Pain and Suffering S14

Missing some key parts from the motor like the metal coolant pipes so that’s jamming up the works a bit but otherwise moving forward with the swap!

glad all my S chassis ive sold have gone to better homes than i could give them, but JZS161 GS really is the best car so i dont know why we mess with anything else anyway

Small update. The car was towed off to my friend’s shop to start the SR swap. Hoping that goes as swiftly as we’re planning.

Additionally, after a few years of actively searching, I found a set of wheels I’ve wanted to add to my collection for a long time.

Blitz Technospeed Z2

8.5x18 et25, 18x10 et22

The true dream would have been a 9” front but a half inch isn’t going to be a deal breaker. Can’t wait to run these on the car with it’s new heart!

I bought another car! It had sat “for a while” (later learned it sat for 10 years) and smoked but otherwise ran fine, had a welded and BCs, and was a factory manual 1993 SC300. I test drove it, manjied the main road in the rain, and decided it felt strong and got myself all excited to drive. The rain was super heavy and it was an hour away so I decided to drive it home the next day. Pictured here is where it broke down a mile from where I started.

The Lexus was fighting us and with the newly launched 3 day Staggered motorsports festival looming, I borrowed a friend’s 350Z to drift because I can’t miss any fun or I’ll explode. Tossed my wheels and seat in (didn’t fit in his) and it was ready. Fun fact, 215 fronts and 225 rears are not enough tire for a Z. Still, welded diff, hydro, and the GK Tech catalogue for the front makes for an Assetto car in real life. So easy to drive it was almost boring. Also having AC in the D car is addicting.

(Side note: peep my dad’s Navigator I put Gram Lights on because I have no self control)

The event also had time attack which I competed in with my EK.

So the long of the short of it, the Lexus was costing more money that I was prepared to spend and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong without really diving into it so I put it up on marketplace to cut my losses. It ran but it smoked terribly, which we thought might be an internal issue which I was not prepared to deal with. This is deep into the sad era of cars for me. I broke the EK at another event, my other project was hemmed up, the 240 was a decoration, and the SC wasn’t going to pan out. I was offered a trade which I decided to take purely out of curiosity and a means to an end. That night the new owner took the SC home where it locked up immediately (he was cool with that, I felt horrible) and a new ray of sunlight shined on me. Enter the best car ever made:

A 270k mile GS300 - stock as a rock, maroon over black.

I always loved the JZS16 chassis and actually almost bought one years ago but bought something else instead because I didn’t like the cluster. Big mistake, it’s wonderful. The curiosity that fueled me was; what is it like to own, and what is it like to drift an automatic?

I bought some Tein Flex Zs which are cheap cheap cheap in Japan and run a 12k/10k rate, way too soft for drifting but I didn’t want to pay a lot of money for a temporary car and the stock suspension was blown anyway.

I then had the diff welded and I tossed on some SSR Agle Strusse I had traded my VSXX for. The rear was a little too aggressive without working the fenders which is very involved on this chassis and I did not feel like doing so I swapped to the NS06s out back. The SSRs looked so sick though. Will def have to make a comeback on the next one.

Drifting this thing is really hard. You can’t kick a clutch, and it doesn’t make nearly enough power to rely solely on that so it’s really a game of weight transfer. Again in the interest of saving money, I recycled wheels and tires off the 240 so it definitely has too narrow of a tire, no camber adjustment so it rolls onto the sidewalls up front, and it wallows really bad on the Teins. That said, I’ve since gotten used to it, and at my most recent event, I was really able to throw it.

This is how it looked on daily duties. I love it so much, it has effectively replaced my daily. It’s in immaculate shape for a 270k mile New England car but it is sill a 270K mile New England car so there may not be rot, but there’s a ton of rusty hardware and surface corrosion. Plus chassis fatigue and all that. So I’ve decided once the 240 is back in action, I’ll sell this and save up to hunt for a better one to build. I’ve been dreaming of a Toyota sedan drift car and I’ve made up my mind that this will be it. It’ll be cool to have the S14 more focused and grippy with a sedan much more comfortable and street oriented. More of a street car I can take drifting. And if my luck prevails, having a backup is not a bad idea.

Bonus S14 test fit with the SSRs. Going to rebuild the fronts and run them this season.

This winter the SR build was finally done at the machine shop. I don’t have a pic, but the head and block are now mated and ready to be dropped in (hopefully this month).

The build is:

S13 SR20

Manley rods

CP pistons

Tomei poncams

Dual valve guide conversion

BC valves and springs

Tomei head gasket

King bearings

Mazworx timing kit and chain tensioner

S15 oil pump

JUN oil pan baffle

R35 smart coils

Sard 550CC injectors

Garrett GTX2863R

Engine management will be a Haltech Elite 1500

The goal is a responsive 300hp. It’ll be overbuilt for it, but I wanted to make wanting more power in the future easy if I became unsatisfied.

I also found this cool Maziora painted valve cover on YAJ!

That leaves us more or less on current day. I’ll update more once the swap kicks off!

Now lets get interesting! We’re at the late winter/early spring of 2022 and I broke the 240 out of winter jail to grab dinner with the homies. On the way home, a lady that looked like a pudgy Bhad Bhabie in a G37 took a hard right from the middle lane and I t-boned her. Shoutout to bash bars because other than the bumper and corner light cracking and some scuffs, the car was fine. She however fled but the cops found her 5 mins later because she was an idiot. Insurance paid me out real nice and that went towards the eventual respray.

Anywho, I waited for winter to fix the exterior to avoid downtime. I also finally made the move to actually do an angle mod and bought some PartsShopMax knuckles which I love. I was concerned with them making the steering too quick or darty but I love how they feel and the extra angle is useful but not too much. I don’t regret waiting to install knuckles but maybe should have done it a year or so earlier. They’re also a drop knuckle which I didn’t realize until after so it dropped the front more which was cool. That big ass C West bumper hit everything.

The car was kind of falling apart around this time. Everything chassis related was great but I kept destroying power steering lines, the hesitation in the KA was getting more intrusive, and my SR was still at the machine shop a year later. We threw parts and labor at it trying to make it run better and fix issues that popped up but the issues still haunted me. I spent all my money on the fleet and was feeling the pain (pictured).

Still having a blast though! Conned my friend Jason into buying an IS300 and get into drifting. The more friends to drive with, the more fun you have!

Also somehow convinced my parents to get into the car with me. This was one of the most exciting day of drifting I ever had. They’re not into cars (Dad especially) but have become really supportive over the years and attended events, but this was their first time in the car. Mom had a blast, Dad is quoted saying as we exited the track “I don’t know how you got good at it, I respect the skill, I never want to do this again” lmao

Winter came and I decided to yoink the KA for paint so I could redo the bay. There was a little surface rust on the strut towers I wanted to address before it became an issue and the rest of it as lame. Plus I figured my SR would surely be done before spring (it wasn’t) so we’d have to pull it regardless.

Chris at F Auto made this fancy jig to roll S-chassis around with.

I never had a nice engine bay before. I went with a straight black so it’ll hide grime and look fine with most color schemes. Probably should have done some seam welding or shaving but I was on a tight budget.

I went with Subaru’s Crystal Black Silica which was a color I considered originally but was daily driving a WRX that color at the time and thought them matching would be lame.

I got a killer deal from a friend on an Origin kit his customer was selling for a Rocket Bunny kit and flares and all that (I know….). I sold the bumpers and used the skirts since mine no longer had a bottom to them after dragging on everything. It finally looks close to how I envisioned having an S14! New paint, refreshed and repaired aero, and a set of dark chrome Advan RS in 18x9 et25 18x10 et22 to complete the refresh. The only change I want to make now is a new hood because I’ve always hated this one and some sort of small lip spoiler.

Around this time I also copped some Ikea Formula RUCAs and toe arms, a Nismo power brace, and a Koyo ps cooler.

I got a few events under my belt with the new look just enough for some media…

….and some street driving to an event….

…and then I blew it up again! Drove an event and it felt slow, the coughing got so much worse, and I was getting pissed. Decided the day was over and limped it home where it ran for the last time in my driveway.

Now I had a dilemma - the motor still wasn’t done and I had no car. I thought about buying another KA or another SR but that was money and effort I’d never get back. So like the genius I am…

After putting the interior back together I sent my front bumper off to the homie Kevin Phan for some heavy fiberglass repair and a repaint since it was in complete shambles. I had this C West bumper laying around for years after I pulled it and a Silvia grille out of the literal trash. I tossed it on and wasn’t sure if I liked it, and I’m still unsure, but I needed something so it worked.

When I dropped my car off for paint, I dropped another trunk with it too so I could run wingless but the painter and I kind of forgot about it. I was really tired of the B Wave now so I hit him up and he sprayed it for me so now the car’s wingless. When the car was stock, wingless always bothered me but I’ve grown to love it. I think I want a little lip but I can’t think of one I really love.

Hit another light refresh for 7’s Day in NYC. I board slid the curbing on track and tore my Buddy Club midpipe open like a plastic wrap on some string cheese so it was back to the HKS and it’s funky midpipe. Also installed some new minty headlights because the brackets on the originals were destroyed and the lens was crazy hazy.

Driving it in NYC was honestly horrendous and I don’t recommend taking your fiberglass machine to that city, state, or region of the US. Also due to the unique and catless way the exhaust was run really close to the trans tunnel, I burned my foot horrendously and had a 5” blister when I got home. DM me for pics of that. It was super sick driving down with 3 zenkis!

Me -> JJ stock KA machine -> Luis SR power

I never thought I’d be able to afford an SR with the way prices were going but I got lucky with a pre-spun-bearing SR from the same friend I bought the S14 from years ago! The original plan was to eventually go KA-T with my everlasting and so strong KA but I always dreamed of an SR. I started collecting parts for it and sent it off to the machine shop around April of 2022 and it was there for about 1.5 years which I’ll get into later along with spec since I don’t really have much for photos of the process.

I truly hated the exhaust setup on the car so I hit up the homies at Select Speed Shop for a custom cat back. It’s v-band for the midpipe to axleback using a vibrant resonator and muffler designed to be sufficient for when he SR was done. They also had a titanium turndown laying around that they’d fabbed up so We tossed that on too. Best the car’s sounded!

I picked the car up from SSS and drove straight to Thompson Speedway for the Special Stage East practice day and blew the KA on lap four. I did a couple laps and it felt sluggish so I came in, aired up the tires more, and did another couple and it still felt bad. I pulled into the pits and it started knocking loud and hard.

I bought a KA off my friend Chris from Function Auto who does most of the work on the car and he slapped it in. It never really ran well. There was always this hesitation/hiccup in lower RPMs that we couldn’t figure out.

I also spent most of its drifting career fighting power steering issues, almost entirely stemming from a Chase Bays res/lines. I even blew a couple lines out of their AN fittings which was exciting. Eventually this was solved with remaking all the lines at a hydraulic shop and adding a Koyo cooler.

I have an obsession with wheels so I’m surprised it took me so long to fool around with wheels. Over the winter-summer I sold my RPF1 spares and expanded my collection.

First was a set of WedsSport TC105Ns in 18x9.5 et10, 18x10.5 et12. This is the 10.5 rear. I have yet to actually run this set but I’m going to start using them as like a showy/street setup because if I doof them I will kms.

This is part of a set but I’ve only run the rears as spares until recently. Gram Lights 57C 18x8.5 et30, 18x9.5 et22. At the time I was running an 18x9.5 et12 with an additional 10mm spacer so that front spec would have needed a mighty spacer to run.

Lastly was a pair of Sparco Cheetahs/NS-06s in 18x9.5 et35. Heavily inspired by Serial9’s silver X8. One day I’ll have a complete set of GTR specs with caps.

Got the rear dialed in with -4 degrees of camber and a spacer for an effective 18x9.5 et2 in the rear. I’ve since dialed out a bit of camber but I think I’ll bring it back because why not.

I’m on a plane rn and it’s about to land so I’ll add some more tomorrow. This is when things get reeeaaaallllll interesting

I felt kind of lame being that guy with a a fresh everything at my second event, but oh whales. I spent that year driving Thompson Speedway's (my home track) skid pad trying to get as much seat time as I could.

A (now) friend of mine was selling off his S14 and some of his spare parts so I grabbed his cluster. It's a Broadfield Customs creation using Speedhut gauges. Unfortunately the speedo never played nice so my speed has been a mystery to me for years.

Other than the shift knob, driver's seat, and the ebrake now having a cover, it looks pretty much the same today inside. Hoping to improve the interior this year.

After getting bumped up a run group half way through my second year, I nutted up and got my first taste of a road course! Road course work is reserved for A and B group drivers here. This was another one of those "oh, I can do this too!" moments. This was a pivotal moment in my driving. B group would only get one session on the club house circuit so I'd practive different entires and techniques on skid pad and try and use my limited course work wisely.

My front bumper was thrown from the car regularly.

I don't have many photos of it, but the HKS Hi-Power mid pipe had a huge muffler that made almost constant contact with the ground. My friend made me a new one with a bottle resonator to help with clearance. The square flange on the HKS still sat super low and dragged a lot so I decided to switch it up to a Buddyclub Spec IV catback. It was really loud and unpleasant on a stock KA with no cat.

This was the summer of "the thing that won't be mentioned" and I started venturing out to different events. A big group of us from the Boston area drove north and hit a skid pad event in New Hampshire at New Hampshire Motor Speedway - RIP events there - since NH was more open than Mass at the time. Not only was it a blast road tripping with everyone, but I got to drive with my friend Luis (black S14). Way back in 2012/2013 I was fooling around in the snow with friends and he came through with his S14. I had been out streeting before watching friends but this image of his car sliding around in this snowy lot was one that stuck with me and one of the reasons a zenki S14 really stuck with me. Around the time I got mine, he had parked his and it sat for a few years. This was his first event back out since I got my car and it was a full circle moment getting to drive an event with him. Unfortunately he was plagued with harness issues so it was a short lived moment. I also bent a tie rod on the Baja 1000 surface of that lot.

Here's a video of the homies and I from the day!

My aero was really starting to get hammered, especially the front bumper. The last event of 2020 I broke it into 3 pieces and had to send it to another friend for repair.

I also got a new space to store the car so it didn't have to live outside anymore.

I used this new space to dive into the car over the winter to make it more civilized. I pulled the carpet for a deep clean and pulled the factory sound deadening out for some new stuff. In doing so, I found a couple holes in my floor. I'm pretty sure it was from my sunroof leaking. I never wanted to deal with it again so I coated it before laying down the new sound deadening.

I definitely went overkill but I wanted it to be quieter really badly lol.

My sister loves detailing so she blessed my carpet. It's still kinda clapped so a replacement might be in it's future.

This leaves off around March 2021. I'll make another update soon! This is when the car started to really change.

I cant wait to put my front end into ur QP this year

Continued because I ran out of space.

Had to borrow the Volk Monsters off my Honda for some reason.

After buying some Gram Lights 57CR with nice tires up front and a pair of RPF1s off from my old Jetta, I was finally ready to do a drift event - the last event of the year at Thompson Speedway in CT.

I was beside myself! I had no idea what finesse was or that a clutch kick didn't have to be a clutch to the floor ordeal but I was doing it! I came close to linking the skidpad a few times too. It was also sick having my parents come out to watch me drive.

At this point I was tired of looking at the terrible paint and had saved enough for paint. I had bought an Origin Stylish kit a year or so prior but was waiting to have the car at the paintshop before installing it so I didn't need to start off already needing fiberglass repair. I also scored a couple wings for cheap off Yahoo Auctions - one being a B-Wave wing that I bought when I was weighing 16s and Navan aero or 18s and a big kit, the other being an Avancé wing. I ended up having the B-Wave painted because the Avancé needed repairs. It was only supposed to stay for a short bit just to scratch the itch of running it but it stayed way too long despite never looking good with th rest of the car. I had also bought some Ganadors a couple years prior off GTR Garage for $250 and finally decided to put them on. Should have done that way earlier!

For some reason there was a super thick coating of bondo on both quarters but after the body shop sanded it all off, the body was fine underneath so no idea why that was there. The body line on the quarter looked noticeably sharper after. Also peep those OZ Operas my friend pulled out of the trash for me!

I'm not going to lie, seeing it painted one color made me shed a tear. This was far deeper into a car I had ever been and it was finally driving and looking in a way that reflected those efforts.

The color was a Mercedes color off a G-Wagon. In all honesty, it was supposed to be more black because, on a flat ass car, it came off more black versus the round S14. That said, I loved it!

I'll post more later today or tomorrow or something. Thank you if you read this far and/or care about my ramblings

Okie doke artichoke, let's start at the beginning. I've been fascinated with drifting and Japanese cars since I was an early teen. I remember buying my first Super Street magazine on vacation with my family around 10/11 years old and still own the issue today. After discovery drifting, I was obsessed. I downloaded every video I could, patrolled Vimeo and YouTube for content, and started buying every magazine I could. I didn't have a ton of self confidence or exposure to much car culture growing up so there was this feeling of "that's for other people" and " I could never do that". In addition to that, I wasn't allowed to buy anything older than 2005, rear wheel drive, manual, or two door so the dream was extra squashed. I ended up buying a Jetta and fooling around with that for a while until I kind of ruined it and needed something to survive a Boston winter so at 19 I decided I needed a "winter beater" and might as well get something interesting and if it just so happened to not leave after winter, oops! I hit Craigslist hard and was between a Jblood kitted AE86 coupe (fumble), an S13 coupe on Jeep wheels, and this S14. I ended up driving up to the deep north of Maine with a friend, a Uhaul trailer, and my dad's Navigator on Black Friday to "check it out" as if I hadn't already decided it was happening regardless of what I found when I got there. I got lucky, but I met up at a dark gas station in the middle of nowhere, drove it about a mile, and bought it...not the best purchasing tactics. Getting it onto the trailer was a nightmare because it was too low so we left the car and scrambled to a Lowe's before they closed to get some boards and even then the car kept beaching. It took the two of us and 4 large teenagers at the gas station to lift the back of the car by the ramps to level it out and get the car onto the trailer.

I made it home at 3am and woke my family up with a straight piped KA unloading it, and after my dad saw what I bought, he was so mad he didn't talk to me for 3 days. But I didn't care because holy shit I had my own 240 and it felt surreal! I didn't get it registered for a few days so I kept driving it around my neighborhood to get my fix. It was straight piped with solid engine and trans mounts with no radio or any interior in the back half so far from pleasant but the coolest thing ever at the time. First lap around the neighborhood the exhaust fell off which was when I realized the "axle back" was just a pipe stuffed into the mid pipe and the rear hanger was an extension chord so that was sick.

The rest of the exhaust was welded to the header so that was nice. The guy I bought it off of, who's now a friend, only owned the car for a few months and sold it to move to Texas so the vast majority of the hackery was Maine's premier car builder who made this masterpiece:

I present to you the General Li. Amazing. I also found out most of the interior was painted orange too after the plastidip wore off.

Anywho, I was fully geeked on how much I loved this car. It was the first time I ever drove something like it and all the clappery could not dampen my spirit! The car came on some BMW spec Team Dynamics up front and some E36 stocks in the rear. With winter coming, I decided to get a matching set of wheels on the cheap and copped some Crown Vic mesh wheels (16x7 et20 5x114.3 if you were wondering) for $100. My friend painted them, mounted some Blizzaks, and we were WHIPPIN!

This was also the winter we got historic snow fall and the accumulation was higher than the car. Probably the most fun winter I have ever had drifting this thing absolutely everywhere with the open diff. It also broke down a lot. One of the biggest issues was a mysterious issue where it would Run fine and suddenly die and not start for some time until it was suddenly fine again. After some troubleshooting we found out the fuel pump wires were taped together with painter's tape rather than soldered together so it would just connect and disconnect at will. Definitely a fun fire hazard.

Scored an OEM lip and an ISIS axle back that I had welded on so the exhaust finally stopped falling off.

The previous year I bought some VSXX with my college textbook money and ran them on my Jetta but in the spring I pillaged them for the S14 and was in love with it. There were a lot more of those "that's for other people" feelings that summer so I didn't even consider the idea that I too could just weld my diff and go drifting. My mechanic abilities aren't great now, but they were nearly non-existent at the time and the thought of breaking down at the track with no one to help me stressed me out. So it was mostly a summer of cruising and daily driving my shitbox while my relatively new and modern car with AC sat. I also had this curse for years of debeading, leaking tires, cracking barrels, etc so the car was appropriating drift culture with mismatched wheels quite often.

Snagged some kouki skirts

I had traded some labor for the Crown Vics so with winter coming I needed some new wheels. Ended up buying a pair of R32 GTR wheels and some GTR seats off my friend Chet. Had them on for a couple weeks before I made the move to part out the Jetta and buy a new, better daily which revieved the 32s and snows instead.

Now that I didn't rely on the 240 for transportation, I could start making it ready to try drifting which snowballed because it needed to be perfect to drift or else I'd suck or something. The K Sport coil overs were already blown when I bought the car so I balled out on some Fortune Auto 500s (10k f, 8k r), some solid diff bushings/risers, and a barely used Kaaz 2 way for less than half retail. I also had a seizing front caliper so I used this as an excuse to upgrade to Z32 fronts and reman rears. The salt had claimed my rockers so those were also cut and repaired hence the primer. Also fooled around with a pair of Advan RCII to feel out 18s. Definitely the move.

Not long after that stuff was installed, the car went down again for some more improvements that spiraled out of control. I saw a video of someone's driveshaft failing so I bought a 1 piece drive shaft, decided I should upgrade the clutch rather than find out I needed one after the fact so while the trans was out, I decided we should undercoat the car to prevent it from rusting again. The rear subframe was pulled and I forget why but we pulled the gas tank too to coat above there too. This was also when I gave up on the solid mounts and switched to Nismos and swapped to an HKS Hi-Power exhaust with an ISR header that fit horrendously. After this round of changes the thing was like a Bentley.

good looking street car