89 Hatch Build-$300 shell to clean daily

[Rustys14]

Well, I figured I would throw my build out there and see what every body thinks.

First up I guess I should give the story of this car. I got this car in December 2011. This is my 5th 240 so I am not new to the game. I found the car while scouring craigslist for a shell to turn into a drift project since my s14 that I was using at the time was getting a little too nice to risk crashing at the track. I got it from some Honda kid who had bought it to drive while he did a turbo setup on his ek but had blown the engine while attempting some "mad tyte" drifts. The shell seemed pretty nice when I went to check it out (bone stock other then an eBay exhaust) and the kid still had the transmission and everything else to go with it so I gave him $300 bones and put it on the trailer.

The car had a very complete interior with an uncracked dash but the previous owner had stored it with the windows down for some reason so it had a lot of dirt and mold on everything. The first thing I did was remove pretty much everything and shampoo all the mold out then I rolled the windows up and got it ready for storage.
Only pic I have of the interior, this is after I did some work to it. Blue interior FTW!


I lost the original pics from when I got it home (more on that later) but this is about how the car looked when I got it back since the only thing done for these was a motor and a non rusted out hatch.








The car sat like that for awhile since drift season was about over when I got it and I wasn't really in a big hurry to do anything with it. Then fast forward to May 2012 and this happened to my s14.


I basically got rear ended by some dude who was texting and was sandwiched between him and a truck. I was fine (Bride seat ftw!) but my s14 was destroyed along with pretty much everything I owned since I was moving back home from school for the summer and everything was in the trunk.

I ended up getting a lot more insurance money then I thought and they let me keep the car (they even towed it 200 miles to my house for free). I was planning to use the money for a down payment on a FR-S but the rational side of me kicked in so I used it to pay off some of my student loans.

So now with no car and almost no money, I turned to the s13 shell that was sitting neglected in my yard. I needed a motor in a hurry so I went out and bought a $100 single cam from a guy on a local 240 forum and swapped it in. I went with the single cam because everything needed for that motor came with the car and because the ka24de in my s14 was in questionable shape after the accident.

Motor in


After I got the car running I swapped all the goodies that I could over from my s14 to get the car ready for the upcoming drift season.
Parts swapped over:
OS Giken 2-way diff
Bride seat and rail
Griproyal steering wheel (best wheel ever)
SPEC lightweight flywheel
B&M shifter
Tien tie rods with rack spacer
I also pulled my adjustable Rucas, tension, traction, toe rods and subframe spacers but I was sick of working on the car at this point so I didn't bother putting them on until later.

All I needed was coils and since the Super Drifts from the s14 wouldn't work I traded them to a local 240 guy who ordered some s13 EMUSA coils for his s14 by mistake. I know what you are thinking and I was fully aware that they were $450 eBay coils but they were new and I was getting desperate plus the Tien rears needed a rebuild so I justified the trade that way. Here are what they looked like.


Getting the car ready for install. I'm sure every 240 owner is familiar with this sight.


The first thing that I noticed about the EMUSA coilovers was that the bracket that is supposed to hold the brake line is welded on upside down. I just laughed at the Chinese quality control and moved on with the install, but here is a pic for lolz.


The rest of the install went pretty smooth except for one of the front studs breaking while I was tightening it down. Seriously the metal they used for the studs is so crappy that it simply broke, I didn't cross thread it or anything and this was before it even got to the bottom. Since this made me uneasy I went to the hardware store and bought some grade 8 bolts and replaced the studs with those. Also I noticed that the top hats were not torqued down so I torqued them to Nissan spec.

Some pics of the install




And the car after


Notes on the EMUSA coilovers:
-They are very cheaply made but the quality seems to be on par with every other eBay coilover.
-They do not go nearly low enough without removing locking collars/flipping the bracket and drooping the rears. The pic above is as low as they go without removing collars and proper preload.
-The ride quality on them is actually fantastic. I have owned/driven on alot of high end coilovers and I have to say that the ride quality of these is just as good, if not better then more expensive brands.
-They seem to be pretty durable, I have had them since last May and they haven't blown or started leaking yet (knock on wood). That is with daily driving and several track days

Anyway back to the build. After the coilovers went on I pulled it of the garage and took it to Maaco for some paint. I've had them paint several of my cars in the past and have always been impressed, just remember that you should do your own body/prep work before you take it. I filled in all the major dents in the car before taking it. For $350 you can't beat a Maaco job, the car was one color again and looking great!

Some pics after paint. I just had it resprayed the stock color which was KG1.








About a week after paint, I took it to its first drift day (no pics sorry). The car did great at the event but on the way home the oil pressure light started flickering on and off and I could hear a distinct rattling sound. I've had alot of experience with single cams before so I immediately knew that the timing guide had broke. The previous owner told me that it had a metal guide installed but I guess he lied. Sucks because it would have saved me a lot of work if I had known.

Anyway I decided to pull the motor again since the throwout bearing was going bad and it would be easier to just yank the whole thing.

Motor back out.


The contents of my oil pan lol.


Metal guide FTW!


Motor back in.


Once it was running again it stayed like this for a while.


That was partly because I had just picked up a new project, an 89 seafoam green/gray coupe! I have always wanted a two tone so when I saw this for $600 I couldn't pass it up.


Then last month I decided that the hatch needed some love in the way of some wheels and more low. So I tyred up some Square g6 wheels that I had been sitting on for a while and prepped the car for lowness.

Harnesses tucked




Then I removed the locking collars from the coils, flipped the front brackets, drooped the rears (not too happy about the droop) and put the wheels on. I also finally put my rear suspension arms on so I could play with the camber/ fix the alignment.





Played around with instragram lol


The car came out looking a lot better then I expected. I would have liked to go a little lower but the coils are completely maxed out and there is nothing else I can do for now. It also could use some 5mm spacers in the front but I'll wait until I'm ready to put my z breaks on for those.

That's about how the car is going to sit for a while since I'm back at school. No major plans other then to install my jdm amber/clear signal lights and chuki sidskirts when they come in.

Here's a pic of the car from yesterday, I hate winter lol.


That's about let me know what you guys think! Good, bad I don't care. I will leave you guys with a teaser pic of whats coming this spring though.