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The Z from HELLLLL! (My wallet thinks so, anyway)	<< Previous thread \| Next thread >>

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Deedilus

Tue Sep 13 2011, 07:50am

Registered Member #1090

Joined: Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:16pm

Posts: 26

Hello everyone! My name is Matt, and I'm going to try and keep this post a bit short because the story of this car literally goes on forever. I'll start from the top.

I've always been a car fan, never really did any work on them myself though until this one. Always loved driving, and when I started working for a Production company in San Antonio TX I hosted a couple little car things we were tasked with doing. I always thought drifting was cool and got to drift a couple of my friends S13's around. But everything was all good, got to drive a short oval track dealio for one of the videos we did. Unfortunately our director at the time wasn't prepared and we didn't get over half of the shots to finish the damn thing, so we never completed it. Still have all the footage though. Dori'd the car a bit, owner of it was just a bit livid

Anyway, bought the car 2 years ago from a portly man, snagged some Rota P45 and P45R's for it and some Hotchkis springs. Junked his cheapo sub box and gave the amp he gave me with the car to my friend (big mistake, turns out it's a monster).

Snagged an exhaust, intake, changed out the clutch to an Exedy and the Flywheel to a 18lber. Was definitely in love with the car from this point and starting to dori dori dori around occasionally with it when I could.

At this point I was only street drifting. I would go nearly every night though, it was like a drug. Or a great way to let off steam and stress, whichever you choose

Then disaster struck. Didn't really have time to do anything to the car so had my friend at Mazda do my oil change. Few days later when I was at a friends noticed that it was leaking oil from the oil pan and that the drain plug was loose. Tightened it back up and went home. Next week went to autozone and snagged a bigger oil cooling core and rigged myself a new power steering cooler since my old one was wrecked and looked kind of like a limp.. noodle cake. Went to dori that night.

Only picture I got of any of my drifting back then, I'm always the one behind the camera haha. Well, that very pass ended up blowing my motor. Drain plug fell out and, well the rest is a bit obvious I think..

Stupidly listened to friends that convinced me to turbo a VH45 and get it fabbed into the car. My friend Chris recommended a guy in Austin, TX named Craig. He talked big. I stupidly listened, gave the keys, the car and some money to start over to him so he could get to work. Little did I know this was the start of 5-6 months from hell.

Got a bamf CF hood and some other goodies for the car while awaiting the finish of the VH45 swap.

Well, after 4 months of fake finish dates, being fed complete bull, and him squandering my money, the car was in a state of near disrepair. Had to borrow a friends SUV and trailer, drive up myself and grab the car and get it back down here. It looked like this when I got it back.

He had basically taken all of the money I gave him and wasted it. Gave my motor to one of his friends to put in a mustang or something, bought a crappy VH45 and never even got it close to running. Just used it as a grown-up coloring book. Thing wasn't even mounted, just sitting on the cross member with the tranny held up with chicken wire. The car sat at my friends house for about 3 months, with them trying to get around to fixing it but they never did because they got too busy. My friends hooked me up with a shop that said they'd give me a good deal if I helped with the work. I had never really put together anything on a car before this. But said yeah.

We made her look pretty before her transport to the shop.

Sold the VH45 to some guy that I never heard back from, dear god the thing was disgraceful. The guy in Austin's welds looked like ferret diarrhea. We could break them with our hands. He had pretty much destroyed my car. I wish I could find the pictures of the motor from when we took it out so you guys could see his "headers". Holy crap I don't even know how to weld and could have done better probably. But anyway... Bought an S13 shell from a friend to build into a drift car so I could get the Z up and running with a VQ later on as a daily. Bought an Sr20 from him. Queue my first time trying to rebuild a motor, with the help of my friends and some help from the owner of the shop....

A picture I snapped of my two friends that helped me after we finally assembled the damn thing.

Numerous things went wrong during the motor build which made this last an EXTREMELY LONG TIME. And I still didn't have a car so we worked every day until about 2AM until we got everything done. Got the motor and put all of the extra goodies I bought for it into the car finally, wired everything up and....

Motor was blown. Piston #3 cracked in half, Piston #2 put in backwards, cylinder walls had been overbored and you could see where the pistons were smacking about inside the cylinders. Never got refunded.

Bought another block, which was fine but all of the head bolt holes were stripped. After putting it all together, cleaning it and COMPLETELY rebuilding the block, got about 3/4 of the way through re-drilling the holes anddd San Antonio kind of run out of heli coils in the correct size. Texas in general did, it seemed haha.

Even completely redid the head. I learned a lot on these SR20's..

So after it sitting there for ages and stuff finally looking up for the Z, I parted the car. After taking these pictures with it when I was bored..

So I moved back to the Z, I had bought new EVERYTHING for it pretty much and was thinking the guy at the shop was going to do it, which was why I was working on the 240 myself. Turns out he wanted me to do the work on my Z with his guidance.. Again, the 240 was my first ever time putting a car/motor together or even working on them in general... Well, after months of work from 9-5 and rebuilding the car from 6pm - 2am, we saw that the guy in Austin's douchebaggery knew no bounds. We were dealing with his crackhead engineering until the first startup.

Well, here's my first ever motor build by myself. Have no pictures of when it was just sitting or anything unfortunately:

(old crossmember vs new. Nice "OEM" mounts bro)

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=222885664394018

First bit of good luck with this motor, previous owner had installed an MREV2 lower plenum. SCORE!!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=223447877671130

Moar goodies! I have an Invidia G200 exhaust but the bastard in Austin chopped part of it.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=223577804324804

Engine was nearly done, was time to start cleaning her up so she'd look proper for her first start up...
[img]

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=224546384227946

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=230500363632548

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=231104766905441

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=232465283436056

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=232458556770062

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=233930193289565

That backfire gave us RIDICULOUS problems. The electrical stuff before the car finally running also was I listened to the stephen guy that was telling me not to video tape it cranking that he had checked all of the plugs and they were all fine. After buying a new IPDM and BCM we found out the main harness was just slightly unplugged right inside the dash. Yeaaaah. Haha. Anyway, the we could not figure out what the backfire was. We finally got down to thinking it as the timing.

Nope. Retimed it anyway. Turns out, Stephen didn't check the coil order. I discovered it and fixed it though! I was so proud, haha. I should have checked it, so it's my fault but whatever. We got it running and Stephen helped so much it's honestly not even a big deal.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=244348035581114

That weekend there was a drift event coming up. I was leaving the next week for location in Virginia to film a movie. I was determined to make it out there.

My good friend Ryan welding up the new open diff I bought for it, since that guy in Austin trashed my VLSD.

Was suppose to head out at around 5AM to get there on top the next morning. Got ditched by a friend so I had to drive over to Ryans later on and had to take the diff out myself on Ryans garage floor. I explain it in the video, but it's not a big deal. I made it there, Ryan is the shit, that is all.

Woke up a little later, started the 4 1/2 hour drive.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=245200425495875

Had an awesome time. No pictures taken of my car unfortunately, it's like a deterrent or something. "He's a photographer, we don't need to take pics of him drifting!"

Also got my new steering wheel on!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=245353832147201

More tomorrow, haha. I need to sleep, work in 4 hours. Sorry for the novel, but I enjoy tellin the story because I know I learned a hell of a lot and I know other people can learn a lot from it. I'll finish tomorrow, but a little run down the car now has PBM coilovers and is currently at UpRev in Austin getting a Formula D spec cage and some other stuff done to it so I can start competing in the Texas LoneStar Bash series and next year XDC. Nice to meet you all, and dear god goodnight!

o.g.darkdrifter

Tue Sep 13 2011, 08:35am

Registered Member #580

Joined: Mon Jul 13 2009, 06:02pm

Posts: 155

That's really terrible man. Good to see that you stuck it out with it though.

Deedilus

Tue Sep 13 2011, 02:20pm

Registered Member #1090

Joined: Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:16pm

Posts: 26

Hey, stuff happens and you just gotta learn from it. At the very least my car now has a much stronger motor, and if anything happens to it I now know that I can fix it myself whether it's in the pits at a track or on the side of the highway, and not to mention now knowing the signs of a scam or not which is definitely invaluable. Recent pics of the car comin when I get my lunch break

Hollywood

Tue Sep 13 2011, 04:28pm

Registered Member #708

Joined: Sun Feb 28 2010, 07:22pm

Posts: 653

wow so i dont know how to read so i skim the photos.. you went from a vq to a vh ? slap who talked you into that, than you got an sr s13? then back to the z????? uh ok dude im sorry i wish there was a pay pal fund to contribute to your rebuild and maybe lawsuit of that dude. i got five on it lol..... best of luck man and hope you get some sick pbm parts on your whip soon.

Deedilus

Tue Sep 13 2011, 05:28pm

Registered Member #1090

Joined: Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:16pm

Posts: 26

VQ, VH, slapped the person that talked me into it and referred me to that guy, guy threatened to sue me numerous times for "slander" because I was just telling my story (this happened about a year ago), I got a lawyer and went to his house to make SURE he knew that he had no case against me and that I could sue the crap out of him if I was smart, then bought the stuff to rebuild the Z but thought the shop was going to do themselves so bought a 240 to build into a drift car on the side, got scammed out of an SR20, got another one but all of the head bolt holes in the block were stripped, then parted the 240 and rebuilt the VQ and Z myself hahaa

Anyway here's whats up now!

Did a quit little photo sesh the night after the drift event at Mineral Wells.

Before I left I ordered some Powered by Max coilovers. Easy installation, things feel AMAZING. Wrote up a quick "first impressions" review on my350z and here on the PBM forums.

Out with the old springs, in with the new sexiness.

Before

After

Yeaaah... it rubs a bit.

need to get those fenders rolled/pulled when I get back in town....

Only pictures I have of it after the coils are cell phone pics from my friend.. Had to leave the car in Texas to go on location like 3 - 4 days after I got them on

Been making up plans for the car while I've been gone, been really fortunate that I've got an awesome friend named Jeremy who is willing to drive the car all over the place to get this stuff done for me. I've been providing him with endless free parts for his 240 and was the one who guided him when he first started drifting around on the streets so I guess it's his way of paying me back

First things first, I need to replace the oil pan (have one, needs to be swapped out though. Old one got a bit cracked when the shop I did the work at tried welding it because they're welding machine isn't the greatest), and replace the passenger valve cover gasket. Other than that, the motors and car is running great. So here are some of the things that have gone down while I've been gone....

Cobra Imola seat w/ Cobra seat rails. As well as Muteki extended lug nuts.

Driftworks 5 point harness ordered.

Authentic JP Vizage Type-N front bumper. Currently being shipped to my friend Ryan's house so he can paint it.

ChargeSpeed rear bumper. Unfortunately..... not authentic. But it was a great deal, so I'm happy

Also being shipped to Ryan's house.

Jeremy delivered the car to UpRev to get a full Formula D spec cage, oil cooler, and my damn exhaust leak fixed.

That's pretty much it for now, probably not going to be buying anything else for it except for drift spares... I think I might be replacing that Driftworks sticker with a PBM one pretty soon though, I don't write for Driftworks anymore and PBM is just plain the beez kneez yo. Need to upgrade my suspension arms soon so when the PBM Z33 ones come out definitely going for those, and when I get back to Texas I'm thinking of getting a hydro e-brake, just really don't want to spend the money for one while I'm away because I would feel terrible having Jeremy install that (and would quite honestly want to install it myself so I can say that I can and position it for my comfort).

If anything else happens I'll definitely post up! The guy doing my cage is going to be keeping me updated with pics so I'll post up the progress, can't wait to see what he does.

dori dori dorii!

Dan at MAX USA

Tue Sep 13 2011, 09:58pm

Registered Member #2

Joined: Sun Jan 21 2007, 08:28pm

Posts: 2866

wow that is a pretty serious adventure, email me if you want that sticker.

Deedilus

Tue Sep 13 2011, 11:08pm

Registered Member #1090

Joined: Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:16pm

Posts: 26

Another example of how awesome PBM is! Definitely Dan, thanks!

rafas13

Tue Sep 13 2011, 11:29pm

Registered Member #717

Joined: Fri Mar 12 2010, 11:12pm

Posts: 86

wow!!! aren't you allowed to shoot people in Texas? Make him get into your property and fire a couple of rounds at him with a model 500. I think we have all gone trough some one like that with one car or another. That's why there are like 3 people that are allowed to touch my engine.

Deedilus

Sun Sep 18 2011, 04:25pm

Registered Member #1090

Joined: Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:16pm

Posts: 26

ROFL why, we do have a little leaner gun laws here than other people don't we?

Hahaa nah you wouldn't believe how many people have suggested that to me, as well as how many people have offered to go do it themselves. I'm too nice and would rather get my revenge by getting the car in a mag spread or in FD or something and having him see it in all of it's unmolested glory. Maybe I should snag a huge decal on the side that says "F*$K YOU, CRAIG!"

Parts Shop Max

Tue Sep 20 2011, 08:34am

Registered Member #1

Joined: Thu Jan 18 2007, 10:45pm

Posts: 191

Cool!!

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