The very last post about our trip to Auto Salon has arrived. But before we get to that, I’ve noticed that we have a few new readers lately so I figured I’d invite you to read “The Low Down” or our About Us section in the top right.
Also, to clarify. Enkei has been a F1 Supplier since 1986. Endless has been a F1 Supplier since 2003. I noticed some cats were a little mis-informed.
Lastly, have a gander at Kent here on the left. Might have to turn up your screen’s brightness to really see him. He was a bit cold the last night as we walked to our restaurant.

Saw this signage on the way to our place. Kent woulda taken it but he couldn’t reach up while holding his jacket closed at the same time.

And here we are at our last meal in Japan (excluding air port food). Robatayaki place in Roppongi Hills. The two cats you see here are our chefs.

At robatayaki places, all the food is laid out in front of both the guests and the cooks. Pick and choose what you’d like and the cooks do their thang.

More food choices and the chef’s name - uh… plank.

One of the first things ordered was our fish cuz it takes forever to cook. You’ll see these guys again at the end.

In the meantime we had other things to sustain us like these meatballs and a round of beer.

It looks like a box sitting in water, but it’s really a box full of sake sitting in sake that fell out of the box. What’s a last meal in Japan without a box full of sake anyway? But on the real, the box is made out of cedar (we think) and the sake soaks up the flavor of the cedar. FYI, these boxes are not shot glass size, they’re actually 4″x4″.

Here’s some chicken to go with our sake.

Gotta have some veggies too.

Dave insisted that we try the potatoes. And since Dave was doing all the ordering, it was pretty easy for him to get his way. He said that there was a dude in the back churning the butter you see melting on the spuds.

Another round of sake.

So these beef cubes are interesting. Dave said that he took some clients that were from like Texas or something to this place and they could not stop eating the beef. They swore it was better than any steak they’ve had or something to that effect.

Here’s Dave explaining how to eat the beef.

And here it is. Had another round of Sake after this.

And here’s the fish that I showed you in the beginning. Really good. Melts in your mouth. Super tasty. Everything you’d ever want fish to be.

Another round of sake.

Remember those insanely expensive strawberries in an earlier post? These are smaller, but they tasted insane! You know how artificial strawberry flavoring tastes kinda weird? It’s because none of us have tried really really good and perfect strawberries! These strawberries tasted exactly like what artificial strawberry flavoring tasted like. I know, it sounds weird. But trust me.

Here’s a photo our cook guy took for us. Not bad for a round of beers and 4 rounds of sake.

Okay, here’s where the sake started to kick in…

As if we didn’t have enough already, we went upstairs to some bar where there was a band playing and had some drinks.

And then the madness began..

Oh man, I couldn’t even get the right finger up. And what’s that headband doing around my head??

Rockin’ out.

The rest of the night is censored. Early the next morning, Dave came by to drive us to the train station so we could catch our Narita express. Being that all of us looked like crap, I instead took a picture of Dave’s dog Bingo sitting on my lap on the way to the station.
So, 1248 pictures and 14 videos later, our Japan trip was finally over. It was time for us to take some tylenol and knock out on the way home. And now it’s time for me to retire from blogging for a while. Hope all y’all enjoyed the peak into our trip. PEACE!!

Back in the super early 90’s (or was it the super late 80’s?), The SOURCE at The Variety Arts Center in downtown LA was thee spot to club at. Put on by Legend Entertainment and guaranteed to be packed every week. Around the same time, Ken Miyoshi from Import Showoff started to put on the first ever import car show. Street racing was poppin’. It was exciting times for many. I was in high school and fascinated by it all. A SOURCE reunion was held recently at GOE. The “scene” has changed alot since. Fata aka the Lebanese Lover aka CSIYM Marc brought his camera and got very camera happy. Here he is with Mr. Oz Buendia of Legend Entertainment/Motorsports.

Makai Dwayne, CSIYM, and Dave Gonzales of 21XL Events Co.

DJ Icy Ice (KDay/Legend/Stacks/Beat Junkies) and DJ Melo-D (KDay/Beat Junkies/Modern Musique) brought the music. Source: A Tough Act Will Always Follow. Pure talent and down to earth.

Fata with Mike and Tony! from Evasive.

Lloyd Bandonillo (OG Legend), Fata, DJ G-No (Kahlua). Lloyd and G-No are the coolest cats.

APL of the Black Eyed Peas representin’ with lady friend and Ice. Superstar to many, coot cat to those who’ve supported BEP before they were BEP. Lots of peeps supported his Bebots video.

Here’s Fata Baby Milo’d out in Laker colors. Gaudy for real.

Here’s Fata Baby Milo and CSIYM’d out.

This is really just all about Marc “Mr. Natural High” Fata. Here he is with..umm..security friend.

Dave is back again in the states. He burned a CD with pics I took of, yes, more Japan. I forgot I took these so here’s a few random ones in no particular order. First, this. Gotta get ‘em young.

The craziness. Cars? What cars?

Do or dai. Dai at the HKS booth.

Cool K-Car.

And then there’s the opposite end of the spectrum.

More madness.

AME Wheels. TAS was smaller this year than the previous years. Some of the majors and perceived majors didn’t show.

One and a half star madness. Never again. At least they had DSL..in the lobby!

Random shot in Harajuku.

Domino waiting at the station to go to the Makuhari Messe.

I’d never be caught dead wearing one of these.

Nice empty bldg. in Harajuku. Wonder what’s going to occupy it. Yawn.

Takeshita Dori. Get off Harajuku station off the Yamanote Line and this is what you’ll see first.

Damn, you’d think I’d be done posting about Tokyo by now. Nope. Gotta show you what else I thought was dope at the show. First, HKS.

So awesome to see this thing in person. The HKS Time Attack EVO.

THE record holder at Tsukuba. No one else (as far as I know) is in the 54 second range.

SUPER widebody. Look how much room there is for our caliper. Oh, and an important distinction.. Regular anodizing is what we use on our duralumin bell housings. Notice the discoloration with the extensive use from this car. Alumite is what we use on our calipers which are still nice and blue.

HKS had a “street” version of the EVO on display, and apparently for sale.

In case you didn’t know..

The 3rd gen used to be my favorite bov until everyone and their mom’s moms got them. I’ve even heard ‘em on Audi’s.. Killed it for me. Hopefully this will revive things.

Top notch.

Very nice. Super Taikyu ST2.

Grip o’ wheels.

One of my favorite Advans.. Love how they call the SBC “Shiny Chrome.” Saw several of these being made during the Enkei plant tour.

Bride’s latest offering. The Cuga. Is it just me or does Bride desperately need to spell all their products phonetically?

CF shell.

ORC. The Enkei of clutches. From clutches in escalators to their tiny segment that produces racing clutches. The ORC empire is one not many know about, let alone fathom. Check out what I mean in the latest issue of JDM Insider.

Triple action.

Aren’t their displays dope? Here’s their carbon clutch.

Try finding a cf hood with a weave this clean.

Here’s Oka-Chan’s Z33.

Quite a few stickers.

And his pink strawberry. Sounds kinda dirty. But on the real, here’s something not many people think about. Option mag and Option video have mad influence. It’s because of Option that Yashio is gaining popularity over here, but in all reality YF is a really small company. I’m not dissing at all, I used to be a YF fanboy too, but seeing their booth kinda puts things into perspective.

I love Defi. Can’t say I feel the same way for who brings it into the US, but hey what am I gonna do?

Dope cluster. Wish you guys coulda seen this in person. My video of the cluster demo turned out kinda whack.

EVO X concept. Ehh.. Maybe it’ll grow on me.

Maybe just the front will grow on me…

Colt Speed is a lovely little company over in Japan that does a lot of work with Endless. Lots of one-make-race stuff. Here’s the Colt Speed caliper we make for them.

The VIP company that I have the utmost respect for. They’re number one in Japan you know. Not a certain other VIP company that tons of cats over here think is reigning supreme.

Clean Merc.

LS front.

Their stuff is so clean and mature. True VIP.

Yup. Wald, by Endless.

Zero / Sports. Subey tuner that knows what they’re doing.

I was anti-Impreza for a long time. Zero / Sports and JUN make me like them.

We’ve seen this for quite a while but it’s still badass.

Option x JUN with all the right players. HKS, ORC, Top Secret, Recaro, Advan, Endless, Zeal, etc.

Next to it was something I liked a LOT. JUN’s Hyper Lemon Z33. Look how crazy this thing looks!

But the kicker is that this thing is AWD. Yuuup. Scary.

Yet another VIP company I respect. Blow.

Here’s their GS kit.

Yup. We make those too.

LX Sport is related to Ings, and yes we make those too.

Sorry this one’s hard to see. The car was on a stage about 20 ft away from me. But if you look closely you’ll see that those are Mazdaspeed calipers. Just started making those. =)
Okay, so that’s all I have to show you guys from Auto Salon. I have one last post to do about Tokyo which I’ll have up in a few days. Dave took Kent and I out to wrap up a dope week in Japan. Things got… crazy. Haha. As Sir Logan would say: “Soon son, soon.”

FINALLY. After all this, we finally get to Auto Salon. Here’s half of hall 1 as we go down the escalator. If you look closely, you can see the massive Endless balloon way in the back corner.

This particular post on the Endless booth won’t dive into great detail on the crazy things we have to offer. Instead, to save on length, it’ll be a quick overview about the booth and what there was to see. Here, for starters, is the front of the booth. Behind the mass of people were the Endless demo vehicles and beyond that was the product.

Here’s the back of the booth. The cube you see in front of you served as a private lounge / meeting area where there was a full service bar and several meeting tables. Oh, btw, the coffee was served by Endless race queens. P-i-m-p.

Without being too disrespectful, I snapped this photo of a race queen painting. Many more, as well as real race queens, decorated the upstairs area of the lounge.

Okay, I realize I’m showing you a picture of a balloon.. But look how dope it is! Huge too. I’d say it’s a little bigger than one of those bouncy things your little nephews get for their birthdays. Soon you’ll see one flying over our booths here. Trust.

A truckload of Endless goods. Haha.

Quite a few Endless goods actually..

Thought these were interesting.. Whether you think I’m talking about the barbie’s or the underwear is up to you.

So… There’s always a crowd around the cars. A crowd of photographers. But they just sorta stand there and don’t take pictures. Reason being, they’re waiting for the race queens to come out. Yes, that’s right. They get there early to shoot the race queens.

So when they do come out, every so often throughout the day, it’s like sharks. Keep in mind that this was Friday before any of the general public was allowed in. On Saturday, the crowd was 3 times as big.

Race queens part one.

Race queens number 2. Kent and I concur that our favorite is 2nd from the left.

And now on to the hard goods. Here’s row 1 with some brake systems and photos of our race involvement. Notice photos of F1, rally and others.

Here’s row 2 with our pad line-up.

Row 3 with some various colored calipers and our chemical series. What many people don’t know is that we also produce a variety of engine oils in addition to our brake fluid.

Row 4 with our Zeal offerings.

I have photos of every brake kit on display, which is every brake kit we make, which is a grip of brake kits. So I omitted the micro-6, the 4-pot, the 6-pot mini and the 6-pot. Here’s our Racing-4 caliper and rotor. The Racing-4 caliper is the size of our 6-pot mini caliper.

Here’s a variant not many people see often, our Racing-Big-4. Typically used on Euro apps, here we see it in traditional dress. The Racing-Big-4 is the size of our 6-pot.

Of course, our Racing-6 caliper.

Here’s a caliper we never even sent out a press release for. Endless 8-piston.

And our all-mighty 12-piston. Accept nothing less than the best. Our 12-piston uses 4 brake pads and features not only titanium pistons but also titanium bolts.

Here’s just a few caliper color finishes we offer. In particular, notice the middle and the far right. The far right is a chrome with buff finish. Pretty blingy.

At the other end of the spectrum, here’s our alumite caliper with no color added. This is indeed, raw alumite. This is the best finish for performance racing with the highest resistance to fade, cracking, everything. Just looking at it you feel the “all business here” vibe.

Here are some Ewig calipers. Ewig means Endless in German and thus these are the Euro applications.

Here’s something no one’s ever seen before. Our Endless Monoblock-Racing-6. Forged, of course. This is only a prototype.

Close-up view of the titanium piston caps with cooling vents/holes in our monoblock-racing-6.

Here’s a Yamaha R1 that Endless sponsors with brake pads and brake lines. This was seen at last year’s Auto Salon as well.

This is quite interesting. Subaru, Enkei and Endless sponsored bicycle?

That’s right, we make bicycle brake pads. Damn skippy.

This is a display of how Endless developed and patented a technology to attach the brake pad material to the back plate. More on this later.

Here’s two coilover threads, one with our rust coating and the other without.

New addition to our brake lines. In addition to the stainless steel braided, teflon-encased lines with swivel heads, we’re also adding in the square portion you see in the middle. This little square attaches the brake line to the coilover for cleanliness of install.

Here’s a new little item Endless was working on. It’s the tiniest of the tiniest calipers weighing in at only 2.5kg. This particular caliper was developed for small cars such as the Prius.

In this closeup view we see that the brake pad material lays directly on top of the pistons. More on this later as well.

Another new offering from Endless. E-slits. Endless actually had inquiries from Ambulance manufacturers. Without the ability to put a brake kit on the car, they came up with the idea to use this particular type of slit. The E-slits will create a higher friction than normal resulting in more “braking force.” Of course this can be used for regular vehicles when high friction is needed.

E for Endless. The slits for this design are typically C’s but hey, gotta appeal to the eyes.

Last of the product shots, this brake kit features one extra aspect: a small parking-brake caliper.

Strictly meant for use as a “Parking brake” and not quite suitable for drifters just yet. A drift capable version is in the works.

And now on to the cars.
Here’s our ST2 class Super Taikyu Endless x Sequential EVO.

Here’s our ST2 Super Taikyu Endless Impreza.

Our ST1 Super Taikyu Endless Z33.

I’m not a fan of the rear neither, but check out the dual coolers underneath the tail.

Well, the post took two days and is by far our longest one to date. Excuse me while I go collapse. Next post is the rest of Auto Salon.

I’ve been waiting on these for awhile. Another Drift Unit Tee designed by Mark Arcenal. Thanks to Greg over at Parle I was able to pick these up. These will also be available on GRYMRKT soon enough.

Drift Unit Harness Tee.

L/S Magazine recent issue.

Some love on the Modelart Gracer, currently AME Japan’s flagship wheel.

Inside cover. Every time.

Well, the day’s finally here. Off to Auto Salon. Just look at the excitement on Dave’s face. Before we headed over, we stopped by MLJ to pick up some stuff for their display at the Kyoho Private Show.
What’s the Kyoho Private Show you ask? Well on the Friday of Auto Salon, Kyoho (which is sister company to Enkei and the biggest wheel distributor in Japan) holds a private show to exhibit only brands sold exclusively (or mainly) by them. It’s a show that was held at the New Otani hotel right across the street from Auto Salon. A show where dealers from all of Japan can come and actually purchase product. The show is so successful that they consistently do $3,000,000 in sales in just that one afternoon.

Outside the show were about a dozen vehicles sporting the Kyoho catalog. Red carpet treatment of course. Here’s one of the VIP Wagons that showed up and rolled in at the height you see here. T*Selection on the new Shallen FX’s.

Here’s another wagon on FX’s.

VIP Skyline done extremely well. Note the carbon hood.

And super wide stance fitment.

Remember the IS350 from the day we went to Nagano? Same one, different shoes. Our AME FS-01’s.

The King of VIP, Lexus LS460 on Modelart Gracers.

Here’s a Honda Absolute on FX’s.

AME by Endless behind the AME.

This is how Kyoho likes to do business. VIP treatment to the fullest. Upon arrival you’re greeted and given a bag of AME goods. Once you enter you meet and greet the President of Kyoho himself. After all the formalities, have some complementary food and drinks. At the end of the food table, you’re greeted by the salesman that always takes care of you so you don’t have to deal with someone you don’t know. He takes you around the room looking at the manufacturer displays and once you’re ready you both have a seat and discuss your order over, what else, some beer, wine, or whatever else you please.

AME’s two newest offerings in their limited edition attire. The Modelart Gracer and the Shallen FX.

Inside the second room was where all the AME wheels were on display. Here’s the full lineup of Tracer FS-01’s. Silver on top, Bronze in the middle and Sapphire Black on bottom.

Here’s some Shallen FX’s for ya. Ash metal on top, SBC in the middle.

Here’s a closeup of the FX in ash metal.

Here’s the Modelart Gracer in it’s Sparkle finish.

And here’s the MF Black (Machine Finish x Black).

Those of you who are fans of the WX, we’re coming out with 15″, 16″ and also 20″ versions.

Here’s a wheel that isn’t new but hasn’t gotten much limelight. The Shallen MX.

Here are some familiar faces that stopped by to check things out. Fred, Dave, RJ, Jerry and Victor.

Mark and Amrafel also stopped by to check out what was happening. Hashiba was super excited cuz he’s a big fan of Arcenal’s insane design talents.
It’s only about noon on Friday and we haven’t even gotten to Auto Salon yet. They weren’t kidding when they said we’d have a “full day.” Next post: Endless @ Auto Salon.

Has it not been freezing in L.A.? Coming back from Japan, I was expecting warm weather. So much for that! Anyway, after a long Saturday of work, I decided to take a breather and visit Ms. Yoo to check out her new living arrangements in K-Town. She would never allow me to post anything about her. Since I was in the area, I also decided to pick up my jacket from Fast Eddie’s Garage. Living in Cali, I’ve never really needed a jacket, but I’ve been wanting a quality jacket for quite some time now. I saw this at Eddie’s grand opening and had to have it. It’s perfect. Attention to detail and quality.

Nice Commune x Lovewright collab design on the back.

Messages are always cool. Isn’t this one the truth.

This bomber style jacket is superb. Thanks Eddie.

We decided to eat K-food at this spot called On Dal Gip on 8th St. east of Western I believe. Not sure what this is called, but I love Korean food. Lots of vegetables, very healthy, simple, spicy, and hardly ever fried. Eating alot of Korean food never makes me feel heavy. Always flavorful all the while making me feel (mentally) as if I’ve cleansed myself being that the food is so spicy. Although on the contrary, it’s probably the equivalent of torching my insides. Nonetheless, I’m proud of my spicy food threshold.

Panchan. The accomplice to every Korean meal. Well, minus Naengmyun, I think. I believe we have here..broccolli, sweet flaky seaweed, radish, egg, mountain vegetable, sweet potato, tofu, and potato salad.

The main dish. It’s basically..mushrooms, green onions, potatoes, green peppers, kalbi, dried dates, and some other stuff in a boiling hot, spicy, red soup. Deelish.

The finished product. The lady cuts the meat with scissors FYI. Efficient. (K-Peeps use both wood and metal chopsticks. J-Peeps don’t use metal chopsticks. Thought I’d point that out. I’ve gotten used to both.)

After finishing the hot pot, they put rice and other stuff in the pot, mix it up, and then you eat it. Good stuff. I like to pour the red hot spicy soup over it and eat it altogether. Mmm.

Being that I was in the area, I figured I’d stop by to see Schikane Jay to pick up the JDM EGO x GRYMRKT tees that J.Bryan designed. The whole clan was there including Falken/Schikane Tobin & Char, CGM Antonio,
Arneezy, OverAmerica Ray, Todd, Garrett from HKS, Driftwell Herb, and a couple of others I met last night. I thought I’d stop by just to say hello and have a beer. So much for that. Stopping by led to Jane Suh from The Kutting Room’s B-Day party (if you’re on the WestSide, get your haircut on there) which led us inside an interesting trailer with aquariums which happened to be snugly fit inside the back part of the venue. Very smoky. Tobs and the crew roll very deep and roll very often. Very thug-like in this trailer right about now. Interested in seeing what Schikane has planned for their 2nd Annual Fashion Show/Party.

Here’s a pic of the JDM EGO x GRYMRKT tee that J.Bryan graciously designed. This will be up on GRYMRKT shortly. I unheart your fake wheels. BTW, look forward to some technical posts after the KYOHO and TAS stuff goes up.

On Thursday, Kent, Hashiba, ”itchy”, Jay and I went to visit various shops around the area. Our first stop was Yellow Hat. Similar to Autobacs in concept, but not nearly as popular. It’s kinda like Wal-Mart vs. K-Mart.

The only thing interesting in Yellow Hat was that their air fresheners were lit up like fine perfumes or jewelry.

Left Yellow Hat and headed towards Odaiba for our 2nd stop. Here’s a shot of Tokyo Tower as we were driving. Notice the j-evo with the additional hood inlet.

Here’s Tokyo from across the bridge in Odaiba.

Before we went to Autobacs, we went to what translated into “Ramen Stadium.” That’s right, stadium. The ramen place of all ramen places. Fellow ramen-heads, this is our Mecca.

These are little signs that tell you fast stats of each place. Stats being the thickness of the noodle and one other thing. The red dot on the line is the scale.

So there were 6 total ramen offerings to choose from. Each guy represented a particular offering. The one on the right is good ol’ fashioned Hakata ramen. Next to him on his left is crazy seafood ramen.

On the right is a richer style of Hakata ramen.. On his left is one I dont remember…

I think the dude on the right was like a miso style or salt style.. But the guy on the left was the richest of the richest Hakata ramen. Believe me, I tried to remember what they were but Kent got tired of telling me over and over before I memorized it.

We ended up doing the super duper rich Hakata ramen style one on Hashiba’s personal recommendation. Before you go in, you order what you want on a vending machine outside. Out pops a ticket and in you go. What I shoulda got a picture of was all the guys standing outside their respective ramen joints yelling and trying to get you to go theirs.

The soup can only be described as super, duper rich. Great noodles, great beef slices, great flavored egg. Oh so good.. Turns out that the guy in the photo is the most recent champion of the great ramen tournament. humongous trophy that I forgot to snap a photo of.

So there’s two types of Autobacs stores; regular Autobacs and Super Autobacs. This and the one in Stanton are both Super Autobacs. The difference is that the super ones have installation capabilities. This particular one was even bigger than the normal Super Autobacs because next to it was a separate building selling motorcycle and scooter parts, and on the other side was a small dealership of specialty cars.

There was not a single car I was in the entire trip of Japan that did not have a navigation device in it. This wall of navis illustrates how popular they are.

This is a photo of their entire brake section. Those blue boxes are Endless pads. Now if we could only get the Autobacs in Stanton to see the light..

Blitz had their cool spark light setup on display. Used for passing or just plain showing off, the lil knob underneath the headlamp assembly controlled pattern and frequency.

Had some LX’s for sale.

My fav HID’s, Bellof. Hashiba said that they were the first ones to make HIDs.

Upstairs they had the extremely limited ASM edition Recaros. Remember J Bryan’s EVO?

Here’s the small dealership of special vehicles. You’ll notice Dave on the far left. This is literally seconds before Dave told me that he spent 30 minutes that morning watching his employees laugh at the video of him on the rodeo thing.

Here’s an entirely carbon fiber bodied Lotus. Not a fan of the wheels though.

Outside were two Garaiyas in street form.

That night, Kent and I went to Dave’s favorite Yakitori place. Kent and I enjoyed our beers while we watched them cook all 10 things in our set: white meat w/ wasabi, liver, gizzard, quail egg, welsh onion roll, meatball, skin, thigh, hip and wing.

Rather than bore you and drive me insane with pictures of all 10, here are some of my favs. This one is liver.

Here’s skin.

Thigh.

And here’s hip.

And that marks the end of Thursday. The next morning, bright and early yet again, was the start of Auto Salon for us. While this Thursday had been calm, chill and almost relaxing, the next two days would be the craziest of the entire week. Next time: Kyoho’s Private Show.

So sorry everyone that it’s taken so long for me to get back to the dil’. As luck would have it, I got sick right before Japan as well as right after I got back. Kent says it’s an Aquarius thing, getting sick after coming back, but half the time when he says it’s an Aquarius thing I think he’s just f-ing with me.
In any case, Wednesday we woke up at the butt crack of dawn to drive (yes, drive) to Hamamatsu where the Enkei facilities are. Here’s a pic of Mt. Fuji from the Starbucks we stopped at.

Our first stop was to one of the smaller Enkei manufacturing plants where they mainly do aftermarket manufacturing. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos inside the plant so there’s no eye candy for y’all. Just come with us next year if you wanna see it first hand. I’m not kidding either, we took a bunch of people with us this year.
Inside the plant we saw the famous MAT (Most Advanced Technology) manufacturing process. The wheels are first cast with extra material on the barrel. Then, while the wheel is heated over four flames, the barrel is then extended via a rolling process to form the correct width.
We also saw what goes into putting together and welding the 2-piece wheels. The processes are amazing in themselves, but also impressive is the amount of checks and quality control measures the plant employs. Wheels are checked for balance and barcodes scanned after each step all to ensure that should ANYTHING be wrong with the wheel, they’re able to trace it back to the exact date, step, time and staff member working on the wheel.
The next stop was to Enkei’s development center where they do the design work and even manufacturing of molds. Here’s the entry. Notice the AME, Lorinser and Advan wheels sitting around, all part of Enkei’s repertoire.

Here we see the magnesium wheel used in GT on the left and Enkei’s latest addition, the GTC, on the right. People were encouraged to pick up the mag wheel to see how light it was. The shoulder partially blocking my shot belongs to Jay from Sport Compact Car. Thanks Jay.

Here are two wheels Enkei produced for racing. Notice the insane width and features such as the centerlock lug.

Here’s some of the Enkei guys hard at work. In this room they do various things such as designing molds or doing impact testing on new designs.

Here’s a screenshot of the impact testing done on our very own Tracer FS-01. Enkei also does impact testing with tires digitally mounted on the wheel. It’s actually very important since impact is more likely to occur with tires on the wheel and the tires pressurized. Despite this fact, no other wheel manufacturer tests that way.

Here’s a schematic of a wheel mold.

Here we see someone running a simulation on the production process of a particular wheel. The entire production process is simulated by this software before the first piece is ever made.

Here’s one of Enkei’s many (and I mean, MANY) manufacturing areas. In this particular section they start the production process for wheel molds.

Amusing enough, Enkei also produces their own Bento. But here’s some real food for thought. Enkei is the world’s largest wheel manufacturer. Enkei is one of the few, if not the only, wheel manufacturer that is ISO certified. Enkei’s main nut is producing OEM wheels for makes such as Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, etc. Aftermarket is peanuts to Enkei, a hobby even. Enkei’s aftermarket segment produces not only Enkei and AME, but also Advan, Racing Hart, Lorinser, Brabus and more.

I can’t tell you how crazy the experience really was. I can’t convey how much there was to see, learn about, and be blown away by. But I can tell you this… There were a few Rays boxes sitting around the Enkei plant and when we asked about them, they told us that Rays asked Enkei to test their wheels for them.
Gives you a completely different perspective on things doesn’t it?

After lunch we headed back to Tokyo. For those of you who have seen the trailer for JDM Insider: The Kanto Tuners, you’ve seen this lil guy. Had to snap a pic. Coincidentally, that volume just came out recently. Grab one here.

On the smokey side of the table we have from left to right: Kent, Mark & Charles (Auto Salon Magazine in Australia), Masaki (their translator), and Yoesoef (Importer of Work & Rays in New Zealand and Australia).

On the clear side of the table we have from left to right: Kyoichiro (the NICEST cat in Japan), Hashiba (int’l manager for AME), Nakashima (managing director for Kyoho), moi, Jay Chen (engineering editor from Sport Compact Car), Mr. Rodeo-KING-Dave-Fujii, and Kent. Wait - wtf? Damn you Kent for getting in both pictures.

Several beers and a few shochu’s later, Kent and I went to Shibuya again to chill. Here’s Kent and I infront of a statue of this one dog that met his owner at the Shibuya station everyday. One day his owner has a heart attack and died while at work, so he never came home. The dog came back every day to the station to pick up his owner for the rest of it’s life.

Ended up chillin’ with Kent’s friend Yo at a bar in Shibuya. Be forewarned people, the rest of Tokyo Auto Salon is gonna come at ya quicker than ya think.

Since Dom took 17,091 pictures (I finally got a good digi-cam too!), I figured I’d blog about why I like Japan in one shot. You forget your bag in a taxi or a train and I guarantee you’ll get it back. When you eat, there are millions of places and it’s NEVER hit or miss. Most everyone in Metropolitan Tokyo dresses well. Things are either quality or super quality. Again, hardly ever hit or miss. People seem like ants, but you can people watch forever. Everything you’ll ever need is in Tokyo. Style is out of control here. Cars are out of control here. Yet everything is so in control. Trains run like clockwork. People here get shit done. Are there bad things? Of course there are. Certain traditions/customs/ways of thinking I’d rather do without. But, we’ll deal with that later. Right now, to me, Japan is the man. Peep the rest of Dom’s pics in upcoming updates. The Endless booth was by far the cleanest at the show. No doubt, no bias. Inakaya, a robatayaki place in Roppongi is now officially the best food experience I’ve had in awhile. It’s to die for. Pics of that up soon also. On another note, our trip was fresh networking, seeing old friends, and getting too wasted with Dave. My only regret was not being able to chop it up with the boys from back. That’ll be a focus this year. What other thoughts come to mind? Hmm..cruisin’ through Harajuku I began to think that although JDM aftermarket car culture brands are forever killin’ it, I think on the fashion tip, USDM street wear brands are givin’ Japan more than a run for their money. Just my two cents. Stay tuned for more Japan. So jet lagged. A quick snap shot on the 405 North before the sun rises listening to Broken Social Scene.

My apologies everyone. I’ve fallen behind in my schedule of blogging and I’m sorry to say that I must delay the schedule yet again. The next entry was supposed to be about our visit to the Enkei aftermarket manufacturing plant and the Enkei development facility, but there’s so much information and insane details that I have to make sure my info is right before I put it up.
For those of you keeping track, the first day of Auto Salon was today. There was also the Kyoho private show which I’ll explain later, but for a preview have a look at Arcenal’s blog. As for Auto Salon, there’s so much to show you and I didn’t even get to see a fourth of it yet. So, I’m planning to split up most of the show in order to prevent myself from going insane trying to post it all in one entry. I’ll have an entire post on the Endless booth because there’s a gang of dope stuff to look at / talk about. Okay, I’m rambling. Stay tuned, I’ll have it up soon. Trust.