CamryOnBronze

VR wheels finished my rear Blitz Z2 yesterday and sent me a photo. Final specs are 18×10 +21. Hopefully they’ll be here next weekend but I’m not sure with the holiday. Can’t wait to see these things in person!

 
I worked on the car last night for the first time in a while. I made a bracket for the Defi  boost gauge sensor, sorted my vacuum lines, filled the diff, and worked out a few other small details. Should be ready to go soon I hope. It always astounds me how long the small details take to complete.

I put the front wheels on for a quick peek. So excited to see the aero on, wheels on, and the car in the driveway!  

A friend sent me this photo after mounting up my front tires for me today. 215/40/17 Kenda Kaiser on 17×9 +15 Blitz Techno Speed Z2. I tried really cheap tires this time because I’m just going to ruin them anyway.

I heard from VR wheels that the lips arrived last week, have been machined, and should be back from polishing tomorrow. Pretty stoked! So anxious to have them back, mount the tires, and get this car on the road!

I like calling gauges meters, lol. Tonight I finally bit the bullet and installed my Defi Link Meter gauges into my dashboard. I always wanted to try this when I had the car before, but I never wanted to ruin my mint dashboard. Tonight I exclaimed “YOLO” and started going wild with the hole saw bit.

I have five meters right now so I’m not sure if I will just keep the four in the dash or leave one extra one on the dash in a gauge cup like I currently have mocked up. We’ll see!

Thanks to Itai, BH, and Olly for inspiring me to make this happen. Pretty excited about the look!

Damon

I decided to mess around with my camera while the family was outside this evening. It’s really nice that it has been staying light out longer and I have been able to work outside without a closed garage door and a space heater for a change (even though it’s supposed to be 34 tonight, lol.)

  
Last night I finally got my Hot Road rear valence installed. It took a lot of trial and error and it still isn’t perfect, but I think it’s finally close enough. Next I’ll move on to the side skirts and then finally I will fit the front bumper.

  
Really love the look of this aero the more I mess with it. Hopefully I can do it justice when it’s on the ground. My Hot Road hood is finally due to hit the states Friday, so fingers crossed that happens!

My oil pressure gauge arrived yesterday completing the combo I’ve been collecting. I picked up a 60mm hole saw bit to install them in the dash, so I’m going to work on measuring it out tonight and will hopefully get to it tomorrow night. I’m nervous to ruin an uncracked dash but it’s necessary to get the look I want.

  
I’ve been debating a 330mm Nardi instead of my 350mm from the Atisto, but I’ll probably just keep it. I need a new OEM shift boot as this one is from the donor coupe and it’s pretty ratty.

  
A Safety 21 cage sure would look nice here wouldn’t it? Can’t wait.

  
Really happy with these seats. Huge thanks to Jesse Streeter and my homie Brett for helping me get these stateside!

  
The lips for my rear wheels are supposed to be at VR wheels tomorrow. They told me the wheels will be completed and ready to ship in about a week, so hopefully that pans out. My tires will be here tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get the fronts mounted and do the rears when they arrive.

  
That’s all for now I guess. Ugh I’m SO ANXIOUS to get this car out of the garage! It finally feels attainable. Can’t wait to see how all the hard work pays off.

I’ll keep ya posted! Thank you for looking.

Damon

It’s finally getting really nice out here in Michigan. Today it was 82 or so and in the evenings it’s perfect since the bugs aren’t out yet.

  
Alicia is at the store and the girls are asleep so I’ve been tinkering with my car. I adjusted the angle of the seat like my friend Jimmy said to and it’s pretty comfy now. I really like my interior now aside from the obvious lack of a safety 21 roll cage. Still waiting on my oil pressure gauge and then I can install those too.

  
I tried to put my rear Hot Road valence on last night again and thought I had it, but the tape is already failing. I’m going to try a new method next week and I think it will be all set. I was frustrated with the FRP aero and wanted to sell it and get OEM kouki aero, but I think I will stick with it and get it to work.

I got my blow off valve back from being welded today and put that on. Now I can start the car up again which is always fun. I’ve been peeling the tape off of the car from the JDM window visors I used to have and am done with one side.

   
My hood should be to GTR Garage in Portland with any luck late next week and then it will ship here. It’s been four and a half months so I’m really excited. No idea where my rear wheels are though and that bums me out. I really hope they are done soon so I can put this thing on the ground. Tires should arrive next week.

It feels like I don’t have much time or the items I need to finish lately so I haven’t been doing a whole lot. I hope it finally comes together soon so I can enjoy the nice weather!

Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to buy your mom a gift! More quick hot updates like this soon I hope.

Damon 

Life has been ultra hectic lately for me. Lots going on and work has just been crazy, so I really haven’t devoted a lot of time to my car. Things are different this time around and my priorities have shifted, so it is much easier for me to let the car be pushed to the side in order to spend time with my family. I still enjoy tinkering with it as much as ever, but I also know that it’s not my main priority.

I decided to change things up a bit and sold my red Bride Zeta II and Ergo to a couple of my friends. Brett found and alerted me to some really cool black Bride seats for sale in Japan, so I decided to finally make the switch and go back to black seats for the car’s rebuild. I had been going back and forth on this for months and figured I might as well try a slightly more subtle approach in my old age, haha.

The red seats have been replaced by a Zieg II Pro Series (carbon kevlar shell) and a Brix 1.5, both of which are in decent enough condition. They both have their share of flaws and fading, but I got each of them for an awesome price and I’m happy with the decision overall. The Zieg was missing the foam from one cushion and a head pillow, but luckily I was able to source both items from Japan.

I’ve got a few small things to do before I can call the interior complete. I am currently on the hunt for a Defi oil pressure gauge to complete my set, so as soon as I have one of those I can wire and install the gauges. I want to mount them in the dash on the passenger side, but I think I will probably wimp out on drilling into my clean dash and mount them in gauge cups on top of the dash. I also need to wire my Pivot headlight controller and adjust the angle of my driver’s seat. I would really like to add a Safety 21 7 point dash escape cage as well before I consider the interior complete.

As for the exterior of the car, I finally picked up my aero from paint about two weeks ago. It had been painted for weeks but I just didn’t have time to go get it. The painter did an awesome job and I am really happy with all of it. I got anxious the other night and decided to test fit everything. The spoiler and tail light trim are installed and I am hoping to finish the remaining items soon, but this is a good indication of what the car will look like with the Hot Road aero installed once complete.

I’m super excited to see the car finished and on the ground. The aero looks better than I anticipated and I am really digging the look with the factory mirrors in place so far. My Hot Road hood has been delayed about 2-3 more weeks due to a miscommunication with GTR Garage’s shipping vendor in Japan, but I think that will really send it over the top once installed. Very excited to finish the car and see it on the ground.

You may have noticed that my Work XT7s are gone and have been replaced. I stumbled upon this pair of Blitz Techno Speed Z2s for sale on Instagram and decided to jump ship. I considered buying an 18x9J/10J set on Zilvia several months ago, but the offsets were weak and I didn’t want to run 18s up front. When this pair of original 17×9 +15 popped up I had to have them. I’ve never really seen a 17″ set of these, let alone in sizing this good.

For the rear, I picked up a pair of 18x8J Z2s with the same darker face finish I found on Yahoo Japan for a great price. When they arrived here in the states, I sent them off to VR Wheels in California to have them relipped to 18x10J +21. Both pairs will end up being 1/2″ less aggressive than my Type 03s were, so I think that should be much less of a hassle and I will be a lot happier with the outcome. I am hoping they’ll be complete sometime in the next two weeks so that I can order tires. I am considering running a bit more tire this time, but I haven’t come to a conclusion just yet.

Aside from waiting on the rear wheels and a set of tires, the car is more or less ready to be driven. I need to have my blow off valve welded this week, bleed the brakes, install the boost controller, and finish a few other small detail items before it can be driven. My goal is to have the bugs worked out by the end of May so that I can cruise out to Grid Life to hang out with some friends, but we’ll see if things go my way or not.

If you read through all of that, I salute you! I’ll try to do a better job at updating this as things come together next month. Looking forward to having my car back on the road again!

Damon

I’ve been really anxious to post here, but things have been very hectic as of late. I haven’t done much as I am waiting for my rear wheels and I need to order tires, but here’s one snap of how the car sits now in a mocked up state for anyone that happens to check out my blog.

Full details soon. 👀

Damon

It’s such a great feeling to be sitting here writing this post right now. Very surreal. The weather warmed up this weekend in Michigan and I was able to fire the car up for the first time since I parted it out back in October of 2012.

Prior to firing the car up, I buttoned up a few of the many loose ends that need to be addressed on the car. After finishing up the putting the Wiring Specialties Pro engine harness on the car, I filled all of the fluids, installed the driveshaft, and bolted the remainder of the exhaust in place. I also picked up another Braille battery and mounted it where it previously resided in the hatch area.

The car didn’t want to start initially, but I quickly realized that I did not have any ground straps in place like I did when I owned the car previously. A couple crude & quick ground wires from the head to the chassis and the car fired right up! Here’s one of the first starts prior to installing the catback:

A few more random clips of the car warming up and idling. Probably pretty boring, but I was really excited to hear this thing running again:

Overall I couldn’t be happier to hear the car starting up and running on its own. It’s always an amazing feeling to see all of the hard work pay off and to rest some of the worries that have accumulated over the rebuild process. I am still a decent ways away from actually driving the car, but it feels good to be over such a large hurdle just as the Michigan weather is finally beginning to improve.

Damon

It’s crazy that a month has gone by since my last update. This February has been one of the coldest on record for much of Michigan with numerous nights in the 0 to -25 degrees F range which has really done a number on my motivation. The car was close enough to completed for me to slow down a bit and only spend time out in the garage when I was really motivated to do so.

Despite the cold, I have managed to make some progress since my last update. The correct Koyo aluminum radiator arrived from Turn 14, so I was able to toss that in the bay and get all of the associated brackets and hoses buttoned up.

I picked up a set of NISMO engine and transmission mounts from a friend of mine, but found that the engine mounts just raised the engine up too much. I decided to sell them and replace them with a set of Cusco solid mounts. I ran these on the car previously and thought they had been discontinued, but was happy to find out that they were still available.

I decided to replace the knock off exhaust that came with the S13 coupe with some higher quality components, the first of those being another Cobra downpipe from Parts Shop Max. The craftsmanship is top notch and the downpipe is tucked as close to the chassis as possible, reducing the amount of scraping and blown turbo gaskets by a huge margin. I also really like the fact that it utilizes the factory downpipe to transmission mount bracket for a stronger overall setup.

Along with the downpipe, I picked up a cheap test pipe from megan. This piece will see the most pavement, so I wasn’t too worried about getting anything nice. This setup worked well for me previously, so I figured there was no sense in changing a good thing. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a friend was able to track down a Kakimoto N1 catback for me and I finally got a hold of it last weekend. I’m really looking forward to getting it on the car and seeing what it sounds like. Finally, I grabbed another set of Circuit Sports exhaust hanger bushings to keep everything mounted up nice and high.

Yury at Wiring Specialties was kind enough to hook me up once again with a brand new wiring harness. This time I am running the Pro edition harness which I am really impressed with so far. Super nice piece- can’t beat the quality of a brand new engine harness!

With the wiring harness and most of the exhaust now mounted up, I turned my attention to the fuel setup. I ran brand new hard lines from the fuel tank to the engine bay. I forgot to snap a photo, but hopefully the fuel setup should be all set. This was not very fun at all and I really hope I never have to tackle a job like that again. Really glad to have that out of the way!

I am very close to being able to try starting the car. I still need to fill all of the fluids, connect a couple more vacuum lines, and install the catback before I can give it a try. Hopefully with the weather warming up next week I’ll be able to complete the finishing touches and try cranking it up.

As for the interior, I received my Bride FG seat rail for the driver’s side and was able to finish installing the interior. I found a pair of rear plastics locally and tossed those in, as well as the hatch carpeting and NeXt Miracle Cross bar. I ended up selling the Safety 21 roll cage I had purchased because it was designed for a non-sunroof chassis. Rather than go through the work of cutting, welding, and powder coating it I decided it was best to make a little cash and address the cage later down the road someday. I still need to install the gauges and Pivot controller, but I’ll worry about that stuff later.

I sourced an OEM kouki 180SX wing from Japan (with cool racing stripe), thus completing the exterior setup. I dropped everything off with my friend Tim to have a buddy of his paint it, so that should probably be done soon. Still waiting on the Hot Road hood to arrive from GTR Garage, but I would imagine that will be here just in time for spring. I am definitely pumped to see the exterior of the car come together and hear it come to life again soon!

Some boxes arrived the other day from Work Wheels. They should contain some pretty nifty doo-dads. Waiting on a set of tires and I will be ready for spring!

I’ll try to keep the updates going, I know I am bad at that. There should also be a lot of new content hitting Speed Academy soon as well, so stay tuned for that! Thanks for reading.

Damon

I carved out a good chunk of time last Friday night to work on the car and was pretty pleased with what I was able to accomplish. Here’s a quick list of what I was able to install:

• Alternator
• Power steering pump
• Drive belts
• Clutch fan
• Chase Bays power steering lines & reservoir
• Coolant overflow tank
• GReddy intercooler & piping
• SPC rear suspension arms
• Front coilovers
• Front brakes
• Rear brakes
• C’s short shifter & NISMO shift knob
• Nardi classic 350mm wheel and Works Bell hub

I attempted to install my Koyo radiator and Samco hoses as well, but found that I actually purchased a radiator for a KA24 by mistake. I have the correct radiator on the way from Turn 14 Distribution and expect it to arrive any day now.

Here are some quick photos of how the car sits from my phone:

The next order of business will be running new fuel lines from the tank to the front of the car. The factory hard lines were removed by my friend and replaced with braided lines for the LS setup, but I prefer to run hard lines. I’ll be bending and installing my own lines with supplies I purchased from Jegs.

Once the fuel lines are sorted out, I still have a few things to install before I can fire the car up. The main items include the downpipe, the rest of the exhaust, engine wiring harness, vacuum hoses, blow off valve, intake , MAF sensor, boost controller, and battery. When those items are done, I’ll be able to add the fluids and try firing it up.

Shouldn’t be too long now. I am excited to have the car running so that I can focus on the fun stuff like the interior, exterior, and wheels & tires. I’ll post a more thorough update soon with details and nicer photos of the items I just installed so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

Damon