Hodges S14 At Shiomi Garage

Over the weekend I decided it was time I made a trip up to Shiomi Garage.  It had been a while since I was last up there, so I wanted to go really badly.  Plus, Travis was also interested in buying some wheel spacers off Becca and instead of shipping them, a visit sounded like a much better option.

I started my journey around noon and arrived shortly after 1pm.  When I got there I found his driveway completely blocked by mounts of snow, so big I didn't dare attempted to plow my Sequoia through it.  Knowing that Hodges and Luke were going to be coming up with trailers and would be loading/unloading cars and a front clip I realized some shoveling was going to be part of my greeting.  Luckily it wasn't much work, I did a small portion and Travis took care of most of the snow barrier by blasting through it with a pickup.  After it was all done the driveway looked like it was possible to be driven up...

This picture was after shoveling and working on it.  As you can see, Shiomi Garage seemingly has a touch of a literal meaning behind the name with a driveway resembling Mount Shiomi.

After laying down some salt, it was time to go inside and warm up.  I brought over my collection of Video Option and D1SL DVD for Travis so we watched one of those and cracked open some PBR while we waited for everyone else to arrive.

Some time and a few beers later, everyone else had shown up.  Time to get up, and prep for taking photos in the -4 degree temps outside.  Seriously, -4, I have no idea how he does it.  He built the whole cage in this weather, no heater or anything to be found in the garage.  You'll notice a good portion of the floor has a layer of ice over it even!

I was really diggin the cage.  Always killer fab work to look at!

Between snapping some pics of the S14 I noticed Brett had found his way into the Sil80 which he looked rather comfortable in.

Back to the cage, I found everything very pleasant to look at. It was all nicely tied in together with welds that look so good you find yourself questioning if it was done by a machine and not a human.  A skill I wish I possessed, maybe someday I can have him teach me to weld like he does.

Moving on to the front you'll see the car has been tubed for more wheel clearance.  This however wasn't done up at Shiomi Garage, but still killer to look at and suits the overall appearance of the car.

After looking the car over it was time to unload the RHD S14 front clip that Hodges had brought up with him.  Which leads me to question... Does this mean Shiomi Garage is going to be getting a 3rd car!?

Along with the front clip came a complete S14 subframe with all the arms, diff, knuckles, and hubs.  Heck even the brakes came with it as well.  I spoke to Travis about it a little bit and he told me this might find it's way into the Sil80 since the S14 has better anti squat over the S13 subframe.

Off came the clip and subframe, and on went the S14.  Unloading and loading everything was rather nice and easy, mostly due to the fact there were 8 of us there to move everything.

Just like that, Hodges was off and on his way back home while a few of us stayed a bit longer.  Luke had brought up his S13 to have a cage done that needed to be unloaded.  Funny thing was I didn't even notice that happening, I had stopped inside to warm up for a minute since my fingers were frozen from taking pics without gloves on.  Before I knew it I turned around to hear the car was already in the garage and I had still yet to thaw out.

Sadly I completely spaced on taking pics of Luke's car, but no worries.  I'm sure I'll be making another trip up there soon enough to take a few.

Thanks for reading! See you next time!