NewYear,New Member,New Car! Check it outtt! Cbus240’s Intro Thread (56k!)

[Cbus240]

Alright, so one of the many drunken New Year’s resolutions I made as I was saying goodbye to 2009 (you were a total b**** by the way), was to finally make an obnoxiously detailed intro thread for my recently acquired 89’ hatch! Of “said” drunken resolutions, this is probably the only one I will actually fulfill lol, so why not start 2010 off for my s13 with a clean slate and a proper introduction? I honestly don’t know if this is an intro thread, but that’s what I’m going to call it.

WARNING: All right kiddies, there’s going to be some reading in this post, so if you aren’t down for that, it’s all right meng, you can just skip through and look at the pretty pictures and post your input and suggestions. All comments are welcome, mean or nice. Hey, I know it’s a little long, but if you are past a 4th grade reading level and have some time to kill, I think you should read away! It is kind of an epic journey in a way, I mean there’s no dead hookers or anything crazy like that, but it is a good read for those who care. End Disclaimer.

My name is Pat, I’m 19 years old, and I live in Columbus, OH. I first came here to NICO a little over a year ago when I first started looking at getting into the 240 scene. Thanks to you guys, I was able to educate myself on all the basic swaps and mechanical/technical info that one should know about when looking at buying a two-four O. So I lurked around here for quite awhile like that creepy a** old guy you see at Wal-Mart at 2 in the morning, and I finally joined and became a member a couple months ago when I knew I was going to be sealing the deal on my future Nissan. So the hunt for my riiide started back in January of 09’. All I knew is that I wanted an s13 chassis, it could be a coupe or hatch, and ultimately I wanted something with an already complete SR swap, preferably done by a shop. Now during my search, I found a lot of great candidates, but at the end of the day, they ALL had something in common…RUST.

I’ve noticed from reading a lot of various posts, that there is a predominant PA crew here in the 240 forums. I’m sure you guys (or anyone who lives in a winter wonderland at some point during the year) can definitely relate when it comes to battling the horrid 240 rust, the sh**y snow storms, and salt spray from the roads. These elements are the enemy when trying to live a life free of rusty, rotted out 240s. THE hardest thing for me about finding an s13 here in Ohio, especially with the hatches, was scoring one that was rust free. Well, that day finally came sometime in the middle of February. I was searching the local C-bus craigslist and saw a new posting for an 89’ hatch, with a legit SR swap, along with a lot of other goodies, and right there in the posting were those two beautiful words…”Rust Free.” From the pictures on the posting, the car looked immaculate, I mean by far definitely one of the cleanest I had seen in awhile! Of course, we all know pictures can be deceiving, but hey it was a good start man! I contacted the owner Nick, whom I later found out was a fellow NICO member, (username Tokarzni) and asked him tons of questions about the car. I told him I was really interested in the car but in all reality I wouldn’t be in the market to even buy a car until July, and since he had been getting calls from people who weren’t very serious buyers, (mostly 15 year old punks who didn’t even have the funds for a car like this) he decided to take the posting off craigslist for the time being. Fast forward to the middle of May. After keeping in contact with Nick the past few months, and receiving updates every so often (he was in the process of installing Z32 brakes F&R) I finally made plans to go up and see the car for the first time. I never took pictures of the car that day, but I have a few pics that Nick had of the car and sent to me when I first inquired about it. These pics are exactly what the car looked like when I first went to check it out, minus the stock tails:









Ok, so not too bad right? Besides the sunken FWD offset Enkei rims, partial 4x4 status, and not so baller 4 lug hubs, it was a good platform to start with. The thing that really caught my eye was the paint. It’s called Luna Blue Pearl. I guess it’s a color that’s used on the Volkswagen Phaeton, it looks like a really dark blue when no light is hitting it, but when the sun is shining just right, the pearl comes out and it looks gorgeous. Now at this point, the car was still immobile and was sitting atop jack stands because Nick was still slowly but surely work on doing the full Z32 brake swap, along with SS braided brake lines and Z32 BMC. So I asked to hear her start up. He told me the car ran rich due to a tuning issue. Sure enough, when he started it up, the SR was running quite rich, it was stumbling and he had to keep his foot on the throttle initially when the motor was cold to even keep it running, and for being my first time ever seeing and hearing an SR run in real life, the motor didn’t come off as too healthy! haha to be honest, I was kind of scared, my heart sank a little bit, and I reeked of gas the rest of the day. More on this matter later. Anywho, Nick and I became friends and I started to wrench on the car with him on the weekends. We finally got the Z32 brakes finished, sans rear e-brake cables, (didn’t have the 2+2 cables yet) when we hit the first snag. When putting the crapola offset Enkeis on the front of the car, it was apparent they were not going to jive with the new monster calipers. So now we’re at a crossroads. We could sell the Enkeis and try to find a proper offset 4 lug wheel to clear the calipers just to get the car rolling again, or sell the wheels, go 5 lug, and open up a world of opportunity for wheel choices. Thankfully, he chose the latter. Nick already had the rear 5 lug hubs from the 300zx upright assembly he got with the rear calipers, and decided to buy Ichiba hubs for up front. I took the rear 300zx hubs & splash shields home along with some intercooler piping to clean and paint since I like doing that stuff. Here’s a few phone shots:









Around this time, I was moseying around the forum, when I came across a link to another member’s car (ZX88 I think was the name) with a set of 17x9.5 +15 MB Battles on it. I fell in looove, so much, that I actually have a pic of your car saved to my laptop man! lol creeper alerttt. Yes I knowww, it’s a knockoff of the JDM CST Hyper Zero wheel, but I’ve got news for you, 99% of my friends and other people that will see my car will never know the difference! Being 5 lug, and being that they were fairly cheap and awesome looking, I told Nick he HAD to at least consider buying these wheels. He agreed, but to our dismay, I guess Discount Tire had discontinued the Battles awhile back. Our quest for the wheels was looking grim when, I got a call from Nick a few weeks later. I don’t know how, but Discount was able to scrounge up a set of four 17x9.5 gunmetal Battles from like 4 different stores across America, I was sooo stoked! However, there’s always a catch…bring on snag number 2. The wheels were obviously not going to work with the Tockico struts and Eibach lowering springs that were on the car. Also, alignment was either going to be near impossible, or a total PITA without any kind of fully adjustable suspension pieces in the rear. So, a call was made and a few weeks later came a bunch of goodies from SPC Performance parts (very nice and affordable suspension pieces I might add). We started searching the classifieds on all the Nissan forums and Nick was able to score a set of used Tein SS coilovers, along with the EDFC controller for a crazy good price on Zilvia…and there was much rejoicing!!! Only pic I took when the wheels were off was just of the front setup, again crappy cell cam:





It seemed as if we were finally on track to getting the car rolling again. Remember that SR that was running rich?? Welll, after a little research on NICO and detective work in the engine bay, we found out that the IACV was plugged off with a plastic cap, and actually need to be piped to a fitting on the cold pipe. After some plastic tube from Lowes and a JB welded bung on the cold pipe, we put it together, turned the key, and guess what!?!? The SR started right up and ran like a champ, no obnoxious gas fumes, no black smoke, no stumbling, just pure sexy time!! All my worries floated away with the sweet sound of that Tanabe exhaust. I forgot to mention, with everything that I have just explained, we now find ourselves near the end of September. lol FML!!The weeks passed, and we were able to get everything together, including the 300zx 2+2 e-brake cables, after wrongly ordering the R32 cables after reading some false information on a “certain” site. The stars aligned and we were on the home stretch…until we lowered the car. If you’re still reading this far, not only do I commend you, but I’m also sure you can guess….yup, snag number 3!!! The tires, can’t remember what size he got from our buddy Alex, were definitely going to rub like a mofo. We had talked about it before, and really cringed at the thought of having to do so since neither of us had ever done it before, but this mission was not going to be complete until the fenders were tucked and rolled. Thankfully, Nick is an engineer for Honda R&D, and their race team had a fender roller that employees could borrow (I know, right?). It sucks because I never took any pics of most of the stuff we did, so you’ll just have to imagine things. Being that we were total noobs at this “art form”, we did our best with the totally bada** professional fender roller and….a $5.00 hair dryer lol. I got to say, it didn’t turn out half bad, we kind of bojangled the front fenders a little, (had the roller head at too much of an angle) but at this point, we were just happy with the fact that the tires now had plenty of room to groooove! So it was on the chilly, late November night, November 1st to be exact, that after almost 10 MONTHS of not moving and collecting dust, that we finally rolled her out of the garage! This was the first time I had actually seen the car as a WHOLE….and the first time I got to see and hear the car rip. All I can say is…it was WELL worth the wait! Here are pics from that night before we took her out on the maiden voyage, look at that dust build up! lol (last time of crappy cell pics):









A week or so after that, I finally got to take her out for a test drive! I mean the SR is stock, but this was my first time ever driving a turbocharged vehicle; the sound of the turbo spooling, that crisp throttle response…life was goood! It was a total blast driving the 240 around, everybody was looking at us, they didn’t know what the hell it was!! As they say, all good things must come to an end, and as I pulled the car back into Nick’s garage and was letting the turbo timer let the car idle down, it was at that exact moment, that I knew I had to make this 240 mine. No other 240 in my mind, after helping work on this car and see it inside and out, would ever be as appealing to me, this was in fact, “The One.” I finally bought her from Nick the first week of December, just right before the cold and nasty winter weather started to move in to Ohio. I brought the car over to my house that weekend to change the oil and kind of go over all the suspension parts we had installed over the summer. Everything looked great! I snapped some pics since she had finally been cleaned a couple weeks before, and took her back to the temporary garage for the winter, aka a 10x20 storage unit! lol SO, as your reward for reading through the cheesy story of my obsession and how my 240 and I came to be, here are some of the pics I shot that weekend, and how the car looks in its current state:































Her home away from home haha





Here’s just a few things about the car:1989 Nissan 240sx-VW Luna Blue Pearl Paint-S13 Sr20det w/ 5 speed-Full Tanabe Racing Medallion Exhaust w/ Test Pipe-TiAL BOV-Koyo Radiator-ACT Clutch-B&M Short shifter-SPC Performance Adj., RUCA’s, Rear Toe Arms, Tension Rods, & Rear Links-Tein SS Damper Coilovers-17 x 9.5 + 15 Gunmetal MB Battles-Z32 Brakes Front & Rear w/ E-brake-SS Braided Brake lines & Clutch line-JDM Kouki Tails-Hella H4 Headlight Conversion-Recaro SRD Drivers Seat-Corbeau Harness-S2000 Antenna-HKS Turbo Timer-Defi Link-Meter & Boost Gauge-Alpine Head Unit-There's other things, but who cares at this point? lol

All in all, I think I’ve found a great car to start with, I mean, it’s nowhere near the caliber of a lot of cars on here, but I plan on making it “my own” over the next couple of years. There are hundreds of things I want to do to this car, it kills me lol. For right now, I just want to enjoy it, I wish it was spring already so I can drive the damn thing! I’m sure as I start to compile parts, I will make a build thread like everyone else on here haha. I’m one of those people that like to take the time to do things right, so some of the first things I will be doing, is completely going through the car and cleaning it up to the quality I like my cars to be. Like a lot of people on here, after seeing Broadfield’s coupe I have been inspired to take my car to the level of execution that people admire his 240 for. OK, enough a** kissing. I’ve got plenty of years to do so, and I plan on contributing a lot to the NICO community, so until next time….c’est la vie homies!!! Thanks for reading.

[EnjoiNismo]

I skimmed through it, haha.Nice looking car!Very clean. Engine bay is gorgeous, along with the car.Good choice on rims, Battle Welcome!

[Razi]

I like it!

Nice car man!

[Black on Gold]

Very nice intro and very clean car.

[JustDriftMore]

nice find sir

[93sivliaUsdm]

i like that you actually took the time to explain it all like a story haha, the car is gorgeous and i envy her. i only have 2 things to add, piggy lip and im sorry but that muffler looks awful =/ just my opinion though. im sure the sound makes up for it though haha

[mrgreeneyes]

fresh dude.

i am looking for a super clean body too, and yeah... welcome to the rust belt.

welcome from the lancaster crew!

[usdm_anon]

Awesowe story!!! Read the whole thing haha...great find! Can't wait till I get my 240P

[Cody240]

Unlike some on here I actually read the whole thing all I have to say is I be stoked to hopefully make my ride into some thing I to can enjoy and use to its true potential, sweet ride man and gl keep up the 240 love they may not be one of the gods of the car world but they sure put some of those high rollers to shame because of people like you man and all it takes is hard work and a good imagination.

[troskinatior]

i was reading this while lisening to 1909, and i gotta say that was epic.

and i know the exact felling when you said you dont know what to do next, i love and hate that feeling.

and do you mind me asking how much did you get for it?

[Cbus240]

Hey guys I just want to say thanks for the welcome and comments, it's good to finally be apart of the NICO community!

i like that you actually took the time to explain it all like a story haha, the car is gorgeous and i envy her. i only have 2 things to add, piggy lip and im sorry but that muffler looks awful =/ just my opinion though. im sure the sound makes up for it though haha

lol no you're right, I totally agree about the muffler on the Tanabe setup. The system itself sounds so nasty, but something just looks "funny" about the muffler. I think in the future I am going to go with the Greddy Ti-C, but since I really have no other reason to replace the exhaust besides for aesthetic reasons, it will just have to suffice for the time being. There will probably also be a piggy lip down the road too haha

i was reading this while lisening to 1909, and i gotta say that was epic.

and i know the exact felling when you said you dont know what to do next, i love and hate that feeling.

and do you mind me asking how much did you get for it?

I dont even want to think about it haha I guess you can say I paid a pretty penny for her, but I mean it was worth every bit of it to me and that's what matters right? It was less than 10k though, I will say that much lol

fresh dude.

i am looking for a super clean body too, and yeah... welcome to the rust belt.

welcome from the lancaster crew!

lol I'm surprised one of you lancaster guys actually saw the PA reference! Thanks on the comment though, I've seen your build thread a couple times, I really need to check it out from the beginning to where you're at now. Regardless, that coupe looks dope!

[fourLUG_hero]

I like everything except your choice of coils, front bumper, and exhaust.

Rare Recaro you got there too.

[93coupe]

Good looking car. I'm really digging the seat.

Not so much the exhaust though.

[240sxJoe91]

Great find..Must have been nice to be able to wrench on the car you were going to buy before you bought it, that's not that much reading lol...Ive read worse Nice 240 im going to have to do some suspension stuff on mine here soon... but ohh well lol....

[Coeur de lion]

Great scoop! Good intro thread!

Keep up the awesome work!

[safin]

nice find sir

I even saved that engine bay pic

[Broadfield]

Looking good Cbus..... and thanks for the compliment! If you ever have any questions or want to go over some ideas, feel free to give me a shout. Good luck with that thing and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

Toby

[VirginiaPS13]

Nice Wheels!!! Car looks Great.

[Cbus240]

Well I havent been on here in a little while, but thanks again for the comments guys! haha after all the hatin' on the exhaust, I think there will definitely be some changes made this summer, but hey, it came with the car and it sounds nice, so cut me some slack lol.

Looking good Cbus..... and thanks for the compliment! If you ever have any questions or want to go over some ideas, feel free to give me a shout. Good luck with that thing and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

Toby

Thanks man, it really means a lot. lol I hope you will be ready to answer my noob wiring/electrical questions when the time comes!

I like everything except your choice of coils, front bumper, and exhaust.

Rare Recaro you got there too.

So I'm told, fourlug. The previous owner said that it was a Recaro SRD, from like a Toyota MR2 or something along those lines?? Is this true? I mean can you or anyone else elaborate on where this seat is from or what type it is? I'd really like to know. Regardless, I love the seat, it's super comfortable and fits like a glove lol

Nice Wheels!!! Car looks Great.

Thanks man, great minds think alike...or are we just cheap??

[Mychal]

very clean! the new wheels set it offthere is something about that exhuast though???just stands out to much or somethinggreat car keep the build going

[laxands13]

man that paint is really nice.. th mb's look great. oh and so does the s2000 antenna

[elchoccolatte]

Clean...

[S13k]

Very clean car . i just feel in love with those seats, reminds me of my dads

BMW seats fabric design (very rare on BMW too)

[RustspecS13]

So I just found you on here.

I hate that Nick got rid of it, but it did go to a GOOD home, unlike some random stranger.

I helped him diagnose so many problems with that SR swap, the guy before nick really didn't know engines from a hole in the ground.

And I got him to start looking at agressive wheels, and showed him a bunch with battles, I think you pushed him over the edge lol. And I cant believe he thought his enkeis would fit, just before I picked him up to test fit them, i asked him and he had no idea the wider calipers would hit. Hondas dont have that problem LOL. I just kept telling him "they are only fenders" and after a while it got to him hehe.

BTW you need a recirculation type blow off valve, or a tune so you can keep the tial. And a boost controller so you can run more then gay stock 5 or 7 psi. My stock rb20 is faster.

That's my POS white hatch in the background. Which reminds me it has 235/45/17s on it, since its the only set of 4 good tires I had for 17's.

And damn were they right when they said this thing is rust free, it looks like it was restored from the ground up. Everything has been painted and refinished. Its absolutely beautiful.

~Alex

[Coeur de lion]

Long story.

"Daaamn" @ pictures. Good turn out so far.