Konbanwa, ogenki des?

Guys as you know, one of our offices and workshop is in Fukuoka Japan.

Many of you will question me about how I am linked to Japan.

In 1993, I was first introduced to motor cars during my time in the Army (it is compulsary to serve in Singapore) , where I got my light vehicle trades certificate. During that time, my mum was working in Fukuoka,Japan and during my annual leave, I visited her there. I was introduced to the Japanese performance industry while I was there, because coincidentally, the Fukuoka Autofiesta was running at the Hakata Baseball Dome. Subsequent visits to Japan and I was introduced to the engineers and kaishan(office executives) from HKS, Apexi and Trust Greddy(which has it's headoffice there). That led me to my interest in cars and when I returned to Perth, I started Speedworks which I subsequently sold, due to my engineering work load at Curtin university. Shortly afterwards, I started Evolution R.

This thread is set up to keep forum members informed of the actual situation in Japan and it's companies, not the rumours you hear online. I will keep this forum updated regularly.

Info:
1) HKS-usa has not closed down yet but operations will continue as per normal until August 2011, after which HKS Japan will take full charge.

2) Thanks to a few of your enquiries, just been informed by my Japan office that we can get most of Zero Sports products now from its old warehouse.

3) Good news! Been also informed today that Zero Sports Japan will resume business soon and you can purchase any of their products through us as of today.

4) Apexera (previously known as Apexi) and HKS sorta linked. One brother owns Apexera and the other owns HKS.

5) Why did Apexi close down? The management of Apexi entered into dealings with a Korean security company. The director of that company did a runner with Apexi's money. Some of you 'oldies' who have been around a long time like me will remember that Apexi actually went into car alarms awhile back.

6) How to tell the difference between real and fake HKS SQVs --- read my HKS SQV for sale thread.

It would be so much better if they removed the a from Fukuoka

__________________
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

hahaha marc-san bakachinko!

7) The Apexi Power FC story --- Apexi Power FC was designed by a group of Japanese automotive engineers who were also minor stakeholders in Apexi. When Apexi got into trouble (you can read the info in the above thread), the funding for the PFC was affected. Each of these engineers who were also stakeholders split up from Apexi, although they are now still Power Excel Dealers. Hence, they refuse to serve Apexi by providing additional support for the Apexi PFC and each of these Excel dealers in Japan are doing their own thing independent to the new Apexera itself.

I got this info through the Apexi Excel Dealer who was also a Apexi stakeholder, located in Fuji prefecture, Japan.

hope arc will come back like zero sports. they have all those new parts for the evo X ect and heaps of cars i see use arc. what happen to them

__________________
98 gf8 Rip

8) Dataloggit for Apexi PFC: After the Apexi incident as can be read from no.7, one of the power xcel dealers left for New Zealand and is now based there. In conjunction with the kiwis and with his knowledge of the Power FC software, they created dataloggit so that end users could tune their PFCs without the hand controller.

I spent some time in Japan this year and absolutely loved it, planning to go back for a month early next year. Will spend most of my time snowboarding but definately planning on getting out to some factories etc. Its good to hear you can get ZeroSports parts, what is your pricing like? I have a specific part I am after but it is ~$600 plus shipping from XXX and I choke at the idea of what should really be a $30 part

__________________
MY93 Impreza GX 1.8L, 0hp, 0nm

Send me a PM and I will chk the price out for ya.

9) Good news! Just got updates from the ex-director of ARC: ARC will be up and going in a few months.
Projected time of reopening is in the Japanese Autumn of this year.