#Project180 a story involving rotary, type x, SR & 2j

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well, i been on this forum for almost 2 years now and always wanted to have a build thread of my own to be proud of and since my project has a good amount of progress i figured its time to start one.

Since i was about 13 i was obsessed with imports, while all the other kids talked about exotic cars, like ferrari's, lamborghini, etc. i was talking about the orange supra from The Fast and the Furious , so after years of dreaming of being behind the wheel of a japanese import, 18 finally came around, i got my license & it was time to find my first car. I wanted a RWD import, something cool like in all the movies, youtube videos i was always watching at home and in school but, My dad always kept telling me i had to get something AWD for safety so i was pushing for an eclipse GSX or a bugeye 02 wrx, something that was awd since i had no choice, an import, and boosted. However as most kids hopes for there first car mine did not go as planned. August 3rd 2010 Me and my dad went to a Marshals auction in Brooklyn, We had walked into the lot after inspection time had ended and they had started auctioning off cars one by one. We had no intention of buying a car. They began bidding on a car in the corner of the lot i couldnt really see exactly what it was, all i saw a car with shiny rims, my dad mentioned if the price was rite it could be worth it just to buy the car to sell the rims and part it out. The car looked cool to me from the little bit of the front end i could see so i said yeah sure lets bid, we ended up winning the auction for $600. It was in crap condition for the most part, faded paint, cracked bumpers, one headlight didnt work, stock seats were slashed up, had a broken passanger mirror, pleanty of rust underneath and like 170k miles. However it had a muffler missing so it rediculously loud, had lowering springs but once i saw it was a 1989 Mazda RX-7 i thought it was the coolest car ever! All it needed was a battery and it started rite up. This was the car as i bought it fresh out of the auction lot.











After realizing the wheels were just XXR's and explaining to my dad that the wheels are pretty much worthless and a bunch of begging my dad let me have it for my first car. I was psyched, i was going to have a RWD after all. Since we got it for so cheap my dad agree'd to get the car a nice quality paintjob that consisted of pleanty of drips and dirt in the paint from some hole in the wall body shop in brooklyn. I also order'd a AIT G4 body kit. It took like 3 months for it to get painted, it was rediculous. Everytime we went to check on the car the guy said it would be ready next week, that he just had to polish it. So we finally said screw the polish, went there with a uhaul car trailer and said give us the car, he still went on with the BS so we called the cops and told them he wouldnt give us the car back and so he finally took it out and gave it to us, since it was on springs and the kit the car was really low to the ground and we cracked the front bumper going on the trailer but nothing major. also was a nightmare getting it off the trailer but we had finally got it home. You cant really see the paint drips and dirt in the paint obviously but note the overspray on the rear tire and muffler -_-






So after being rejected by many shops to get my mufflers done because my car was too low, i had finally found a shop. Note the no paint under the lip of the rear bumper lol.




So i drove the car through high school, daily driving a rotary was pretty awesome. The roulette you play starting it in the morning wondering how easy it was going to be to start that day, i loved it While everyone at high school had there new cars, i was lovin my old school RX-7 A lot of kids thought it was some sort of super fast racecar, a supra?, a conquest?, people didnt know what the hell i was driving, or that it only had like 150hp LOL. So here are some pictures of the car as i drove it through high school.










So since the car had an intake and exhaust that pretty much concluded my extent of knowledge with modding rotaries and i wanted something i could do more with. Nobody around me had 240's and i was always reading Super Street magazine's and other import mags. So my search began, i had put my car for sale. I had a bunch of tire kickers and low ballers, until about a month later i had finally found a guy that was willing to trade me an SR20 S13 for my Rx-7, i was hyped. However a week before i was supposed to meet with the guy to trade.... I was driving in the left lane of a 2 lane highway when a lady made a uturn from opposing traffic in front of me, went into the right lane and then immediately back into the left lane. I had no time to downshift, my brakes locked up, i slid about 20 feet while beeping my horn the whole time, she didnt move and i slid into the back of her honda pilot.





So i was basically screwed all summer with no car. Mid august the insurance gave me $2000 and i ended up selling the car for $2200 with salvaged title. I then moved down from Suffolk long island to Nassau and got a job at a AAA service station/mechanic/towing place. I ran around changing tires, helping people get there keys that they locked in there car, jump starts etc. I also hung around the shop a lot and learned a bunch of stuff. So i was saving money from there as i was looking for an S13. I ended up seeing a red S13 SR swapped, s15 turbo, bolt ons etc. he wanted $4,700, it ran and looked mint however underneath it had a lot of rust and the frame rails were horrible from bottoming out everywhere. I started offering low and went all the way up to $4,400. i was really stupid.. however he was even more stupid because he wanted to get full price out of me and didn't accept my offer. Next day he texted me saying hell take my offer however i was already on my way driving the 100 miles to PA to see another SR swapped S13. This S13 had no rust, Power windows and sun roof, stock suspension, 5 lug swap, 300zx TT front calipers, Front mount intercooler, Walbro pump, exhaust, Mishimoto radiator, and came with a greddy profec B spec 2 boost controller. Only bad thing really was the cheap paint job it had, the door jams and engine bay were still red... So we went on a test drive and i loved the car. It was a rocket compared to my old RX-7. So i got the car for $3,700 on sept 11 2011. I drove it all the way back home and that was the first time i got to enjoy 5 speed through manhatten traffic rush hour. So this was the car as i bought it:









So the first thing i did when i brought it home was take off the type x replica spoiler and bondo the holes i left. I loved the car, first 5 speed boosted car i ever drove. So with my extra money i had i started buying mods. I didnt know much about boosted cars or the whole "you get what you pay for" when buying parts. So the mods began, i ordered Godspeed coilovers, got a Greddy Ti-C catback from a local to replace the ebay catback it had, a front mount piping kit to replace all the chopped up home made piping, Greddy RZ bov to replace the knock off SSQV, a new shift knob to replace the extremely rice burner-ish plastic one [which ended up being a nightmare to remove because the previous owner put some king of adhesive and it wouldnt unscrew..], New ebay seats because the stock ones were worn to crap, And relocated the battery to trunk to get rid of the baby dry cell battery and had known 240 shop Tarmac SPL clean up the vacuum lines.



















So i drove the car like that until about october, i was planning on putting the car away for the winter to save and prevent rust from NY snow&salt, however the car always seems to be the one that chooses when its time to stop driving it. When i bought the car the previous owner told me it had some sort of exhaust leak, it ended up being the gasket from the turbo to the manifold leaking and one day in october i did a pull down my block and upon slowing down to enter my driveway idle got really choppy like it was cammed and i struggled to pull it into my driveway, i opened the hood and saw the gasket half way blown out of the side. So as usual i took this opportunity to replace what was wrong with an upgrade. So i decided on doing a GT2871r upgrade & all winter i saved and collected parts.









So the list was: Tomei expreme exhaust manifold & Turbo elbow, NGK AFX wideband, Isis z32 maf, Tomei 740cc Injectors, ARP head studs, apexi head gasket, Nistune ecu, Nismo fuel pressure regulator, 300zx fuel filter, isis lightweight pulleys and the garrett gt2871r dual ball bearing, i also took the opportunity to put in glowshift gauges, oil pressure, water temp & boost, but i later decided to sell the head gasket and head studs, i was originally aiming for 400hp but decided i didn't wanna push the SR to its limits, just something reliable with some more power. i Since i had very little knowledge with working on cars at the time i had Tarmac SPL do the install, once spring came i had the car towed to the shop, perks of working for a towing company .











The car ran real nice, Felt like a whole new beast. Heres an acceleration video i took on the way back from picking up a Bee*r limiter, only on 9psi and shifting at 6k and below: 9psi acceleration SR20DET - YouTube

So after getting it back the next thing on the list was to get engine and transmission mounts because my motor was teaching me how to dougie everytime i started the car and i couldn't really shift that fast because with my shot mounts my shifter would jump and wobble around like lindsay lohan on coke withdrawals, so i got Nismo motor and tranny mounts and put them in with one of the mechanics from my job on the side of the street in front of his house






So the car drove real nice after the new mounts, really fun to drive, quick spool, and i was lovin the gas mileage!, it got a little worse after the new setup but it was still WAY better than the 13B. only problem was i began having overheating problems which ended up being the 16" mishimoto electric fan was no longer good enough to keep temp down, i bought isis dual 12" fans and shroud and that made it worse, finally put the clutch fan back and everyhthing ran perfect. I also began meeting more & more S-chassis people.



Also bumped into a bunch of people on the road like this 350z that wanted some nissan on nissan crime, we exchanged words at the light after this he was a real cool guy, 2nd person on the road that already knew i had an sr20 lol.



Also saw this viper on the service road flipped one day while i was at work..



So i couldnt stand S14 SE wheels anymore, i needed wheels so i started looking. I was never a fan of 17's like most 240's have, i always wanted 18's & I always wanted gold rims for my car. i found a local who i ended up becoming friends with was selling a set of MB battles 18x9.5 +15 off his kouki S14 [Built SR Holset powered]









So it was on to spraying!, the wheels were in mint condition. I washed them, scuffed them, and sprayed them with metallic gold engine enamel.