iM: Thank You Speedtech Racing Development

As most of you found out this past weekend, Speedtech Racing Development Calgary closed it’s doors for good on August 21st, 2010.

As sad and depressing as this is for most of us in Calgary’s car community, we want to take this time to give thanks to the car shop that was STRD.

Thank you Speedtech Racing Development for everything you did for the Calgary car scene over the years, you guys will definitely be missed.

-ill.motion

PS: After the jump find out what some of us here at ill.motion had to say individually.

JC’s Thoughts//

After seeing everything being taken down on Saturday, I felt like all the memories I had of Speedtech just rolled through my mind. It’s because of Speedtech I was able to meet so many great individuals who shared a common love and enthusiasm for cars. It’s because of this same passion we were able to witness some of the hottest cars in Calgary come out of this shop.

As hard as this is to believe for me there’s so many things I want to say but I’m gonna keep this short. I’ll never forget the countless hours, the friends I’ve made, the laughs, and good times I shared with everyone at Speedtech.

An era is definitely ending, and Speedtech Racing Development will definitely be missed.

Shout out and many thanks to Will, Nick, Jeevs, Jackie, Tien, Rocky, Michael, Paul, Pat, Allan, Terry, Randy and Chanry (for my infamous Tiffany colored Speedtech decals haha) as well as anyone else who worked at Speedtech that I may have missed (I tried to roll call everybody lol).

Thank you for everything you guys could find for my Vitz and my Corolla!

-JC

Punit’s Thoughts//

I’ve been buying from Speedtech for a few years but the last year or so is when I really got to know everyone at STRD. The shop will be missed quite a bit from me. I’ve spent countless hours hanging out in the office with Jackie and Will, had Paul to fix my “broken” car numerous times (haha) and just becoming great friends with all of them. Through the shop I got to meet many of my friends today.

Thanks everyone at STRD for everything.

-Punit

Aldrich’s Thoughts//

I was at Speedtech helping out before they opened, and was there on their opening day, and was also there on Saturday on their final day.

It was very bittersweet. On one hand, I got to see a whole bunch of people that have been associated with Speedtech, and it was nice to see them all in one place. On the other hand, it was the last time that we would all be there inside that building. It was so weird to see the place so empty.

But like everyone else will agree, Speedtech has always been very helpful to me, and I will never forget that, along with all the friends I’ve made because of them.

Thanks for everything over the years guys! Good luck to all the former staff on their future endeavors.

-Aldrich

Arif’s Thoughts//

I don’t really know where to begin. All of us who make a small post about STRD will have very similar thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. On the last day as I looked around the shop, looking at the people that had gathered for a final moment in the showroom, and in the back shop area. A thought occurred to me. I realised that because of STRD there was a very close knit group of people that was brought together. Yes we all got know each other under the banner of modded cars…but some for me have become akin to family.

It is NOT just about a shop to pick up your next bling part. It is more and pretty much to me all about the friendships forged like my TE’s in that building. In the years that STRD was around you saw trends come and go, you saw cars come and go…and its really sad to see the shop go…

But a thank you to everyone there, Will, Chowfun, Allan, JDM GVS, Pat, Rocky, Michael, Paul (love the brackets, and am never getting rid of them haha), Chanry, Randy…oh…seems like I am forgetting someone…hmmm…I should check my Honda Tuning Issue to see…was it Jackie??…I never got a shout out so you ain’t getting one…haha…just playin’ homie…and J Law too…

ONE!!

-Arif

What’s up! from Import Bible

Hey guys I’ll introduce my self quickly. My name is David, I’m the owner of Import Bible and also the web/graphic guy at Edmonton based shop, Garage Works. I come across some great cars at Garage Works so I thought I’d post a few pictures up of the cars we work on there.

First up is Ed’s Cayman S. It look’s like a slightly modified Cayman S but Ed spent a pretty dime prepping this one to be a track monster. The most notable modification is a X51 engine swap from a Porsche 911, KW suspension and custom roll cage.

The car sits on a set of custom made Forgeline rims.








These lightweight seats were from a 996 GT3.







A SpeedArt spoiler replaces the stock spoiler.

A better view of the Supersprint exhaust and rear stance.

DETO Feature: Jtune Performance

This is DETO’s very first performance shop feature. As you follow DETO, we will do our best to bring you tuning culture in it’s rawest form while trying to inform and entertain. With that said, welcome to Jtune Performance, located right in Wilmington, Delaware. Jtune is a one-stop shop for every grade of the racing enthusiast.

Jtune specializes in everything from dyno tuning your daily driver to building fire-breathing beasts. Here, Hok the owner, shows us where they do all of their custom fabrication and machining.

Jtune are able and ready to tune any make or model, but their specialty are Nissan and Infinities. While I was there, Jtune was currently tuning a Nissan from every level of the spectrum…

10 second Z anyone?

Here’s a 700hp Z that is a repeat customer with Jtune. Hok says that the owner of the Z won’t stop until the car is in the 9’s. He enjoys the sheer bliss of walking Z06’s all day 🙂 And with that said, Hok made a good point. After dropping 10-20k on your dream car, why would you take it to the local lube station just so the high school kid working there can strip the nut right off your oil pan? Regular maintenance is part of the package at Jtune.

EVO tails on a Prelude, this one had me confused at first..

Ahh,…an RB with a Tomei head+Cosworth block=match made in heaven.

There’s Mike working on a secrete project for a customer of theirs.

Here you are looking at a Nissan SR20 in a FF application. Yes, you read that right. You’d normally find this motor in a 240(or in Japan in the Sunny or Pulsar), but it’s being installed in a Sentra. This customer has something special to show up all his Honda friends…I kinda feel bad, they’ll never see it coming… 🙂

Mike(Jtune) and Tyrone(DETO) comparing pros and cons of Nissans and Hondas.

Here’s a pic of Niki being caught off guard…

So far I showed you where Jtune resides and what they do. Hok invited me to follow them over to Wall Twp, NJ for round 3 of Formula D so I could show you Jtune in action. The car you see is the V-LEDS drift car from Washington state being drifted by the young and talented Dean Kearney. As you can see below, I had to maneuver around the Jtune staff as they quickly prepped the car in between practice sessions.

It took all day, but i finally caught up with Dean. Dean is from Ireland and went pro at 16 making a name for himself as a fierce competitor in the Prodrift Super Series, he’s now 21 and is determined to take the title here in the states.

All in together here is the Jtune staff. Starting top left and going clock-wise is Mike, Hok, Niki and Nuri.

As you can imagine, there are plenty of performance shops here in the tri-state that I could have done a feature on. I picked Jtune for many reasons. These guys are passionate about what they do, they literally live and breath it from the sheer knowledge they exude to holding their very own track day at Englishtown Raceway. They are the most down-to-earth group while being on top of their game at what they do. Do yourself a favor and pay these guys a visit at:

JTune Performance
420 Century Blvd.
Wilmington, De. 19808

iM: Perfect Dark Tinting

One of my biggest pet peeves is bad customer service. I absolutely cannot stand bad customer service, regardless of the amount of knowledge the person has or what great job they do – if it’s bad, I probably won’t be coming back.

Being in the tuner scene where you meet tons of new people that do so many things, I think what we always look for is respect. If a person dislikes something on your car, dislike it respectfully and so on.

While we were at Mamoru’s shop, Stephen Eng and David Fung from Perfect Dark Window Tinting came by and they installed my illmotion banner and replaced JC’s yellow foglight film with iron film, like his headlights. The reason I’m writing this is because I think they deserve a big shout for what they do. Sure, there are a lot of shops around town that can do tinting and so on, but very rarely are you able to watch them do their work and see what kind of care and precision to detail they put into their work and your car. With the amount of money and work we put into our own cars, we usually expect service to be done in the same manner. Stephen and David do just that – they are careful, diligent and take pride in what they do.

Click their banner for the facebook page. Remember to “like” em!


Prepping the windshield for the banner

Centering

Applied

Done! looks great

JC’s yellow fog tint done. Sorry, I had to get a shot of my fitment in there too 😛

Doing work

Done!

All in all, it was another successful install for Stephen and David. Remember if you ever need tinting, film or even carbon fiber wrapping – hit up Stephen and David! They’ll make sure you get the best.
Contact Stephen for an appointment!
403-808-8228

iM: Time Tunnel Speed and Design LTD

JC and I had the pleasure of visiting Mamoru Nishikai’s shop – Time Tunnel Speed and Design LTD, a subaru-enthusiast’s place to go. While I personally had no in-depth knowledge about subaru’s in general, you could tell that Mamoru’s shop was set up perfectly for those that did.
The best thing about Mamoru’s shop was that it reminded me of a tuner shop that was set up in Japan – Stacked wheels, the tent, the icon car always parked in the shop which was always clean and well kept. Everything about it made me feel happy to share some sort of tuner attitude with Mamoru – regardless of make or model.

What I really loved was the modesty Mamoru had while we were there.. He had all the qualities that a true enthusiast should have – the appreciation for everything. He asked questions, we even put a set up 15″ Sprint Harts by my car to see what it would look like. All I can say is that dealing with Mamoru is truly a good experience.


Mamoru’s GC

So, for all you subie fanatics out there – you probably know about Mamoru and Time Tunnel, but for those of you who don’t should definitely go and check out his shop or just stop by and chat it up. Definitely, one of my first stops if I had a Subaru =D

3334-32nd Street NE
Calgary, Alberta
T1Y 6B9

Contact Mamoru:
403-250-5552
or 1-877-350-5552
Email: ttunnel@telus.net

He let me take some pics of his ish too..