[lunarbomb]

hey folks, i've been reading through other peoples builds for awhile now. the stuff people pull off in their garages on a budget is pretty awesome. i figured i would contribute and post my current project.

this is how it looked when i originally bought it from a friend. i think daft did the original swap.






i didn't really know what i was going to do with the car at this point. nor did i have any money after purchasing it so i just welded/plated the diff and started making little things.









i made some fixtures and chopped up my knuckles. at this point i'm starting to think dedicated track car.






then i chopped and boxed my FLCAs. i probably would have bought PBM knuckles and FLCAs at this point if i could have afforded them.





i noticed that my front ARB had been relocated forward and down and was hitting the tension rod. i ended up making new brackets to move it back up but still forward.





then i went off the deep end and chopped the front off of my clean kouki. at this point i'm committed to the dedicated track car thing and decided i'd take my time and try to do it right.





cleaned up the subframe and added some PBM stuff.





then i gutted it and stripped out the sound deadening (no dry ice. heat gun and scraper... sucked).





next, i stitch welded the entire car.





got the rack and x-member cleaned up.





cleaned up the engine. all i did was maintenance and some minor changes for reliability. no power mods at all.





these are the base plates i made for the cage.







almost done with the front and the cage. i originally purchased one of enjukus "drift" cages but was not stoked on it at all (it looks just like the picture they show and not like what you see when searching for install pics) so i ended up only using the main hoop and a-pillar pars and made the rest myself.







next, i cut the tunnel out to make room for everything and just to make getting to the transmission easier. this and how i built my cage were heavily influenced by Costa Gialamas and how he built Matt Powers' 2012 car.





i finished the rear of the car and decided the radiator might as well go in the back.





i also decided that the steering column had too much going on and started making a new one. this was pointless work. the OEM column is fine.







it turned out i had a ton of throw left before i would "over-center" the tie-rods so i notched my FLCAs. i still want PBM FLCAs...





replaced all the wheel studs. previous owner did not run hubcentric spacers.





i ended up rebuilding the T56 (multiple times until i got it right). i did the 3rd to 4th synchro housing, bronze shift fork pads, bronze shifter cup, 4130 synchro keys and was going to upgrade the aluminum 3 - 4 shift fork to a steel one but it was already in there.






engine in!





the daft trans x-member worked fine but i decided to box it anyway.





now i started preparing for overs. this part hurt because thes 1/4s were pretty clean.






then i made the firewall/radiator shroud. my little TIG can't weld aluminum so pop rivets it is.





made some ARB end links because the OEM ones were forced into this crazy angle when i moved the ARB.





this is the fuel cell i'm using. i've always used fuel safe on previous projects but aeromotive makes these with internal pump already installed and baffling. it's just too clean and easy.





these are some brackets i made to manage the fuel and coolant lines under the car.





and this is how i ended up routing the coolant lines. again, if i could weld aluminum or had a ton more money, this could have turned out much better.










i originally wanted PBM uprights that would accept dual wilwood calipers but since they were out of stock i got the OEM/wilwood version. i figured i could just modify them to use my z32 calipers and wilwood. i ended up just modifying them for wilwood/wilwood.





and that's the car so far. i plan to finish it early 2014. i'll update as often as possible. in the meantime, http://www.facebook.com/lunarbomb it's pretty much just a build log for this car and occasional drift related bits.

always open to constructive criticism!