Yo. I'm about to ramble incoherently, like you're supposed to do on forums(??)
I drive a funny wedge car that isn't the normal funny wedge cars, which makes it funnier.
Nobody cares about these cars or does anything cool with them so I figured I would throw out my experiences and feelings in the loose hope of inspiring or something.
Bought the car in January, has 335k on the dash but that stopped working nearly a decade ago and it is believed to be over 500k- Original stock CA20E 5spd.
Ride height was absolutely brutal, so we made quick work of doing the fabled S13 conversion. Was quite simple really, just had to source a bunch of random parts and spend money. This was in February.
We used:
Rev9 Coilovers
ISR Tension arms
S14 4lug knuckles/brakes/etc (Its actually the same as S13, or I just got sold S13 ones idk)
S14 Tension rod bracket
S13 LCA
That + some borrowed wheels from my friends had me looking good. I also fitted a spare MK2 hood since the original one was destroyed. Also fitted my Nardi Classic 330 and welded the diff around this time.
Alignment: Front -3.5* camber, 7* Caster, 0 Toe | Rear -4.5* Camber (swingarms...), 0 Toe.
Next up we fitted a Chevy S10 lip and a Battle Magazine plate me and my buddy made.
The lip was pretty simple, cut to fit and self tap in. Looked awesome It did a lot to make this car look better. Was also on my own wheels at this point lol. Basically all the updates for March.
Then in April I got a screaming deal for a $150 Bride Zeta. It's ratty but definitely real and I love it dearly.
Mounting was easy. I used planted L brackets and bolted it to the stock sliders. If you are under 5'2 you can buy the terrible horrible useless planted floor mount bracket, but I'm not so I didn't. It sits HIGHER than the factory seat I genuinely don't understand how people use it. The floors of S12's are weird and lumpy be warned.
The CA20E's life was on borrowed time, I spent May starting to collect all the parts I would need for a KA24DE swap, the go to swap for these cars. The parts list is basically all factory nissan stuff and I wouldn't remember if I tried. The coolest parts were a wiring specialties harness that was in Hvlko's car when it was KA.
But we had the parts and began refreshing my friends S14 KA with 200k miles (would you believe he's doing an SR swap?).
Through June we soldiered through the swap, nothing of crazy note. Frankly it was too many long nights and weekends for me to rightly remember anything about this swap. It didn't give us much trouble, forums are you friends, have someone who can wire help, and uhhh have good friends lol.
This is worth noting as well, 240sx 5spd swap. The factory CA box sits way too close to the radio. I am a pretty lanky person and struggled to grab 5th, it sucked. So the 240 transmission can go in and move the shifter ~5 inches back, making it livable and nice. You have to trim the interior bits and swap around driveshaft bits but its worth it lol.
Other notes: Exhaust is Megan header, 2in into a z33 resonator, back to 2in up to a Tractor Supply combine harvester muffler. Sounds amazing against literally every odd imaginable PLUS its not loud. Epic.
Gauges: Oka-chan Water meter, Omori Oil Press Meter, OE Volt, OE speedo, and uhh that's it. No tach or fuel gauge sucks but it's fine. Also have a DNA Alu Rad which works wonders (after deleting the t-stat).
Had the car back on the streets officially in July. Back on daily duty. First drift event in the S12 was a week away...
I had done a few autocross events and plenty of mountains and street action when it was CA but never a proper event. So this was the first real event in this car.
Also painted the hood black bc it's cool, the paint was shot, and I wanted to differentiate the car from its CA past.
First event. Holy shit this car did good. I brought it out to the last East10 event at smokies stadium. Amazing event and had a lot of progression really quickly. Started in C class, got up to B class, and was on course at the same time as literal pro-spec drivers it was truly insane.
I ended up borrowing my friends Intras with RT615's for steers as this car understeered immensely. This solved it and added a new item on my checklist before next event. Could gush forever about how great this event was but I'll refrain.
The bad: Still had the t-stat in, was running basically 105c-115c water temps all day. No bueno. Aforementioned understeer was also a wasted session but I fixed that. No A/C was also brutal in the 100f heat. Bleh.
Lovely look on the Intras though.
Late July I removed that evil t-stat and got new steers. 15x7.5j-5 CST Demon Cambers with Accelera 651 195/50/15. Had these wheels tucked away forever and finally had my friend refinish them. Shiny. I go back and forth on whether or not these wheels are the best look for the car, but I'm just running them regardless, why not they're objectively cool wheels.
Unpictured, was event 2 in the S12 in August. Another East10 event, this time at Bristol. Another event I could gush over endlessly. First tandems, flawless running, doin' it big. The Acceleras did wonders at fighting the understeer I faced on all-seasons. It still had a bit of understeer, more on that later. Tire wear has been pretty fair, despite aggressive rear camber from the god awful swingarm suspension. No complaints all I can think about is driving more ugh lol.
Small update after that event was deletion of front swaybar. Grip driving this car felt terrible and I had to do something, this pretty much solved it. Car feels much more like what I'm used to and actually will oversteer in grip driving now. Lovely. I assume this won't really mess with drift feel that much? If that is the case then I feel this car is pretty genuinely setup for my do-all street car attitude. (it is my only car, did I mention that?)
Big update: AERO!!! This is free game for S12 owners for real.
AE92 GTS Sideskirts, got a single side from a junkyard and figured why not mock it up. I had been planning on AE86 sideskirts as allegedly they would fit? But oh my god the AE92 skirts fit literally perfect. Needs the slightest trim on the rear section for the door as well as a slight shave on the front bit that meets up on the fender. But length and style and fit is like as great as you could want.
This was paired with a JBlood (rep, cry me a river) AE86 Front bar. I know of 3 others who have done an 86 bumper, ones a levin bar and it isn't relevant, the others looked...poor. Some say it needs to be widened and the cars aren't the same size and blah blah blah, they're wrong.
Step 1: Cut your fenders just under the marker lights, remove the front bumper bar thing and all that nonsense, ziptie that thang on. Reinstall grill/markers. Ziptie the signals in the 86 bumper. Done. Lol. Totally wild new look.
And here it was dubbed the AE87
Frankly I've yet to get a picture I truly like of this setup, but its been LESS THAN A WEEK LOL
That's the car for now, I am attending Driven Luck on the 7th, we'll see if the aero survives. Will update.
If you actually read this you are epic and I apologize. My instagram has better pictures, but I'm terrible at posting. More updates to come. No real plans beyond driving and perhaps changing the wheels up, it remains daily status for the forseeable future.
S12 owners- DRIVE YOUR CARS THEY ARE GOOD. Every event I've gone to someone has been so happy to see one of these cars out, had a guy tell me its been 20 years since he's seen one on track and he's not a stranger to events.
I think this is the real update I mentioned (it's not really -witness my hopefully temporary failure)
Well this sucks. Car didn't make the drift event, still mostly broken. Not for lack of trying at least. Me and my friends must have put close to 40hrs preparing this car the week before the event. But alas. I did at least get to go and enjoy hanging out and driving my friends cars, so it was still a win of an event in my book.
- Rack rebuild: Failed. Bad kit. Mad. Now I'm stuck with manual steering. On top of this the original kit i ordered got delayed for 2+ weeks and I had to order another. I'm still really annoyed by this.
- Subframe Tabs: eh? They improved the rear but now it doesn't match. Went from -4.5/-4.5 camber to -2.5/-3.5 camber. Ugh. I'll adjust it to match but i likely wont get better camber numbers than -2.5 which kinda sucks but it is an improvement at least.
- Mirrors: Still haven't done this, idk why this of all things is overwhelming to me but it is.
- Rear Springrate: This seems to be amazing, but I have to report after more driving.
- Bodywork: yeah idc rn i have bigger fish...
- Tach: I got one, just need to put it in. This is another overwhelming for no reason task.
Well. There is a plan forward at least:
- Steering: higher offset wheels (Hayashi), less caster, bigger steering wheel, and deal with no PS. I don't really have another option for the next while. If this does not work out I'll have to go for an s13 rack conversion, which is annoying and going to cost more than I want/can spend.
- Alignment: Going to match out the rear, for aesthetic reasons first and foremost. I hate how asymmetrical this car is. I'll pull front caster, raise the front slightly (aesthetic), and re-align the front for -4 camber.
- Mirrors: I think I know a decent way to mount them I just need to try it out frankly.
- Tach: I haven't given this any thought at all literally but it'll be fine.
- TBD: I will probably end up reattaching the front sway? Feels way more oversteery now.
All the above fixes should make the car better and I'll be able to drive it at the next events (east10 wya).
Other notes: my new spares DON'T FIT BC THE DUAL DRILL IS 100/108 WHYYYY WHYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! Whatever I guess I'll bring back the P-Types. I shoulda checked before I left the junkyard but I was too excited.
Hopefully next update is soon. I got another car, so that's taking all my focus and money. That means that this very well could be the "final stage" of the car, it'll basically be the seat time car that gets minimal money spent on it. I also will not be running the JBlood bumper for reasons totally not related to the new car I just bought. Lol.
Awesome to see people are still messing around with S12s. I used to see at least one or two at Evergreen all the time, 10 years ago😅
Update before the real update
Car is officially under the knife. What was supposed to be a rack rebuild and subframe mounts has become a little more involved, but should be +/- the same amount of work really.
Rack rebuild: Poor thing puked its guts, its holding on by 1 stuck hardline. Going to tackle this shortly with fire and PB.
Subframe mounts: Similar story, haven't cracked the last diff bolt, but otherwise going as well as expected.
Mirrors: I keep forgetting to do this. I got the OE mirror remnants off the driver side and can for sure make the mirrors work with a metal plate or something of that sort.
Springrate change: Going from 6k to 8k in the rear. Trailing arms are stupid. Did some figuring and rough mathing, 8k should be more balanced and probably kill that chronic understeer I've had for forever. If not I'll have to get someone more math inclined to find a better rate honestly. Springs already arrived, they'll go in with the subframe. Will also probably necessitate raising the front a hair to match, which is fine I needed to redo front preload anyway. Also putting the front sway back on.
"Bodywork": Current plan is to do aftermarket flares, which is a bold and dangerous move but I think I can pull it off if I'm smart about it. Seems to be the most time/cost effective measure for the rear and wouldn't mind some more offset on the front. Quarter panel will probably get primer-ed as its trying to rust (although that is kinda cool...)
Random stuff: Tach, I literally do not have a tach this needs to be remedied. Bumper will go back on, got some new wheels for D spares. Need to put sticky tires on the front again(? maybe not if the spring swap is that dramatic). Also a wash. Thing is dirty.
There's some other stuff that isn't so pressing that's on my mind as well but the first drift event of the season is January 18th! Gotta hurry. Will be updating once this things back on the road. Miss this thing. Looking forward to a year of hard driving, hopefully nearly an event per month between East10, Lanier, DLC, and occasional others.
Also for those reading along, I did manage to pick up a GE8 Sport Manual for a second car.
Small update:
Standard S14 tie rods are too long (ugh) so I ended up cutting up standard S14 ends and inners to make the car drive normal again. Waiting until I'm more motivated to get GKTech shortened inners and actually do all that proper.
Beat my quarter panel out best I could, but the actual flare on the fender is so creased and flattened that there's not really anything that can be done about it easily. Looking into wtf to do to make it symmetrical because it drives me insane.
Mirrors came in, haven't attempted fitting them yet but its exciting. Also got poly rack bushings, going to do a proper right up on that when I delve into that.
Current state of car. Watanabe all around looks so good. Bumpers off bc of hurricane (flooded roads ripped all but 2 zipties and I ended up dragging it a couple miles home during record downpours lol).
Should be working on mirrors soon, been trying to pickup a second car so I can actually dedicate more time and effort on this car but aforementioned hurricane dashed those plans at least for the moment.
Alright, Driven Luck is over! Exciting event.
Car did pretty well overall, took me a lot of fighting to figure out the rhythm and the car was giving hella understeer. I'm chalking the understeer up to driver error mostly, but also my Acceleras are dead after 2000? miles of driving. Ugh.
Got in a cheeky wall tap, which was awesome. (rip this really cool and hard to find tail light)
If you are anywhere near DLC and haven't been, you NEED to go. This track is legendary.
Lil clip of turn 1:
https://youtu.be/9Tuw1NwN--8
Near the end of the day it was time for Big Entry Comp! I lined up because hell yeah, I knew I wouldn't win but I wanted to put on a show.
Woops!
Put er in the wall. In front of everyone. Lol.
Luckily I only bent the tie rod, exploded the mirror (yay cuts on my neck from glass), and got some more quarter panel damage. Gonna have to beat it back to shape soon. Yes the bumper survived, it actually bent the fenders when I went off course?! Thing is a tank.
Thankfully Coy, the track owner, is an absolute legend and had an S14 tie rod to just give me?! My friends helped me get it in since I was a bit stirred, went pretty smoothly at least. Cannot thank Coy enough he really saved the day. The tie rod end is a fancy drop end or however so my car feels super weird to drive with mismatch tie rods and wall alignment, but it got me the 4+hrs home just fine.
This pic really captures the qp damage, its about an inch narrower on this side now (note the great fitment). Still driving on wacky rods to work and around town, waiting on rockauto and parts shop max to ship my stuff.
Current mirror situation, got a plan for a set of aftermarket mirrors to fit as soon as I get the cheese. Its funny and actually more functional than expected.
More exciting of an update than I thought I would have. I went ahead and opted to upgrade from S13 to S14 tie rods. Also got some nice Parts Shop Max tie rod ends just for the hell of it, lord knows I got a bit of bumpsteer. So will update when the car is back in fighting trim, as well as when I get mirrors. Need to hit Lanier sometime...
the corolla bumper would probably throw me off if i saw this irl! car looks good, is it as tough to get parts for these as it seems?