At this point, its now March of 2020 and the pandemic is about to hit full swing. I hated my job, had started dating a girl back home, and had planned to move back soon anyway. Before shit really hit the fan, I packed shop, and moved back home. The coupe was now going to it's 3rd garage. The hatch came too, but I had already gotten all that I could out of it. After unbolting literally everything I possible could and stashing it somewhere, it got cut up and scrapped. I look back on this moment with a fair amount of regret. So much more could have been saved and sold to someone who needed it. But I did at least save the shock towers and sold those to a guy years later.
Shortly after scrapping tons of useful panels for beer money, my Origin Labs kit came in. Racing Line front bumper, +55mm front and rear Type 3 fenders/overs, and I can't remember what type the skirts were. I didn't like the rear bumper options from Origin at the time, and the plan was to keep the stock rear and run valences. Looking back on this choice in kit and overs really, really makes me see how much my tastes have changed. This was 5 years ago as of writing this. And I see how much my tastes were completely influenced by others. No doubt they still are to a degree, but my pallet is much more refined and I'm more thoughtful about what I like instead of just following what I see on YouTube. If I could go back, I would have probably tried to find stock front fenders and went with a much more mild rear over. And I probably would have bought less aggressive front aero and skirts. But I have them already, so I'm going to rock them until they explode.
Everything that follows in this post happened over 3-ish years. Which is to say it barely got touch. Between covid, swapping careers, side work, getting distracted with the Datsun for a year, and renovating a house, it was never a priority.
This isn't a 620 build thread, so I won't get into it, but after about a year's work and a few grand. It was running and 99.9% finished. It had no power and would overheat. I got fed up and sold it out of frustration only for the new owner to text me a day or two later to tell me I just had my timing way off and now it was perfect. I will always regret that sale. Don't be too cool to ask for help people. Be better than me.
The plus side of selling the truck, was that I now could afford the 3 piece wheels I thought I had to have. And my god did this end up being another lesson. I tend to be hasty at times and learn the hard way in everything. I found these Modena Autostrada's in the Ukraine shortly before the war broke out.
While they were super mint, they were a horrible offset (and size-ish) for what I already had. They were 16x7.5 and 16x8.5 staggered with nearly flush offsets. Meanwhile I had +55 overs front and rear on my car. They are also a 2 piece wheel and not a 3. Which I did not understand at the time. I bought some super large sidewall Michelin Pilot Sports to fill in the wheel wells.
Looking at it now, they actually fill it out pretty well. I could have dropped it another inch or two and it probably would have looked steezy tbh. However, as the car sits today, with spacers, it's pretty close to a -30 offset. These wheels were like +45. New lips and barrels were waaaay out of my price range and I didn't like the idea of running nearly 80mm of spacer. And while I still think that is probably a bad idea now, tbh, I wish I had kept them, ran dummy spacers and hard to find tires until I could afford new lips/barrels, and just kept a few wheel bearings on hand. I lost a ton of time and money on these wheels but I learned a lot about planning ahead and wheel fitment.
Powder coated, polished, sold, sad.
Quarters cut and side markers deleted. I hammered the inner wheel well to stretch it up to the outer, then welded and ground it down. I wouldn't quiiite do it like this again. And if you do, I would either not grind it smooth, or make damn sure that you are getting great penetration. I have a feeling this seam will crack someday.
Remember that cheap ass eBay exhaust I mentioned in the second post? Well it's back. In another case of "I've already got it, so I'm gonna run it til it explodes" I slapped on my ISR test pipe and then tried to put the exhaust on but really just swore and stood back to admire how poorly it fit. The solution was the most bastardized exhaust that may have ever been on an s chassis. I cut and re-angled every flange on the thing, scalloped some pipes to get it to clear the rear sway bar, put a J-pipe in it to hopefully prevent any inevitable drone, cut the tips off, stuffed the silencers into the muffler, welded them in, and then welded mild steel kick up tips onto it that prevent the bumper from coming off and have already rusted because they're mild steel dummy. While it must be wildly restrictive, it actually sounds alright....at idle....in the garage. I haven't really driven this thing much yet okay.
And here it sat until late 2023 when we went full steam ahead again.
