1986 S12 - The AE87

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.