Wekfest LA 2014 Part 3
A day at Jordan Innovations (Literally)Lunch cut into a good chunk of our time to do actual work.
Eddie sends me a picture of an Ahi Tuna Burrito from Brody's Hawaiian BBQ in the morning and was like "THIS IS YOUR INVITE".
Poke, you don't have to tell me twice...
As I wrapped up as much detailing with the time I had, I just skipped waxing the whole car with the mentality that I was going to have some time to do this later.
As I wrapped up as much detailing with the time I had, I just skipped waxing the whole car with the mentality that I was going to have some time to do this later.
Let me run you back on my time table here. Tuesday I tell my boy Steve I will buy his T28 to replace my turbo, although I did not want to spend the money. My car was blowing smoke like Snoop Lion because of bad seals.
Before I even saw Steve, I put in a hefty order with FR Sport while scouring the internet for information on what was needed for the swap. I knew for sure a clocking kit would be required, but what else. What else did I need, there is always fucking WHAT ELSE, there is no worse feeling in the world than going somewhere to accomplish something, and then having to make 3-5 more runs in the middle of a wrench session.
This is why I primarily chose to do this swap at Jeff's shop, and I'm really going to touch on that towards the end of this post so we stay on track.
I ask Steve: "Does the turbo have an oil restrictor?"
He didn't really know, he just said it has lines and a drain tube with gasket. (which also was modified by the installer and did not work on my car, can't fault him for that.) Okay cool, the motor wasn't necessarily put together by him, I know who put it together. Which kind of threw me off why the lines were the way they were, but then again the turbo was on a CA18 before.
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| I've been lagging it on buying wind visors so I threw those in the cart as well. |
Now you're looking at this invoice above and you're probably thinking the same shit I am. Hell yes, free shipping... I placed this order on May 27th, normally anything I buy from FRSport gets shipped to me like anything from Newegg... THE NEXT DAY, I guess I missed this part (WILL CALL / PICKUP) since I place so many orders for parts with them, how in the fuck that was selected. I don't know, but all I could think about was.
Fuck, fuckity fuck fuck... I didn't catch this until Thursday when I noticed my parts still haven't shown up at my door and no shipping notifications followed the "your order has been processed." emails... So I had to drive down to their shop to get everything I needed to install the turbo.
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| 1:30pm showed up to the shop, time to hit up Brody's Hawaiian BBQ |
But before we go, Jeff had to turn on the race car for my girlfriend... Shortly after we have arrived at Brody's BBQ BRUDDAH!!!
Say hello to the first and last thing I eat for the next 18 hours.... While eating, I am in a pickle. Because I also ordered some new tires for the front of my car which I had to drive over to Raceline USA to get installed...
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| The trip to FRSport alone killed 3 hours of my day, Raceline Killed almost 2. |
My girlfriend and I make it to FRSport, bringing my girlfriend and my Sentra along was a good call, the 240 wouldn't of made this trip in it's current state without coming back with a state ref ticket. I'm amazed I didn't get one on the way back from Raceline to be honest.
So now I got big boy tires up in the front, they hit everything, car needs an alignment and a corner balance BAD. Problem for another day!
It's almost 8pm here at Jordan Innovations I finally got my car on the lift, and Robert Kochis aka Stay Crushing also had some major work to do on his FR-S, apparently he blew his rear axles. So not only if Jeff staying open late for myself to wrench on my car, Robert is working on his.
This is literally the last time I posted anything on social media, but in short it ended up being another night like this.
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| Yes, that's a sunrise... |
- Changed all fluids
- Installed Greddy Oil Relocation Kit (which I bought on a whim)
- Removed t25
- Installed Oil Restrictor (there was an adapter in the fitting being used)
- Inspected all hoses (I should've bought new ones)
- Both my oil drain, and Steves oil drain didn't fit. Jeff cut, re-clocked, welded, cleaned. Damn near impossible to install now that turbo was in car.
- Almost every line with the gt28 didn't work on my car, ended up throwing them all away.
- cranked the car with CAS unplugged to cycle oil through the relocation kit and to make sure the turbo was dumping into the pan.
- ran the car on the lift to ensure we didn't have any leaks.
- Drove home, wiped the car down with a wet towel I washed it with the night before
- Texted everyone from Phaze2 I could frantically because Mikey was on zombie mode as well working on his car.
- Finally got an address, finished wiping car down, hopped in the shower, it's now 7:30am
- Rolled out to Phaze2 HQ It is now 8am
And that for the most part is the end of this entry... Jeff came into the back every now and then to help me turn a wrench, or to listen to Robert make the most uncomfortable sex groans I've ever heard anyone make while working on a car.
Along with telling me how much he fucking hated me in the nicest way he could....
In closing I would really like to say all things aside from Mikey getting me a spot, if it weren't for Jeff I wouldn't of made it.
I honestly from the bottom of my heart appreciate everything you've done for me. Which leads me to the closing of this blog post.
--- IF YOU READ ANYTHING, READ THIS PLEASE ---
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| Old video vlog of the first time I met Jeff |
I've been into cars for a long time, this is the first time where I've taken a car build past a set of wheels and adjustable coil overs. This was a full on do it yourself project, there is no shop that can take credit for what I drive (well kind of if you count Jeff's).
Jeff has given me so much advice through private messages on Zilvia, to telephone consultations, to aol instant messenger convo's at 2am to figure out switch wiring. To actually coming out to my home himself to overlook my wiring, he didn't give me the toy to the happy meal per se. But he let me know where to look for my problem, what to fix.
And he never asked for a single dime (because I was unemployed at this time as well, so I couldn't of given him a dime).
If you've ever put a car together and had someone you barely know come and help you with your car, and devote countless hours of their time for nothing more than the satisfaction to help someone out. You've experienced a great thing.
Jeff has always been, and always will be like family to me. After I moved from this home and now living that apartment life, if I needed to work on my car, it had to get to Fontana to my parents house. It was the only garage I had available to me to do any work now.
That was until Jeff opened up his doors to me to work on my car in his garage out in Baldwin Park, told me he wanted to open up a shop one day. I have one of his original stickers he made for himself on my rear quarter glass and I won't take that off because it's a reminder of how far we both have come.
Now not everyone may be a happy customer's of Jeff or could say they've had the same experience with him as I have. I could probably count those people on my right hand, and I'm also well aware of the stuff. People take shots at shops all the time that they didn't get it their way at by trying to slander businesses on blogs, on facebook posts. And someone taking shots at Jeff, to me is taking shots at one of my brothers.
Especially when they've had NO DIRECT EXPERIENCE DEALING OR WORKING WITH JEFF WHATSOEVER. I get it, you're trying to stick up for your friends by being the third wheel in an interaction and then taking what you don't know and what you do know about the situation and then posting those feelings with no assumption of consequence on facebook pages...
I'm not the only person that Jeff has made house calls to, he spent the first year of his business going back and forth through the STATE of California to help out various race teams, and has done an impressive body of work. If he deprives himself of his social life, sleep, and general health. He'll take that time to work on his own car, he has never put it first over anyone elses stuff.
I see one guy in particular who runs with a group known as No Rush, which hosts quite a few people I PERSONALLY know. He runs around the internet posting his feelings towards Jeff, not even knowing him.
The same way I was met with similar malice from someone else who said :
"no wonder why every time your name comes up, someones talking shit about you."
And I'm over here like
"how the fuck do you know me?"
That aside, my little beef with Jay T. was cleared up super quick, but he's not who I'm talking about...
Jeff was an Aircraft Electronics Technician for the United States Navy, you're some kid who got a hand me down racecar from your daddy and you're going to post up on someones facebook:
"oh I hope he doesn't fuck up this persons car." Like who the fuck are you? Or randomly posting that he does shady ass business transactions with a mutual friend and I'm over here like
yeah you're leaving out an important part of nobodies business on this redline time attack post that has nothing to do with your boredom or willingness to share things that do not concern you at all.
On top of calling him a pussy for not running his street car in the unlimited class on a post where Redline was giving him props for setting an amazing time on his first cars outing to the track?
Do you even make less sense than me?
I'm not going to use my platform to name any names, because I have no problem saying this right to your face... You seem like a really cool dude, and I've never been into this scene to make enemies.
But I would take care of how you present yourself as a friend to people, falsely and are quick to turn to social media and use your platform and newfound "popularity" as a means to spread bullshit about someone who I know would go over and beyond to square out a situation... (let me rephrase that : the situation you think you know about Jeff to this day has offered any and all help to square things. Teddy is just being Teddy and can't acknowledge he let a machine shop fuck him over.)
Jeff is and has always been a stand up dude, and I've been right beside him where not every situation was ideal for him or in his comfort zone. But he seems to make it work, as a one man show.
Nobody is driving out of their way to help him turn out customer work, or coming to pit for him during redline time attack. While he continues to consult people over the phone, be a stand up dude, and still manage to maintain some of his sanity.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for Jeff, and the only reason why I wouldn't refer someone to him is because I know he's too fucking busy as it is to take on any major work. Especially during Formula D season.
So to finally close out this directionless rant of props, and smite towards overprivileged children with social media and too much free time on their hands.
Jeff is the man. Period, my next post will be the last one concerning Wekfest LA, so stay tuned for part 4.
Thanks for reading,
Wayne
