Hello all, my name is Nic from Chicago IL. I've been a drift nerd since first witnessing Ueno's Soarer at the D1GP Soldier Field event circa 2009. I will attempt to make this as complete as possible since I've half assed build threads in the past. Apologies in advance for the length.
PARTS LIST
ENGINE: 1JZGTE VVTi (JZX110), Garrett G25-660 .72 AR turbo, Docrace single scroll v-band manifold, Turbosmart Hypergate45 external wastegate, Tial Q blow off valve, Blitz front mount intercooler, Greddy Profec B EBC, Aeromotive 340 in-tank fuel pump, fuel pressure regulator, Injector Dynamics 1050x injectors, Koyo radiator, oil cooler, power steering cooler, D Style fan shroud and overflow, twin SPAL fans, Circuit Sport power steering reservoir, 3" downpipe into straight pipe exhaust, Weld coilpack cover, Driftmotion billet pulleys, Fluidampr crank pulley, Carbing radiator plate
DRIVETRAIN: CD009 transmission with Serialnine CD-PRO adapter kit, CD999 shifter, crossmember, Energy transmission mount, custom lightweight aluminum flywheel, Clutchmasters FX400 8 puck clutch, Tilton 3/4" clutch master cylinder, 1 piece steel driveshaft by South Bay Driveline, Kaaz 2 way differential, Weir Performance 3.5 ring & pinion
ENGINE MANAGEMENT: Apexi Power FC D-Jetro - tuned by Unrivaled Tuning
SUSPENSION & CHASSIS: Stance SS coilovers with 24k/20k Swift springs, Serialnine front upper control arms, rear lower control arms, differential bushings, solid subframe bushings, KTS roll center adjusters, Rival knuckle, shortened spindles, Cusco front & rear strut tower bars, front & rear lower brace, Battle Version rear upper control arms, traction & toe links, SuperPro poly steering rack, #1 LCA bushings, Hotchkis front & rear sway bars, FIGS front and rear sway endlinks, subframe brace bar, powdercoated subframe by Prestige Coatings
BRAKES: Chase Bays ABS delete & proportioning valve, Stoptech stainless brake lines, front slotted rotors, Hawk HPS brake pads front/rear, Project Mu ebrake shoes
WHEELS & TIRES: SSR Premium 18x9" +24 front, 18x10 +12 rear wheels; Falken RT615K+ 215/40/18 front, Kenda Kaiser KR20A 255/35/18 rear tires
EXTERIOR: Elixir front bumper, side skirts, rear lip, Vertex front fenders, hood lip, tow strap, gas cap cover, RS Hamada Silhouette Magic carbon fiber hood, carbon fiber trunk garnish, carbon fiber taillight covers, Wald eyelids, Gialla Corsa trunk spoiler, Ganador blue glass power mirrors, black housing headlights, clear fog housings, custom LED tails, LED fender markers, Altezza window visors, shorty antenna, front grille, reshaped rear quarter panel by Pro Shop Noble, Mazda Deep Crystal Blue Mica paint
INTERIOR: Vertex Bride Zeta III driver seat on stock electric rail, King of Vertex 330mm steering wheel, shift + ebrake leather boot, Works Bell Splash hub, Rapfix quick release, Bride Brix passenger seat on Bride RO rails, rear Bride headrests, Serialnine SK-3 short shift knob, Willans Saloon 4 point harness, Pioneer AVH-X4700BS double din, Magellan nav retrofit in motorized housing, Rockville sun visor monitors, JBL Basspro Hub subwoofer, Revel water temp, oil temp, oil pressure gauges, Stack wideband gauge, Dashmat faux suede dash cover, Safety21 six-point bolt in rollcage, Cusco steel door bars, harness bar, TRD door strike plates
PART 1
After years of tagging along with the southside Chicago pals (now Tracker/Vanish/Link/etc) while in college, I ended up meeting Derek Slyter (one of the best dudes if you don't know him) at Final Bout 1. As luck would have it, he was selling his daily OEM 5 speed IS300 and I was in LA for spring break circa 2015 (fun fact, later found out a previous iteration of the car looked like this, which I used to dork out over:)
The car had blown Stance coils, a rep Bride Lowmax, Megan exhaust, rep TRD kit and a few other things - ended up buying it from him on the spot and shipped it back to Chicago. After some initial maintenance, I immediately threw a set of Weds Kranze ERM's I had bought ahead of time upon arrival.
Derek was also kind enough to throw in a full Vertex rep kit at the time due to wear and tear on the kit it came with, and subsequently the Kranze ERM's were traded for a full set of OG CR Kai's. Proceeded to hit my first event (DDay52) at USAir, was instantly hooked. Drove the car like this until summer of 2015 when I moved to San Jose CA for a work internship and left the car behind for the summer.
Josh Buado was a good pal and took care of getting the kit painted while I was gone, and the car was basically done in my head at the time. Summer 2015 in California was full of meeting the west coast pals, attending events (CLub Drift, RIP)/camping nonstop, eating hella good food.... the list goes on.
Decided at that point to move out that way after finishing grad school in 2016 and took a job offer straight out of school. In the meantime, I continued to drive as much as possible once events started back up. Bought a set of SSR Gartmaiers to rebuild at some point and proceeded to destroy the front end suspension at US41/D1MC/Muchachos in Morocco right before the winter.
Put the car away for the winter after that and began stockpiling over the winter. I'm a huge Vertex dork so I did the full Vertex interior treatment - driver's seat, shift/ebrake boots and steering wheel
Also decided to start upgrading a few things in the car. Bought a new set of Stance SS coils with Swift springs (24k/20k) to replace the blown set on the car, as well as Serialnine FUCA's, roll center adjusters, Hotchkis sways, FIGS endlinks, a Kaaz 2 way to replace the factory Torsen + 3.9 final drive, poly bushings, and Battle Version rear toe/traction links
More updates in Part 2.
Good friend, driver, and roommate
Part 4
With the car freshly buttoned up, we drove FB SSW @ Horse Thief right before Covid hit. Way fun, proceeded to drive Horse Thief 2 more times in the middle of Covid when things would randomly open back up. Car was feeling dialed and I was ready for a wider tire. Stepped up to a 255/35 in back with slightly less aggressive SSR SP1's to fit in the fender/pull a bit of camber and put the Premium's on ice. Blew a hole in my intercooler, swapped it out for a Blitz off the shelf unit and sprayed a homemade stencil using scaled plotting software at work.
At some point around then I also scooped BNIB old stock Amistad Charmes with blue windows on the spokes. Thought they looked rad but they were pain in the ass to run at events due to 2 pc design and face depth relative to getting lug nuts to fit with a socket.
Also got a Super Street feature at some point post Covid (photos by the incredibly talented Jeronimo @jeronimofo) - having grown up reading Import Tuner / Super Street / Drift Tengoku, was definitely a dream come true. Was also excited that he highlighted a lot of the smaller details that I feel are what sets a D car apart from the others.
Spent most of Covid tidying up wiring and lines under the hood, added a sub + carbon tail overlay/trunk garnish and driving whenever things randomly opened back up. Ended up cracking a knuckle at a Super D summer event and swapped to a spare pair of Rival knuckle that I had just in case. Skip to start of 2021, I was fortunate enough with work staying active to scoop up another project (see incoming thread #2 for Soarer stuff). Also decided to give the vinyl thing a try after being iffy about it for months. Teammate/best dude Victor @murderfactory @vyktr helped with the design/layout and cut vinyl as a tribute to that Elixir demo car I was obsessed with.
Buttoned up some maintenance and we drove the last FB SSW @ Horse Thief at night mid 2021, hottest event I've ever been to in my life.
After the event, shipped the car back to Chicago where it sat in storage for about a year until I moved back out this way. Since then, the only real changes have been custom fan shroud/exhaust work and wiring courtesy of the @carshop_dstyle boys and driving when possible.
Car has taken me to some awesome places and introduced me to excellent people, probably don't plan on ever changing anything other than a winter refresh of what I have and lowering the rear a touch. Parts list added to the original post, cheers for making it this far - enjoy a few photos below from random events over the past 2 or 3 years.
PART 3
With the swap and car finally all buttoned back up, Run Up! did a full group shakedown at a local event. Car seemed to work fine other than gearing being too short due to the CD009 being paired with the 3.9 final drive. 1J power was a rad departure from having to clutch kick 20 times per run. Super D Matsuri weekend arrives, load up pictured with JR below.
Car fell on its face all weekend, didn't want to make boost and felt worse than pre-swap. Salvaged what I could out of the weekend despite troubleshooting most of the time.
Before the end of the weekend, I already gave up on trying to fix it myself and decided it would be better off in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing - after the weekend ended, the car left on a tow truck to Rival Auto. Issues were resolved, turned out the rear knock sensor was unplugged. Added an Aeromotive FPR and Greddy Profec B while it was there. After a year of driving events, ended up smoking the Driftmotion turbo due to not running a BOV (whoops). Decided at this point to get real silly after seeing this car on the internet and my brain melted. To this day, one of the coolest D vehicles ever to exist in my opinion. Ended up scouring old Japanese blogs to figure out all the little details about this thing.
So the car went back down south to Kyle @ Pro Shop Noble to help execute the vision - Kyle is a bodywork wizard and a great friend. I hated the look of all the existing overfender options at the time and wanted something a bit more subtle with a better finished look. Kyle ended up pulling the rear quarter panel metal to be +25mm wider, welded a 1" rod to the arch to recreate the factory fender lip and smoothed the entire thing to blend with the door. He also matched the curvature of the arch with the rear bumper via plastic weld. Still super thankful he was willing to take on the job. I felt that the shape of the rear quarter would pair well with Vertex front fenders, which would all go together with an Elixir body kit that Kyle also imported for me. YAJ deals still existed at this point, ended up scooping an obscure hood (RS Hamada Silhouette Magic Carbon), Wald eyelids, a Gialla Corsa spoiler, and SSR Agle Premiums to go with the new look.
At the same time, I also decided the car needed a bit more power to match the look I was going for. I opted for a Spectrum SMR500 turbo with an HPI V2 bottom mount manifold, ID1050X injectors, Aeromotive 340 pump, and Power FC since the car was going back over to Rival Auto and it would work with the factory-esque wiring harness I was using. I left for vacation in Japan while Jason/Richard (B Side Fab) and Danny (Unrivaled Tuning) knocked everything out, car ended up making ~380 wheel on shitty California pump gas. Also asked them to throw in PS and oil coolers as well.
My teammate Chad helped out massively getting the car into his shop for paint and put in big work getting it prepped, very appreciative for taking care of it while I was gone. Came back from Japan to the car painted and ready for FB Gallery, JR and I ended up shipping our cars to USAir to drive and unite the west coast/midwest no coast homies for the first time.
Car stayed as is for a while, we collectively did Wekfest right after the event while our vehicles were all presentable, ended up getting 2nd place for crew of the festival lol. To this day, probably the best the car looked to me.
Fast forward after a few events to the beginning of 2020 , I can't leave anything alone. Ended up still wanting more power/noise because the SMR500 was a bit laggy and fell off higher in the rev range. Bit the bullet and the car went back down to Rival Auto to get a G25-660 .72AR, Docrace manifold, Tial BOV, Turbosmart WG and slick fab work by B Side Fab. Got a bunch of stuff polished, added some various engine bay touches and retuned the car on race gas, car now makes about 460whp at this point. Nobody said I was smart.
To be continued in Part 4.
PART 2
Decided to finally rebuild the Gartmaiers I had been sitting on, threw some helper springs in to lower the rear, and hit events with the car nonstop this way until moving to California. Was awesome just being able to load the car up with a pair of tires, add some oil and go drive.
After finishing grad school in 2016, I immediately moved out to the Bay Area and the world of drifting opened up like crazy - CLub Drift, Super D Cup, Good Luck League, Thunder Hill private days with friends, Grange - I was averaging 2 events a month for a solid year and a half. Got to meet my drifting heroes and partake in the first Vertex Festival at Grange/AVS right after moving (literally road tripped down solo ~7 hours with barely any tools, not the brightest idea in hindsight), then returned again for the first Super D Matsuri. My mind was blown and motivation was at an all time high. Ganadors and LED tails from YAJ made their way onto the car around this time.
Skip ahead to NYE 2016 @ the Animal Style compound, Julian convinced me to finally step up with an angle kit. Ended up scooping Heatmaker knuckles from him as well as DMax tension rods and some more poly bushings.
The car drove real nice, also added the Vertex hood lip/eyelids at some point too.
After 2 years of nonstop events and burning oil, the 250k mile NA 2J was starting to fall off hard, so I decided to take advantage of it and go 1J. Found one locally in Sacramento that came with everything plus a CD009, so yet again I began stockpiling parts. I absolutely suck at working on cars so the swap from start to finish took way longer than it should have. Ended up using Serialnine's CD Pro kit that just came out at the time with a Clutchmasters FX400 8 puck and 1 pc driveshaft. Austin Vernier (ily bb) helped out on the harness wiring and intercooler piping side since he's done the swap a million times from the JZXProject days. Literally think I pulled the engine/trans in and out probably 15 times between widening the tunnel with a big hammer and 0 power tools + the first engine rod knocking on start up - my fault for not validating what I was told from the seller. Big disclaimer that most of the work was with tons of handholding from the boys, during which time we decided Run Up! Drift Club would become a thing.
Long story short, got a replacement 1J from an importer in SoCal, ended up doing the Driftmotion high flowed CT15b turbo and Tomei elbow on the new one. At this point we got asked to drive Super D Matsuri 2 in 4 months, so I was in full scramble mode given that I was also starting a new job shortly too.
While the car was up on jackstands and apart, took advantage of the time to get the subframe powdercoated and throw in Serialnine solid bushings. Also had pinstriping wizard Zach Feeney lace up the Weld coilpack cover I got, still one of my favorite pieces on the car. Things seemed like I would be ready to go in time. Or so I thought...
To be continued in part 3.
THIS GUY FUCKIN STINKS