when i want to change things up a bit. Technically, the Sabelt tow strap is not part of Wekfest prep since i didn’t do it until after Wekfest, but whatever.

The wait is over! Without further ado, the official 2016 7's Day NYC Video! Enjoy the show!

Ok, this is it. The wait is almost over. Today, VinPhotography released the official trailer for the 7's Day NYC video, with the full vide dropping tomorrow. This is the one we've all been waiting for, and if the quality of the teaser is any indication of how good the full video will be, we're in for a treat! Enjoy the short teaser below and stay tuned for the full release tomorrow!