From 86 to 180sx: A Mans Journey in Drift

Hello all, some of you may know me, others may not so I will start this off with a little about myself. Been into JDM cars since I was kid in the early 2000's due to Gran Turismo, FnF, magazines, Nopi Tuner shows etc. Got into drifting from magazines and TV, but did not really know how to access it anymore then that. I always liked the flashy cars from the early D1 era and Nissans in general (skylines & schassis). Once I was old enough to drive, I got more into street racing and DSM's due to my sisters BF at the time and the fact that DSM's were really affordable. I eventually ended up with a Talon ESI and Talon TSI when I was 18. Around HS time I also witnessed my first drift event at Drop Fest which had to be around like 2008/2009 or 2010 (I cant really remember) but I knew I wanted to eventually be apart of that scene. After HS I ended up trading the TSI for an S13 that was trash and sold it less then a week later. In 2011 I attened Wekfest Chicago and got to see some really nice cars and the OG Risky Devil team at its peak. I had no idea I would know most of these guys years later haha.

After this, I decided to just focus on going to school and that I will get a schassis some other time. I finished school, got a job and found out about Club FR events all around the same time in around 2012. I saved up, sold my Cobalt I had at the time (can hear about that on Bayside episode of Faction Motorsports Pod), and was able to purchase a brand new Scion FR-S with 200 miles on it in spring of 2013. I had test drove a few other cars at the time but the FR-S was the perfect car to daily, track and tune. Plus, it was cheaper to own at the time then a nice 350Z or IS300 (crazy right?).

Now lets get to the photos:

2013: The car was on Stance coils , Work CR Kiwami's and a CS bottom line rep kit. I did all of this within the first few thousand miles of owning this car.

2014: Final Bout happened in September and was a pivital moments for myself and a lot of other people. Car was still the same as in 2013.

Attended my first drift day towards the end of the season. It was DD50 which was cool. Richard from GTR Garage brought his R32 and had a booth which was neat.

2015: Did more drifting and added a Bride Zeta III, Defi gauges, and Stillen aero to the car. I probably also added some other small parts as well. I ended up making the Stillen side skirts and rear spats more aggressive by adding the CS bottom line on them which I had not seen done before. I kept the front lip to be CS bottom line and did not run the stillen lip. With the car being black, it hid a lot of crimes and probably looked cooler then if it was a different color.

2016: First thing I believe had happened was the car was paid off by this point. Another major development was somewhat figuring out how to run different mirrors then stock on the small triangle section of the door glass. The first attempt was AE86 mirrors from WindsAuto. I then removed the glass from the door and gave these triangle sections to my buddy who was a fabricator. He was able to make copies of the glass windows but out of aluminum. I then was able to mechanically mount the mirrors to the aluminum with fasteners. This worked really well but the mirrors didnt fit the area perfect so I still wanted to eventually do something else.

Met the homie Modelo in 2016 too and did some tandems. Became fast friends and he really pushed me on building my car and was a great source to bounce ideas off of as we were both nerds about this stuff.

2017: Ditched the CS bottom line front lip and went with the URAS lip. I really wanted to run the whole kit but it was not financially in the cards at the time. Around this time or in 2016 I added a Koyorad oil cooler and had a buddy make me a custom front bash bar as well. A Nardi 350 deep corn was installed as well.

Went to Chicago to drive Automass. Met a lot of friends on this trip and was an awesome experience. I remember it was hot as hell and it was the farthest I had driven the car for a drift event.

I knew I wanted to some how run Ganadors on the car. Now at this point, nobody had figured out how to do this. There was chatter about running Prius Ganadors, but no one wanted to shell out the cash to try. I started researching mirror shapes and figured out S13 mirrors would fit pretty well. I was talking about this with Jake at USAIR and he kindly offered to take his Ganador off his car so I could see if it would work. Looked like it would fit perfectly!

The follwing week I sourced a pair on Yaj for like $400 (wow right?) and had them delievered. Once mounted, it really transformed the look of the car. They look like they were made for the chassis and flow really well. This was absolutly the first FRS/86/BRZ to have Ganadors. I was able to develop a kit that I sold to others after this but stopped after a better version was produced by another company. Around the same time as the mirrors, I grabbed a GT wing and mounted that as well. I ended up creating some custom wing stands to help the wing sit right on the car.

I then swapped the rear hubs to 5x114.3 and ran conversion spacers on the front. Sourced some WMB XT7's on yaj and sold my Kiwamis.

Went into winter like this

2018: I swapped out the GT wing for a URAS trunk spoiler and added a URAS triple vent on front and some canards on the side skirts.

Drove Automass again down in Chicago. This time my teammate Kevin and my other homies came down with me.

SuperD came to USAIR so I drove that. This was my first competition and I didnt even qualify, but it was still a really cool experience. I also broke my first axle at this event which is a common ZN6 chassis problem. Later in the day, Kevin and I did some tandems while the sun went down.

Misc photos from driving in 2018

2019: Found out Final Bout would be coming back and holding their first ever Gallery event which was invite only and not a team oriented event. The other kicker was Sexy Knights were coming! To my surprise I received an invite and knew I had to change up the car. 326power had just come out with some new peices for the chassis so I decided to grab those parts.

Added a Uras Power Meter to the interior and had grabbed a passenger race seat at some point too. I also was ruinning a OFT tuner on 93 to help with power a bit. I made a custom mount so I could have it on the dash near the cluster.

How the engine bay looked at this time

Went to the first CFR DD of the season in April and to debut the new look on the car.

Final Bout was at the end of May, so I decided to add some reflective black vinyl on the car for a subtle look.

Final Bout Gallery was probably my favorite event I have driven so far. The cars, the hangs, the weather was just all super good. Felt like I did some of my best driving this event too.

Not really car related, but my GF (now wife) and I bought a house and I finally had a garage again.

Did some more driving the rest of summer and then an opprotunity came up to purchase an S13 roller from my good buddy Modelo. I had always approached building the 86 like it was a new version of an S13, but to finally be able to get one, I had to jump on it. We decided on a price and what parts I would get and the guys and I went down and picked it up.

Last time I drove the car at the end of 2019 and decided to go out and take some photos of it. My plan at this time was to keep this car and slowly build the S13 up. Midway into winter I realized I wanted to change to the S13 and I will sell the 86. After that decision was made, I parted out the 86 and turned it stock. I then stuck all the money into the S13. The 86 was sold in 2020 and I now was finally was building my dream car. More on that build next.