I stopped by the Dsalni Drawn blog and found this dope shirt that he is taking pre-orders on.  It is part of a new series called “Daikoku Pa – Fighters”.  The first piece, as you can see is of an absolutely slammed and battle ready NSX!  Something about the way this guy draws cars always gets me thinking about the old days of reading option mags in the bookstore until getting kicked out.  Good times!  The Daikoku Pa NSX shirt runs for $19.99 (before shipping) and he expects it to be ready to go by October 12th 2012.  If you pre-order it now, he will throw in the sketch of the Daikoku Pa NSX image printed on 10″ x 5″ inch sheet of heavyweight matte paper!  So, for 20 bucks you get new threads and something to put on the wall.  Not bad!

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[Source: Dsalni Drawn Blog]

While the FR-S/BRZ party is just getting started here in the states, Japan has had an early start and they have spent plenty of time tinkering with the “FT86″ chassis.  This means that if you happen to own either a FR-S or BRZ there are plenty of JDM goodies from across the pond for you to fawn over.  Today, I present to you the new 5 piece aero kit for the Scion FR-S from Chargespeed.  Compared to some of the other stuff out there the Chargespeed kit is pretty subtle as it is basically an understated lip kit that goes around all four sides (front lip, rear lower lip, side skirts) with a rear roof spoiler thrown in for flavor.  Each piece of the kit is made from genuine CFRP carbon fiber (all produced in Japan).

The kit is due to release in August, and despite coming from Japan you can actually pre-order this kit right now for an MSRP of $2,280 from Chargespeed’s official US distributor.  Of all the kits coming out for this chassis I see this one gaining some real popularity due to its subtle looks and quality construction.  This is definitely the way to go if you want to improve looks but without going overboard or drawing unwanted attention AKA “the po-po”.

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Are the JDM skills of others inferior to your own?  Do you feel the unabashed need to inform those lesser JDM practitioners of their weakness?  The answer is here my friend…  Tell the world what you already know! “Your JDM Is Weak!”

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[Source: iloveracing.com]

Forgive us for not being aware of this but apparently stolen oil caps are something of a problem.  We had no idea there were people out there who went through the trouble of trying to pop the hood of a car that didn’t belong to them just to steal the oil cap.  However,  it seems that it is so much of a problem that the guys at Password:JDM developed an oil cap that is “theft proof”.  The way the oil caps are designed require a special key to tighten or remove them.

Password:JDM claims that once the oil cap is torqued down it is impossible to remove with ones bare hands.  They are so confident of this that they challenge anyone to go down to their showroom and try to remove an oil cap from one of their display cars without using the key.  Anyone who can pull it off (get it? puns are nice!) gets to keep the oil cap!

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There have been many car show series that have come and gone but the one name that has always had the respect of the import car enthusiasts is “Showoff”.  Import Showoff has been around since the mid-90s and while they aren’t quite the force they used to be the name will still bring out the core enthusiasts.  The annual Nisei Week Showoff in Little Tokyo is the one show many of us still anticipate with real enthusiasim.  Why does the Nisei Showoff stand out?  On the surface it doesn’t seem like much.  The Nisei Showoff is usually small (ranges from 100-200 cars) but what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in quality and atmosphere.  Nisei Week Showoff is the show that all the cars the kids jock on the forums go to.  So as you can imagine we were stoked to make the trip out to Little Tokyo again for Showoff this year. 

While the car count was slightly lower this year compared to last year, Ken Miyoshi and Mainstream Productions certainly did not dissapoint when it came to the quality and variety of cars on hand.  There was everything from old school Mazdas and F2o powered classic Celicas to a Lexus LF-A!  There was even some European flavor with a few Porsches and a Lamborghini Murcielago parked next to a Gallardo.  There were a few classics that we never seen before thus cannot really describe to you but feel free to look through the pictures below and the full photo set in our Facebook gallery to see if you can recgonize everything we shot!

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If you don’t get enough imports in your eyeballs from the Hellaflush meet in Venice, or you just don’t want to wake up that damn early then you can cruise over to Cerritos, CA around noon for the “Its JDM Yo!” 1 year anniversary at the Power Toyota Warehouse.  Everything is free to check out, all you have to do is find a good parking spot!  This meet will be going on from 12 noon to 6pm so it is a little more flexible on time than the Hellaflush meet.  There is also talk of a group of the Hellaflush cars cruising to this meet in Cerritos.  So if you’re really lazy you can just visit this meet and see both groups of cars!  Sure you won’t have the beach as your background but hey, at least the mall is just down the street.  Just click the red text in this post and the thumbnail below for all the info on this meet.

When: May 21st 12pm-6pm
Where: Power Toyota Warehouse 17900 Crusader Ave. Cerritos, CA 90703
Who: The “Its JDM Yo” crew
Why: Because Its JDM Yo!

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All you JDM EGO fiends looking for something new now have reason to celebrate.  Our buddy Jay has just dropped his popular dice valve stem caps in a “time attack” (black & red) color way.  These would go nicely if you are already rocking a set of TE37 time attacks but that’s the obvious route.  I’m sure some of you out there could think of other stylish ways to rock these dice so pick up a set from the JDM EGO store for only 21 bucks (plus shipping) and have at it!

You may or may not have heard by now but industry icon HKS is shutting down the U.S. arm of its business.  This was officially announced yesterday in a letter to their dealers.  In the letter HKS sites a slowly recovering economy combined with the recent tragedy in Japan as the reasons for its shutting down the U.S. HQ but others feel another contributing factor was the rising production of cheap counterfeit parts.  I am inclined to believe that as well.  The letter also states that HKS parts will still be available in the states but will now have to come directly from Japan.  I am hoping that a major distributor such as Mackin Industries (Rays Engineering) or Pro-Motion will step up to distribute HKS parts here in the US to keep costs down.

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If you’re a JDM freak then you probably know about RAUH-Welt AKA “RWB” for their wild yet absolutely dope body kits for late 80s/early 90s Porsches.  If you know about them then you probably also know that their awesome creations were pretty much exclusively sold in Japan and likely Europe.  However I recently discovered they have a RWB USA website and “international contact” which is simply an AOL email address but hey, that’s a start.  If you really want a genuine RWB wide body kit for your Porsche then there is now officially I way for you to talk to these folks directly.  However, I should probably let you know that a RAUH-Welt kit doesn’t come cheap.  Be prepared to spend $20k before shipping and any other costs associated with importing the kit from Japan!

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[Source: JDM EGO]

If you’re a JDM freak then you might already have one of these.  If you don’t have an authentic ARC shift pattern plate and you want one to increase your JDM hit points then contact Mackin Industries and see if they can source one for you.  Whatever my next project will be years from now will likely have one of these mounted in the interior it just looks too good!

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