So after spending a few hours at one of the Super Autobacs in Osaka, we decided to head to J’s Racing’s main shop which wasn’t far away.
Outside of J’s Racing they had a few cars lined up against the fence. Really small parking area, Daigo actually took the DC5 and moved it around back.
Looking into the windows of J’s Racing, you’ll find some cool stuff.
K-Series oil pan with baffle
Various J’s Racing exhaust systems.
J’s Racing built S2000 F20C long block
J’s Racing Fit racing car parked outside
A customers black Ap1
An extremely clean PY EK9.
J’s Racing FN2. This car was recently featured in a European magazine.
Pre-face lift DC5 Type R with a Mugen front bumper. I’m not sure how I feel about the amber line at the bottom of the headlights, I saw a few cars out there like that.
J’s Racing demo S2000, as well as a custom One-Make-Race FD2 they were building for a customer in Malaysia. Insane car.
Volk CE28N is a popular wheel choice in Japan, almost all of the tuned Honda cars that I saw were running these wheels. I guess it is a good thing it’s one of my favorite wheels of all time.
Daigo was nice enough to show us the business end of the S2K. Fully built and balanced F20, I believe it was stroked to 2.1l. Power was said to be somewhere near 300whp all motor.
J’s Racing Fit getting an engine overhaul.
This S2000 was tucked away in the side corner of the shop. It is one of the best looking S2000′s I’ve ever seen. I personally am not a crazy S2000 fan but this car was amazing in so many ways. From it’s styling, stance, to the track and daily functionality… it was great. Certainly a car I wouldn’t mind owning.
This S2000 was beautifully done and if I remember correctly, it was putting out close to 280whp all motor.
Volk CE28N’s in Diamond Black with a huge set of J’s Racing calipers and two piece rotors stuck inside them. I also like the carbon J’s fender inserts on the wide fenders, very nice looking.
Beautiful.
The interior on this thing was the coolest part. Simple, clean and functional… especially with the custom built roll cage and that it still has working AC!
Spare set of Volk RE30 wheels for the demo S2000.
Another set of bronze CE28N’s for the Fit race car.
Random parts in the back corner of J’s Racing’s shop… I found it interesting to see what they had stored on the shelves and stuff. It reminded me of our shop, except we don’t have cool JDM stuff laying around.
One of the J’s mechanics doing some maintenance work on a customer’s S2000. Daigo mentioned they have customers that come from all over Japan for tune ups and oil changes.
Random J’s parts and what I assume are boxes of J’s coilovers made by the famous company Showa. If you’ve never heard of Showa is a Japanese manufacturer that supplies Honda as well as a variety of other companies with suspension and other drive train components. They also make all of the suspension parts for many of the super bikes and Moto GP teams. Super high quality stuff and it’s great that J’s has access to them.
There was a lavender colored CR-Z hanging out as well. I didn’t get any info on this thing.
Moving inside of J’s there was a lot of stuff to see, a somewhat small shop (large compared to some of the other Japanese shops we visited) filled with awesome stuff.
J’s Racing S2000 longblock with ITB’s on display.
Volk CE28N and RE30 wheels on display.
J’s Racing lug nuts
J’s Racing brake master cylinder kit
J’s Racing brake calipers and racing pads
Titanium J’s exhaust
Mugen shift knobs
J’s Racing steering wheels, shirts and trucker caps among other things. Check out the tan J’s Racing fanny pack on the left. haha
The entire time I was there I had no idea there was a dog hanging out in the corner. It didn’t make a sound… but it was wearing a J’s Racing bandana.
A shot of the entrance, you can see Tim’s DC5 parked out front.
A J’s Racing treated stitch welded subframe, crank and one of their K-Series exhaust manifolds.
Customer waiting area
Al of the awesome chassis model specific books you could ever want… too bad I can’t read Japanese. >_<
I spotted this case of scale models and the model nerd inside of me came out, these things were so awesome and well built!
DC5 race car
J’s Racing EK9 race car
J’s Racing S2000 race car
DC2 race cars, the yellow DC2 has gnarly front over fenders and huge cambered out wheels… so cool.
Tons of trophies and awards that J’s Racing has accumulated over the years.
This was also pretty cool
Daigo Umehara, he was nice enough to talk with us for a while and show us around the shop. Really nice guy, I’m glad we got to chat with him. I snapped a picture of him when he was speaking with Hisaaki Murakami, J’s Racing USA president while checking out the HR product catalog.
All of us in front of the J’s Demo S2k.
Getting ready to leave J’s and head to lunch.
Daigo recommended that we eat here, he said the food was good. He was right, I think this was one of the best bowls of noodles I had during my entire stay.
Weird rice-cake-triangle things with stuff in/on them.
Noodles and beef
Our food… we each got some of the side stuff which ended up being pretty good. Will mistakenly got battered and fried eggs on a stick… haha
The trip to J’s was really fun and we are glad we had the chance to stop in and hang out with them. Umehara san was really awesome and we appreciate their hospitality, we hope to see them again soon!
Coming up next is going to be part three of day one. We did a lot of stuff during our time there, so the days that were not packed with driving, we tried to do as much stuff as possible. We visit Up Garage next, as well as pack up and leave Osaka and head to Suzuka, which turns out to be one of the coolest days of the trip!
If you didn’t check out the last entry, you can find it here.
That’s all for now, thanks for looking!
-David