Soviet Missle

Some of you may know Ilia... He was the man behind this automotive masterpiece:

However, upon totaling that car, it seemed something changed within our good friend Ilia. We found him buying a new shell with all sorts of fancy race-ready upgrades. He was ordering proper wheels in large sizing. He even went so far as to not only buy aero, but paint it too! Some might wonder why someone would put so much work into an NA rotary, but do not try to understand. The only explanation is that it's Ilia, and Russia doesn't care.

LS13 Silvia... Hot Sex

Matt was hard at work all winter turning an already outrageous car into something just that much better... Starting with a car that was already sporting an LS1/LS2 (can't remember), Silvia front, ZG flares with XD-9's and 295's underneath them, he set out to get a few steps closer to his view of perfection. The car recieved sideskirts cut for the side exit exhaust, a rear diffuser, a fresh two-tone paint job, and the entire front end was reinforced and tube-framed... The sticker on the rear window says it all:

UPDATE! My SC300

Been forever since I updated... I picked up an SC300 a while back. Turbo'd, slammed, threw on my AME's, then the motor started giving me trouble, which I should have seen coming with 160k miles on it, haha. I spent the last month swapping in a newer 2JZ-GE, and finally got it running last week:

Then immediately did a little bit of this:

AMS Shop Tour

I had been in talks with Frank over at AMS about taking shots of a certain very sick porsche for a while, but knowing how AMS does things I figured I might as well shoot some other cars while I was out there... When I finally arrived at the shop I figured I might as well just shoot around to give you the whole story on a shop that's at the top of its game.

The second you walk in the front door here, you realize that these guys are on their own level. Instead of being greeted by the walls of air fresheners and light bulbs that are so common in other shops, AMS has a showroom that is classy and straight to business. High dollar parts and a fully built engine sitting in the showroom are only the beginning for this shop.

As you walk through the employees only door into the back, you expect what you see at every other shop. Instead of a small and dark room with one lift, or an endless warehouse, AMS has quite literally, everything...

A few spare engines sitting around getting wrenched in the giant workspace:

The packing area, and the only time I saw it empty and motionless while I was there:

Need some fluids? They might have enough to take care of you. haha:

The back room is home to the less mechanical, and more technical work, it also houses the AMS shop Evo X time attack car which we'll take a look at a bit later.

AMS helps you stay cool... And it starts right here:

Sign directly above this chart should read "Get to work!" A long list of things to do awaits the guys working at AMS:

Being that I know nothing about the technical aspect of building cars, I felt implied to just walk around going "What does this one do? What does this one do? What does this one do?" Instead of annoying them to the point that they kicked me out of the shop, I just bit my tongue.

The shop dog must have walked into half of my shots, but who could get mad at this face:

AMS built, Canadian piloted rally car was chilling around the shop waiting to get some work done:

A shot of it with a customer drag car... Shooting for 1100whp:

AMS works on skylines now?

AMS is in the process of developing a new exhaust for the GTR. Nice piping, clean welds, very typical of their crafstmanship:

This particular exhaust was going to be made to work with the oem exhaust tips, but AMS says that the production model will have a unique quad outlet setup:

AMS drag evo... Need I say more?

Apparently it gets tucked away at night with a very sexy bunkmate, a mild setup time attack Evo X:

As the shop closes up, all the cars move inside... It's not often you see this many hot cars sitting in one place:

In proper AMS fashion, they have taken a brand new car and stripped it down to a bare shell to be built for time attack duties. This car will undoubtedly be a monster, and it's safe to say you'll be seeing more of it:

In-house craftsmanship down to the minute details:

Most importantly, here is the whole reason behind my trip out... Got to catch this porsche doing some dyno pulls, and I can assure you it sounds as mean as it looks.

This '84 911 Carrera started off like any other naturally aspirated carrera, and has recently been transformed into the beast you see here. The motor build consists of a fully built 3.3L with twin plug race heads, T4 turbo kit that was custom fabricated in-house by AMS, powered by a DTAfast EMS, and a 917 - 4 speed transmission with a Haggart precision race shifter.

Buddy Club bucket seats, Suede 350mm Sparco Monza steering wheel, and 4 Pt. Roll bar cover the interior mods... It's clean simple and to the point:

The car is sitting proper on RSR- 935 Rebel Racing x Bilstein coilover conversion. Most importantly are the 3 piece ZE Forged wheels, sized in 17x11 and 17x14, and I believe Frank said these were fitted to 315's or 335's out back due to the massive RSR flares

454whp and 417 wtrq... Not bad for a 2300 streetcar, but Frank has his sights set on 500whp once he tends to a few issues:

Frank has assured me that once the porsche is finished I'll be able to re-shoot it, so look forward to that and maybe more from AMS in the future.

And be sure to visit www.amsperformance.com for more info.

Rain or Shine

Chicago is finally getting some solid warm weather (40's-60's), but with the warmth snow is replaced with rain. Lots of rain. Weather on thursday peaked in the 60's, so a meeting was definitely in order... Here's a few quick snaps from some late night chilling in a parking garage.

D Squad keepin it gangsta... D*'s battle damaged, work in progress hatch, and Trucky's coupe gone street style:

Garage queens? Yeah, we don't do that in Chicago:

Touchmyhonda kanjo monster:

Henry's new sti project:

ManuFresh EvoX:

More love from Speedhunters

It's been awesome seeing my pictures get coverage, but this feature means so much more... Not only did speedhunters do a feature using my pictures again, but this time the feature was of my car. The pictures may be old, but who cares, coverage is coverage.

Speedhunters :: ILL IS300

Proof that you can love your car too much

Many car enthusiasts say they love their car, myself being one of them... But there's always those people that'll take anything way too far... Have a laugh:

Hanging around the shop

I went over to a friend's shop the other day to do some work on my recently aquired shitbox of a beater... The shop was closed, and it was almost eerie how dead the place was with no one in it and the lights off, so I thought I'd snap a few shots...

Mmmm... Herpes fender

A taste of the big time

After years of working towards it, I'm finally getting my shots featured in the mags that I've been reading since I was in high school... While getting a foot in the door is always great, now I've got my sights set on a full feature.

Super Street - March 09 (what's hot with drift cars)

Import Tuner - May 09  (shot of the month)

And this shit is disgusting... I love it:

A tease of spring weather brings out the ricers

Every year in Chicago we get a little mid-winter taste of spring, right before it goes back to being cold as hell again... Weather yesterday went up to the 60's, so we decided a spur of the moment meet was in order... I snapped a few shots before my battery died, but they were just jpegs, so color correction under the mixed tungsten and white lighting was a pain in the ass. Anyways, enjoy the shots, they'll probably be the last meet coverage to come before March. haha.