Cats and dogs, yin and yang, Superman and Lex Luthor, bloods and crips. For everything in the universe, there’s always an opposite that lurks somewhere in the world. Finding that opposite could mean certain doom, but for us, we found our Dr. Jekyll to Richie Ngo’s Mr. Hyde in the Crescent City, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Before we take a good look at this street squeegee S2000, I’d like to just take moment to point out our new blog format. Notice anything different? For almost a year now, I’ve been pushing religiously and relentlessly for one change- the size of our pictures on the blog. I didn’t care about anything else, I didn’t care about sponsors, a textured background, a snazzy new logo, nothing. If it’s one thing I believe our strong suit is, it’s the quality of our photos. Many of you have no doubt seen the pictures I post on various car forums (the ones I haven’t been banned on anyways), and it always look ten times better than on our actual site. Most blogs run about a 672 wide photo, and the nicer ones run about a 900 wide photo. It may not be a huge difference, but to me, it means everything. And while we most certainly could have run a 900 pixel wide photo like some of the other guys, I preached on and on how we needed to take that extra step. And now, you can see the fruits of JohnP’s labor in the new stunning 1024 wide format. It wasn’t an easy task either. Being a blog that makes no money from sponsors or advertisers, it was hard to find a person willing to help us out. So thanks to JohnP, our mastermind behind most everything here at MaydayGarage, we’re proud to show off our fantastic photos by our top photographers.
If you can recall a week ago (that’s a while, I know, so bear with me), we showed off Richie Ngo’s serious street/track Honda S2000, a wild ride that most people either loved or hated it. For most of the people that didn’t like the widebody AP2, they stated that the car was too much or too busy for their tastes. While I can most definitely appreciate a super sick wild build, I also love a clean, sedate and understated street ride. When I was shown Kaho’s sweet S2K by Kim Tran after making the call that I was looking for sick rides in Louisiana, I was genuinely intrigued and my interests were piqued.
Let’s take a step back here for a second. During one conversation I was randomly having on the internet with a Louisianan friend of mine, I had asked how the Louisiana car scene was because I hadn’t heard of anything coming out of the Cajun state lately. Now, it’s true that we here at MaydayGarage primarily cover events and cars from the Lone Star State, but with Louisiana as our next door neighbors, I wanted to see if a trip was warranted to spotlight a few cars that maybe the internet and the nation hasn’t seen yet. I was shown this particular S2000 owned by long time enthusiast Kaho Ng of the S2Krewe NOLA, and a sick Honda CRX by fellow drifter Kim Tran. These two cars alone made me take a weekend off from work and drive deep into Cajun country to find any cars that might be of interest.
When I first met Kaho in person at Live Bait, a local bar that also caters to regular car meets on tuesdays, I immediately recognized the door wedge-like shape of the S2K and the serious bling off of the super polished CCW’s. The S2000’s presence reminded me of when a guy comes across a really hot chick he’s just met, and doesn’t quite know how he’s going to ask for her number or if she’s out of his league. She’s quite the looker. Luckily for me, I’ve been shot down more times than I can count, so I wasn’t afraid of asking for this S2000’s digits in the form of a photo shoot.
After giving Kaho’s ride a once-over, I asked him what the specs on the wheels were since they were sitting right at the fender, but without a crazy stretch or an insane amount of camber. He calmly informed me that the CCW’s were 18 by 10’s in the front with a +51mm offset on 245/35/18 inch tires, and the rears were an astonishing 18 by 11.5’s, +57mm, on a pair of 285/30/18’s. I literally did a double take the moment he told me, and I honestly didn’t believe him. If you’re used to seeing hellaflush on the interwebz, you’ll no doubt see the countless amount of “stanced out” S2000’s with rims that simply don’t fit without some major camber adjustments, super stretched tires and pulled like hell fenders. While the aesthetics of these rides are pretty wild, they can sometimes be impractical because of the lack of contact patch from the tires. Kaho somehow managed to fit 18 by 11.5 inch wide wheels underneath the stock body without making it look like a bowlegged hooker.
I also assumed he was running a crazy coilover suspension system, but it turns out, Kaho keeps it old school with the tried-and-true Koni Yellow struts with Ground Control Coilovers, a racer’s favorite. Needless to say, I was thoroughly impressed that Kaho was not new to the game, and knew his shit, which is always a trait I admire. Digging deeper, Kaho tells me that he kept bugging his friend to sell him this particular S2000, and when he caved, Kaho quickly parted out his Honda Civic hatchback and picked up the S only one week later. From there, the rest was history.
After telling Kaho that I wanted his car to grace the digital pages of our blog, I asked him to become available in roughly about a month when I would return with the rest of the team to do a 2 day, 5 cars, 5 locations photo shoot of the cars I deemed were our style. He was also gracious enough to show up (after switching it up a few times on him) balls early on a Saturday morning at 6am on one of the busiest streets in New Orleans, Canal St. He had to work that morning, but really wanted to come through for us, and for that, we were sincerely grateful.
Watching Kaho’s S2000 do lap after lap around Canal St. to avoid other cars was interesting to me in that I never got tired of seeing his car roll around as DFan and Newton tried to capture the car on camera and I was darting in and around traffic. At one point I kept apologizing to him that it was taking so long, but we wanted to get just the right shot, and as I tried to explain to DFan what I wanted to see through his lens, Kaho was patient enough to sit in his S as hoards of bystanders looked on and pointed at the “car that looks like a black skateboard”.
So what type of ride do you prefer? The balls out wild and viscous Mr. Hyde that some people may think is over-the-top? Or the silky smooth OEM lines of the well mannered Dr. Jekyll? Kaho’s Dr. Jekyll may not look as menacing as Richie’s Mr. Hyde, but as some of our fans have pointed out online, sometimes you just want to go out with a sexy slim lady in a black dress and nice heels for a nice night out on the town. You can always save the wild stuff for after the date 😉
Kaho Ng’s official Mod List:
Exterior/Interior
Honda S2000 CR Front bumper/CR Lip
Homemade Side diffuser
Genuine J’s Racing rear diffuser
OEM Honda Ap1 spoiler
OEM Honda Ap2 headlights
Skunk2 Shiftknob
OEM Honda Ap2 center console
Wheels/suspension/motor:
CCW Classics fully polished 18×10 +51offset / 18×11.5 +57offset
Hankook V12 245/35/18F – 285/30/18R
Koni Yellow struts with Ground Control coilovers
Comptech rear tie bar
Genuine J’s racing strut bar
Genuine J’s racing torque damper
Genuine J’s racing 70RS full exhaust
Berks testpipe
Berks headers
NRG hood dampers
Moddiction head shield
Carbon fiber cooling plate
Words by Kaho Ng:
“Special thanks to “FCB” which is my two friends that I grew up with together and we’ve been into the whole car scene ever since we could drive. And also of course the S2krewe Nola that always helps each other out with car problems and along with everything else that we can help each other with… Also you guys from MaydayGarage actually picking my car for this shoot which was awesome and was really looking forward to it once i heard you guys were coming down to Nola!!”
–David–
David@maydaygarage.com