AWR S13 Coupe Street/Drift Build

[drewr4411]

AWR S13 Coupe Street/Drift Build {Project Phoenix}

What’s up guys, Well first off my name is Andrew.. I am from northern Virginia and I have been involved in cars since I can truly remember. Not only has it been a passion of mine but it eventually transitioned into a career for some years and then into an online parts business I have been running since 2013. I have owned a decent amount of fun toys over the years; Couple DSM’s making big power, E36 M3, S14, G37, Evo 9 and the list goes on. But I recently picked up a new project that I have been very excited about since day one. Although there was some ups and downs in the first couple months of ownership (nothing having to do with the car) everything has worked out and I am now in a position to start focusing on reviving this car back into a track killing monster it once was!! “Project Phoenix”

After selling my evo this past spring I knew I wanted something different… Something I have never really owned or have built before. Being an AWD guy my whole life, I thought it was time to make a transition. I always wanted a high hp RWD car, and since throwing a pair of twin turbos on my G37s was an interesting idea and had the BADA$$ factor…that potential project was instantly crushed while doing more in depth research. The best kit on the market was $9-10k before supporting mods, and I kept hearing about cooling issues and such. I just didn’t want to deal with those headaches if I could avoid it. Since my first choice of RWD projects was a letdown I turned to craigslist to see what exactly was out there and if anything would catch my eye. And of course something did! I came across an ad with this title “FS: 89 240sx S13 Silvia Drift Car” Now I have always wanted a badass tracked out s13, I mean who doesn’t? Also I always thought drifting looked like ton of fun when I would watch the cars run heats at hyper-fest. So a couple emails and phone calls later I was heading down 81 south to check out this beast.

The name Nate Brasz might sound familiar to some of you? Nate competed in many drifting events, and from what I have seen and heard he was very good. Although he may have moved on from drifting into other ventures, I feel lucky to be the new owner of this car and am very excited to take it out to our first track day together.

On to the pictures..... :]

Current state of the car when we went to see it.











Moved the car outside to check it out, and drive it.




Car was pretty clean inside and out. Frame rails looked okay. Power steering cooler lines were leaking some. Compression was slightly low but all very close to one another. Z32 tranny synchro's were toast as well. Hour or so later we came to an agreement and my buddy and I were loading it onto the trailer.




Got it back home safe and sound.











I really started tearing into the car at this point. See what was going to stay, what I was going to sell and just get and overall picture for how I wanted the car to start progressing.





Found out later this master kill switch would be a cause of some problems.






Getting a familiar with the wiring. This car is basically striped down to bare essentials. Eventually i'm going to do a nice panel setup.


Move the car outside to pressure wash the engine bay.





Much better to work on.


Started peeling off all of the stickers.



And parts start coming in....Sold the Porsche seats and picked up some bride reps





Picked up some planted seat rails for the driver side. Quality is nice fitment was ok-poor. I had to modify one of the bracket mounting points to seat flush with my floor.


As some of you probably saw, the car was missing many interior pieces. Yes I know its a drift car but I like my interiors to be stock and as clean looking as possible. This is a street/drift build after all :]

Here is a pic of me re finishing some interior trim pieces.


Final product. I wish I would have remembered to take a before pic.


After bringing the car home I found out quickly it had a draining issue. I didn't really have time to work on the car so it sat for a couple of weeks before I was able to discover the problem. The alternator was complete shot and draining the small battery every time I went to mess with it. So I took the alt out and got it rebuilt locally.



Took a little time to clean, prep, and re-spray the floors before test fitting the seats.





To anyone wondering the planted mounts bolted up just fine with the rep bride seats.


Took some time and refinished my sparco steering wheel