S13 - Over 14 Years

[s13n1]

I've had my S13 Silvia for about 14 years now, I was the first owner here in Australia.

I'll never forget how good it looked when it was delivered on a flatbed truck. It arrived in SA and I took delivery in Gisborne Victoria. If I remember correctly, it was through J & H Imports.

Here are some photos from when it was still in Japan.

(Pics coming soon)

It started life as an SR20DE, manual, with Tanabe 4-2-1 extractors, high flow cat and 2" system, front lip spoiler, side skirts, drift style wing, and Racing Hart wheels. The importer told me the side skirts were Nissan factory skirts off a genuine SilEighty. As unlikely and and strange as it sounds, it's a weird thing for someone to make up.

The engine was very strong and had loads of power. I don't know if it had any internal upgrades, but if was a great motor. The car had some (and still does) " Powered By Twin Cam" stickers above the Twin Cam 16 Valve decals above the side skirts. This always made me wonder if the engine had a cam upgrade.

I can't remember how long I kept the car standard, but the first mod I think was an alarm and a new stereo.

After that, I think it was a front strut tower bar.

Back in these days, the Internet was not the parts haven it is today. There were forums and classifieds and limited parts on eBay, but it was tough to find bits, particularly in a country town like Bendigo.

I remember Japanese Motorsport in Adelaide was one of THE places to get parts. These guys were very helpful, and over the coming years, they were more than happy for me to lay buy parts and send them money orders.

What happened to JMS?

In typical poor Australian taste, I thought new wheels were needed. I got some 17x7 Lenso S7's. Offset Unknown, tyres probably some cheap Falken 215/45's or something similar. I wasn't inspired by Fast & Furious, I had already settled on these wheels before the movie came out. If you don't know, Brian's green Mitsubishi Eclipse has Lenso S7's.

It took years for me to understand how foolish I was to part with the Racing Hart wheels and buy the Lenso's, but you do stupid things when you're young. More stupidity would follow.

The first "performance" upgrades I made were a series of worthless exhaust upgrades and modifications, chasing the right sound and increase in performance.

I'd hate to know how much I spent trying different mufflers, hot dogs and pipe diameters, etc. With an NA car, your money is far better off spent elsewhere. Again, young and dumb.

Eventually I came across an NA Apexi 2.5" system for sale through, of course, Japanese Motorsport. The lady at the post office wasn't too happy about the big heavy package that arrived, but there would be more to come.

It looked and sounded great, and finally put to end my useless pursuit of exhaust performance upgrades.

Over the next couple of years, I would buy more parts from JMS and eBay, and receive my fair share of defects for noise and ride height, but I'll elaborate more another time as my iPad is on 8% battery and the effects of alcohol are kicking in.

Pics coming soon!

[PranK]

Ooh how much I can relate to this thread. Many cars I've had (god I wish I'd held on to one or two) and so many were to be the focus of many a young man's "upgrade" haha.

Looking forward to more posts. I'd love to know how she sits these days.

[s13n1]

Love your avatar^^

I have such a soft spot for the Christmas Vacation and the original Vacation to Wally World.

The new one has potential, but the trailer paints a pretty typical over the top picture of current american comedies.

Gone are the days of dry subtle humor. Its gotta be vulgar and in your face, so today's idiots know when to laugh.

Anyway..

Here are the pics of when the car was still in Japan:

I might jump back a bit before i got the S13 and explain why i bought one.

I had been reading the usual Hot 4's and Fast Fours magazines, and in typical young guy style, i wanted a lancer, a mirage, a suzuki swift.. Basically all the crap Australian delivered cars that people were mad for back then. They would smother them in big body kits, chrome wheels and kilometers of bumper mesh. OMG, so much bloody bumper mesh. My friends and i used to joke that it wouldn't be long till one day someone replaced their windscreen with just bumper mesh.

Thank god i didn't buy something i would have regretted immediately after discovering imports.

I don't know when or what the first import i seen was, but the car that started my obsession was a small match box size picture of a car at one of the Tokyo Autosalons.

It was a midnight blue Honda NSX with lots of carbon fibre parts, very low, awesome wheels, and it totally floored me. I was obsessed with it and i HAD to have something like it.

The NSX had the name of the builder on it, but due to the angle and size of the picture it was very difficult to make out. I knew it read ***** Hills, but i couldn't figure out the first word. Eventually i worked out it was "Marga Hills". And after some web searching i found a different picture of it:

I wish i had more photos of it, or i could find the original picture in whatever magazine it was, but this is all i have.

There is a blue Marga Hills NSX that pops up if you search now, but it has black wheels and is clearly not the same car.

My obsession had me looking at anything that slightly resembled the NSX body. Coupe, low, wedgy, midnight blue. It had to be midnight blue.

I looked at lots of cars, but eventually settled on the S13 Silvia after seeing one picture that convinced me it could look really good:

Being a P Plater, i had the old power to weight restriction to adhere to, which i think was 125 KW per tonne.

I could have had a 1.8 Turbo, but i had my heart set on a SR20.

I don't know if i could have gotten away with it, but the Automatic Silvia's were a little bit heavier than the Manuals, which meant the SR20DET in Auto, made 124.5 KW per tonne. I don't know if we had our numbers mixed up or the source for the weight was wrong, but i really should have saved up and got an Automatic SR20 Turbo, and once off my P's fitted a manual box. Ahh.. young guy.

I contacted lots of importers and browsed what limited online yards were available, until finally contacting J & H and explaining what i wanted, my budget, colour, condition etc.

He got back to me pretty quick with a car they had recently purchased but it wasn't in the country yet. He sent me the above photos and i really liked it.

I remember reading about how cars coming over on the boats were often subject to theft of parts and damage. I requested more photos once it landed, and got sent these:

In the last photo it showed that the cars front lip spoiler had some damage, but it looked worse in the photos than it did in real life.

I remember calling him numerous times asking when it would arrive, and he had tried to convince me to drive to Adelaide to view the car, but i told him i just could make it.

He eventually agreed to transport it to his house in Gisborne, told me what day it would arrive and gave me a week or so to sweat it out.

Im pretty sure the first day fell through, something happened that delayed it, and i had to wait another week.

When the day finally came around, i remember turning up about an hour or so early and having to go off and grab some lunch and come back later.

When we got back, we waited for about 30-40 minutes and he called the driver who confirmed he was about 5-10 minutes away.

I'll never forget standing outside staring up the road listening for the truck.

When it came round the corner, the car looked incredible. It had so much more presence in real life than in the photos, and we were giddy with excitement.

I had driven down with a mate and my sister who offered to drive us down, as we both had pretty shitty cars that we doubted would make the trip.

We joked about offering my sister as collateral when we take it for a test drive.

That first drive was mind blowing. It had power i couldn't believe, coming from driving a 1980 mazda 323 hatch for about 2 years.

Getting it out onto a long stretch of road, we yelped with joy as it revved effortlessly to 7,500rpm, hitting 110 K's in second gear and sounding like absolute heaven.

I said i'd take it.

I dunno how long it was till i picked it up, but it was no doubt an excruciating wait.

I'll leave it here for now and try to dig up some photos and scan them for my next post.

[BakemonoRicer]

Wow, that S13 looks damn amazing.

Can't wait to hear the story behind it!!

[gmr]

Great read can't wait for more

[Roy]

Love reading about long term cars!

[s13n1]

I may have forgotten about this thread..

I’ll post again soon!

[s13n1]

Wow, it’s been a while, I’ll try to pick up where I left it. 

Its been such a long time, it’s impossible to recall what those first days with the S13 were like, but because imports in Bendigo were pretty rare, what I’ll never forget was the amount of attention my car got. There was one other Silvia in town, which was a two tone champagne coloured car which an old person drove. It was dead stock and so so boring to look at, it probably never raised so much as an eyebrow. My car however was low, loud and had nice wheels, was midnight blue and no badges, which gave it a real mysterious presence. I remember so many people asking me what it was and how a young guy on his P plates could afford a car like that. Cruising about at night I’d get people walking by asking if my parents bought it for me or how big of a loan did I get to buy it. It amused me to think it was just a second hand 10 year old Nissan that cost half as much as the most boring of current model falcon or commodore. The funniest moment was sitting at the traffic lights as a bogan family in a van pulled up next to me, kids spilling out the windows. One of the kids yelled “oh wow a Ferrari!”, then the parents in the front could be clearly heard asking “how the f**k can a P plater afford a Ferrari?!”. Hehe! Another time someone from high school pulled up next to me and recognised me, he got my attention and told me I “must be doing alright” to drive a car like that. Years later I’d make friends with another local who had a Silvia who told me he once stopped to ask someone for directions and the person was going to the same place so he offered them a lift. They agreed and excited said “ohh I’ve never been in a Ferrari!” Hilarious.

The Silvia was pretty quick for an NA 4 cyclinder, but it was certainly much more nimble than it was quick in a straight line. This great handling started my obsession with making it handle better and so my first couple of mods were a front strut tower bar and some wheel spacers. I’d then go on to f**k about with endless exhaust mods, finally settling on an Apexi N1 system and stupidly changing my wheels for some shitting lenso s7s  

Due to the cost of Japanese parts at the time, I had to buy a used set of Tanabe Sustec Pro coilovers from Japanese Motorsport in Adelaide. These were sent through Australia post and were dropped off at my local P.O. If they thought the Apexi exhaust system was heavy, they must have shat themselves when those struts turned up! 

Foolishly I had already let go of the beautiful racing hart wheels the car came with, and the 17x7 lensos caused a bit of scrubbing on the front end with the new struts. A quick trim of the wheel arch liners fixed that. 

My car now looked pretty neat, but certainly not as sweet as it wouldve looked had I kept the Racing Hart’s. The next major mod would be changing the front brakes for Nissan 4 piston calipers, which was a very practical and cost effective mod at the time. I’m not 100% sure where I bought the calipers, but they were most likely again from Japanese Motorsport. For rotors I ordered some new slotted DBA discs which I had drilled for both 4x114 and 5x114, so when I finally changed my hubs to 5 stud I could use the same rotors. 

My car would stay like this for a long time, and receive more than it’s share of defects. The tanabe struts sat the car about 5mm too low, which meant whenever I got a defect I’d have to put the factory struts back in. What a bloody nightmare. I’ll never forget one time going to vic roads with my roadworthy slip and defect in hand to have it cleared, only to have a women sticky tape a piece of paper to a broom handle which she ran under the car and then tell me my car was too low and whoever cleared it is wrong or that I’ve changed it since. I told her that her broom handle paper bullshit was totally unreliable and unprofessional and maybe her concrete wasnt even, because I had literally drove straight there from the mechanic. She refused to clear my car and because it was a Friday afternoon at about 4pm I had to wait till Monday to revisit the mechanic who had some colourful words to describe her. He grabbed a brake pad box which was exactly 100mm and ran it under my car and it cleared everywhere with ease. I returned to vicroads and the same women then told me I must have changed something. I told her I hadn’t and that the mechanic doesn’t think much of her. This was just one of many infuriating situations I had to deal with owning a modified car.

Around this time, a close friend had moved to Shepparton and made friends with some car enthusiasts who had lots of very helpful connections who knew a lot about imports and told me how you can swap out the rear end of a Silvia with that of a skyline. There was an import wrecker in Shepparton ran by a guy named Andrew Vibart or something similar. It was from this place I would buy an R33 rear-end nice and cheap, which got me a diff upgrade, twin piston calipers and big discs. The downside of this would be the Hicas system attached to it.

The day I drove over to Shepparton to buy this rear-end would trigger a series of events that would see the car put off the road for over 10 years. ?

[s13n1]

Okay I finally got around to digging up some old photos. They’re not the best quality because they were taken with an old automatic 35mm film camera, and to make them even worse, I’ve scanned them using the google photo scanner iPhone app.

First up are some photos of the car when it was as close to when I bought it. These are from August 2001.

The wheel center caps were taken off for these photos, probably because I thought it looked shit because the front right cap was missing. The wheel had a bit of gutter damage, so possibly the original owner hit a gutter and lost the cap.

These photos were taken at the Stock and Sale Yards in Bendigo, which was a bit of a hot spot for hoons to go and do burnouts and what not. I went out here a few times when it was raining to use it as a skid pan, as it was a huge area and a safe place to practice some “defensive driving”.

This next batch of photos are from a couple months later in October 2001. I must have got the new wheels and headed back out to the sale yards for another beautiful photo shoot.

The Lenso S7 wheels are not a bad looking wheel, but ditching the Racing Hart’s for these.. i should have been flogged with a hose. Switching my wheels to a larger heavier wheel with cheap tyres made a big difference to the handling of the car. Turn-in was sluggish and less direct, like as if the tyres were gripping but the sidewalls were flexing, so it felt sloppy.

Going by the dates stamped on the photos, the next batch (I’ll save you the horrors and only upload one) was taken only 14 days later. I was obviously proud of my efforts, spraying my tailing lights with a can of tinting shit and getting an Autobarn quality muffler stapled onto the back. Jesus.

Going by the angle of that muffler, I’ll guess it was a family friend or relative that helped by simply cutting off the old muffler and welding the new milo can on with no modifications. Just horrible.

i have a couple more pictures that must have been taken shortly after that show the muffler at a less horrible angle. I must’ve ran out of time for the first fitting and then got it fixed up a few days later.

Not all the photos are time stamped, so I’ve had to go by the downward spiral of car mods to judge the timeline. The next batch were taken at Winton when my friend and I took our Silvia’s to an open day, where we got to race along side old HQ’s and other assorted retired race cars, thinking we were top shit. I’ll save those photos for the next post in case I hit a size limit.

Edited April 7, 2019 by s13n1

[s13n1]

Is it possible a mod could change my thread title to 18 years instead of 14?

[junkie]

Far out 18 years. I'm not far behind, had mine for 17 years and it's back to 100% oem now, except for the stereo

[s13n1]

7 hours ago, junkie said:

Far out 18 years. I'm not far behind, had mine for 17 years and it's back to 100% oem now, except for the stereo

Yeah it’s a long time, but the time it’s been off the road I think was a blessing because I now have a very good condition car with a very low Km engine.

Im also starting to take off Some aftermarket bits to take it back to a more stock look. I’ve still got my original stereo somewhere too. 

[s13n1]

When I bought the silvia, I was upgrading from a 1980 Mazda 323. My mate who came with me when I bought it, had an old Sigma, and he was planning to buy his second car too. He spent a considerable amount of time researching what to buy, trying his best to buy something P plate legal that was non turbo and faster than my silvia. He considered a lot of cars but eventually gave in and got a Silvia too. He got a light blue two-tone CA18 turbo, which was running higher boost and had some nice jap wheels. We both made the mistake of selling our nice jap wheels and buying shitty generic alloys.

It was either at the end of 2001 or the start of 2002 when we took our Silvia’s over to Winton for an open day. Racing around Winton was great fun and I was surprised to see our cars comfortably overtaking some race cars. They may have been taking it easy who knows, but from the sound they were making it felt like they were going pretty hard. Either way, we had a lot of fun and got a few photos of us driving our cars on a real race track.

Heres our cars parked with a friends yellow Datsun. He built his own EFI system for it and got more attention than our cars  

That yellow helmet I’m wearing.. I dunno where I found a helmet to fit my melon head, it may have been a VW bonnet.

While visiting my mate one day we decided to fit my lowered struts into his car to see how it looked. Thinking about it now I don’t know why we did it, he may have been considering getting lower struts and wanted to see how it looked. We also swapped wheels too for some reason. 

I can tell from the exhaust that this was taken after we had been to Winton, as my car now has the Apexi exhaust.

I’ve got a few more photos of the car at various stages as well as photos of the exhaust when it arrived and my 4 piston brakes and new rotors. I’ll post those then get back on track and explain why the car was taken off the road after a visit to Shepparton.

[s13n1]

The Apexi N1 exhaust was second hand from Japanese Motorsport and looking at the photos it’s amazing how good the condition was. I may have given it a polish, but even still, it’s super nice!

The next big purchase was the Tanabe Sustec Pro coilovers. These were also second hand and in really good condition too.

The car was sitting nice and sounding great now.

I remember getting pulled over for speeding between Kyneton and Redesdale and the cop told me my taillights were too dark and illegal. I played dumb and said I didn’t know what he was talking about, I hadn’t done it they came like that, typical young prick attitude. Obviously I was reluctant to remove the tinting so I only cleaned it off the lower half. What a douche. 

The next big mod would be the 4 piston brake upgrade. I’m not 100% sure where I got the calipers, but it was most likely Japanese Motorsport. I handed them over to a local brake and clutch specialist who ordered in a reconditioning kit to get them all cleaned up like new. 6+ months later I would return and collect them from him, nothing done to them at all, and he had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to sell them. Umm no, I actually want to put them on my car. I’d never go back to that guy again.

I striped down the calipers and cleaned them as best I could, replacing bolts and other bits where possible with nice new ones. I then hit them with a coat of gold paint and hand painted the word Nissan in red, trying to duplicate the look of Brembos. 

The installation was pretty straightforward, with the calipers and rotors bolting on with no modifications needed. Where I had trouble though, was bleeding them. I spent ages trying to get the air out and eventually called a local brake place (not lazy man) to ask about it. The guy promptly asked where the bleed nipple was located, at the top or bottom of the caliper.. What an idiot!

The next hurdle would be a real pain in the ass. My wheels didn’t clear the calipers! This was a big problem because i didn’t have access to different wheels. The only option was to fit some longer studs and run a couple of spacers while I source some new wheels. This was a shitty solution as it caused some wobbles above 80kmph, so I’d have to limit my driving to just commuting to work until I sorted something out.

I decided to get some R32 gts wheels and hopefully one day a pair of R32 gtr wheels for the back. Luckily I came across someone selling just a pair of GTR wheels, so I got all 6 wheels powder coated the same colour and set about getting a 5 bolt solution for the rear end.

So getting back on to when my car was put off the road after going to Shepparton. I had been told that a skyline rear end would bolt into an S13, so I headed over to Shepparton with my GTR wheels to have some cheap tyres fitted and price a rear end from a local jap wreckers. At the time, my car was running the gts wheels on the front and I had a pair of old r31 wheels on the back. The rear tyres were pretty bald and because the wheels were a bit smaller then the fronts, it was sitting really low at the back and looked super dodgy with the mismatching wheels. Why goons today think it’s cool to choose to put stock wheels on the back I’ll never understand. It looks like shit and defeats the purpose of buying nice wheels. Anyway, a cop seen me of course and pulled me over. He was actually a super nice cop, but I was defected for too low and bald tyres. Thank god he didn’t notice my front wheels were 5 stud and the rears 4.. Imagine I had got a flat tyre. What a bloody nightmare.

This actually happened after I had got the tyres fitted to the gtr wheels and I had already paid for an R33 rear end. I decided to drive over to where my mate was working and ask for his help picking it up and at some point got the stupid idea that we could do the conversion that night when he knocked off. He was working the next day and wasn’t too thrilled with the idea, but I somehow talked him into it and we enlisted the help of another mate and got to work. 

This was all done in my mates driveway which was a horrible old split concrete drive with cracked and crooked slabs of concrete jutting out at off angles. It was ridiculous conditions, but we worked late into the night and had it all put together before going to bed. I shake my head thinking about how stupid this is now, because had something gone wrong during the conversion, how would I have got home? Young and dumb!

The only issue we ran into was the exhaust no longer fit properly. The hanger locations were different and it didn’t flow through the rear end properly. This meant the drive back to Bendigo would be quite a hair raising one, as the exhaust hung so low I had to drive with my right wheels on the white line and my left wheels in the middle of the lane. The roads between Bendigo and Shepparton are pretty shitty with deep channels where your tyres normally sit. So every couple of seconds I would bottom out and spray a shower of sparks out the back.

I got the exhaust sorted out and it was only a week or two later that my mate from Shepparton was getting married in Bendigo. He had organised a couple of GTRs for his wedding cars and I while driving over to meet up with them, I spotted them on the way to the ceremony, so I took off to follow. That’s when the car stuttered and stalled. Wtf? I restarted but quickly discovered I had no clutch. Boom, it had blown right there as I tried to follow my mates wedding cars. It wasn’t even a spirited launch, just a regular launch, but my clutch had obviously just given up. It hadn’t even been abused, maybe 5 to 10 times where I had revived up and dropped the clutch, but mostly it was really well looked after. I managed to get it into gear and drive it home, which was only about 600 metres away. It would then be parked in the drive and not see the road again until.. well.. it’s still off the road today!

[s13n1]

Before I continue on with past Silvia modifications, I’ll share an annoying little story from yesterday.

I had plans to do a days work on the Silvia yesterday in preparation of a roadworthy. It would have been the last couple of little jobs I had to do to get it roadworthy, according to what the last roadworthy said needed to be done.

But yesterday was actually my 4 year wedding anniversary and although we knew it was this week, both myself and the wife kinda forgot until the night before, so I had to put on hold the big jobs till this weekend, so I decided to do a couple other little things.

Ive been wanting to swap out a few things to take the car back to a more stock look. One of these was to swap the blue silicone radiator hoses for the original black rubber hoses and to fit a water temp probe for my Blitz A-pillar water temp gauge. I finished up the work and decided to sneak it out for a spin to check the gauge was working and to get the coolant flowing. I took a secluded back road which is a 100 zone and after driving about 10ks I decided to slow down and shift down to put the engine under a bit of load. The rear end suddenly felt floaty and the rear left tyre let go. The entire inside sidewall detached from the tread but luckily the outside sidewall held and I was able to pull up quickly with no damage to the rim.

As soon as it happened I had visions of throwing out my silvias factory scissor jack because it had cross threaded and jammed a few years ago, so I had to call the wife and get her to bring the family car so I could use its scissor jack. Then of course i remembered my S15 space saver was low on air, so I had to use the family cars spare.

This was such a pain in the arse because just two weeks ago our family car, a 2007 Maxima, developed a wobble in the steering. I took the front wheels off and discovered the front left had a split inner sidewall running almost the entire outer edge of the tyre. Luckily, these wheels were some 20s, so I was able to put the factory 17s back on in time for a drive to Melbourne for a funeral a couple days later. I can only imagine what would have happened if that let go at 110 on the freeway.

Looks like I’ll be getting some new tyres before the roadworthy.

[s13n1]

Holy crap time flies!

So to continue with my cars story, when the clutch blew I knew it was time to finally do some more serious work to the car. At this time the car had R32 GTR wheels on the back, R32 GTS wheels on the front, good suspension, good brakes, so it handled and looked great. I had always wanted a turbo so now it was a good excuse to sort that out.

I decided on a 180SX front-cut, the price included a swap over with my old engine and gear box. This was purchased from the Import wreckers in Shepparton, the same guy who had sold me the R33 subframe.  He was kind enough to let us occupy his workshop for the day, swapping out the engine and getting the new one in and loading up the front-cut and taking it home. While pulling the front cut apart I discovered a Mines sticker on the computer in the kick panel, which is just a standard ECU that's been tuned, but it got a slightly annoyed look from the shop owner who probably would have tried to squeeze a few extra bucks for it. I got a few nice goodies from the front-cut, including a digital climate control unit and a digital dash cluster with heads-up-display. I had a friend come to Shepparton to help with the conversion, letting him have a pick of anything he wanted from the front cut, minus the above mentioned bits. 

My friend worked at the local Autobarn and was a huge help sourcing parts and general knowledge. He had his own CA18 S13 drift car which was a pretty wild beast.  A massive win I had was when I was buying some bits to finish the conversion. I wanted a FMIC kit, slim battery, some fancy Blitz black light a-pillar guages, a good clutch and other assorted bits and pieces. We got all the parts together and when I was about to pay, I whipped out an old and faded Autobarn membership card and joked around asking if this would get me some special discounts. My mates jaw dropped and he was like "holy shit dude!". He told me that Autobarn had decided to scrap the membership card thing and we're offering a big discount on final purchases when members handed them in. It was the final couple of days they were doing it. My bill was close to 2k and the discount was something crazy like 30 or 40%. The next time I seen him he said his boss had pulled him aside to ask wtf he was doing giving friends such ridiculous discounts, but he could do nothing but get annoyed when he explained everything. A rare win!!

The engine swap went well, I just had to take it to a shop to have the new clutch fitted and a short shift kit i had bought months earlier installed. It then had to go to an auto elec to fiddle with it to get it all up and running. The first drive home the cooler pipes let go a few times, which taught me to tighten my hose clamps properly, but other than that it was a sweet feeling to finally have a turbo! I then had to finish fitting all the little things like kick panels, dash trims, glove box and other assorted forgotten parts removed during the engine swap.

By this time the defect I had received when I was over in Shepparton had gone over it's due date, so my car was now unregistered and unroadworthy and couldn't be driven. At the time,  I didn't have access to stock suspension to get it cleared and when the clutch blew I kinda just ignored it, figuring I'd have to get it re-registered with the new engine anyway. This would be one of many mistakes made, which would contribute to me losing interest in the car.

At around this time a a lot of shit was going on in my life which forced me to ignore the Silvia. I had quit my long term job, moved out of home and met a girl. I lost touch with friends and spent too much time with the new girlfriend, ignoring the Silvia which now sat around un-driven, because my new job was within walking distance of my new house. Long story short, months turned into years, the girlfriend was a waste of time, my change of career was a bad choice and my life was a blurry mess of partying and occasionally buying car parts I never did much with. After a few years of this I met a new girl, settled myself, sold off other project cars I thought I wanted, and brought the Silvia with me across several house moves.

Over the couple of years since the engine conversion, i had a number of shitty experiences with buying parts which only put me off further trying to get the car "finished". I had shops send me wrong parts, overseas ebay dealers refusing to ship due to the difference between Australian and US "verified" accounts and addresses. Sure these guys were happy to sell the items but would then not communicate and not reply until you got ebay involved to get your money back. I had sellers mislabel parts or use old photos when the parts were in much better condition, so when they show up they're rougher than in the photos. Lots of annoying shit that discourages you from continuing. Anyone who's tried to work on a car with a very low or non-existent budged knows its tough to find parts you can afford, so you sometimes take risks on a deal that goes bad. 

By this point the Silvia had become a painful thing to look at. On one hand I had a lot of fond memories and didn't want to let it go, but on the other I kept thinking about all the defects, the hassles of getting it roadworthy and the negative attention it would draw from the police whenever I drove it. So many times i talked about selling it but just couldn't go through with it, but then finally one day I did actually attempt to sell it, but the market was so flooded with shitty S13s, and because of the sorry looking state my car was in, it didn't draw too much attention. I think about what I was asking for and I'm honestly surprised I was willing to let it go for so little and that nobody bought it! Some of the worst S13s I see today are still going for more than double what I was going to sell mine for. I've never been so happy to not sell something in my life!

After failing to sell it, i decided to clean it up and work towards "finishing": it. I got some things fixed here and there, bought the carbon bonnet and got some Rays red wheel nuts as well as some other bits and some new tyres.

Fast forward to today and the Silvia is still a pretty sweet looking car. Aside from some peeling clear coat and a cracked dash, it's straight as an arrow and runs like a dream. The interior is 100% intact and only has a couple little blemishes here and there. 

The skyline wheels were sold a few years back and replaced with some sweet 17x8 & 17x9 Gold Blitz Technospeed Z1s. I had dreamed of these wheels for years! I found a carbon fibre bonnet and some nice little motorbike sized carbon mirrors. The boot spolier was sold or traded years before and other bits and pieces have been collected and await fitment.

This is pretty much how the car looks right now, but it has the factory bonnet back on and the front lip spoiler is back on too. This pic was taken after i had got the Blitz wheels. I was excited to see how they look with the Tanabe struts.

Fingers crossed the car will be back on the road in the next 6 months. I've got more time and money to devote to it and the wife is pretty keen to see it going so we can spend any kid free days we get out driving the sweet country roads we have in victoria.

Future plans include some new seats, a rocket bunny boot spoiler, a rear bar and getting the Vertex front bar i have fitted. For a long time i wanted an R34 GTR spoiler, but im not so sure these days. A window tint is needed at some point too, but i cant get too distracted with wants, i need to get this thing on the road first.

I'll be back with any updates.

[PranK]

Looking fantastic!

I'm happy you decided to keep it. Despite feeling better about it you're also contributing to the small group of people who aren't destroying cars and are maintaining them properly. This car will only appreciate.

The downsides always compound and end up feeling like a lot, but as with everything they will ebb and flow. 

I'm really loving it. Keep up the updates.

[Shoota_77]

Ha ha, what a journey!  You must be stoked you still have it!  A lot of people would have just gone "Ah fu(K it. I'll just sell it" and never see it again.

The import wrecker here in Shepp was amazing 15-20 years ago!  I still think about it from time to time.  When I was doing my mechanics apprenticeship I used to go down there and look at all of the half cuts he had everywhere, it was heaven!!!  I didn't even have a Jap car at the time (VL Commy so Jap engine!) but I still loved all of the awesome turbo'd engines and other random Jappo goodness.

I would shudder to think what just got chopped up and chucked away from that place....  Shepparton was a pretty random place for a Jap import wrecker, it's never really had a strong Jap Import scene.  I think the guy himself loved them but I don't think it paid the bills long term.

A good story, keep it up!

[s13n1]

Thanks for the comments.

Yeah I'm super happy I kept it and I think one good side effect of being off the road was it saved it from possibly being a victim of some regrettable mods. Cut fenders for wide body kits, roll cages, stripped interiors and whatever other destructive fads were popular back in the day. 

Today i fitted a Hicas lock bar, Monday I put the stock struts back in, and last week I had some new tyres fitted.

It's booked in for a roadworthy on Monday, it's had everything done that was listed in the last roadworthy, so fingers crossed it passes and I can organise some club reg.

[s13n1]

Okay so a quick update on Mondays roadworthy.

I had been to see this guy for a RW about 4 years ago and at the time couldn't really allocate the funds to getting it ready, buying tyres and the actual registration costs were out of reach at the time. I have since got everything done that was listed (and more), but on Monday a bunch of additional things were picked up that probably should have been 4 years ago, because not a lot has changed. 

An eye-level stop light needs to be fitted. Simple. Already bought one and will fit it this week. What's weird is that my car had an aftermarket spoiler and never had a stop light fitted to the rear window. How this was never picked up I don't know.

He wants a structural report from a panel beater because the jacking points are a bit crumpled. These were like this since I bought the car. He thinks it looks worse than it appears. This too was not picked up 4 years ago. Anyone know much about what's involved here? I've got a work colleague with some panel beater friends and he's looking into it for me. 

Other things picked up were pretty simple, licensed plate globe, a ball joint rubber and a few exhaust bolts were missing.

Annoyingly my rear factory struts are leaking. This is SUPER annoying cause they're getting hard to find and there's really no guarantee replacements won't leak either. I've actually got a family contact at a local parts store who might be able to source some brand new replacements, so fingers crossed. 

Other than that, it needs a wheel alignment and it will be good to go!