Mitsu's Tales

It’s been quite a while since my last post. Super Am rounds 4 and 5 came and went.

Before round 4 I did some work to the car to try and find out what was making it idle so shitty. I pulled the injectors to check for leaks while holding pressure. Wouldn’t you know it, one of them was leaking. On top of that, as you can see in the following pics, it had been leaking bad. You can see the black spot on the head/valve cover by the first cyclinder injector. The first individual injector pic is of the leaky one and the second one shows what it should look like when it doesn’t leak.

Luckily I had a spare rail, so I pulled an injector from that one, and replaced this bad one. Pressure tested again and no more leak. Cleaned up the dirt while I was in there and bolted it all back together. While there wasn’t a huge difference in performance, it was just one more thing that I could rest assured about.

While I was measuring around in my engine bay, I realized that the hole where the resonator box usually goes was completely open. KAs are interesting cars. Small leaks can cause huge problems, so just in case I decided to close it up and see if that would do the trick. While it was a duct tape job, it will hold up fine. Below you can see the before and after pics.

Wouldn’t you know it, taping up that hole did the trick. The awkward stuttering on a cold start finally went away and the car was finally running right. Next on agenda was to fix the problem with the radiator shroud, but that had to be put on the back burner. After using a few different trailer methods, I finally found a place in San Leandro that suited me well (cheap) and was really close to my house. It was a no brainer. The guy takes pride in his trailers and even though they aren’t new anymore, they still look brand spankin’ new.

One more thing that I decided to add was my newly acquired Apex’i AFC Neo which is like a piggy back controller for my Fuel/Air map. I set it to bypass for now, but later when I go turbo it will help to fine tune the car. At this point it’s just a really fancy vitals meter.

The trailer still sits pretty tall, but I figured out a way to onload my car by myself without even having to use that car’s power. I’ll show how in a bit. I guess now it’s just time to discuss how the following rounds of Super Am went. Enjoy!

In Round 4, I was able to drive it kitted at the event which made the car look awesome. I drove really well that day and everything was going smooth until my radiator cap decided that it couldn’t hold pressure anymore. After one run I noticed that for some reason there was smoke coming from the engine bay. I decided to look and found no culprit. I tightened down the hose clamps which seemed loose and decided that I’d just continue drifting. Next time around I come into the pits and the same thing happens. This time I wasn’t so fortunate. I decided to check the cap by tightening it some more. Unfortunately for me, this cap was garbage and had no stop, so I ended up twisting it off so that a streaming flow of hot coolant and water could come and hit me smack in the face. I pulled the quick reflex move and managed to keep my clothes dry. While I sat there, face drenched mouth tasting awful, I had become depressed. This car has been nothing but problems. I bucked up and got to wrenching. I decided that the fan shroud I had picked up at around 11pm the night before, to keep this thing cooling right, would be a good addition to the work I would be doing. After fixing the cap so that it could screw on and stay in place just long enough, I filled the radiator back up, installed the fan shroud and put her back together. The car ran fine once again. Amazingly I didn’t need to re-bleed the system. I go out for a run, and to my dismay all my work had gone to shit. The shroud being the garbage it was and still sitting too close to my fan had contacted the fan and destroyed the clutch. While the car was still on the fan was just stick in place being held by the shroud. I decided not to care anymore and drove the car as-is while watching temps. Back to the competition, I had been doing great in practice all morning so I was pretty much a shoe-in to get a seat in round 5 at this pace. In order to save the car from overheating, before each judged run, I would wait until it was my turn and my buddies would push start my car so that I could make my two runs one after the other and then let the car cool down. Just as in previous rounds, my cool that had been with me all morning and kept me calm, was gone. I started to get anxious, nervous and I couldn’t focus. I just kept telling myself how I couldn’t fail. That obviously didn’t help. I did poorly in top 16 and spun AFTER the finish in one run which gave me a 0 (I had not known at the time that spinning after a run would result in such a score). Nonetheless, my day was over once again. On the brighter side of things, There were so few unseeded drivers at this event that no matter what the result was, I had received a place in round 5 just for showing up.Fortunately for me, all my efforts had not gone to waste. After running a little bit more after watching the competition, and getting to drive my friend, Lamar’s turbo FC, I was ready to go home. Gio and I packed up and headed back.

Before Round 5, I made it a point of mine to fix that damn radiator shroud problem. Rather than make something work, I took the single cam shroud I had and decided to modify it. I cut a good amount of it off, including the garbage plastic support mounts and test fitted it. It had barely enough room to get into it’s spot but missed hitting the fan shroud by a hair. I made custom brackets out of steel and riveted them on.

Once the shroud was taken care of I didn’t want to take any chance on the fan hitting again as I knew first hand that a hair was just not enough room. I took it upon myself to modify my radiator support next. I figured that I was going to cut it out later since I’ll be going full tube front so it didn’t bother me much. ‘

And finally the end result. Everything fits in there perfectly, just like factory should.

A few goodies had come in during this time too. First off, my Greddy EGT gauge and Fuel Pressure Gauge. At this point I have all Greddy 52mm White faced gauges for Boost, Water Temp, Exhaust Temp, Oil Pressure, and Fuel Pressure. My Innovate LC=1 wideband would be the only odd one out with the Apex’i AFC Neo and AVC-R (which I would get later) rounding up the bunch. So as far as monitoring and adjustments, I should be good to go.

Next item of business was to add the 5 point harness that I had purchased. It’s a corbeau model that is SFI certified. Got a good deal on it and I was getting tired of the fact that my stock auto seat belt wasn’t working. Plus, taking that whole unit out was a good weight savings.

Just for a little added flash, my girlfriend and I colored out the Brand name and Model on all the tires that would be going on the car. Gave it that race car look and she had fun doing it, so I was happy.

Remember how I told you I’d show how I got my car on the trailer. Well, here it is. Just put the trailer up against my sloped driveway and let gravity do it’s work. No need to worry about the car being too low.

For Round 5, I had decided that being kitted and flashy was not as important as getting better. Plus, having to mess around with the kit all day was just a buzz kill. In every pic of the car, some part of the kit was dragging. Needless to say, I dawned the OEM front bumper again and left the kit at home in the garage. I had fixed all of my cooling issues and had made custom brackets while also shaving down the single cam shroud I still had. This combination fit perfectly in front of the beastly KA and had no interference problems whatsoever, plus the mounts made it sit firm in place. I bled the cooling system for ever the night before the event just to make sure. After loading the car up and giving her a quick wash at midnight, I went to bed and waited for the next day, The Final Round. After unloading the car, at the track and warming her up, she was running great. No problems were in sight and it was turning out to be a nice day. I had some good practice runs until I hit the wall going backwards. Luckily nothing bad happened to the car. Nothing looked bent except for the exhaust which had been pulverized. I didn’t want to even attempt to fix it since I wanted to focus on competition, so it just hung semi on the ground for the rest of the day.

I tandemed a lot during practice, especially with Alveen. I’d be heading off against him in Top 16 so I wanted to make sure I understood his driving style. Competition came again. Our battle was fierce actually. We both had good runs. After my first lead run, I was told that I was in good and all I needed was a good follow run. Alveen loves to take the outside of a turn and while I may do the same, our entries are very different. This would ultimately lead to my disappointment while chasing him. On my first follow run, at the last turn I cut in too tight and had to straighten out in order to avoid hitting Alveen. A one more time was called and again I was having problems following him. My lead runs were perfectly fine as I was hitting my marks. At the last sweeper on my final follow run, Alveen would become the victor. I had transitioned later than I should, throwing off my line and making me correct too late, making me spin out right in front of his friends who all just stood there jumping up and down as I watched facing that wall. Worst let down of the century. I was mad as hell. Drove straight back to the pits and threw my gloves off. Alveen did a great job and it was his consistency that day that gave him a good edge. He ended up going to fourth place which makes me feel better I guess. Again, the end of my day had come and so had the end of the competition. Nothing tangible to show for my efforts, but a whole lot of experience. I went from slow conservative entries at the beginning of the Super Am series to fast “super gangster” ones by the end. It made me more comfortable as a driver and I learned what I had in me all along. I figured out what makes me tick on the track and I know what to do when competition comes my way from now on. It was just one step for me to take and now the real fun will begin. ProAm is the next step, so we’ll see how I do there.

Since school and work have had me busy, the track car has just been sitting idly in my driveway, just waiting. By the end of Round 5, one of my belts was squealing a lot and since I didn’t want to worry about anything other than my driving, I just didn’t care. Once I had time, I decided that I’d take a look. I found out that it was the alternator belt and the tensioner bolt was completely gone. It must have vibrated itself out of the assembly, which is strange since it is so long. I managed to find another one in some spare parts I had and put it back together, tightening it down as good as I could. The next order of business was the exhaust. Since I have no welder, I decided to just tuck it up under the car as good as I could. I used the wire Alveen had so kindly given me and it sits pretty firm now. The can is dented so bad I really don’t know what is going to happen to it, but this week when I get the bash bar done at TredSpeed, they will be attending to the exhaust. In the mean time, I’ve decided to keep the VS-SDs and go forward with my plan of re-barreling. The 12s currently sit in my garage in pieces. There will be a post to update those later. I have also been pushing off my turbo build long enough and have sent out my injectors to be cleaned, calibrated and flow tested at RC engineering who will then send them to JWT where the injectors will meet my ECU once again so that they can provide figures for a good tune. Once I get those back, it’s just a matter of putting everything on my car and wiring in the injector plugs and Tomei Z32 maf plug.

I also was able to get a ton of nice stock parts from my friend Lamar as well as a working gauge cluster, so those should be going in as well. I’m hoping to take out my carpet, sound deadening, heater core, blower motor, all air vents and components so that I can maximize weight loss and minimize complexity inside the cabin. I still have a long road ahead of me and I just got my first real engineering job, so next quarter looks like a busy one for me. Wish me luck in Pro Am, in life and with this car, because I need it.

So I finally got to work on fitting the Origin Stylish bumper I’ve had sitting around for ages. I twouldn’t fit over the stock bumper reinforcement so rather than modify the bumper, I chose to modify the bumper support, since I don’t care much about it. Here are some pictures to illustrate the process.

I actually ended up cutting the ends of off the support since the bumper tab wouldn’t go over it. After I did that I took off the headlights and mounted the bumper. As of now, that is the only way I can mount the bumper. If this thing gets hit at the track It’ll be a goner for sure. I’m expecting this to happen eventually so I’m not worried, plus my car isn’t that low. The reason I was originally not going to put a kit on was so I could make trailering the car simpler. Guess that’s out of the window.

Front Bumper nice and fitted, mocking up the sideskirts

The side skirts are DMax Type I skirts which I had already mounted on my car, so installing these was as easy as mounting them on the car and using the holes in the skirts as guides. They went on in under 10 minutes

Final Product

I guess now people will be able to tell my cars apart

Daytime shot in the parking lot at work.

So with the kit on finally, I decided I’d test out my Work VS-SDs up front just to see what they would like. At this point I was hoping I wouldn’t like it so I wouldn’t have the urge to go widebody and not stick to my drift competition plans.

Getting the front jacked up only required these two pieces of wood. Not bad. The car isn’t too low or too tall in my opinion. Just right.

Ya, I want to go wideybody in the rear now …

And day time shots

That’s all for now. Also, I’d like to note that I did such a good job banging the fender wheels that my wheels never rubbed. I really need to sell my set of these wheels. Someone please buy them so I don’t continue wasting my time! I also still need to mount my intercooler and piping, but that will be another day. Hopefully I can get some track time soon. I’ll also be posting video of Super Am Round 3 soon.

So I’ve had Greddy Gauges for the longest time as with all of my other parts. I had some down time today on Turkey day to do the install. I also started to cut up my bumper support to mount my intercooler and fit my front Origin Bumper but I only had one cut off wheel and let’s just say that it doesn’t exist anymore.

I began by installing the sensors last night. I cleaned the sandwhich plate and teflon taped all of the fittings except for one since I, for some reason, didn’t have that exact size. Here’s the sandwhich plate and pressure sending unit.

Here are two of the goodies and the brand new Greddy Radiator hose adaptor. I didn’t take pics of the Boost Gauge because I wasn’t planning on installing, but realized after that I could install and read how much vacuum my car produces.

DK, alson known as Drift King or Donkey Kong was there to assist me when I needed help. The previos owner of the car had cut all of the wires out for the radio then rewired it back in so it was a huge mess back there and I had to clean it up. After I wired everything up, I kept blowing a fuse when I would turn the lights on after unraveling one of the wires providing a constant 12v source and testing with a volt meter, I found that I had accidentally added an extra wire in the circuit thus casuing the short. Removed it and everything worked without a hitch.

For now, the gauges will sit there until I can source some 52mm gauge stands. I’ll clean all of the wires up then too. Next item on the adgenda will be finishing the bumper support modification.

So, Round 3 feels like it came out of nowhere. Even though I new it was ahead of me, I felt like I was going to have to use my DD again, but luckily people and parts came through to allow me a properly running car. Although, I felt that things were so last minute that something was going to go wrong. On top of that, I had never source a dual cam fan shroud and was worried that the car would overheat at the track.Although, I had been driving this car on the freeway for good distances and never had one hiccup. Fortunately though, the track day came and rain as well as overcast were in the forecast.

My friend Zack’s dad, Eric Kondo, who is an avid racer himself and does ridiculously well on the track racing 600cc bikes offered to lend me his truck and a pair of go pros. Not wanting to let a good offer go to waste and not wanting to shell out $300 more dollars to rent a truck. I took it. I had originally set up a trailer rental with a place next to my house, but the day came that I needed to rent it and the guy hadn’t gotten the trailer he promised. At work around 3pm on Saturday, I frantically start caling trailer renters and unfortunately I had to go the way I didn’t want to, I had to call U-haul. I never wanted to use their trailers because they never seemed low car friendly, but I had no other choice and fortunately for me there was one about a 10 minute drive from my house that had one trailer left. I instantly reserved it and went after work around 6:30pm to pick it up. Well, when I got there, the paperwork went well and everything was going smooth until I attempted to put the hitch in the frame mount. There was a pin that was held in by a lock and Mr. Kondo hadn’t given me the key. Knowing my luck, I was not surprised. To top it off, they were closing at 7pm. After confirming with Mr. Kondo that I could break the lock, I let the guys at U-haul have it. Funny enough, the guy who was doing the work was named Nick also. He wanted to help me out so badly it seemed and I was just waiting for his reasoning until I heard him ask for money once he took it off for me. I said I’d shoot him what he asked for since I really had no other choice. Finally after schooling him in how to use the grinder, He went at the pin and at the last second was able to knock it out of place. I had gotten the trailer and was on my way home. Before I went to sleep that night, in the rain I decided that the car had to look somewhat decent the next day, so I got some soap and a sponge and went at the drit that I had neglected for a while. Then I sprayed her down and went to sleep.

Let’s just fast forward to the next day. After sleeping about 5 hours, I wake up to Gio’s soothing voice (lol) telling me to wake up. I get up, go downstairs and start setting things up to load the car on the truck. I didn’t dump the car so we could make on and off loading as easy as possible. This was not the case and one of the reasons why I didn’t want to use a U-haul trailer. I got the car 3/4 of the way up when the fram gets stuck on the truck. I tried reversing and it won’t budge, so I roll out my friend the jack and commence lifting it from the diff. We get it unstuck and roll the car forward while on the jack. When the whole car was sitting over the trailer, I lowered it but I had forgotten to pull the e-brake, of course, gravity took over and the car which was above my eye level started to roll back at me. Gio’s face was priceless as he would tell me later that my life flashed before his eyes and he was scared shitless. I, on the other hand was unphased and continued what I was doing. While I was showering before we left though, it kind of hit me that I could have been crushed, but it just got stuck on the trailer again. So we pulled the e-brake up and finally got the car situated.

The whole drive up, I drove. That’s about a 3 hour drive, but I was used to it. Gio hadn’t slept the night before so he was doing that. At this point, lack of sleep should be my middle name. The drive up went great with no problems. Mr. Kondo’s truck was fucking awesome and pulled like no other.

Here’s a pic on CA 162 about 5 minutes away from the track. Gio, my crew chief was sitting in the passenger seat taking a good snooze. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take many pics this day, as getting everything ready after waking up at 3am was my first priority.

When we got to the track there is this ramp that was built to allow for a level offload and onload zone. It made offloading as easy as driving the car off of the trailer. Here’s Gio doing something gay next to my car. [On a side note, every time I pull my phone out to take a pic of the car, someone has to just get in front of the car as if they are modeling it. I guess my car is really well built]

The day started off great. I had some good practice runs and I was being coached by Ryan Bell, a recently licensed Formula D driver who is a great guy to boot. I was pretty much a shoe in to seed myself in the finals. The car didn’t have one hiccup aside from the fact that the tension rods had come loose. after i tightened them up, it was business time. The track had been damp all morning and pretty much made my whole tire purchase the day before pointless. I ran all day on the 225/45/17s I was running on my R33 Wheels. Also, as mnuch as I don’t like making excuses, I feel that I would have done much better if it was dry. The rain made the track surface inconsistent as it would change as the day went on. On the bright side, it provided for a cool day which kept engine temps down and helped me to learn a lot about my car while keeping the stress on the drivetrain down.

When the competition came, that all changed. First run came, initiated very well, ran the course perfect, hit my clipping points, then at the base of the track on the last sweeper, half way through I undered. My score went to shit at that point and I was kind of angry with myself.

Second run came. I tried to calm myself, but I kept telling myself how important it was to me to win and of course it led to me chokcing completely. I initiated horribly calling for a second e-brake to break rear traction leading to a horrible transition across sweepers and a lot of fumbling of my hands. I looked like Michael J Fox trying to drive. I know that was wrong to say, but it cheers me up while I’m writing this. I lvoe Michael J Fox and it sucks that he has parkinson’s. Anyways, the run was still salvageable so I tried to stick it out, but just as I crossed the final cone, I spun out. That pretty much said it all for me. I went to the driver meeting to see if I had out of some miracle advance to top 8 and of course, my number never came up. My day went to shit right there. I decided to just relaz in the truck and wait while the comp continued hoping there would be time for fun runs afterwards. As soon as the comp was over, I was the first back on the track. The track had dried up a bit so I was going much harder into turns and I started to have fun again. I was doing well once again. The thing that made the whole day worth it was my tandem run with a guy named Alveen in a pretty sick 86. I got so close to him while I was following that it helped me to cope with my bad comp runs and realize I am still a good driver.

So I’ve been promising to post pics of the work done to the car as well as all the parts I have installed. The day has finally come and I have free time on Turkey day. I’ll also be discussing Super Am Round 3 and how that worked out for me.

Starting from day one. Enjoy:

So, the day I bought it was very long. Friend Gio and I had driven my car all the way to this city, whose name keeps eluding me, 1.5 hours South of Fresno which was a 5 hour trip to get to. I had spoken with the previous owner for the whole week preceeding it and finally came to an accord on price after asking all of my questions. From what he told me, the was sound and sturdy. Of course after making that long drive, it looked like crap and ran even worse!

The driveshaft was unbalanced because the center bearing was fucked. The guy told me that it was just the wheels being off balance or something being loose, so after over an hour of him and his buddies trying to fix it, I decided to just haggle the guy down on his price and use that as well as the many other flaws on the car to bring it down. We finally decided on $1800 with the EMUSA coilovers installed as I had brought my own to put on instead. After spending my whole day there, I drove the piece of crap home while Gio drove mine. The car was loud due to a cut up stock exhaust and shook horribly. I managed to drive the car about an hour or so just before we hit Fresno and boom, the center bearing took the final dive. The driveshaft was now slamming into the floor and was violent. We pulled over at a gas station where I let Gio take my car to make co-worker’s home where he would be picked up by a friend of ours as I waited for my co-worker to come pick me up with a trailer.

Here is the car that night at one of the many gas stations we stopped at to either buy oil, figure out why the car was smoking (in my haste I left the oil cap off one time! but luckily it was resting on the cross-member when we stopped at the next station.)

At this point it is around 11pm and I have to wait 2 hours for my co-worker to get there. After he arrives, we load the car up and make the drive back to his house. Once there I put the car in his warehouse he has out back. He lives in Modesto and has a lot of land. Once I get the car situated there I make the drive home and finally get back at around 5am when I get a call from Gio that he had just gotten home. That was kind of funny. Anyways I went to sleep only to wake up at 7am the same day for work where I wasn’t done until 6pm. C’est La Vie!

The next couple of days I go back to Modesto where Hugo, my co-worker, and I work on the car. We fixed the gas leak, replaced the driveshaft for one I found in SF for $35, and replaced the starter which was garbage. This is a good time to mention that the previous owner had been using a messed up starter for so long that it had ground down the teeth on the flywheel, so now when I start the car it doesn’t always grab. I’ll have to wait to change the flywheel, but I installed a new starter nevertheless.

At this point I hitch a ride one day after work with Hugo from work and drive the car back home. It overheats randomly but I finally make it home. Here she is finally back home. I would find out later that the car has tein tie rods with rack spacers as well as Megan Motor Mounts. Here’s how much angle the wheel could get. Pretty good!

Finally gave her a good wash. She’s not that bad!

Let’s get down to parts. I have tons of pics of when I bought the car, but I know people want to see what I’ve done, so here’s the good stuff. If there’s anything I don’t mention, you can see what parts I have on the Track car description page.

I had bought these coilovers a long time ago and finally got the chance to use them. They are Apex’i N1 EXVs in mint condition. I installed them after selling the front and rear EMUSA coilovers for $350. Not bad if you ask me.

So my game plan for this car was to do one section at a time and focus my energy on it until it was complete. I told myself that I could not start something new until one project was done. I learned from previous experiences with another car. I decided I would tackle the front suspension first. I removed everything from the front of the car and cleaned everything as best as I could. Since I want the car to be white with green accessories, I painted the SPL tension rods, that I had purchased at the same time as the coilovers, my signature green. I’d also be installing full s14 front suspension and 5 lug hubs with new studs as well as a Nismo Power brace. I like silver as accent so I decided against painting it.

Here are some pics from when I was removing the studs and cleaning the hubs before I installed the new studs. I don’t like having cross-threaded studs to deal with so new studs and lug nuts was the way to go. Since aluminum lug nuts aren’t the most helpful, I opted for some steel ones which looked nice and could be gunned off without damaging. Plus they fit in my Tire iron perfectly.

Since OEM S13 front lower shock mount bolts are 12mm in diameter and OEM S14 knuckles are 14mm in diameter, I had my friend Danny turn some adapters for me with the proper dimensions to make everything work together.

Here’s what it all looked like when put together. I didn’t take pics of the paint process for the Megan S14 outers, but you get the idea. I also had to replace the Megan S14 inners for the Tein S13 ones which were originally on the car. This is because the S14 ones were too long and made the car toed out at the shortest setting.

I also installed some DMax Silvia 20mm overfenders that I had traded for a while back and for shits and giggles, I let the car rest on my Work VS-SDs with 20mm spacers.

The exhaust system was really starting to piss me off so after a week of searching I found a decent header made by OBX that someone was selling pretty cheap in So-Cal. Luckily for me, my friend Kenny was at Disneyland with his girlfriend for the week and graciously picked them up for me.

The install was pretty straight forward and required that I remove the EGR because I could not get the pipe to budge from the stock header. I was planning to delete all emissions and vacuum lines anyway so this was a good start. U also already had the block off plate ready. While it isn’t pictured, I installed a Buddy Club Spec II exhaust I had laying around and ghetto fashioned it to hold in place since the hangers were broken off. I’m going to have Matt attend to that later since I don;t have a welder. The exhaust came with a ghetto test pipe as well, so I just used that and bolted it all up. Came out pretty good, but the test pipe might be changed out. Also, the header is only temporary as well since I am planning to go turbo. When that is, I am unsure of.

Just a bunch of garbage

While I had the hood off to install the headers and do the EGR work, I decided I’d play around with the grinder I borrowed from Hugo. I ended up making it so the hood could rest on the window and be out of the way which I’ve needed in the past. I then got an alignment on the car at a deeply discounted rate from work. I’d be getting way more alignments later and it is covered for a full year!

Over the years I have become pretty proficient in tucking the harness that goes through the wheel wheels. Seeing as how I had not much more to do while waiting for cash/parts, I got to it. I made slits in the frame and hammered away so that the harness could tuck up nicely. I am most proud of this modification because nott many people can touch my work haha. Yes, that was cocky, but I don’t care.

Moving this green box from the engine bay to where it mounts on the opposite side of the frame gives you so much more slack.

Here’s a close up of the finished product. I also banged in every possible area that the wheel could come into contact with and made it as uniform as possible, because I like looking good while being functional.

Around this point in time I had purchased a GodSpeed 6 point bolt in cage for $225 and barely used. I began mocking it up and everything fit well, but unfortunately for me, the front cross bar seemed way too long and no matter how hard I pushed it was as though it was never made for it. My friend Danny had mentioned how Matt Field, a professional Formula D driver, does quality work for cheap and seeing as how I had no other choice, I took advantage and huit him up. After stricking a deal, he went to work shortening the bar and installing the cage while adding door bars, which would make the car legal at Pro AM later in 2012. I figured, I might as well do it now. I got the car back and I could not have been happier. Of course, I’d have to get more work done by him later since this proved to be very useful. I just don’t have the time to do a lot of work so this would be a good way to make things happen quick.

Finally it came time to deal with that pesky cooling issue. I found at work while doing a pressure test that it was leaking from the upper neck where it meets the hoose. And of course, me being the fuck up I am when I’m trying to rush, I made it worse and crushed the neck more! So, luckily for me, I had a brand new radiator sitting in another 240 coupe that I owned. It was my previous project but turned out to be too much work, so after I removed everything I wanted, I sold it.

While installing the new radiator, I took the time to change out the thermostat and water pump as well as the powersteering pump bracket since the previous owner used the single cam one that he flipped work. It was coming into contact with the distributor and was not my cup of team. I also changed the belt while I was in there as well. At this same time I had been looking for a power steering set up for cheap, but no one could supply it, so I took everything off of my other track car as well as the custom High pressure line I had made and mounted it all up without filling the system, since I wanted to make sure the car was cooling right first.

This is how you properly bleed the cooling system on a 240sx. Place car on inclined driveway, jack front of car as high as jack goes. Leave cap off and fill radiator as bubbles come out. Continue for as long as it takes! It took forever and for a while it seemed like I had a bad thermostat, but I gave it a final go and it worked!

In the month or so that I had owned the car I only filled up once, that was the night I bought the car. She finally ran out of gas as I was bleeding the coolant system. After I got a gallon of gas I drove back to the gas station with the car to fill her up.

I already had a JDM Bride seat that was made out of carbon kevlar and from an MR-S, hence the short seat bolster on one side, but I finally convinced a friend of mine to sell me his Bride Zeta II copy with custom rails. Since it was just a drop in mod, I decided to buy it and hold onto the other Bride until I could figure out what I wanted to do.

Here’s the original Bride seat I bought. It is for sale if anyone is interested. I may keep it if no one buys it.

I finally could bring the car to Matt Field and have him do the mods I was waiting for. I outlined them in a previous post but here’s a pic I took during tear down. Since we are both college students it seems fitting that we work into the late hours of the night. I should get a better camera so I can take some night time pics since my work keeps me nocturnal. At this point in time, fearing I wouldn’t have time left, I also asked that Matt button up my power steering system and make sure nothing leaks, since I had had problems in the past.

It finally came time to install the rear suspension. Exactly one week before Super Am Round 3, On Sunday night, I decided to buy some no name Toe arms, RUCAs, and subframe collars since it was such a good deal and I needed something. I also had found some brand new Ichiba Hubs for sale and got an amazing deal on them, so hoping they’d get from Florida to me by Friday after being assured by the seller they would, I took the plunge and bought them. It didn’t hurt much to buy those things since my Sponsor, Fitted Life, had dropped me a present in my paypal! I did my school work and worked on my Senior Design dilligently that week awaiting the arrival of my parts. I had already bought some OEM S14 rear hubs and had purchased the lug nuts for them, but seeing as how I was on a time crunch it made more sense to just install the Ichiba units. Unfortunately for me, Friday came and I was only able to receive the suspension components. I stuck to my original plan and started fixing up the old hubs and cleaning them well. Unfortunately for me, I had used one of the hubs I had and replaced it with one on my car because I thought the bearing was bad, so now I had one OEM S14 hub and one Ichiba hub. I didn’t have time to rearrange the hubs so I went with what I had and installed it all.

Here are the suspension parts I bought. Just your run of the mill cheap stuff, but it will do for now.

I finshed instaling the suspension arms, collars and hubs/rotors and had to mount up the same wheels I put in front. In case you are wondering, these are 18 x 11 +13 while the rears I have and haven’t pictured yet are 18 x 12 +4. Sadly the rears won’t fit without at least 50mm and my budget won’t cover that for a while, so it’s just for dreaming about right now. Enjoy.

I finally finished setting everything straight and doing an at home alignment at around 1am when I went to sleep so I could be at work the next day at 7:30am.

At work, I got my alignment done by this gay guy hunping my car. Jk, Erik did a great job and the car drove great. Thanks Erik!

I also got a set of tires mounted to my S14 SE wheels, They are 205/40/16 Falken Ziex 912s. Cheapest discounted tire I could get. Why that size you might ask? This car has a KA, try drifting on 17s in the dry, it just won’t haappen. I’ve had great experience with 16s in this size and had power for days, so it was a no brainer.

That pretty much wraps up what’s been done up until the event. I will be discussing the event in a new post. I hope you enjoyed so far.

I haven’t really been posting since I started this blog, but as of now there are a few things cooking. The car is currently having a few modifications done. I’ll be posting pictures when it’s all done. I’d like to mention also that I was able to fully delete all of the emissions components as well as the rat’s nest of lines behind the head. There is now only one line going from the manifold to the fpr and that is all.

Work being done:

Intake Manifold
-Removing the vacuum hard lines that run through it
-Removing the secondary butterfly valves and welding up any holes
-Removing the PCV tree and running the PCV box to the atmosphere
-adding a few vacuum nipples to the IM so I can later run lines for turbo components

Oil Pan
-Getting -10an bung welded on

Header
-relocating the AIV port because it has been hitting the steering shaft.

Once I get the car back, I’ll be posting pictures of the current state of the engine bay as well as the pictures from my Sponsor, Fitted Life. Michael Cabuco, the founder will be coming down from Sacramento to grace me with his presence. He will be vinyling up my car and hopefully a photoshoot will commence. That’s all for now.

My whole life from adolescence on up, I’ve been interested in cars in some way, shape or form. My current interests are rear-wheel drive cars, specifically Nissan’s 240sx. Probably since 2001 I’ve wanted to get behind the wheel of one but didn’t have the chance until I purchased my very own in 2007. I’ve come a long way since then as I currently have a few in my possession.

My goal with this blog is to serve as a time stamp for all the work I do on my cars and mainly to follow the build up of my “Track Car” as well as my trials and tribulations as I try to make it in competition. The series I plan to and have already competed in is ThunderDrift’s SuperAm. In my first round I placed 5th overall, which was just one spot away from seeding myself in the final round. It wasn’t bad for my first competition ever. At this point in time, while I had my “Track car,” it was still not ready to take the beating I’d give it, so my daily driver was used for this round. Here’s my favorite pic from that day with my 1991 Nissan 240sx coupe, which by the way has a stock KA24DE.

Photo Courtesy: Paul Valmores

Next is the car I plan to build. Even though it’s a 1989 240sx, it came with a dual cam swap. It looks very similar to my dd, but that’s where the similarities end as there are huge plans for this car. 

I’ll be creating a modifications list later on and updating it as I go. These are my cars and this is my life. Enjoy!