Hey everyone, my name is Chris, I'm from Boston. I own a performance shop here called Function Automotive, I do alot of drift cars, mainly drift alignments. So if youre ever in the New england area and looking for a drift friendly alignment shop, just hit me up. Anyways heres my 89 S13 hatch I bought back in 2015. Been drifting since 2016, but had S13's since 2007. This is hatch was my 3rd S13, but ive had 5 total. Ive actaully been doing a full refresh over the last two years so I've got alot to share. All the photos in this first post are from back when it was stock KA, which is how I drove until I pulled it apart to do the SR swap, and bought a 350z in the mean time to keep driving. I'll give a little background on this car, I bought this down in Augusta GA on Fort Gordon, it was a rust free running car, that had a couple stuck injectors.
Heres a couple photos from a few years back, before I took the car apart. Hoping to finish this car for spring with new paint.
Next up was the interior. I wanted an all red interior. I bought a red carpet, red dash mat, red digital pro sport gauges and had a set of red sparco fighter seats from another car. Did LED needles on the factory gauge cluster, red suede inserts and a red suede head liner. Later down the line I did change the drivers seat out to a Sparco circuit two, which only came in black. Before I did any of this i POR-15 the floors, and added sound deading cause I'm old. I will be adding a full cage this year, but im keeping full interior, trimming panels to fit.
First step was POR-15
This gauge pod was from SD engineering, he still sells these and I believe this was one of the first ones.
Painted the rear seat black to match, all interior plastics were repainted with SEM paint for that OE look.
New driver seat with a Street Faction bracket. I put this thing as low as it could go a cause Im 6' 5 and used to barely fit my with helmet on. Now I clear just fine. I also got Sparco Martini Racing Harnesses in red to match, and martini pads for the passenger seat.
This was final product before the new driver seat. That is a Jimmy Up steering wheel I won in a black friday contest a few years back, its engraved with a Charizard.
Battery tray and cooler mounting is super cool!
Once the car was back it was time to make the car a roller again. While it was gone I bought a set of Heat Maker Hot Side knuckles, and a bunch of other parts. I had my friend paint the subframe, tension rod brace and brake booster gloss black to give it that OEM plus look. The engine bay color is a Chrysler silver, in the light it has a nice metallic to it. A friend of mine has the same color bay in his JZ S13 which is also sexy style.
Car was gone for about a year at the body shop, a friend of mine did it and he was just backed up and couldn't get to it. We both own businesses so time for personal cars is always on the back burner.
Here's the bay when it was completed.
One other thing I had made was an oil cooler mount, to sit behind the bash bar. There a space inbetween the ends of the s13's frame rail thats just open. I took a piece of flat stock, welded it in place and made some mounts for my setrab power steering cooler, and koyo rad engine oil cooler.
Before I finalized all the engine bay stuff and sent it off to get painted I POR-15'd the wheel wells. Stuff works pretty well for undercoating, although it creates a giant mess.
One other rust hole was the battery tray. I came up with the idea to drop the battery down, a lot like they do in Hondas, hiding it behind the bumper. Instead of running all the wires to the rear just made my own custom box, and welded in place. I run 17's in the front and checked to make sure it would not rub at full lock. Also the factory washer fluid tank sits there, and not once did the tires ever rub that, plus this sits farther forward. I really like it, it seems to be everyone's favorite part of the bay. I did choose to keep the stock tubs, which are hammered out a little for clearance.
After the sand blaster, I found one small rust hole which was on the passenger wheel well, I think that's pretty good over all for the age. I then moved on to spot welding whatever I could in the engine bay, and making a customer oil cooler support for my power steering and engine oil cooler.
Next was off to the sandblaster. Car was there for about a month, but they did a good job. Has them blast everything from the fire wall forward.
Next up was to make a jig so I could roll the car around easily with no front suspension or steering. Bought some large casters and welded up this jig to get the car sand blasted, and then painted.
This here was day I pulled my KA out. I wanted to get the engine bay sand blasted, spot welded and painted since it has about 20 layers of spray paint and surface rust was starting to show through.