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Rick Astley inspired s14

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51K views 320 replies 32 participants last post by  collegekid  
#1 ·
"We're no strangers to love,
You know the rules and so do I,
A full commitment's what I'm thinkin of,
you wouldn't get this from any other guy"

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So hello. I've been on this site for quite some time now. I have been broke since about 5 months ago when I started working full time for my dad over the summer. I bought the car stock as hell (March 19, 2011) with only an aftermarket headunit and speakers. It was Auto, 182,xxx miles, no rust (Except under the battery tray which I found recently). It needed brakes, the owner (some pothead's mom, very nice lady btw) thought it blew the powersteering pump, but it just needed some fluid.

Also the drivers rear quarter window was broken and I'm still finding glass in there to this day. Car also came with a mouse who decided to make a home in my center console, but I didnt try to catch him as long as he pooped out side of the car, didnt attack my girlfriend at the time, and didnt eat any of my wiring.

I got it for 2 grand including title and tags. CEL came on as I was driving home and my big ass grin turned into a "Oh shit balls" face. Needed just a new O2 sensor and IACV


So the day I bought her

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Put on 15% tint in the rears and 30 on the doors because the hoodlums kept bugging me while driving to buy my car. I was like "Dude were going 45 mph right now and I dont want to trade for your caravan, leave me alone"

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My friend "Read" (Kevin) Bought an s13 some time later, 5 speed, 166k miles, 1900 1989 SOHC. Blew his headgasket recently.

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So yeah, fast forward to about 5 months ago. I was broke like a joke but managed to save up 1 grand for my car. Getting paid shit money and having a girlfriend who was a bigger money pit then......I dont know, (insert car with many expensive repairs needed here). Got a job working for my dad and the money started coming in. So my friends and I got bored and decided to explore the suburban areas near me and aggressively drive through the back roads.

So Nighttime + shitty faded headlights + stock tires + stock brakes + Decelerating from 80 mph on a road 10 feet wide didnt end too well, but better than what would have happened.

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My car stopped just to the right of that fire hydrant. The trees were about 15 feet in front and there was someones house right there that you cant see.

Story was, a friend in a 2012 scion tc and I were going too fast, I was in front, brakes locked up, and I slammed into a curb. Both airbags deployed, for no reason might I add, wheels pushed back, tensions rods snapped, brackets crunched, rad support touching my engine from the bottom, frame crumpled and raised on passenger side, bumper raped from the bottom, and all i got was a seatbelt scuff mark. I sat in the car right after it happened. My friend ran out, almost pulled the door off screaming "OMG APU ARE YOU OKAYY?!". I looked this gentleman in the eye and replied " FUCK MEE DUDE, LOOK AT MY CAR!"

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The hood was locked shut, I towed it to a shop my mom knew, I asked them to pop the hood and they didnt, telling me its not worth it and I should sell it to the owner. Towed it home the next day cuz I wanted to strangle him because of how scummy of a move that was. I got to tearing it apart.

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Took the motor out and everything. Artur (A2thak) suggested I go in for a tube front. After talking to the shop, it would be better to get a new radiator support and just have them cut and weld a new piece of frame from a front clip they had. The shop is One motion in NE Philadelphia.

Day she left
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What they accomplished after 1 month
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The job they quoated me, originally for a tube front, and the new frame piece was around 1500-2 grand. After talking with the co-owner/welder, it would be better to get a new rad support just because it would be easier to resell the car as stock then to sit there and try to explain the tube front on a street car (I wanted to keep the apron in front of the strut tower) and if I went with a tube front, Id lose the ability to swap front ends once I have it made for a zenki, kouki or s15 front. They were gonna make custom brackets for everything, so I went along with the rad support, the quote still stayed the same though so I was kinda mad about that.

But yeah, 1 month and all they got to was taking off the tension rods, brackets, a/c system, and rad support. They said the hold up was the frame being bent, and that they had 2 different frame guys, none of which showed up and wasted 2 weeks of that time. I went to one place, found a frame guy and handled everything in a 3 day period. Last tuesday it went to the collision shop (Bucks collision), they did everything on wednesday, Thursday got dropped off back to One motion.

Dat Ass
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For Some reason through pictures, it looks very shitty and un aligned. But It is just the seam sealer or whatever he called it. Rubber coating to prevent the welds from rusting.

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Last night I picked up used Tension rod brackets and worn Tension rods from a guy with leftover parts from a Zenki with no title. It was $33 for those parts.

So currently it's sitting at One Motion. I still wanted them to cut out the frame he straightened and put on the new piece, and fix my battery tray. They said stop by Monday. Today is monday, so naturally I stopped by. Car looks the same. UGH. Right now the wait, according to them, is on which rad support I wanted, Zenki, Kouki, or S15.

My options are as follows

Front clip from Zerolift
-900 shipped for the JDM Zenki Front. Comes with Navan front bumper. I got quoted 1000 shipped and Mike (Owner of One Motion) got it down to 900.

From the dealer
-Zenki rad support alone is 500 shipped
-S15 rad support is 350. I chatted with mike and he said the Zenki front can be used on the s15 rad support, but I have to modify it for the hood latch and headlights.

He called me about 30 minutes ago and told me all this, I said order the S15. He told me to drop by tomorrow and drop off the 350 and they would order it. I am posting this now so anyone who wants to say anything can say so.

I have questions about if I should tell them to do the tube front or not. Someone told me the material (Dom 1 5/8's) would be too strong.
-is it true that you can only align the tube front to one front end?
-They are also doing the battery tray rust, should I tell them not to do it and tackle it myself? Never did any welding before but I have money to spend on a welder.
-Should I even bother with letting them put in the new frame piece? I want to paint the engine bay white so I can find leaks and such, I'm just afraid it would look shitty.

Any input is appreciated, Thanks guys




 
#314 · (Edited)
Alright so it's been like 2 years, I guess I should update LOL.

2019

So 2018 ended. The house is looking pretty packed with all the cars. I had contacted a well reviewed concrete contractor to build an extension at the side of the house, towards the end of 2018. He wasn't able to get out there until the end of February/early March 2019. He put in a 70 foot long by ~10 feet wide driveway. Once 30 days had passed, I brought home something that I had in storage for almost a year.

Around the corner from my girlfriends house there was this S14 I always saw, from like 2013 until 2018. Well in 2018 I see a forsale sign on the property. I contact the homeowner and purchase it for really cheap. I had no room at the house so it went into storage while I started on getting a driveway extension done.
Once this was done, I brought the car home.

Cars home by Apu , on Flickr

cars home 2 by Apu , on Flickr

It's a twin car to the one I bought for my brother.

1995 Nissan 240sx
Stock Ka24de, auto trans
4 lug snowflake wheels, higher end factory radio options, and all stock besides some viper alarm system that I want to remove. It still has the oem radio LOL.
Uncracked dash too!

It had some titling issues, which is why I got it for so cheap. I bought it honestly as a parts car but the car ran when I bought it, albeit poorly.
It had a good drivers side fender and my 240 needed a windshield, I bought this less than what those two parts cost today.

The titling issues took some time to get taken care of, mostly from me not doing the right thing. That car sat parked and it still is parked, but I finally got titling issues taken care of late 2021 and now I fully own the car free and clear.


Around June, my car parts company wasn't doing too well so I got a nice little severance package and was on my way. I had another job lined up within 2 weeks and took some time between to fix up the house a little. We did new carpeting upstairs and we literally had to move 4 bedrooms worth of crap downstairs for them to install carpet.
After that I started on the pool renovation but that didn't go anywhere.

My new job is alright. I walk into a bit of a shitshow. It's in aviation and I essentially had to fly out to California about 4 times over the next 3 months to basically investigate one of our suppliers. Then I had to watch some old lady make switches. Then I had to "train" some old dude to watch old lady to build switches. Old dude got paid like 5 grand a week to literally sit there and watch something that cost $70 get put together by someone making $10/hour.
 
#315 · (Edited)
2019 continued

So I'm not really doing much besides work related stuff that summer.
My girlfriends dad sold and bought a new house so I spent a lot of time helping them move and get their house ready.


I was in Santa Ana, California for most of it. I did take the liberty of upgrading my own rental cars (Company actually paid for it, I didn't think they would)

I had a crappy 4 cyl turbo camaro first, then a '19 Challenger, then a '19 Mustang GT.
Surprisingly came home with 0 tickets.
Had In-N-Out burger for the first time, man that was great.

Cali by A P, on Flickr

Huntingdon Beach


Cali by A P, on Flickr

In-N-Out


Cali by A P, on Flickr

Cali by A P, on Flickr

Rentals



Visited an aquarium/zoo that was in a strip mall. Weird but cool. Turtles seem to always get it on whenever I'm around.

I have wayyy to many pictures that look like this haha

Cali by A P, on Flickr



Later / End of 2019

Like I said, I didn't really touch the cars too much. I was really involved in this thing at work.

Over the summer though I did manage to snag some wheels for my Subaru.
I bought two full sets of Advan RGs and then one new old stock wheel that will be kept as a spec wheel to get the others refinished to.
Notice the difference in color from new versus being used.

Cali by A P, on Flickr


I also adopted another dog. This one was with my girlfriend though. The border collie "Lady" had to be put down at 17 years old and the pug was lonely.
The jack Russel was with me.

Morri by A P, on Flickr

She was only like 10 weeks old when we got her.

I think that's about it for 2019.
 
#316 · (Edited)
2020

Prior to the pandemic happening, I heard about a good amount of people getting sick around the time I was in California. The latest I was there was in October of 2019. I kept up on news but it had not really taken off. It was just a weird flu people were getting.

For our anniversary, my girlfriend and I drove up to Canada for a long weekend.

Checked out the Niagara falls of course, but we also stopped by an aviary / bird house / reptile zoo.

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr


So the pandemic lockdowns kicked off right as we got to Canada. Coming back into the US was greatly restricted the day after we got back.

I started working from home and used that extra 2 hours from not commuting to work in getting my car going.
The engine was bought around 2015 and we are now talking 2020.

I drew up plans for a pre-oiler tank but I decided not to use it because I could not get it clean.
The parts list was under $100 using all harbor freight stuff, but my fabricator couldn't get it clean no matter how much he rinsed it out so I scrapped the idea. The goal was to use an air tank, fill it with oil, fill it with air using a tire compressor, and connect to oil of the oil lines. This way it would pre lube the oil system. I ended up just overfilling the oil and hand cranking.

Anyway, car fired right up and sounded really healthy. It was also really loud since I had a 4.5" inch fart cannon on it.

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr


Anyway, here are the dogs smiling and relaxing.

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr

Early 2020 by A P, on Flickr
 
#321 ·
Alright. So 2020 was tough.

I fell into a weird spot. Like it was a mentally draining year.

In the summer a group of friends and I decided to go to Alaska.
It normally would be super expensive but the lockdowns actually made pricing stupid cheap. I could not recreate that trip again, regardless of money. The lack of people made it an experience we would never forget.

Alaska by A P, on Flickr

Alaska by A P, on Flickr

Alaska by A P, on Flickr
 
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