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Old 03-15-2023, 11:26 PM   #1
ssman19
 
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s14 I'm just winging it as a broke college kid S14 build

Welp, had a few drinks and thought this would be fun to do.

Let's start with my cressida, it isn't really the beginning but it is where things start to get fun. I had a bunch of lame s13 shells and a pretty cool RX7 with a V8 and a few other things, but the X7 really got me hooked.

Basically I traded a buddy of mine the S13 coupe shell that I had for his Cressida project. It was a 2j X7. I threw a diff in it, new turbo stuff, injectors, etc. and had fun with it. I blew it up, put a new engine in it, tried to drift it, decided I was bored with it and I wanted the S14 I always wanted and sold my V8 RX7
*Side note, I have not seen another MX73 dyno higher than that car at 691WHP*

Here is the video that made it famous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_nARlFq7O4

Okay, enough toyota stuff.

Well, I bought my dream car. An old messed up pro-am car that was in the early stages of an LS swap. It was a "rebuilt" Ls6 with LT1 T56 adapted to the LS platform.



I moved in with my buddy, and started working on the car. Ready to start working on the car and get it ripping.




My buddy got excited working/drinking beer with me in the garage and decided he wanted a drift car as well. So he bought an 86 in a similar position. The beginnings of a V8 swap. A couple months later we were getting close to them both running.



A little bit later I got my car running. I was stoked and get it a little rev and noticed I had no oil pressure...

Had my at the time girlfriend over and wanted to show off but instead pulled the engine that night.





Tried to figure out the no oil pressure issue and found this to be the culprit.
obsolutely obliterated pickup tube and the flange was bent to hell.
This was supposed to be a freshly built LS1 with LS6 heads.



ran to the dealership the next day and bought a GTO pickup tube to cut and weld for my custom oil pan. This is where I started to notice that going the route of all custom parts was not the business, but didn't think too much about it.



I have now gotten to the point that my buddies car is running and ripping, but I don't have an engine in my car. So I got mad, slammed a few drinks and got it back together.



Boom, car runs and has oil pressure
Took it for a rip and everything was solid. Let's Drift!



But first, time for a dyno tune. The night before winterjam...



We were on the Dyno until 3am and this is where we ended up

Screw it, we already paid for the event and drove out here. Let's send it best we can.




Passed tech, got some pictures in. Got some love from Speedhunters. Not sure why I didn't put the front end on, must have run out of time.
Didn't do more than 10 laps that day. Plug wires were melting after 2 laps, probably melted down 10 different ones and the car ran like crap the whole time, but I still had a great time.



Aaaaand now here is day 2 of the event. Back at home and no engine.
I was fed up with the car. Everything sucked. Random welds on the block holding it together. Insane amounts of blowby, custom headers meant the plug wires were hitting the header directly no matter what. Heat sleeve or not, they were melting. Trans wouldn't shift well. clutch didn't like to fully engage. flywheel was drilled out to fit. Everything was an issue.



Pulled the engine apart and it looked salvageable inside, but I was over it.
I WAS DONE! no more messing with all this custom stupid crap, but I am a broke college student. What can I do?
I sold just about everything drivetrain wise for dirt cheap, I am not touching this setup again. Goodbye headers, janky harness, janky transmission etc.



In comes junkyard 5.3 idea.



Went to Pick-N-Pull on one of their discount days thinking I could grab a 5.3 for a couple hundred. pulled it out of the truck and brought it to the front, $1300... WHAT!?!? No way. That was crazy expensive considering 5.3's were going for $300-500. I dropped the engine and left defeated and engineless.





Waited around and browsed craigslist for deals until I found 2 steals, an LY6 for $1000 from a buddy and a GTO T56 for I think $1400 8 hours away. A used Spec stage 3 clutch, and a couple road trips later and I got a new drivetrain. I threw a stock LS9 cam in and was stoked.





Thought I could save money by building the harness myself (Shoulda have went Terminator X)



Scored some Sikky headers for my birthday, they didn't fit. More custom parts not wanting to fit with off the shelf stuff. Got this situated now.



Car is "Ready"
Next up is the dyno. I was scared...



Car ran great, made solid power for a stock LY6 with an LS9 cam in it. I was happy. Car ripped. It was on all Gen 4 wiring, so E38 ECU with DBW pedal and most of the sensors.



The most complete the car has even been. Ran a few events, had some small issues but the car ran great. It just didn't handle well at all.
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Old 03-18-2023, 03:18 PM   #2
ssman19
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
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Part 2

Decided I was at the point where my fenders were trashy, and I wanted some more angle. Let's go for it.





JP Fiberglass fit terribly... but my wedding was coming up in a few days and I wanted to drive the car at my wedding. What could be cooler than rolling up the reception in a racecar? So I made it work and swapped the angle kit from trashy homebrew angle to GKtech.

Cue in days of body work. Wedding is less than a week away...




and time to start painting with some of my dads help. (I have no idea what I am doing)




Not looking too bad.



Dropped acetone on one of the panels Had to completely redo it.



and while we are at it, let's throw on some coilovers. As you can see, I got a better job and am not scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Good old car gets some decent parts now.



Fitment came out fire in the rear.



A little rushing to finish and load up the day of and we are off to rehearsal.
Yes, I decided to paint the car the weekend before my wedding and finished it the day that we were leaving, Success.






This was the best day of my life. It was so much fun ripping this thing around on the street. As you can see, yes we did a burnout in front of the entire wedding party. Sorry for the low quality image, it is a screen grab from a video my buddy took. This was a dream come true.



After getting married, my wife and I moved to Reno. Shortly after, my wife got pregnant, and there was no other way to do the reveal...

Now it was time to start driving the car. I did a few more events and had a great time.








Aaaand I crashed it. A couple times...




Lucky it was only bodywork. Time to go Kouki front end.

Now we are up to real time, I plan to drive a bunch of events this year and try to be a better driver.
I have fenders, headlights, and a bumper but still on the search for a hood.
Another event is coming up soon and I want it to look decent. I will try and report back on my progress, congrats to you for making it this far.
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Old 03-18-2023, 03:18 PM   #3
ssman19
 
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Saved for Part 3
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