Category Archives: Cars

Showdown in Homebush.

As a moderator of a forum I try my best to sit in the middle (when I voice an opinion I usually get hammered). My job is to try and keep the peace.

Today Christina and I had a meeting with a kid (he’s 17) who’s turned one of our forums upside down. We banned him for 3 months but his ban has expired and now he’s back on the forums. Everything was AOK for a little while, but a recent outbreak has us back at square one.

It’s hard to stop this kid from posting silly things (we were all kids once right?) but it’s just as hard to stop long standing members from bullying him for posting silly things.

It was crazy hard for us to meet him, and his mother (he’s on his L’s so had to have here there to supervise his driving) and lay it all on the line for him. We told his mum about the bullying (damn was he embarrassed). As awkward as it was, we got it all out, offered some constructive suggestions and now we’ve just got to hope things change for the better.

Photo by J_Hui.

JDMST sponsored a dyno day out at Dee Why yesterday. Sun was out, vibe was great and there were some pretty hardcore cars there too. More words, and pictures on Zen Garage (I’m loving the extra effort I’ve been putting into writing for Zen Garage!). Visit: http://zengarage.com.au/2011/08/29/all-about-stance-dyno-day-2011

Due to last minute all over the place organisational skills, last night I had 2 forum meets on at the same time, in different locations. A VWGolf.net.au meet at Homebush and a JDMST meet in Blacktown.

I had intentions to attend the JDMST meet, but before driving out I thought I’d drop in to the VWG meet first, and perhaps make my way to Blacktown afterwards. I picked Christina up from work, got caught in killer traffic on the way to Eastwood (to get her car) and when we got to Homebush I got a call to warn me not to bother going to the JDMST meet as it was pitch black (no street lights) and no parking either.

Homebush was pretty packed out too, we had a big bunch, hung around for a while then drove to Rhodes to take photos of the cars in more light (at that stage I put the camera away and did the social thing instead!).

Many more photos here and photos from the JDMST meet (400 cars strong apparently!) here.

$200’s worth in this 40cc syringe.

Dave from Reflect Effect, working his magic.

Bonnet has never been this clean.

I’ve never been a fan of the concept of paying the premium for a new car, then being shoved into the little room with a sales person trying to drill you for even more cash for paint protection.

The outcome of this heated discussion got me a deal to review the Opti-Coat product on my own car to put my doubts to rest.

Opti-Coat claims to be the ultimate paint protection product on the market today. It’s basically a clearcoat like your stock clearcoat, only a lot stronger and longer lasting. A quick search on YouTube has people scratching at their Opti-Coated cars with steel wool with no ill effects, even paint thinners have no effect on it.

My full (and ongoing) review can be found here.

Finally twisted Dedy’s arm enough to get him to install my AeroCatch bonnet pins. A very fussy job in comparison to more conventional bonnet pins as the bonnet surface isn’t completely flat and you’ve got to cut the shape out of the bonnet (as opposed to simply drilling a hole in it). Perfect job though (as expected from Dedy and team at Top One Auto).

Ferrari 458 dash vs Honda’s new CR-Z dash.

I was just browsing the interior thread on JDMST, and did some googling, then I found this striking similarity and decided to photoshop both of the dashes next to each other in the same scale. Both look ugly as hell to me (spaceships!) but tut tut Honda. You were innovators once!

At Eastern Creek today. First I heard it (sounds like an F1 car). Then I saw it, gahhhhh so hot.

Neil Bates was at the wheel giving Lexus owners happy laps.

The closest I got to it was touching these wheels. Damn it!