I finally gave into the RWD hype and bought my first drift car . . .

Oh wait we don’t care about this one, hold on…

I finally decided to pull the trigger on my second RWD car and boy was it the biggest mistake I’ve ever made:

Just a bit about this machine as I first bought it: it’s a 1997 Nissan 240sx (ORIGINAL KOUKI HOLY MOLY) with around 370,000 miles on the chassis and 60,000 on the rebuilt motor. It came with no wheels so my friend Cosio (@notkouki) and I had to haul a pair of his wheels and a pair of mine 94 miles to Sacramento to bring the car home. I guess I’ll start off with the pros that this car was blessed with. It’s an original Kouki (support authenticity), it had an Autopower 4 point cage installed, Fortune Auto Super Down Low Spec coilovers, Stance and JIC Magic rear arms, Front R33 brakes with drilled and slotted rotors, a fatter radiator that I forgot the brand of, electronic fans, an extra passenger headlight, a JDL double din, two keys, and a clean title! This is also @griplow_’s old chassis, if that matters to anyone. As far as the cons go, I mean have you looked at the photo? The previous owner, Austin (@austintreihagen) was running some super wide wheels on stock body, we’re talkin’ 18×11. It looked good for sure, definitely not my style though. Unfortunately with great wheels comes great sacrifice:

This has since been hammered in, so you can only imagine how far it was pulled out initially. Anyway, all the quarter panels and both fenders, bacon. As for other cons, the car was backed into so the hood and passenger headlight was lightly damaged, the “throwout bearing” was rattling so that needed to be addressed, the idle was bouncy but it never died out, the car didn’t pass smog, the welded diff was howling, and the axles were clunking. Wonderful. The drive home was a blast, I honestly was unsure if it would even make the 94 mile trek, I guess since I’m writing this you already know I did.

Safe to say, I made it home. I like to think the long drive home was a testament to how reliable this car would end up to be. This was actually during a family party also and my entire family had the same thought, “you spent $6,600 on this pile of shit?“. Why yes, yes I did. But can you blame me? This 21 year old pile of shit just so happens to be my dream car. I actually took out a loan to buy it, it was that serious. I figured I should probably document exactly how much I spent on this thing. The loan ended up being around $7,000 with all the fees. Was it worth it? Abso-fuckin-lutely.

Well if I’m being honest, the two previous chassis didn’t really teach me much. I didn’t know a thing about this Kouki. That would soon change as education is forced with these cars. If you’re lookin’ for a first car that’ll teach you about cars and the modifying world, get one of these. Anyway, can you take a wild guess at one of the first things I did to this car? Well aside from this dash mat that @notkouki gave to me:

If you guessed, “get the car smogged and registered under your name“, or “drop some money to address the cesspool of issues this car was plagued with“, then you’re 100% correct! To fix some of these issues, I spent $2,200 on some chromed out 18×10+19 AVS Model 5s, courtesy of @justinzenki! I think we’re totaled at $9,200 now?

Along with this my girlfriend (@therizzamejia) bought me some PBM Subframe Risers and Differential Bushings for my birthday and I grabbed an open differential from my friend Sal (sg14k) for $50 which was immediately welded by a dude who goes by Tato (@tatomotorsports) for another ($65). Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of this process but I’m sure it looked something like this:

I think this was for Sal’s (@sg14k) subframe, you should check it out on his Instagram, he made it real nice.

A few months later I took a trip to the Philippines with my girlfriends family and still ended up dumping money into the Kouki. One of the guys just had to send a sale post of a pair of 17 inch chrome AVS for $650 and well, I needed it. So I got it. They weren’t in perfect condition but I figured I wouldn’t find another pair of chrome 17×9 AVS for a long time. AND they had centercaps! I had one of my sisters send a photo when they arrived, beautiful. 

When I got back after two weeks, I was not only jet-lagged but I think I caught a flu. Massive headaches, I felt like shit, didn’t want to do anything and it sucked moving around. But, someone (@buuudoy) was selling an absolutely gorgeous OEM Kouki hood for $400 all the way in Fairfield – something like an hour and fifteen minutes away. I shot right up and took my dads truck and started heading over there. I ended up being sick for an entire month, seriously, no exaggeration there. It probably wouldn’t have had such a long duration but hey, I got a brand new Kouki hood:

This photo actually works as a segue into the next post! PS: Everything is totaled to be at $9,200 + $125 + $650 + $400 = $10,375. Fun!

After the hood, I decided to prepare for the car’s first drift event at Drift Central (@driftcentral_official) in February, I had about a month to prepare. It sucks spending money on things you can’t really see but it must be done! Along with the PBM stuff my girlfriend (@therizzamejia) bought me for my birthday, she also got me an Exedy OEM replacement clutch kit. Lets still keep in mind that I still don’t have a clue of the wonders of working on cars. I didn’t even really know how to drop the subframe without the help of @justinzenki and @longboi.wav.

Sorry in advance for the bad photos, I’m grabbing some of these off of my old Instagram stories. I ended up picking up five Nissan Oil filters and drain plug gaskets ($60), a Greddy drain plug gasket ($20) a new knock sensor and subharness ($20, this was probably unnecessary but I had a CEL), ARP flywheel and pressure plate bolts ($100), 50mm spacers for the front ($65, the offset on the front AVS was so high the inner barrels were practically touching eachother, roast me), a pilot bushing, a flywheel ($100) and a Buddy Club Spec 2 catback that was modified to a dual tip exit ($150). Also the “new” differential I got was also howling, I’ll get to that later.

The install day was essentially trial by fire, I had heard horror stories of working on clutches and how it’s one of the hardest things you can ever do – I was absolutely terrified and riddled with anxiety. Luckily I had the expertise of Justin (@justinzenki), Anthony (@not240), Ian (@longboi.wav), and Max (@themaxpowa). How the hell do you even drop a transmission? I started off the day bright and early, ready to get the car into my garage and put it on stands. Simple enough, right? Nope, battery died, off to Walmart!

We grabbed a new battery ($60), car fired right up and we got right to work. Because I had no idea what I was doing, and the old transmission’s drain plug was seized, the whole process of just dropping the transmission took nearly six hours. Eventually we finally conquered the beast and got the hard part out of the way – or so I thought..

This thing was disgusting! I was so excited to get rid of the rattling coming from the throwout bearing. Removing the old clutch assembly, in theory, should be the easiest part of this process. I gunned off every bolt and left the flywheel on so that I could remove the old pilot bushing. I opted to go buy a tool from Autozone ($40) because specialty tools are always convenient to have. The bushing removal tool was moved to position, ready to extract the old piece – all I had to do was turn a nut and it was out! Well, that’s what was supposed to happen at least. Turns out the tool’s grabbing arms are too rounded off for the KA24DE pilot bushing and needs to be shaved. Popped right out after this change!

I threw on the new clutch assembly with the ARP bolts and called it a night after that: 

The next day I actually managed to poke the transmission into the clutch on my own, it took the help of Marcus (@marcusisrad) to get it completely in. Putting everything back in and cleaning up essentially took the rest of the day but it was finally done! The best part? The rattling from the “throwout bearing” was still there.

I learned a lot from this, but the preparation is still not done! We’re at $10,990, not too shabby!

Not really preparation related, but I was looking around for a kit and I ran into the Uras Type 2 on a forum online. It was a thing of perfection. Of course I had to have one of my own. So there are replica versions available but I wanted only the best for my Kouki, so I knew I had to shell out a good amount of money to source one. Unfortunately they’re only made to order straight from Japan. Luckily, this was no problem for the guys at Wolfreign Motors (@wolfreignmotors) and they hooked me up at the low price of $1594! :

On to further preparation for the shakedown – remember how the new differential I got was howling as well? I decided that I might as well cash out on a super nice one – a friend of mine, Bob, is locally known as an S14 mad scientist – he had something in mind. What was it, you ask? Well I drove over to his spot and he ripped out my BART station inspired differential, gutted the insides, and threw in a 4.6 ring and pinion with a welded VLSD($250 and I gave him my oem driveshaft). Honestly I have no idea why this is so great but I trust his word. It definitely gave the car the extra kick it needed:

To complement this, I got a new passenger axle and a one piece aluminum driveshaft from Driveshaft shops ($400):

Oh yeah, and I also was fortunate enough to pick up a pristine Bride Zeta 2 with Bride rails for $650. I borrowed a headpad from Jeff (@notae86), a 330mm nardi (not pictured) from Cosio (@notkouki), Bob hooked it up with a new spline quick release to replace the NRG, got a new shift boot and trim, and a fake Vertex shift knob from the Philippines. The car was ready for the event, however the question of “will it even make the hundred mile drive to the event, slide all day, and drive back?” remained. Current total: $13,884:

I didn’t really know what to expect, I had prior experience with drifting the FRS but I had no idea how this car would perform. On the drive to the event, I rode out with a whole bunch of other people. It was 6:30am, we met at my house and I’m sure we woke the entire neighborhood. On the highway, we were all smashing around 80mph but everyone seemed to be speeding away from me. I didn’t want to abuse my car too much so I stayed back, 80 was fast enough for me. Turns out I forgot about the 4.6 ratios so in reality I was only going around 70, what a fuckin’ nerd. Anyway, we finally arrived at our destination and my car was running like a champ still. 

We did our parade lap and my confidence was building up, if it hasn’t broken down already, it wont! The first entry was almost like a rite of passage, everything I had worked for paid off and it felt like I had been driving this car for years. Even with such a minimal amount of power I had a blast. Looking back I didn’t get as aggressive as I should have but there’s always room for improvement! This thing definitely lived up to and even exceeded my expectations:

 

At this point the car looks okay, but I didn’t like having the typical multicolored 240 so I bought another black hood that wasn’t in the best condition for pretty cheap ($210). The front portion was bent downward but I was able to take a hammer to “fix it”.  Since the fenders were an ugly gray I sprayed over them with some rattle can to make the car look decent. Painting is fun and all, it’s just so much work. Props to people who do it for a living!

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I know I said I bought 50mm spacers earlier on but I just remembered that those were 25mm spacers that I bought off Goob (@gerchhh). Around this time is when I got those fatties and slapped them on. This was pretty much all the prep I needed for the next event. I went with Bryan (@b.223_) and it was a great time.

I ran a third event with just Ian (@longboi.wav) the next month for a bit more seat time. Keep in mind I’m still using this rattling transmission that sounds like someone threw a bag of pebbles into. Still. Going. Strong. I actually ended up illegally tandeming with Erik (@eherschend) which was a horrible idea because it made me want to blow more money to set up my car to legally tandem. Thanks Erik. I wish we would have gotten a video of it! At this point my driving confidence skyrockets, I even put it on my resume.

I also managed to pick up some other goodies: Uras Fender Covers, Ganadors, a 330mm deep corn silver Nardi, and a brand spankin’ new rebuilt transmission (Total of $1150)! Super stoked to pick up all of these but most of them will just be set aside until I have everything I need. It’s been nearly five months since I ordered the Uras Kit at this point. I guess this isn’t too long of a wait relative to some other folks I’ve heard about.

Let me tell you about the first time I hit tandems, well, legally. It was quite the experience. You know how I said Erik (@eherschend) and I tried to go door to door? Well that really got me hooked so I looked around to have some door bars installed. Since I already had a 4 point Autopower cage installed and painted, I wanted something removable so I could eventually take the entire thing out and have it recoated eventually. Someone told me about Matt Fields’ shop, Drift Cave (@driftcave) and how they did custom fab work. I hit them up not knowing shit about what I wanted and essentially left the project entirely up to them. I email them asking about the job and how much it would cost, not providing a single detail about dimensions or materials (cause well frankly, I didn’t fuckin’ know) and they told me to bring it by. I drive over to the shop  and Mr. Fields himself comes out to take a look at the car (If I’m being honest I had no idea that it was the Matt Fields, I never seen any photos of him and I didn’t want to assume the first White guy I see named Matt was him). They told me they’d have to cut the door panels – which I anticipated – and it would be roughly $600. Cool sounds like a plan! They did an amazing job. As you can see from the photo below, the door panels remained intact and it’s incredibly subtle. Literally exactly how I hoped it would be! It came out to $832 total, well worth the money.

The following weekend was the next Drift Central (@driftcentral_official) event and man was I ready. The tech inspectors were a bit iffy about my cage so I had to wait for the OK from Carlos- the host of the event. I pull up to ask him and he was like “whaaat these are sick“, I think that meant they passed, not sure though. Anyway, I wanted to do some solo runs to get a feel for the track layout before I started officially tandeming and I got a couple runs in before John (@youngebola_) pulls up next to me and says to go for it. I wasn’t really warmed up but my proud ass was like fuck it I ain’t no bitch. Of course the more experienced driver chases so the only thing that was going through my mind was DO. NOT. SPIN. OUT. DO. NOT. SUCK. I think the fact that I was absolutely ecstatic contributed to my level of driving because I’m not sure I messed up once the entire day, well I didn’t crash at least.

Driving solo is fun and all but after a while it gets incredibly monotonous since there’s no margin of risk and a bunch of room for error. With tandems, adrenaline skyrockets mainly because I don’t want to fuck up the other driver’s car and it keeps you on your toes. I had the honor of sliding with two notoriously good drivers John (@yungebola_) and Robby (@robby.s.wayne). This was a bit intimidating to say the least because I’m not sure they knew I had zero experience with it, I don’t think I’d ever be able to live down smacking into one of them. While I was doing runs with John, Robby jumps in out of no where and it’s just round after round and over time I get more and more rowdy, like let. me. touch. them. doors. breh. Eventually I even chased! Not to sound weird or anything but I’ll admit I for sure wanted to impress these dudes (Nah Justin, there’s no getting around how weird that sounds ya fuckin’ weirdo), like these are some of the better drivers around my area, I gotta represent Uprise! Oh yeah I’m part of a club, well a group of friends, called Uprise.

I also jumped into a tandem with Erik which was a blast, sorry for the shit tier photo, it’s actually a screen grab from a video you’ll see in a second! I think with some practice we can definitely be damn near door to door.

At the end of the day I could see the GTA San Andreas Respect+ floating around as well as that infamous beat ringing in my ears. Not sure how these dudes were mirroring each other so well, definitely need to get to their level of driving! Anyway, enjoy these videos shot by my wife (@the.rizzamejia)!

This day was by far the funnest day I’ve ever had with cars. Last but not least the total including the parts from the previous post: $13,884 + $1150 + $832 = $15,866! If you’re new to cars, it’s not too late to get out!

 

Remember how I thought my throw out bearing was bad so I dropped my transmission and swapped the clutch? I thought that noise was unsettling, a few pebbles rattling around, but after the past event those pebbles did a bit of exercise and turned themselves into whole ass rocks. I’m sure it could have lasted a couple more events but I didn’t want to test my luck so I decided to throw that brand new transmission in. With the help of Ian (@longboi.wav), Diangelo (@dandgelo) and Kyle(@suicyle) we swapped everything in a record breaking three hours when we were only supposed to prep to drop it. Of course, nothing car related ever works out perfectly, the T bolts that secured the transmission mount to the transmission SOMEHOW stripped so the next day I was forced to take a dremmel to them. Luckily Tim (@not180sx) had brand new bolts for me so I buttoned everything up and we were good to go! 

A lot of people said short shifters are shit but honestly I really like how it feels. I think it’s easy to base a lot of opinions off hearsay (well for me at least), like how clutches are incredibly hard so don’t even try, or rotary engines are difficult to work with, or 240s are unreliable – the list goes on, but I’ve learned to speak from experience and not spread stigmas that may or may not be true (with some caveats of course, never buy replica wheels. I’ve never owned any but I can assure you they suck. But you just said speak from experience! Well I’ve never met Hitler but I can guarantee you he was an awful person so fuck off). It’s a good way to extend the knowledge base of the car community and open up the floor for different opinions. In essence: never try never know! (again, know replica wheels suck) Anyway I ended up only driving a total of 12 miles before the car ended up back in the garage on jack stands because I uh, well I got a flat. Friendly reminder to get an alignment or at the very least inspect your tires regularly. This one creeped up on me because my dumbass thought my alignment was OK but I had some terrible toe wear on the very inner side of my front passenger side tire. Luckily I have some great friends with spare wheels (@not180sx, @notkouki, @notae86) who came to save the day! I drove it home and dumped it into the garage and I figured I might as well get ready for the kit!

While it was sitting in the garage, I found a spare heart for it from David (@paint_brush_fingers) for $500. Another shitty old KA24DE with a whopping 212,000 miles on it that’ll eventually dig another hole into my pocket in the form of a turbo charger. We’ll save that story for another day (Maybe like 2032 when I actually start building it, stay tuned!) It’s nice to have something to build over time, once mine blows I should be able to drop this one in! Again, back to the earlier topic – SR20s are cool and all but I’m going to give KAT a chance.

I know this update was on the boring side but bear with me! VERY big things ahead. I figure I should start talking about lessons I’ve learned also. Total Cost: $16,366

It was an ordinary California Monday morning August 6th, 2018. The sun was red from the state in it’s most natural form, engulfed in flames. I get up at 6:30 am (okay, 6:52am) to get rea(FINE 7:01am, are you happy?)dy for the following work week. Roughly an hour later I arrive at work and per usual, I check my emails – LinkedIn Connections, Udemy updates, Quora Digest, Wolfreign Motors, Palmetto State Armory, Payp- wait what the fuck? wOLFREIGN?! WHAT. WHAT?! After nearly half of a whole calendar year, dating back to February 23rd, when my entire life led up to me placing an order of $1500 for beautifully manipulated and shaped fiberglass meticulously crafted by a fine group of Japanese gods amongst men who’ve blessed the universe with Uras, I receive an email that injects a breath of fresh air into my lifeless collection of bones:

THANK YOU @WOLFREIGNMOTORS, I CAN’T WAAIT a second hold on. MY CAR ISN’T EVEN READY. Queue the mini montage! 

So Ian(@longboi.wav) found out that his T3 Front Lower Control Arms (FLCAs) on his S13 were actually for an S14 which is incredibly unsafe as the balljoints on either chassis are completely different. Since my car was already on jack stands we agreed to swap FLCAs if I paid for the necessary balljoints to press into my OEM pair. $70 for extended LCAs? Sign me up!

I then took a short trip down to LA with the wife (@the.rizzamejia) and picked up some BN +30mm front fenders. I am a bit sad how BN isn’t as popular as it was a few years back but I guess change is vital. Still, BN is flames. Funny story with this is I had my eye on these fenders a month ago but I was already making the journey to pick up a hood for Sal (@sg14k) and some fenders for myself, in great shape, for $800. Now this isn’t the best deal but it isn’t a bad deal at all. Anyway, I message this guy, everything is cool, all set with the truck and I make the 12 hour total drive day trip. Literally almost the minute I get into LA, this guy messages me and says I was outbid. Wonderful. I didn’t want to shell out the extra $100 so I politely informed him and decided to collect my losses and go home. If in the unlikely chance you keep up with this blog, I wish you the best in this ever changing world. Nonetheless, the omniscient forces of this universe took pity on me and I was able to grab these cool vented fenders for $360 off of @drews14 a month later. Moral of the story: L’s are inevitable when it comes to any and every aspect of cars. Get used to them, embrace them, nourish them, maybe sometimes you get them for a reason!

I have a really bad habit of spending my down time on Craigslist and Zilvia. I came across a pretty cool Zeta 1 for relatively cheap, $460, off of @originaldonjosh and jumped right on it. I “needed” a passenger seat anyway! As much as I’d like to, I can’t keep secrets for very long when it comes to new parts so I let a bunch of my friends know. Justin (@justinzenki) really liked it so he asked if I wanted to trade for his Zeta 3, I agreed without much hesitation. Since Rizza(@the.rizzamejia) is going to be spending the most time as my copilot I wanted to have the nicest possible passenger seat (within my budget of course, whatever that is).

Longer lower control arms requires longer inner tie rods. I was looking at some more expensive options such as PBM until Pedro (@lowborghini) recommended OEM tie rods off an 03-08 Altima/Maxima which were only $50 with outer tie rods compared to $100 for just aftermarket inners. I bought some aftermarket dust boots off of Amazon ($30) and slapped everything on. The combination of LCAs and extended inner tie rods extended my track width substantially, you’ll see! Total Cost: $16,366 + $70 + $360 + $460 + $80 = $17,336. My mom would obliterate me if she knew exactly how much I’ve spent!