Monthly Archives: January 2010

JDM Style Tuning from Ryan Lewis on Vimeo.

Ryan’s vid is a few months old but I ran ito it again today, it captures the JDMST EOMM vibe well, hope you enjoy it.

My 1st INfront Talk just went live. I’m looking forward to writing more in future.

Richie going up.

Richie going down.

Blair Witch No.2!

Freaky hole into a blocked off supply room/bunker of some sort.

War bunkers?!

With the storm coming and the sound and sight of a lot of crows we couldn’t help but feel the bad vibes, like someone was murdered, or raped out here.

I see Blair!

Barron.

More interesting structures.

I took the Ti. Headset came a little loose half way in.

More Chin searching led us to the Pistol Range.

Quite freaky hearing people shoot in there too.

We came across this cool old guy selling bikes on our way home.

He not only sold bikes. He also had cold drinks and a fashion line from Indonesia (?!?!).

This one would have been my pick of the bunch!

PS: Felt so good to get my 2nd wind. Felt so good to be sweating so hard. Sweating like it was raining out of my face. I need to ride more yes I do.

My Mum’s B’day is on Australia Day and yesterday was her 60th (!!!) so we had a little do at her place. Jamie and Richie organised the food (they killed it! So so good) and Mum invited a lot of the neighbours as well as her golf buddies. Super hot day but with the front of the house openned up there was a nice sea breeze which kept everyone cool enough.

Name tags!

Jamie and Richie made this lovely giest book for everyone to sign.

Inside.

Decorations.

Guests.

Chopper.

Chicken wings were finger lickin!

Richie manned the BBQ.

Richie’s special ribs.

Lunch time!

Some Indonesian delights.

I made a speech (as usual) but strangely I was super nervous making this one. Not sure why, out of practise!

I’m pretty sure they were laughing at me, not with me!

Mum accepting her award for being “The World’s Best Mum” (haha).

Despite the 40 degree heat out west the JDMST community braved the heat and the first ever JSDMST swap meet was a huge success! I had a stall there and nearly every single item I had on sale sold (yew!). Many more pictures here.

Sonny and Andy at the Aussie Youth in Glebe.

Mexican goodness on Glebe Point road.

I thought I’d call Seany to come down as he lives across the road :)

Andy’s belt.

New beers for my taste buds. Must… try… them… all…

Shots!!!

The BWM crew. Here’s cheers!

Burrito Grande – be sure to go the black beans instead of the re-fried beans yeah?!

Afterwards Christina and I went into George street to meet up with her mates. We sat in a que for a bit, all Asians, all 18 years old, freaked the shit out of me. I couldn’t do it. Old man!!! I waited until Christina got to the front of the line and then left her to party on. Ahhhh, the worm turns!

Big update today: Last night I read the fitting instructions for the Motordyne Plenum spacer which strongly suggested to work on a cool engine as hot engines do funny things to aluminium. Since the bolt tensioning is such a major factor in installing the spacer correctly I packed the car up with all the tools I’d need for the install and parked the car in my Mums garage overnight.

Today, despite a huge hangover (Jamie and Richie came around last night, much wine, Jeff Buckley DVD + Richie and I had a 2 hour Jam session too) I got to work on it:

Hood liner, interesting huh? The engine’s behind the front axle for better balance but I wouldn’t call it in the middle.

This is used all over the engine bay, again, interesting.

Spacer installed. I’ve seen a lot of installation pictures online and most people have a lot of dirty gunk in here but mine was squeeky clean which makes me feel good that the low km’s the car has done are most likely genuine.

I went for the thinner 5/16 kit which is geared towards low down and mid range and said to gain 11HP-13HP (1HP less than the thicker 1/2″ spacer).

Washers and longer bolts. The kit was impressive. Came with everything and then some (even spacers for your strut brace to clear the engine cover). New bolts, washers, loctite, you name it.

The instructions were clear. I used a torque wrench to do it right (you can get this Kingchrome one from Bunnings for $70-ish). The diagram shows the order in which I had to tighten everything up. First 40 in/lb then again at 80 then a few select bolts at 100 in/lb.

I also replaced the panel filter:

The old one (left) looks aftermarket? I’m not sure, looks pretty damn good to me construction wise. It’s clean too. The K&N’s rubber frame was a lot softer though and I’m sure it would get a better seal because of it.

You can see the panel filter. The “Power Duct” writing feels pretty aftermarket for an OEM intake!

I test drove the car and instantly felt a difference in response and noise too. A lot of people said they lost power initially until their ECU adjusted (automatically), not the case for me. There’s more growl, it’s not that loud but it’s there and there’s more response everywhere. It’s awesome.

I was going past the beach and I got whistled at by my mail guy who had a parcel for me (he knows me well as I get so many things from eBay!). So funny getting a parcel right on the main beach road in front of people at the cafe (lol). It was my Z-Tube intake pipe!

Restrictive pipe top, 350Z tube bottom.

Fitment was 1000000% perfect and the extra sound is nuts! I love it.

I also got a letter from the RTA saying my plates were ready (so many things today!) so I braved the fucked up crazy queue (thank God for iPhone/internet access) and picked them up.

Junction Produce plate bolts.

Rear. How nice are those tips, again, stock. This car is so good stock!

Front. I’d love to modify the plate holders both front and back, might do that later.

Massive waves down the road today. I love living in Maroubra, so awesome.

I’ve spent the last couple of days putting together a quick little portfolio/launch pad using Stacey, a simple folder based content management system developed by Anthony Kolber.

I spent more time on the about page which reads more like a CV, that was a lot of fun.

I’ve uploaded it to my justinfox URL. You can check it out here.

The launch of the new Australian INfront inspired me to check out some of the old peeps which used to inspire me back in the day. One of the first artists I thought I’d google was “Merda”. I’ve always been a huge fan of Jay’s work and on launching his site (which I haven’t visited in over 5 years) I saw that he had just released a new skate deck. Excited I literally hit the shop and bought one on the spot to add to my skate deck collection.

The next day I got a surprise call from Jay, he’d noticed that the number I was after (deck number 75/99) had a slight blemish on it, being a perfectionist (and maybe assuming I was one as well) he asked if I wanted my money refunded, or if I’d be happy to pick out another deck (which of-course I was!). What a champ aye? I thought I’d pick out number 35 as I’m 35 this year (which also explains why I just bought my 3.5litre V35 350GT Skyline a couple of weeks ago!).

Signed and numbered.

The art glows in the dark. I’ll try to get a night shot later tonight.

Decks as art. The decks have always made a great welcome intro into the house.

A long time ago he Jay gave me one this print which I have framed in my office.

Lucky number 8 too.

Visit Merda: http://www.imerda.com