japan Archives - Juiceboxforyou

With the lads gone home, I got a train back to Osaka and hooked up with Alex from Circuit Soul. I was meeting up with Rob later in the evening, so I decided to make my way into Dontonbori to wait for Alex. I had a look around and somehow found the 4A-GE vending machine! This little vending machine was so incredible to see in real life. I spent about twenty euros in Yen trying to find all the engines.
Once I linked up with Alex, we made our way to Aslan to Kill and checked out their shop; there are still quite a few Honda shops in Osaka, which I haven’t had the chance to see, and this was one of them.

I love their EG time attack car; it’s incredible. The owner was busy, so we only poked him a little. We left after half an hour of looking around and buying some stickers. That night, I hooked up with Rob, and we got some grub and drove around Osaka in his TE27.

The next day, we went to the USS Tokyo Auctions to pick up a low KM R34 GTR, which was quite the experience. I took a few photos that day as we walked the auction lots, and I’ll post them below with the rest of the images from this couple of days. It was truly unique stuff that I had the chance to see, which, funnily enough, was just another day in Rob’s life.

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The next stop on our adventure was Weld, a shop we had wanted to see for years. We had a reason to go there, as we would buy some TC stuff. Weld has a huge RC drift presence with its brand Overdose, and we wanted to check out its workshop and pick up some small parts, too. They do officially licensed wheels from work and other companies and brands like Voltex, so it was super cool to see this place in real life.

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We explore the world’s coolest Exhaust and Muffler shop known as Kakimoto.

After an exciting night in Osaka with Rob and his friends, we ventured out to the wilderness to meet with an old friend, Alex from Circuit Soul. He had moved to the countryside outside of Osaka, and we would get breakfast with him and head to the central circuit as we had never been.

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So, after the buzz of Japan in a van, right in the middle of editing the series and getting it online at the height of COVID, I decided to book another trip to Japan. Rob suggested that I buy an AE86 and drift it on a track, and that’s what we planned for this trip in September 2020. I sent money and got my hands on a rough-and-ready door, Levin, privately sold to me through Koizumi. Rob drove to Nagano to pick it up, and we hoped this COVID stuff would blow over real fast. Unfortunately, the world had other plans.

The pandemic only got worse, and we had to put the 86 into storage Stack in Osaka; as time passed, I felt like the borders would never reopen, but somehow, in early 2023, they said travel would resume as long as you were vaccinated. Most of you coming here will have seen episode one of our series by now, so I won’t part too much of what was said in the series on here. Looking back at these photos, reliving the emotions playing as we did the long flight is funny. Travelling from Ireland to Japan usually takes about 20-plus hours due to getting up at a weird time, driving to the airport, and then flying. We landed 35 hours into this and got thrown into quarantine. We had less than half an hour to comply and book the hotel. Here are some photos from the first few days in Japan. Covid messed up the plan, but Andrew Joyce came to the rescue, and we tried to salvage what we could.

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Here are the photos from our trip to shadow rotary back in 2019 when we dropped flips engine up for a teardown and had a look at their shop. I’m not sure why I didn’t post these when we launched the episode, but a few backlogged articles slipped through the cracks. Nonetheless, I know some people have always enjoyed the little pieces we have thrown on the site over the years and I’m sure many of you have seen the full episode, so ill let the photos do the talking here. Enjoy

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Jumping over 4A-GE’s and the Trueno wiring begins. There is plenty of immature action in this episode, with some interesting information about AE86 production numbers.

Let’s take a closer look at Kevin’s AE86 from the last video. We were lucky the sun came out that day to show off its incredible blue paint. Kevin had been building this car for over seven years and had just picked it up a couple of days before we called out to visit. He was very eager to show me the Levin. Continue Reading

A Hidden shed Tour! We take a look at a freshly built AE86 Levin and a shed full of Japanese classics.

I’m very fortunate to work in a place that imports parts from Japan. It’s as much a blessing as it is a curse. Most of our monthly wages never really leave JDM Distro but working here has enabled me to source some of the best parts for my AE86 build over the last few years.

Being able to drop parts at the depot in Japan was once in a lifetime stuff. Here was a Goodline 86 hood, which I had listed after for many, many years. We barely snugged it into the back of the Alphard and drove halfway across Japan to drop it off just outside of Tokyo.

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YES! Parts and magazines Arrive at JDM Distro from our Japan in a Van trip, making it one of the best days ever at work.

We are very fortunate to have people like MR X in the car community. For years, he has been supplying the AE86 community with much sought after parts. He has been breaking Corollas for parts for well over ten years, and it is a necessary evil, sometimes it’s sad to see cool cars he has killed, but most of the time, every last piece of that car ends helping another.

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If my younger self could see me now! That young freckly fucker obsessing over Gran Turismo 2, sitting in his room listening to that smooth jazz menu music, looking at cars he had never heard of in the used car garage. Here I am, many years later, still chasing the dream, still into the same stuff I was back then! I think my younger self would be buzzing to see the space I have in the shed with sound friends, a few rusty Japanese shit heaps, a few bikes, skateboards and silly bits pushing on into my 30s. It’s not much, but I try not to take it for granted, best to enjoy the ride. This night made me incredibly happy.

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We are back at it in our shed with the Trueno progress and updates on where to go next, with a few surprised along the way.

Utsunomiya is roughly halfway between the greater Tokyo area and Fukushima, so it was an ideal spot to park up for the night. The next day we had some time to kill, so we decided to check out the Honda Museum as it wasn’t too far from where we stayed.

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