I moved on the exact date of a drift event at Piedmont so I had to wait a month to catch the next one. Unfortunately it started off as a rainy an dreary day, pretty rare in this area. But towards the end it dried up and the course got a bit faster. The course however is very rough and not low car friendly. I got a few ok runs in before I broke my axle and pulled the threads out of my upper control arm.

With no friends in the area to carry tires for me I had to get creative since the SC does not have great cargo space.

There wasn’t much media and after finally rigging my car to drive home I was beat. It started to rain again and I was driving home on one axle with a welded diff and a heavily loaded car. The lightening that came was super impressive and the thunder felt like it was going to cave my chest in.

I recently left the north east and moved back to the dirty souf. I did some research before I left and found there was a place of drift not far from me. Also a track I have always watned to drive, VIR, is fairly close as well as the Blue Ridge parkway and some other interesting spots.

But before that a quick catch up. I stripped the rest of the old chassis and had the car towed off. A huge load off my shoulders.

One last rompe at Richmans

One day while cleaning out the garage I dropped a tie rod on the back glass of the SC so I had to take it to get replaced. Expensive and hard to find.

I put everything up for sale with the plans to let go of whatever sold first. Hoping the Q45 would go first so I could get a truck for a daily, however the Bike sold first. I was sad but not really.

As a going away gift I got to see a RWB creation and ran into an old classmate of mine.

I can’t find the picture but Damien Bagley hooked it up on shipping. The SC and M3 went on his trailer and I towed the Q45 down behind the Moving truck and the Virago was inside.

I had a week off before work so I went out to a few meets to get a feel for the area. A photographer caught some images of the SC.

I wandered around and did a few of the M3.

And some of the Q.

Attended a Food Truck Festival/ Car show in Greensboro.

Thanks Jeri. So much cussing but this song goes hard.

And this commercial just got me. Someone emailed it to me recently and it had me thinking about Nico, and the fact we were planning to go to Final Bout with the guys.

I was determined to do a Club Loose event this year. It had been 2 years since I had been on that track and it presented some challenges I wanted to surmount in the SC, namely the first entry. I had never done the course with a working ebrake and most of the time I had no power steering.

This time I had both so I was looking forward to the challenge. The car is heavy and not well suited to a track like this but I was satisfied by the end of the day. Next time will be even better.

Richman

This day was also our friend Jonny’s birthday. So we put together and got him a cake. If you look close at the picture below you can see us tearing into it. He was super surprised and really happy. That made the day!

Then we went and got Pizza and drove home.

Every car I had built up to this point was restrained. I did the safe road on them and while they looked good I wanted to go hard this time. So the over fenders, hood vent, red interior were all part of the plan. But I wanted to top it off with something I didn’t see on any other SC. A GT wing coupled with a low slung spoiler. I had no idea if it would work but I just did what I felt.

Test fitting the Bomex spoiler on the wingless trunk I wrapped Gold for extra nuts factor.

I measured and cut the bomex to fit around the GT wing and then painted it with some rainbow flake.

The gas flap broke off so I pulled one off my old shell and wrapped it to match the trunk. Kind of cool!

The homey David Lu caught me at work parked all alone.

After the oval event I was kind of drained. After about 4 years of trying to get the SC together and finally having a “successful” outing I just wanted to relax and not stress about getting into the garage. I didn’t even wash the car. I parked it in the garage and focused on getting back in shape and riding my motorcycle. Around this time my friend Nico passed away a week after my grandfather. Going to his funeral let me realize how many people have become important to me just through this hobby. I took some time out one weekend to go to visit Rich Whiteman aka Richman at his new house. It’s so huge I named it White Castle. The plan was to take a few shots of our cars together but it was stuck at the dyno. Tony from Freedom Motorsports came through and we just sat and talked all day. A good time. No work, no stress, just chill.

Kato saying “Bruh, What Are Thoooosee???”

I got an invite for a stylish car day at a private track. So after getting the car pretty I had to address the biggest issue on the SC. The power steering and the angle. Richman had cut up and welded my knuckles for me but I had not yet installed them.

Off with the front.

New rack.

Old out.

I wanted to get these coated but I didn’t even have time to paint them.

New knucks in.

As I was putting my AN fittings into the new rack I had a complete brain fart and used an impact gun.

Completely sheared apart the fitting. I was frantically calling places to see if they had any fittings for me to use. Then I remembered I had recommended my friend Punch to use the same lines that I had for his Cressida. but they turned out to be too short. I called Punch and he was going to take a lunch break and would meet me at his apartment and give me the brand new kit. I tried to pay him for it but he wouldn’t take any money. A great friend! I hustled back and got everything buttoned up. Thanks to Brent for driving me out to Punch’s. I would have missed the track otherwise. I didn’t take before or after pix of the angle but I noticed a big difference. I also ditched the rack spacer which for some reason blows the seals.

I took the SC out to “The Oval”, a private track near Penn State about 3 hours away. This was the first real test of the car since I redid the brakes and suspension. On the highway the car was smooth aside from some rubbing and sideskirt to road contact. My brother followed me out and my homie Punch met up with me at the track a few min. after we got there.

I love how low the car is and that it tucks rim under compression. Sadly the car has so little grip I may have to remove some camber.

Alex is an excellent driver. Hans Lessig takes some great shots too!

Some cheesy footage.

Overall the car felt good. I was happy with the angle. We could have gone a bit more aggressive but it was a vast improvement. The rack was smooth and I didn’t have to muscle the car as much. But I needed to get rid of some camber for more grip. The car had not a lot of forward bit mid drift.

Eric sent me a photo to let me know how much he loved my car and its horrendous body.

Rich texted me a few times to let me know the prep on my car was taking longer than expected. I tried to warn them!

I did a few things to get it ready but couldn’t get to it all. I fixed a hole in my rear bumper, and a few other plastic spots, got rid of a bunch of tar and a mystery rubber all over the car.

This was the next shot I saw and I was amped. I decided to go with no added pearl and I’m glad. Eric and Rich’s cars looked nuts but I wanted a more simple quiet look since my car isn’t making 400hp and I don’t drive nearly as good as those dudes.

Matchy Matchy

Car could use a good cut and buff.

Monday I got the car home and started to assemble it.

My ocd was screaming when I dropped it off knowing it wasnt going to be perfect but I was super happy with how it came out for what it was.



A spot on the bumepr I filled that previously was for DZus fasteners. I didn’t prep it right and the paint just seeped into it.

It can always be touched up later!

Thursday night I took the car to my local home depot parking garage and finished attaching everything. New roof spoiler and some other additions.

Fixed a few issues with the headlight and got the alignment a bit closer in. It was way way way off in a rush to get the car drivable to paint.

With 2 days to get ready for paint I needed to swap my chewed up front fenders for the straight ones I bought about two years ago. I also needed to clean up this weird rubber spashing on the car. This chassis had some super strange stuff with it since I got it. Actually when I saw it in person I decided not to buy it. But Ali who was selling it gave me a decent deal. Being that it was a 5 speed manual car I bought it. But I wish I went with a nicer body.

Having a small garage with no light has its drawbacks. As darkness fell I had to use touch more than sight. I cut myself so many times and smashed many parts of my body.

I had a spare bumper and new sideskirts as well to get painted. I put the fiberglass bumper on because I knew I would not have a truck to carry the spare and the oem could be folded into a car.

This is the reason I went to a 235/35/18. The frame on the SC is insanely low and 40 series would get caught on transitions. The car bottoms out but I went with a 20kg spring to try and limit that.

Installing stuff months after you get it is such a bad idea. I found out while putting the drivers side fender on that ALL the mounting holes not under the hood were broken off and missing. So I fitted it the best I could in the dark. I had to hammer the lips flat as well since I didn’t have my fender roller. So they came out pretty bad. I should be able to smooth them out with the roller later though.

My neighbor friend Nate loaded up the bumper in his Camaro and we drove 1.5 hours to Eric’s house to drop the car off.

Then Eric showed up with the other cars. FC and S13 both LSX making around 400hp each. Boss.