FuckFlorida - breakshit coupe

[wolf904]

It's been awhile since I've done one of these. The last time I did was my first s13 from a bare shell when I was like 18, I guess this is fitting considering I feel this coupe my first attempt at an actual build...

I miss threads from the older days where they documented the builder's progression through their life along with the car itsself, so that's how I will try to do mine. Drifting and trying to finish a car has had a hold on my mind and attention span for the past 4 years, interrupting most of my adult life goals, so I might as well have something to look back on in depth to remind myself how crazy this shit was one day.

To explain the title real quick;
-As you all know, I am from the tErRiBlE state of florida which is completely doing it wrong and no style, so had to make the title reflect that (;
-Breakshift is my group of good friends in north florida that share a similar outlook on grassroots drifting with the same goals, drive hard with the homies in good looking yet functional cars. In a joking sense we are also Breakshit since thats usually all we do with our cars. This is my main drift car I plan to drive with the team so that's the reasoning on that.

Background before we begin. Let me just say there is SO much more to each of these stages, but I could go on forever about things leading up to 2017 and the coupe, so I will just briefly summarize the main things:

2014:

Be 18 and trade some dad a 2003 acura tl daily plus 2k for their son's RB25 Zenki (guess he wanted a more comfortable daily) after going to a local track day and realizing this shit was way cooler than parking show cars

Untitled by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Go through alot with that chassis, and essentially learn how to work on cars through it. Also during this time, pickup a s13 hatch shell to build as a track car.

2015-2016:

side by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

bare bay by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

caprep by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_20151123_153732245 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_20150728_172539265_HDR by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

s13 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Untitled by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

S14 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

2016-2017:

Things start to get interesting here...

So at this point I know about, and look up to, most popular blogs throughout the years, basic traditional styling ques, the basics of a drift car's suspension and components, and have experience interchanging most parts on a schassis. Still little to no seat time drifting, occasional street drift fucking around, but nothing serious and noone really who knew what they were doing to point me in the right direction.

I ended up parting the gold hatchback, trying to get another caged hatch with an sr20 that didnt work out and got parted out as well, got a stock KA beater zenki for 600 that needed work, doing a ton of maintenance stuff that that car needed, essentially learning to drift in that car, selling the KA zenki, getting a SR hatch shell with a ton of japanese goodies, and also eventually seeing through a short navan phase on the rb zenki, and eventually a origin stylish phase before that car went downhill.

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Went to final bout SSE , decided actual drifting was pretty cool ( Canaan was a road course and I rode in a near 400 hp rb25 cressida, KA had to go and I needed to start driving my own rb car. but not before picking up my friends hatch project)

IMG_20161014_134503 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_20161015_134435 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

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Wanted to go drift more than I wanted to get started on this sr hatch project, which I had very high standards for, which also ends up in alot of money, so I took cool parts off of it and used it on the rb zenki. Got it put together enough to fix most of the little issues it had over the years, and went drifting in it.

12963860_1213213728730174_7471141743690368544_n by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_20161120_154245 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

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December 2016, my friends that make up Breakshift ( the ones who drove final bout) decide we should change the team color to green and go do fun dumb shit in low, kitted, themed cars like our idols from the golden age of japan, with a few modern styling ques here and there. I've got the car driftable but no cage yet, aero kit but no paint, and also the turbo manifold stud had broken by the turbo trying to replace a turbo gasket the month before. I wanted to paint the car asap, but decided itd be best to fully dial in the suspension, chassis, and engine/drivetrain stuff and paint last, that way after paint I could get in it and go drift, then get a cage last. This is where everything went downhill with my first 240, which i had daily drove in highschool and college for over 2 years, and was now about to make my dedicated drift car.

IMG_20161226_172550 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

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dropped the stylish off for some repairs, had no will to drive the car aero less, and brought it back home to put on stands to go over the entire car and make someone elses build my own in a sense and fix all the little things I hadn't liked over the years, and make it a good reliable drift car.

2017:

Spent the first half of the year constantly working on the rb25 car. After SSE everyone kind of stopped drifting on the team. My friend sold his miata to build his s13 coupe, and my friend with the cressida had used alot of his funds to make that event so he was out for awhile. Without any real urgency to finish the car, I definitely started getting lazy with the progress of it all. I ended up getting my first full time job at a pizza place down the street to get constant flow of money to build the car, previously had been working several part time jobs and selling parts on the side and whatnot. Working full hours a week helped a ton, but however left me with no TIME to work on the car, but all the MONEY to do it. Which had been the complete OPPOSITE all the other years before, hahaha.

20170422_150121 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

I still had the sr hatch at my house unregistered, but for whatever reason my neighbors complained about it being under a car cover in my driveway to the town ( I don't even live in a home owners association so I was mad, but had to comply). I had to get the car operating. Having all the parts, but working a full time job, and another project already not finished, it was tough. It was my first sr swap, and I didnt really have much help except for my past experiences helping people with their cars years ago. Threw it all together, and it worked. It wasnt up to the standards I had for it in the long term, but I ended up liking it so much I registered it over the zenki since I was redoing lots of things on the rb25 and chassis.

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The ka zenki from before was stock angle and just coilovers, and I felt i learned the basics of drifting in that car and learned alot about momentum in a slow car haha. this car was stock sr20, coilovers, suspension arms, no bumpstops on lca's, and decent working ebrake. Basically the next step graduating from learning in a ka car, without going too overboard. This car was just as reliable as the zenki, and never let me down. LOTS of street drifting ( imagine going to final bout at a 3rd/4th gear road course, being hyped on drifting, then taking your rb car down and not drifting for months but working till 4am every night thinking about drifting. If you were to get into another turbo driftable car, you'd drive it every other night too). I drifted the car stock boost at first but it was definitely very slow. Eventually the boost got turned up to 14 psi and that helped, did 2 events in orlando along with countless nights of street drifting for about 2-3 months.

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Eventually I redid the whole rb car how I wanted, got it running again after fighting a broken stud in the hotside of the head that prevented me from putting the manifold back on for a while. Got everything put back together, ran good, just needed the fans wired. However, there was more things I wanted to do it , and realized I was running out of money for 2 cars. One had to go, and I had liked the sr20 so much, and the feeling of ground up building your own car to drift, that I would just start over.

At first I was going to part the car out, however someone on facebook who was going to buy the rb swap, ended up buying the whole car without ALOT of things. It took me a total of 4 days to sell the car for 6500 non running with me keeping a ton of parts. I never once made a forsale post or a partout post.

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With 6500 in my hand, a storage unit of s14 parts still to sell, freshly coming off of about 7 months of building a car to drift only to get 90% of the way there to sell it, I had a great desire to pickup a car and make it my own like I had with the hatch. This time my goal was to make the sr swap cleaner with even more upgrades and power, way more suspension modifications, a cage, an aero kit, and paint.

2017 pt. 2 - THE COUPE:

This is where it officially begins. Definitely my first, and last, build for a while. I'm pretty burnt out on cars at this point, I just really like driving and want to get seat time at this point while minimalizing working on the car. For this car, I took allllllllll what I had learned from my past s chassis. Now knowing how to build these cars inside and out, and having done it multiple times to my own s chassis's, I was pretty ready. I had the budget, knowledge, and had also quit working so I had the time. For this car I wanted to buy more new parts than ever in the places it counted, for most aftermarket stuff get good deals on BNIB things or lightly used to save some money off of retail, and used parts in places where it didnt matter. At the end of the day, this car is a streetable drift car. My standards for this were not as nearly as high as the ones I had initially had for my red hatch. My goal is I can daily this coupe if I want, drive it hours to the track if I want, but just as easily load it up on the trailer and not worry about it. The main purpose of this car is to shred and throw down, however I still like some creature comforts and reliability.

The day after I sold my zenki I went to buy the coupe. Compression test was 150 across the board, car ran good for a stock blacktop, and manji'd in 3rd all the rainy drive home.

20170626_012125 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

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A kid in the same position as me when I was 18 had put the car together. It had enough good parts it was worth it, and was a clean enough base for a drift car I was okay with the flaws as I could fix them all.

Details on the car when I picked it up:
1989 SE Coupe
Clean pop front with pig lip
power windows/locks/mirrors
full clean interior front and rear minus headliner ( I thought it would be a simple fix, boy was I wrong)
S14 SE Seats (the original ones out of my blue zenki, I had sold them to him years ago)
Aftermarket steering wheel
Original HUD car, with HUD uncracked dash
S13 Blacktop sr20 (engine was in a local drift car from years ago, had reputation for ripping in the scene and the history could be traced back online as far back as when the previous owner got it from the importer, to when he got it running in his old hatch.)
Head decked/cleaned and I believe valve stem seals
Cometic metal HG
ARP headstuds
150 consistent compression sr20det stock bottom end
Spec stage 3 clutch
one piece driveshaft (something thatd come back to fuck me)
welded diff
factory axles and subframe
New ISR arm kit front and rear
255 fuel pump
ISR blast pipes
ISR test pipe
Non working ebrake lol
stock leaking rack, stock lca and tie rods
megan engine mounts
t25 with blitz turbo elbow and downpipe
High mount intercooler setup with HKS BOV and working pop ups
stock radiator
oem fan shroud and clutch fan
stock ecu, injectors, maf etc.
no powersteering but the entire system was there.
17x9.5 cobras
Cusco coilovers (from my old gold hatch hahaha)

Thats the jist of the car. I got everything for $2900, title signed in my name.

Drove the car around for about a week on previous owners plate and registration. Acquired bricks and a shit sil front in that time, then registered the car later. Went to take it out the first night legally, car made it 20 minutes to the local spot before the trans took a shit. Felt really sick coming from my thrown together hatchback SR never letting me down and going to orlando and gainesville multiple times to drift/cruise. With the new car already down, I decided it was time to start the build earlier than I had anticipated. Instead of just pulling the trans, I decided to pull the engine and do everything I wanted to do at once. I wasnt happy with how the engine bay looked at all, and knowing I was going to invest alot of money into the car, I wanted the bay to reflect the work I was capable of.

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Unfortunately thats my stopping point for now since it's 2AM and I've reached a "50 image limit", However as soon as the thread goes live I will update it to the cars current stage, which is basically just getting ready to paint it [=

[wolf904]

Lets see where I left off...

Just pulled the engine after the trans blew. T25 is slow, engine bay looks like ass, trans fucked, tons of things I want to change anyway so it came out.

First order of business was getting rid of the autozone teal
No prep was done before the kid rattlecanned the bay, and of course it was a bitch to take it all off between pressure washing and sanding, then primering it smooth and flat.

This was my first paint job with a gun and primering and it was a good learning experience to say the least. Prep work truly makes it as they say, I wish I could even go back and do it again but for what this car is, I ended up being happy and it was definitely better than what it was before.

20170829_171738 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

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Sanded it a few times to the best of my ability for doing this the first time

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makeshift booth lol

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these coilovers were trash thats why the area wasnt masked off.

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I'm sure you have noticed the quality of images from the beginning of my cars to now has decreased quite a bit... due to me intrigued to learn working on s chassis at 18 VS. having done it 3 or 4 times and just hating being dirty working on a 20 year old car and not driving, and not caring enough to take quality photos with a real camera HAHA.

I will make it a point to start using my camera again to take some better photos with the rest of the car since its pretty easy stuff now to finish it, and that my phone camera sucks ass.

With the engine bay painted and ready, it was time to get the sr in check.

Started collecting some parts, alot of which were new, to make sure this thing could handle some abuse and still be reliable, and some upgrades I had always wanted to do along the way...

20170727_125209 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

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Sold the t25 setup and stock injectors/maf. Picked up a s15 spec r t28, s15 manifold, sti 550s that had been cleaned and flow tested, a RS enthalpy ecu, and a few other goodies. I also decided to go external wastegate for the noises and good boost control ,but utilize the s15 cast manifold to never have to deal with cracked manifolds. My goal was to have a highly responsive setup with just enough torque and power to make grassroots drifting fun and do what I need it to do, but not so much power I constantly break drivetrain weak points and tires.

20170801_152212 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Then I did a ton of maintenance shit to the sr, basic general stuff. The motor already had a Metal headgasket, arp studs, and some head work so that was already done thankfully. Just inspected the head anyways and made sure things were tight, did new gaskets and seals pretty much everywhere, in addition to all new hoses and clamps. Basically everything I had initially wanted to do to my hatch, but without any rush and the budge to do so. Also refreshed some of the manifolds so they didnt look so crusty

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that might of caused some issues lol

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The cold side was fully refreshed and resealed and I was feeling very confident about this engine. It was going to be nice to be able to hop in this car and drive it anywhere on a completely fresh setup knowing it should be perfectly reliable, versus in my hatch always worried in the back of my head if it was going to be this drive where a random coolant hose busted and I wouldnt have any tools..

The car also had a lightweight flywheel and a stage 3 clutch, but i opted to off that clutch for a brand new one anyways, and resurface the lw flywheel to make sure everything was pretty much like new.

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out with the old

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In with the new.

Finessed a warranty from my old TOB to get a free new one for this sr lol

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got a KA trans for a radiator lying around in my storage unit, swapped bellhousings and resealed it. you can see the damage. basically the ebay short shifter i think vibrated so much,broke and caused damage to the bellhousing allowing fluid to escape, and damaged rear bellhousing in such a way for only gears that shift down, and possibly the sus ass one piece driveshaft had something to do with this. however i didnt think much of it at the time, should of been a CLEAR sign to stay away from the one piece, which was a ABS one piece and yoke didnt fully engage trans all the way. Stupid mistakes I wouldn't make again.

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cleaned it all up, resealed it, tightened everything and put TOB and greased pivot point and installed fork and it was all ready. OEM shifter plate now on with a solid bushing.

Did a new water pump and ISR colder thermostat, resealed that, and put a water neck on with a coolant temp sensor plumbed in.

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In this time I had begun to powdercoat a few things to set the engine off and also match the new team color, and also had gotten the s15 manifold modified to be able to run the VBand Tial MVS, got the manifold ceramic coated, and got the t28 modded as well.

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old shitty blurry

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The new new

In this downtime between painting the engine bay/upgrading the sr, I collected some parts here and there for the car

20170819_163251 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Got a gktech Roll center correction kit off of this site for 80 dollars slightly used, acts like a 40mm drop knuckle, gives you more angle, and utilizes a stock LCA and knuckle, and oem length tie rod setup which is fucking sweet in my eyes. I really want to keep this car simple, and have easy failure points, so if shit goes down it is easy to fix the car and keep driving. I love this kit because if you bend a inner or a LCA at the track, there is plenty of people who can get a stock lca to sell you , or get a new tie rod from the parts store, throw it on and ride. Also got some bnib P2M hardened oem length inner tie rods from the same person for an extra 30 bucks, with slip on rack spacers. None of my other cars have had angle, and have all had pretty fucked suspension geometry, so I knew if i could drive those setups, this would help alot.

20170916_170159 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Unfortunately there is no super easy cheap setup for the rear, so I opted for these gktech v3 rear drop knuckles, also bnib from a secondhand seller for less than retail. These have all new pickup points for the suspension arms changing the cars camber gain and grip under squat in drift, so that was cool, uses heim joints, and has like 40mm of drop correction built into it. Also of course has the ability to do dual caliper if i ever opted to do that one day.

[wolf904]

Since my past cars have all had full interior except for the gold hatch which was aids, this car was only missing a headliner, so sourced one out for a sunroof coupe which was incredibly difficult and not cheap

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Re dye'd it black and it came out sweet

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Unfortunately when I went to install it, after wasting too much money on it, I found out this car was originally a slicktop coupe and they added some random sunroof to it. It wasnt even close to lining up. Safe to say I had wasted more money than I'd like to admit on something that wasnt even going to work with my car. This should of been my first warning sign something was up, but I didnt think anything of it . I sold it to my friend to run in his car that actually had an original sunroof and it fit perfect and looked awesome.

ditched the super crusty old dual cam carpet

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and installed the nice 20 dollar single cam carpet that looked and felt miles above the carpet the car came with. Also got a new black NRG short hub/quick release from enjuku. I'd love to run a works bell one day on a actual nice street car, but for this being mainly a drift car, this would work fine and make it easy to get in and out of the car once it was caged.

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Coming from the rb zenki being my first kitted low car I actually got to drive around and drift a little, I had missed the feeling of street sweeper aggressive aero. so me and the team decided on a theme, my friend would build a twin coupe of mine just as a Uras onevia with K's wing and east bears, and I would run uras silvia with k's wing and eastbears. unfortunately its not that easy to get uras stateside, and for what this car is ( not that nice of a car), and knowing i was going to just lower the fuck out of it and probably destroy it dirt dropping/tandeming/crashing, I got some duraflex/ED shit for stupid cheap and some wider front fenders since the metal ones were messed up. the duraflex ended up fitting surprisingly well for the price, and felt durable enough. they actually messed up parts of the aero shipping it the first time around and sending me replacement parts at no charge, so nothing bad to say about them really. seems like in the later years they've been changing their company for the better.

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Had tried to run my oem K's wing on the coupe, but the firm abs plastic material paired with the curvature of the baseplates, with the flat coupe trunk ,did not mix together well. in order to get it flush it was warping the trunk. I ended up selling it to my friend and getting a fiberglass ebay cheap one locally that fit perfectly flush and looked great.

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I haven't talked about it too much on this thread, but I am totally a mirror and wheel whore. Ive been through a few pairs of east bears and ganadors, and even more wheels. When i had my gold hatch I didnt have money for mirrors or wheels until the very end, which i only did one event with after that and parted it out, and never street drove it. Remembering how bad I used to want this stuff, over the years when I was actually able to own half the stuff I had wanted, I definitely went a little overboard. For the coupe i currently own eastbears and powered ganadors, but will probably just run the east bears since thats what my friend is running.

My first set of wheels i ever got to run on the rb zenki/gold hatchback were a set of 18x9 18x10 work VS SS in +30 offsets. I loved them at first since i had always wanted legit wheels, but as years passed my tastes changed and i ended up liking monoblock wheels more than 3 piece. however when a set of 18x9.5 18x10.5 equip 05s in crazy original offsets came up for trade and he was willing to swap for my vs's and 300 bucks, I instantly went for it.

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After spending money on that, later that week, my grails came up for sale on facebook. When my zenki sold and i had money i actually had a WTB on zilvia for WMB cr kai, xt7s, or chrome advan T6's. well, 2 years ago i had a chance to get 18x9.5 +12 cr kais for a steal but didnt have the money. the SAME wheels came up for sale right after i bought the equips and i knew i had to have them.

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The ultimate nut of all time when I saw these in person. WMB finish is truly unreal and I really still want wmb xt7s in the same sizing.

First order of business was changing the ugly ass black on the equips to a better silver.

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decided to test fit them the equips first

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I liked them alot, but 2 people in florida in the past had already ran uras coupes with equip 05s and overs, and i wasnt all that crazy about them. mainly the specs on these wheels were way more aggressive than the kais, model V's, or any of my other wheels. So i decided to sell them and got 2k pretty quick for them and they went on a cool stancy kouki. Would of been cool to run them but monoblock is life.

IMG_20170915_201803_542 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Then i test fitted the real johnnies and knew I was heading in the right direction

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could of been cool

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was actually cool

20170816_194227 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr



With the money from the equips, a clean engine bay, the last of the parts getting powdercoated, and new found motivation from having another aggressive aero kit to run and probably my best wheels of all time ready for the car, i was ready to make moves on the sr.

20170918_151341 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170918_151402 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

the t28 had came with a older isr turbo elbow, but i had someone offer some cash for it and decided to sell it.

ended up running to enjuku for a few parts before i dropped the engine in, one of them being this newer turbo elbow from isr. this thing is basically a cast version of the newer tomei elbow. this thing is gnarly in person and a true 3 inch turbo elbow. chasing good response, instant spool, and good noises, i immediately scooped it up.

20170919_173353 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170919_173407 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

New turbo elbow and wastegate on, most things buttoned up, about ready to drop in.

20170923_163301 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170923_163441 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

MVS vband goodness. if you're running stock manifold with external gate, this is the way to go if you have a brain and want to run the dump tube downwards. so much easier to fabricate with vband flanges versus old 2 bolt, and the older 2 bolt ones look sus anyways.

20170923_163237 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170923_163401 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

It was time to drop the engine in.

IMG_20170924_213750_292 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170924_164440 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170927_171124 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20170924_164414 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Got more things from powdercoat, did a lot of little details that were cheap to powdercoat, but come together in the end and I think make a engine bay pop for cheap and show its somewhat well thought out.

20170928_134304 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

I also repainted a lot of little things that most people will never notice, but thats the point (; also got a tonnnn of new hardware from ace, m6/m8/m10 etc to dress the engine bay up.

20170928_142723 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171002_132044 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

replaced the old janky high mount setup with a new PBM HMIC kit for cheap used

20171002_132055 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171002_132103 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

I didnt know pbm differentiated their hotpipe between t25 and t28 when i got the kit from a person in florida, and couldnt figure out why i couldnt get the hotpipe right with the supplied couplers, or even a 90 on the elbow. realized the t28 pipe needed to use the 45 with the t28 outlet pipe, which i randomly had in my storage unit, so that was cool.

20171004_144953 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171006_105555 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171003_112202 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171003_113511 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

mounted my power stud for the battery relocate and to try and somewhat hide it while keeping it easily accessible.

20171003_191035 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

all the small details on the engine bay slowly coming together like i had envisioned.

20171010_143709 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171010_141100 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171010_144018 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

[greenwood]

dog sweet thread.

[SlmdCpe]

Sweet! Loved every car youve put together.

<-- Lu15.g on IG

[wolf904]

20171004_005010 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Click the image to play the video^^^

First startup is always good, especially considering this was my first build, and first time ever modifying a engine and changing things up. New tuned enthalpy ecu, injectors, gaskets, turbo, maf, wiring harness etc. It felt good for it to work first try without issue.

20171014_003801 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Nearing time to go drive it again and stop building. I think I took the car down and collected parts and put it together over a period of 2-4 months.

20171015_014423 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Have had a ton of issues with HID's in the past so just got some H4's that are the closest temp to an HID.

With the car running it was time to get it handling on point. the car initially felt like ass, and completely different from my hatch. With zero desire to drive the car before it felt somewhat like my hatch, i collected a few new parts here and there. a new steering rack came with the HMIC kit, isr steel braided rack lines, had already bought the gktech RCC kit and p2m hardened inner tie rods, got some lifetime warranty outer tie rods from NAPA, new moog LCA's with new balljoints and bushings, new rack boots, and inner tie rod slip on spacers. Also stole my pbm solid eccentric rack bushings from my hatch for this car, and had already done a ISR solid steering column bushing. This was shaping up to be my best handling car ive ever had.

20171007_190126 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171009_165704 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

started getting it all together

20171009_165743 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171009_165805 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171009_165841 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171009_165900 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

all of my cars have had the LCA and tension rod doing the YMCA dance, so to see good parallel geometry for once at a lowered height was interesting to say the least.

20171010_134010 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171010_135801 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

with the front suspension in check, i decided to temporarily put some of my rear parts on before i even drove the car. I had sold the isr stuff with my hatch and the car currently had no arms or rear coilovers.

most florida "fully sick low" drift cars you will see at a track day IRL IRL IRL

20171010_162210 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Had collected some rear parts and put them on the oem subframe

20171010_175506 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171010_214135 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171010_214156 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Moved the car out of the driveway for the first time i think in 4 or 5 months.

20171015_164603 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Engine bay had come together pretty decent at this point

20171017_140157 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171017_141808 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171017_141821 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Started getting the front end back on and some aero

20171017_164902 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

First drive was successful after the rebirth

20171017_204109 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Picking up my friends kids from school while he runs his restaurant lol

20171018_150243 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171018_154158 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171018_155820 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr



keeping the bay clean

20171018_173215 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171018_173448 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

started doing car things for the first time in over a year and a half since the zenki was out and about

20171018_222017 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

got another bare s13 subframe with bushings and collars already removed, ready for subframe risers. also got a gktech subframe plate kit. When i had bought the cr kais they came with some subframe risers and eccentric lockout kit from gktech for an extra 40 dollars lol also BNIB. I got a energy kit from a friend to use for swaybar stuff and parts of the rear end. Got moog balljoints for the rear lca's also so the rear end would be pretty much completely new and upgraded. I don't have as much photos of that stuff but I'll be sure to snap some photos of the finished subframe here soon.

another addition I wanted to add to the rear end parts was these villains 350z to s chassis stubs, and some new lifetime warranty axles and new hardware. My hatch, with over a degree of camber and maybe 200 hp had broken some stock axles, and last thing I wanted was to be at the track missing out on seat time due to shitty old broken parts. got these stubs again bnib for less than retail on facebook, and got some new lifetime warranty axles

20171018_104426 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171020_212839 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Next order of business was to finally put tires on my favorite wheels and dial them in on the car.

20171019_125840 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171019_132238 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171019_160527 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

the drop knuckles increased the rear track width and I had already rolled the fuck out of the rear fenders and barely fitted the GTR wheels with 215 40s, the kais were not even fully settling cause the chassis got stuck on the tire, and I was trying to keep this car functional without running a ton of rear camber... soooo it was time for the rear overs.

20171021_112420 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171021_112441 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171021_113007 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

I stood in awe for a good half hour, so crazy to finally see all the parts that had been in the garage finally all on the car and starting to take shape, plus the engine bay was already pretty much done so it was good to see one part of the car finalized.

Still had no powersteering for whatever reason, but drove it around town anyway. GKTech and rack spacers got decent angle for only 100 bucks and was definitely more than ive ever had.

20171021_160213 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171021_160224 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171021_160514 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Car still had not been in aligned in those photos, nor the rack really centered the proper way, but seems close enough. Ill see what it is when its all done, but its definitely noticeable over a stock s chassis.

20171021_165041 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

felt amazing to be back in a kitted low cool car after a year and half from the zenki, and this car was actually my build, and not just upgrading and fixing someone elses build.

It was also cool that this car still had alot of the same parts from the zenki, and in a way, was just a s13 coupe version of that car. K wing, east bears, aero, monoblock 18 18, etc.

20171021_165058 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171021_165132 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Drove the car around for a week here and there breaking in the clutch, picked up a set of 57dr for 800 same sizing as my cr kais, and got my dump tube fabricated. I wanted to have my car dialed in for a drift even me and a friend were planning to go to in pensacola, however it didn't pan out in time. He did let me drift his silvia and i got to test out the gramlights 3 days after freshly buying them.

20171026_133938 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

I guess this is where I will go off on a slight tangent to talk about drifting. To the people who are actual drivers, I feel like this will make sense to them:

Like I said in 2016 I had a ka zenki I fixed up. I had never really seriously drifted the rb before, and the gold hatch was never street legal, and i only did 3 events in it, only one of which went smooth. When i fixed the ka car, it was so simple and good. stock body, cheap arms enough to align it, stock working ebrake, and a decent clutch and welded diff. super reliable ka, and honestly was the most fun I had with a 240 up to that point. In this car I learned the basics of drifting until it got to a point where it was limiting due to lack of power.

To me seat time is more fun than building a car, although I have more time building these pieces of shit than I have behind the wheel, I am not proud of it. The period of time I had the ka zenki I drove the fuck out of it, did 2 drift events in it, and lots of street drifting. It had no angle mods whatsoever. It taught me alot and manned me up to learn to enter with speed and carry it, since it had no power to pickup speed.

The next car I actually drifted was my sr hatch, that car had no lca bumpstops and spherical outers so it had a little more angle, quality suspension arms, welded diff, project mu pads on tight oem ebrake, the ergo 1.5 which held me alot better than stock seats in the zenki, and stock sr eventually on 14psi with upgraded clutch. Basically the next step in learning drifting.

One thing I stress is not overbuilding your car, so you can learn the car alot, and basically outgrow the car to the point where it is limiting you, THEN upgrade. I see alot of people just overbuild from the getgo, and end up relying on their car to do all the driving. Usually ends up in a boring driving style. Regardless, I like the challenge drifting presents, and wanted to take it by step.

I only did one drift event in 2017 with the hatch when i had that car running. However, my friend ive known for years from japan, has let me drift his silvia at various florida drift events. It has been awesome, because otherwise I would of completely missed out on seat time in 2017, and after just learning drifting, kind of sucks to have to stop for a year as you watch all your friends progress in their own cars.

20171028_143425 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

This silvia is actually the original Chassis my old Gold hatchback's CA came from. He put a stock sr20 on with a few bolt ons, basically same stuff as my hatch had. This car and chassis has always felt really healthy and just overall really fun to drift. It is not setup for drifting in the least, COMPLETELY stock angle, stock arms and bushings, working ebrake but never with really sweet pads. just a stock silvia with a few sr bolt ons, a 2 way, and a good clutch basically.

FB_IMG_1509383576811 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

The most fun part about this car to me was how healthy it felt. This car was like if I SR swapped my Ka zenki basically. The chassis was really stock and had no angle, but it was just healthy and the SR felt amazing. It definitely did not drive itsself, the rear camber made it kick out easy but it felt like it was on ice, and you could easily spin out if you didn't have low tire pressure all around and good throttle control.

FB_IMG_1509312425609 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

I drove the car all throughout florida in 2017, at a hometown drift event, once in pensacola, once in orlando, and just most recently in gainesville. I drifted this car before I even got my coupe and decided to build it. I would definitely say it had a big influence on my decision to build a coupe and the way in which I built it. To me, the coupe is if I had bought this silvia, and set it up for drifting while retaining creature comforts and reliability. Obviously this silvia is nicer than my coupe, and has more creature comforts like a better sound system, headliner, AC, and double din etc. But overall theyre pretty similar. This car is reliable as fuck without even having been resealed or new hoses etc. It always drives to the event and right back home, has never seen a trailer. I love driving this car, and wanted my coupe to just be a more dialed version of it with more angle and power.

FB_IMG_1509383586652 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

This is the owner of the silvia's sick as fuck airbagged, final konnexion'd, candy painted c33. like his silvia it is pretty stock suspension and angle wise. this car has arms, and when it airs up has pretty much zero rear camber which is cool for more grip and predictability. it has a 25 turbo so it definitely has more power than the stock sr, but still under 300 for sure. this thing is just as reliable, and he usually drives it to drift events with me. the cool thing about these low power cars is being able to use free or cheap used tires with good tread, making driving events alot cheaper. They dont make enough power to instantly destroy the tires, so you can get almost a whole event out of a pair or 2 of tires.

He is from japan but never really took drifting serious until around the same time as I did. Its been cool to watch his progression throughout the year, and he is also on Breakshift with us and will be dressing up his silvia to drive with the team. I'm definitely excited to see what 2018 has in store.

20171028_193336 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

The homie's posted up in pensacola, my friend with his sick stock body onevia and model 6 and xtremes, and this dudes suuuuper sick rhd BN FC3S, with a s15 sr with top mount turbo, big wing, livery, and sick paint all from a tuning shop in japan. I believe the car was from GTR garage or something. Regardless it was unreal to see in person, and was definitely motivating for the coupe.

20171028_215228 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

FB_IMG_1509312381661 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

[wolf904]

Some more media from the most recent gainesville event which was a party

received_10159628080185307 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

received_10159633402940307 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Pushing that stock angle to its limits lol.

received_10159633402985307 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

received_10159633402950307 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

At this event my friend Sebastian came down from georgia with his team mate dustin to party, was really fun to see them come down to shred at a grassroots bash. These are my favorite types of events, no competition just shredding, flicking in , tight tandems, and stylish driving. his hcr32 is amazing, as im sure most of you know they "won" the most recent final bout and rightfully so. midmount sr with a td06, zeros, defis, safety 21 cage with full interior, 17 18 kf's and OG kai's for spares, bn, just amazing style all around. his team represents the best parts about drifting to me: fully sick cars with attention to detail and originality, styling cues from the early 2000s with proper execution with legit parts where it counts, driving hard as fuck, and a down to earth attitude without being stuck up. Getting to ride in the car was awesome and very motivating to finish my own car and get out there.

20171216_165703 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr



Anyways back to the car.....

So I had gotten back from pensacola in the silvia, and wanted to drive my own car. I had broken the silvia bumper dirt dropping in pensacola, and needed to bring it to my friend in daytona so he could repair it. It so happened there was "simply clean" the same day, a stance show in daytona but usually slammed cars take over daytona and cruise around afterwards which is cool. I loaded up for the coupes first road trip.

20171106_135457 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

SAME-SAME

20171111_134536 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Made it to daytona and was reminded of my old hatch how this thing cruised 90 the whole way there no issue

20171111_173001 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171111_174442 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

gettin the team together

Cruised around town with my boy with the cressida and got a tease of my paint to come soon. then randomly my car started smoking a ton. Then eventually it went full downhill. Turbo seals were completely shot and car was barely building boost. Made it halfway back to Jacksonville till i checked dipstick and it went from full high to full low in like 30 miles so I towed it from there.

IMG_20171112_040613_585 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Pretty aggravating to say the least. I had never put so much money, time, or effort into a car, and it turned out to be my least reliable one so far. a few days before daytona I had just fixed a issue with the one piece driveshaft blowing out transmission output shaft seals and causing crazy drivetrain vibration. I had gone to put my jdm driveshaft in and it literally got stuck in the freshly resealed no issues transmission. I had to pull that trans and put a random one from my storage unit in it and use a USDM driveshaft. and of course this trans had a loud main bearing and grinded second (;

To have this turbo setup fail me right after swapping trans and wanting to drive, had me pissed. I had already paid good money for the whole setup, and got roughly 5 to 6 drives out of it. I felt like i should of stuck to my instincts and gone new on the hotside and just got a 2871r. Oh well. I had already pre registered for my first drift event in the new car that was only a month out. I pulled the turbo, and sent it out for a rebuild and to have a GTX billet wheel installed.

Atleast I got a few cool shots from the daytona drive

IMG_20171112_191608_296 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_20171112_053313_987 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

In the period of time between the gainesville drift event and the turbo rebuild, I finished the chassis build. I got my double din installed, wired my gauges , ordered a non unicorn nut silvia hood, fixed a few odds and ends in my engine bay, mounted my battery in the trunk with the battery box securely, wired a fuel pump relay to ensure it sees proper voltage, and installed my built rear subframe. That consisted of the gktech plated s13 subframe gktech s13 solid riser bushings, moog balljoints, gktech drop knuckles, pbm ruca, vodoo13 rear toe arms,isr traction rod, welded diff with villains stubs and brand new 350z axles, new high grade axle hardware, new s13 rear calipers and tighter ebrake cables. Ill get photos of all of that stuff this week and update the car to where it currently is.

In this time waiting for the turbo i mocked my autopower cage I had bought a while back and learned the added sunroof would continue to fuck me beyond a headliner

20171124_214455 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171124_223400 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171124_223856 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Of course this car would continue to serve me L's. the cage would need to be shortened for the main hoop to clear the sunroof. and new a pillar bars made to work and properly tuck the roof while being safely away from my head. More on that later, but for now heres when i mocked the cage after cutting some excess before welding. Basically i've gotten the main hoop to work but i still need to remake the slip joint mounting point for the a pillar bars and the a pillar bars themselves.

20171124_222232 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171125_132305 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171125_132323 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

the front part just hangs too low and looks stupid so that will be gettinf fixed.

20171207_231245 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Picked up a tial bv50 in like new condition for cheap. really want this new turbo to last as long as it can since it wasnt cheap, however im hoping this thing wont cause issues still on the ROM Tune at the moment. as long as its not open at idle it will be fine with the maf setup, however i hear mixed reviews with the tials. If anyone has experience running vent to atmosphere Tial BOV's on MAF setups I'd love to hear your feedback. Also i already know if i run a blow through maf i'd have no issue but that would look dumb with the HMIC IMO haha.

The week of the drift event came and I still hadn't got my turbo back. I ended up getting a unknown t25 for free and trying it out, but that didnt work either. It came down to last minute and my friend ended up letting me drift the silvia once again. I really tried to make this event but once again this car fucked me. Im hoping to have better luck with the car in the future after all the work I've done to it, but I havent been able to catch a break so far.

20171215_110325 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

the extra clamp on the hotside is for a extra small piece if IC piping and a extra coupler to bridge the distance to be able to run the t25 and t25 outlet pipe, as I had mentioned earlier they come up short with the pbm t28 hot pipe.

20171217_141218 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

The car is sitting nice with the new hood, built rear end finally in and little to no rear camber. however I am going to go with a 225 35 front on the cr kais as the 215 35 is just too much on the 9.5j.

Thats the car present day and everything is up to speed right now. As it sits, I am waiting to get my turbo back any day now to be able to drive the car again. I am leaving the trans for now until that blows to put a perfect condition one in. The cage can wait as most tracks in florida are cageless tandem now, however I am still going to see that through so I can travel to other tracks and tandem. Once the turbo comes in, I will align it, start sanding, and drive it to paint. I also still need to put a rear swaybar in, a working fuel sending unit in, and fix my powersteering leak, but besides that the car is pretty much ready to ride. There is alot of stuff I lost on my phone that I will document this and the next upcoming week.

Overall im happy with how the car looks so far. The engine bay came out pretty much exactly how I wanted it to, the suspension feels amazing, the interior is coming together again, and the exterior looks cool enough for a functional car. Its been a long road coming with this car, and honestly never finishing a car has been driving me crazy since the day I got my gold hatch over 3 years ago. I am excited to finally see something through to the end, then never touch a wrench again, and only drive the fuck out of the car.

To the few people who will actually read most of this, I applaud you lolol.

I'll continue to update the thread this week with the photos of things I left out, a few videos from the past of the car , and maybe some other cool stuff from the past.

[JesusFreakDrifter]

Sheesh... Nice build

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by SlmdCpe

Sweet! Loved every car youve put together.

<-- Lu15.g on IG

Thanks it actually means alot, however I only consider this the first car I've actually put together besides the gold hatch. I guess the other cars were just ones i fixed issues on and "styled" a certain way. This car I take full responsibility for of everything done.

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by JesusFreakDrifter

Sheesh... Nice build

Thankyou. Alot of hard work has gone into the car and its still not even fully done, so it's cool that people appreciate how far I've come thus far

[Sansone]

BabeShift.

Looking crazy good, Gabe. That bay is killer!

[S13project]

good lord that bay is fire! car is coming along nicely.

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by Sansone

BabeShift.

Looking crazy good, Gabe. That bay is killer!

<3 <3 <3

You'll be seeing it at team vibes forsure, and hopefully hear gate scream behind your door! Cant wait to run with you guys in all new cars

Originally Posted by S13project

good lord that bay is fire! car is coming along nicely.

Nothing better to hear positive feedback from fellow people with proper engine bays and good attention to detail!!

[mechanicalmoron]

After buying and owning a bunch of imports, and destroying them:

Originally Posted by wolf904

2017:

Spent the first half of the year constantly working on the rb25 car. After SSE everyone kind of stopped drifting on the team. My friend sold his miata to build his s13 coupe, and my friend with the cressida had used alot of his funds to make that event so he was out for awhile. Without any real urgency to finish the car, I definitely started getting lazy with the progress of it all. I ended up getting my first job at a pizza place down the street to get constant flow of money to build the car which helped a ton, but however left me with no TIME to work on the car, but all the MONEY to do it. Which had been the complete OPPOSITE all the other years before, hahaha.

To be clear, my choice of picture was purely because you, too, need your ass kicked, the pizzaboy connection is incidental.

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by mechanicalmoron

After buying and owning a bunch of imports, and destroying them:

To be clear, my choice of picture was purely because you, too, need your ass kicked, the pizzaboy connection is incidental.

20170727_102516 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171017_140157 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

you better come kick my ass soon because I'm just gonna keep destroying this car

[mechanicalmoron]

Originally Posted by wolf904

20170727_102516 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

20171017_140157 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

you better come kick my ass soon because I'm just gonna keep destroying this car

Not me, pizzaboys are liable to have big wrenches.... ain't fuckin' with that.

(Yes, you had pretty cars, where are they now, and who paid for them?)

[Hoffman5982]

Nice build man. I'm from Pensacola, but don't drift there(That track is wack as fuck). You should come with Nick to Nola sometime this year, especially one of the events where they let us drive the kart track. Always a good time out there.

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by Hoffman5982

Nice build man. I'm from Pensacola, but don't drift there(That track is wack as fuck). You should come with Nick to Nola sometime this year, especially one of the events where they let us drive the kart track. Always a good time out there.

Thanks G! Yeah it was fun to take the silvia out there, their old layouts were pretty shitty but they just added 2 new transitions and a whole backsection so you get like double the seat time and it makes for some interesting bank/elevation/speed changes. I liked it for what it was, my friend with the laurel was mainly coming out just to visit his military friends so I went. I saw nicks recent nola shit, looked super fire, just a huge trip from jax but would definitely be on the bucket list of tracks to go to.

[tjcbar]

that wire tuck though!

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by tjcbar

that wire tuck though!

It isn't by any means a "true" wire tuck, however I did route the harness in a clean way to keep it out of sight while keeping it very easy to access everything if I need to at the track. This is also a wiring specialties harness which helped alot.


Tomorrow I should be able to transfer some of the video clips I have of the car so far, and some photos of the finished rear subframe/gauges/front suspension stuff.

[wolf904]

Almost forgot I had this, well to provide some closure here is the car basically 95% completion, and plan to get plenty of media of it in action once it is 100% very soon. I reshelled to a slicktop car and did everything over once more in a cleaner chassis.

IMG_1122 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1123 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1124 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr


IMG_0048 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0045 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0123 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Painted the bay clean, just harbor freight single stage gun but came out good. no primer just sanded and sprayed a few coats.

IMG_0027 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0028 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0137 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0136 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0138 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0150 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

After dealing with issue after issue with stock unknown longblock SR's I went 86.5mm wisecos with stock rods in s13 sr block and head. ACL bearings, tomei HG, arp headstud, new oil and water pump etc. simple basic build to have longevity and reliability.

IMG_0160 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0166 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Car is just t28 with GTX billet wheel with bolt ons and 550s/zmaf/enthalpy ecu. made 310 on 93 Pump gas which is more than enough for the grassroots drifting I am into.

Got the aero painted and rest of car wrapped up

IMG_0071 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_0089 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1028 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1029 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1130 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1265 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

(still need to make brackets for rear bumper so there is no sag.

few pics from the very first night it ran with aero

IMG_1082 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1079 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

IMG_1070 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

It has been about a year since I embarked on my journey to build a coupe. I've never had so many motor issues, and reshelled in such a short time having to redo/transfer all my old hard work, but it gave me a chance to revisit things I found out I could do better and change things up/simplify the build. The car still has overall built suspension and handles amazing, now with the built sr dyno tuned on pump gas and whatnot, and now on the 57xtremes instead of the WMB kai for now which i still have. I have alot in store for this thing and still am finishing things on the car like bumper brackets, painting and installing trims, finishing the last of the full interior, dialing in the rear for grip and whatnot. But it is awesome to have finished a 240sx for the first time ever, cant wait to go drift this thing!! ill continue to update as i make more progress.

[tuzzio]

Car looks awesome. Very few people in florida doing it right. Great jorb.

[wolf904]

Originally Posted by tuzzio

Car looks awesome. Very few people in florida doing it right. Great jorb.

Haha yeah man theres a mass amount of fuckery here but you'd be surprised at the nice cars that exist here, and the quality of them is thru the roof when you can find em.

My team is trying to bring nicely executed functional but cool drift cars to the table and thrash in em , really hoping we all get our shit together soon and start consistently making events.

[EFITTZY]

Engine bay came out super rad! I fallow Brandon on IG, but I don't think I fallow you. What's your handle? Super sweet build

[wolf904]

It’s just my name “gabe.esquivias”

I don’t really post too much yet really just wanna go drive it, but I’ll end up posting more frequently there then on here probably haha

[CompleteXen]

Originally Posted by wolf904

IMG_1070 by Gabe Esquivias, on Flickr

Color is absolutely bomb. Had to double take that last picture as it looked like my shop mates car.

[wolf904]

Time for some closure!



One day cruising the highway car shot up in water temp and started missing. I still do not know why, but again it was time to fix this car...



Had head re decked, went with an APEXI headgasket instead of a Tomei after a few people I knew had issues with them, got mazworx extended Hardened headstuds, and did dual guide conversion on the rocker arms.





My friend who helped build the engine helped me get the new hg and head back on, we also did a once over on the car and verified everything. I also went 1000cc injectors and E85 on the t28 at this point.

Got it back in action and went bad bitch huntin'





Me IRL











Then the t28 that maybe had less than 500 miles on it blew after the rebuild lol. sick.



The night it blew

So I upgraded



GT3071R With Tial VBand rear housing. Pretty cool. DOC Race Manifold. Tial 44mm wastegate.



Out with the old





In with the new



got some piping stuff fabbed







took a trip down south





RS enthalpy tuned, Car made like 365/345 on 15 psi. I only had a manual boost controller, it creeped no matter what with the EWG and bigger turbo. 411 was made not even peak rpm and with boost creeping so we let off, but shows what it is capable of with an EBC. I may get one eventually, but for now I'm content leaving it for longevity reasons.







The nicest the car ever was



Went to Orlando Speedworld for the first time drifting this new car at an event, and first time ever drifting with a topmount setup.



Made A-class first event out in a new car which was a personal feat. This event I linked every lap, last event here which had been almost 10 months, I spun every lap haha.



Spent the night in daytona, woke up and had a fun street session at my friends shop





Changed my alignment in the rear and played with the caster/toe in. Did 2 more drift events in west palm beach/orlando









Drifting a road course and go kart track was pretty fuckin' tight.









Prepped for the osw black friday event with my friend James from team Risky Business out of Gainesville















Got some goodies



my teammate finished the caged hatch shell I had given to him after his coupe got rear ended and totaled the first day it was painted and running, so we decided to do a drift event.









Infamous no-fucks given ejecto-bumper





After the 4th drift even which was my first time street driving over 9 hours on the highway in total, I had pretty good confidence in my car. I had trailered to all previous events so it was good to make it home without issue. However within this timespan, I had swapped 3 stock transmissions. This was mainly due to my driving style with too many clutch kicks in tandem and not enough left foot brake. However the power paired with the old trans was certainly not helping.

So this ends the Era of which I had a "cool" street sweeper drift car.

And begins the era which I am choosing to optimize this car to have fun drifting.

[wolf904]

Took a few last photos for old times sake





picked up some goodies for very cheap from some pruhfeshunal dorifter guy



235/40/17 RSRR and 255/35/18 595 combo! time for some changes, and get something more than a 225 on the rear of this SR













That is where I am at currently with the car. The Z32 Transmission with mazworx adapter kit is just about finished. I got a pbm hydraulic handbrake after having issues with my cables stretching multiple times. I'm looking for a pair of 17x9 or 9.5 preferably WMB kai or other polished/chrome style wheels if anyone has any for sale or wants to trade for chrome r33. Besides that, the car is slightly raised up now for better geometry and to have clearance with the meatier tires. I'm getting very excited to drive now, car should handle completely different (in a good way) and tandeming should be even more fun now that I'll have more grip. Also excited to have a ebrake I can consistently count on working. This will be my first non slammed 240 in a while, so I'm sure street driving will be alot less stressful and enjoyable now.

I will always love the look of a slammed, early 2000's style drift car, and my highschool dream was and still is a clean street style kouki 180sx car. One day I'll build one. But for now, I'm just wanting to progress with driving and see what this SR and chassis is capable of. I accomplished alot with this iteration of the car in the past few months, and it felt good to achieve things I had wanted to do for the past 4 years. However, I enjoy constantly challenging myself to do better, so after driving a few functional cars, I was sold on the idea of trying to incorporate some new ideas to my own car. Hopefully I'll have an update of how it sits and some videos within the next 2 weeks. Getting excited to drive in 2019!

[tuzzio]

None of your pics work, use IMGUR

[wolf904]

If the images aren't working for anyone else, let me know and ill re upload to imgur. I used a different host, however it seems to working just fine for me.