In SA, the "heat" of Winter has dawned up us and it has hit an all time LOW temperature with reports of storms, hail and snow all over the country! The first real snow fall hit our buddies (Eurohoodride, KindaFlush and NeckBreakers) up in Johannesburg (JHB aka Gauteng) and were teazing us with their awesome shots they got in the snow! This got us extremely jella (local term for jealous), our spontaneous side to the CS crew decided to through together a team and hit the road and go up country... 'in search of snow'. We called up one of our Elite Stancers, Zahir Daniels and asked if he was willing to lend us his ride for this epic road trip and he gladly oblidged!
On wednesday we planned to leave the saturday morning and the car still needed a few minor tweeks such as setting the coils (coilovers) and checking the camber. The Camber was set by Wahib Tyre Distributers in CT Airport industria (-3' upfront and -7' rear) and the CS boys spent the night up turning the coils down and making sure the car was in her prime! With no hours of sleep the night and the sun peaking through we hit the road and collected the team and support crew, namely; Kyle Petersen (Owner of the '66 Blue Beetle "Bella", CS PR and Supervisor and part of the CS familia), Achmat Booley (Owner of the super neat CRX support vehicle, CS Graphic Designer and who also happens to design for Top Gear SA Magazine and part of the CS Familia) and Jason Clifton (of Jason Clifton Photography, CS is proud to welcome this young man as he has some serious talent behind a DSLR and some great creativity and the fressshest part to the CS Familia!)
Hitting the N1 on the way to Ceres rolling hard and suited up for the occasion; Balaclava, leather gloves and North Face Puffer Jacket!
Zahir's Honda Ballade (South African model name for the EK Sedan) began its life roaming the streets as a humble 180i. He picked this beauty up with a super low mileage of bout 120 000km and only had one owner and was bought through a dealer. She was a "virgin" (untouched/OEM) as could be!
The First stage of Zahir's Honda's personalization began where sprayed the standard 180i wheels black with the colour matched blue pinstripe (was the fad at the time) and riding on a set of 45mm megan racing springs and OEM new spec spotlights and smoked lights front and rear.
His second stage was a new front bumper with no foglights and changed the wheels up for a set of canary yellow vtec rims mated with the unconventional white wall inserts which you would ordinarily find on beetles and this is where his first part to creating his perfect stance came into play the fitment of AOE coilovers.
The third stage was where the stance addiction hit hard, he searched for weeks for a set of 15" steel rims from GM and they were widened to modest 7.5j and 8j matted to a set of Falken Ziex 502 194/45/15 tyres that were sprayed full orange by International Rim Repair, Riyaad Mohammed.
Recently Zahir has done some quite drastic changes and this will be the specifications of the car as it stands now, (although Zahir still has a lot more in store!) he managed to uncover a treasure chest of parts and did a complete motor and gearbox swop as well as some awesome suspension goodies!
Options List at time of this shoot:
Engine:
B20 VTEC (slight high comp pushing 140kw with no cams, Hotstuff Racing (Junaid Bailey))
VTEC Gearbox
Walboro Turbo Fuel Pump
Adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator
Oversized 4-2-1 custom branch/exhuast manifod
Jap Style Rear exhaust
UniQ+ Chip with Throttle Dependant VTEC activation (4000rpm+)
Suspension and Wheels:
AOE coilovers with extended top hats (40-110mm)
Buddy Club Front Camber Kits (set to -3')
Buddy Club Rear Camber Kit (customized to -7')
Z-speed Front Upper Strut Bar
Jastec Rear Lower Strut Bar
16" Lenso BSXs customized by International Rim Repair, Riyaad Mohammed in full PINK (7j front and 9j rear)
Falkien Ziex 502s 195/45/16 All round
Blox Extended Lug Nuts
Dice Valve Caps (By Zeeno AKA Zeetech)
Exterior:
OEM Sky Blue Metallic Paint
Mugen front spoiler
Mugen Grille
Mugen Rear Fin
Thule Roof Racks with Custom Deflector (colour matched to wheels)
Semi Clear Tail Lights and indicators
Detailed by Vincent West (TheDetailingStudio)
Above: Convoy took a pitstop on the side of the road just to soak up some of the 'awesomeness' of the trip..
Below: Exiting the Famous N1 Hugenoot Tunnel, we spotted a desserted bridge and sneaked in for a few pics before we were escorted out...
The REX (CRX) posing humbly...
The always said the Cape has the best ASSets...
Kyle and Achmat Capturing some stance...
Roller of the Rex
"CAMBER" (The amount of degrees in which your wheels tilt, is it not obvious?)
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! Well not as much as we expected, but we got out snow..
Whats a snow celebration with out a snowball fight!?!?
Some Snowball WitchCraft
A Beautiful Trifecter Photo Collage of Jason's Work
With all these suspension bits, this car really fulfills the meaning of riding like a train on rails and ironically she's parking on a set of train rails..
Photographs: Jason Clifton
Words: Tauriq Ajam
