SS: Do you guys find it more rewarding to build a car and use it as apposed to building one just to have a nice car?
Katman: I've always been like "jeez if you're gonna buy the parts why don't you use it?" y'know. I mean it's fine to show it off but it's kinda lame. You're just dropping money and meh bling-bling here and there.
SS: I sense some hostility there.
Katman: Use it y'know. Why are you gonna drop all this loot on a Mugen intake system or whatever?
Lee: But you know what's funny is that almost everything we buy, because it's rare or it looks good or whatever, almost all of it makes your car work better. All the suspension and everything, the first time I went to the track I was like "god my car is badass dude!" First time there I'm already passing people, and I know it's not me, it's my car. It really really made me love my car. It made me wanna keep going with it.
Katman: The other funny thing is most of the people that just buy the parts are probably thinking "man my car can probably hug a turn." But they can't hug a turn if they don't know how to hit a turn right.
Lee: You have to get past the "it's my baby" stage. You have to get to the point where it just seems like a video game now and I'm just gonna try to pass everybody. Then afterwards you start realizing " damn I could have killed my car today." And sometimes you do end up killing your car.
Dylan: But it's worth it.
Lee: If you can afford it, it's worth it.
Dylan: You can't pull one lateral G with your car parked in your garage or at a car show.
Katman: But it's cool to have our cars how they are, they can be at a car show. They can do two things.
SS: There's usually a huge divide between people that show their cars and people that race their cars. It's not too often you see a car that looks good and gets used. It's cool to see you guys using your cars, especially since most, if not all of you, have your cars repainted. Once most people get paint they're too scared to track.
Steve: That's me right now. (laughs)
Katman: (laughing)
Lee: Steve's the guy who has the spare bumper and spare hood and all that stuff.
Steve: I'm ready for the track!
Lee: I told myself, any shit that happens at the track, I can live with.
Dylan: It's like a war wound.
Lee: Totally. Those rock chips I'm cool with. If I hit some shit on the freeway, I'm gonna be pissed.
Dylan: I painted my car in '95 and I haven't touched it since. It's got a lot of rock chips from slow-ass Corvettes!
Lee: And always had a really ugly hood on it until what, a year ago? The signature dented black hood.
SS: How do you guys feel about where the Honda community is now? It seems like less people are building cars now, but those who are, are a lot more hardcore.
Katman: You're right. Either people are hardcore show guys or they're into time attack and then you've got just your cruisers that throw Japanese parts on their cars. The "JDM ricers."
FF Squad: (laughs)
Dylan: I'm just happy that these cars have kinda created a cult following. It's a lot like the air-cooled Volkswagens to me. I know that in 20 years these cars will still be on the road. There will still be Japanese classic car shows and that's cool.
Lee: The EG and DC changed the face of import cars forever.
Katman: Then there's the whole Internet side, that accelerated a bunch of stuff.
Dylan: I think that's awesome because you get to see so much.
Steve: That's what I tripped on when I got back into it.
SS: The learning curve has changed. Now kids don't have to go through all the leg-work you guys went through.
Lee: No more trial and error.
SS: Yup the suspension is figured out, the conversions are figured out etc...
Lee: The style is figured out.
Steve: But then everything is attainable now too.
Lee: People are like "oh that color looks good on so-and-so's car so I'm gonna copy it."
Dylan: It took a while before people started to figure out how many parts between the DC and EG were interchangeable.
Lee: We used to joke that Katman's website was the instruction manual.