The S12 update

Let's face it, I'm old now. I think I'll be writing a lot more in this blog than I have been in the past few years of its existence. For starters, I've been getting a lot of questions and comments about the elusive S12 that I kept stored away in a garage somewhere. And frankly, it's gone! Forever, ever, ever. I sold the shell to a close friend of mine by the name of Hung and he's thrown in a CA18DET from his old black car and et cetera, how it's going to turn out, who knows? That's the fun part.

Recently, I was asked for a couple photos of its glory days for the S12Silvia calendar thing and while browsing through the sloppy, unorganized mess I call my archives, I reminisced a little bit about that old thing. I really liked how it looked, what a shame though that I hated that car so much. Hah. Any who, those two photos above are the ones I picked.

I'm sure you're all well aware that I now have three projects to attend to (those of which I haven't touched in probably a millenia) that consists of the cb750, 240z and that headache of an ae86 shell. Priority numero uno is pretty much the motorcycle since I'm in need of a daily here in San Francisco and then the s13 stuff I have left over will be thrown into the ae86; Ka24, front suspension, you name it.

There's also a ton of stuff I haven't posted here over the course of my absence, they should be popping up here and there as I find them in my daily travels. Enough talking though, here's the S12 junk; archives of its peak and ending with the lackluster photos of its demise.

MotorMavens Feature

SuperStreet Feature

SpeedHunters Feature




















And that's that.

Oh, the taste of uncertainty.

I bought the god damned thing like almost 2 weeks ago but the reality of it didn't hit me until I put it in my drive way. There's so much work to be done to this thing, especially the way I want it, that it's a bit overwhelming. I'm not the kid I used to be when I spent an entire summer rummaging through the s12 and getting shit done.

So the other day, Yuta and I borrowed my uncle's truck, rented a uhaul trailer and spent forever driving up there and back to get the shell. Driving a gigantic truck with a trailer is a little scary man, but we managed.













As far as the shell goes, I may have jumped the gun on this one. I was really stoked on how clean the shell was but man, after taking a closer look (I should have probably done this earlier, hahaha) it's gonna be so much work. I don't think the previous owner really knew what he was doing, quite at all, and his taste in color didn't exactly ring any bells either.

He seems to have lost a ton of shit, or so he claims, interior is all gone, didn't even know where the bag of bolts were to give me, failed to include info on the fucked up driver side fender until I got there, painted the engine bay shrek green (didn't mask anything off) AND spray painted the panda scheme on a perfectly OEM white chassis without masking carefully to boot. He didn't even finish the god damn job.

And what the hell was my excuse for buying all this bull shit? That it's a "clean chassis." Jesus man, what was I thinking?
















Yuta: initial midnight


I want to build a more street friendly car so that's going to include full interior and new carpet. Hopefully I can get the heater and some tunes working too. I plan on swapping over the s13 suspension and KA and whatever bits I can, HOWEVER, instead of taking the bits I want from the s12 and swapping over, Yuta thinks it might be a better idea to try to sell the s12 as a full car without the wheels since it runs. If I can get 5-6k for the car then I'd sell, but if around 3k then I'd just take what I need and part out as planned. Thoughts? Advice?

!!!!!Also, please hit me up if you have or know anyone with corolla parts such as interior and yada yada yada!!!!!

UP!

and running.

leaking stuff

So my KA leaked and lost oil pressure on the way home from buttonwillow last month and I believe I found the culprit. The fucking OEM oil filter seal is warped. I most certainly lubed it and tightened it by hand, luckily the leak didn't occur til I was almost home on the trip back. coooool











Thanks Lance! I'll be sure to get them to everybody

stuff

God, I am just so lazy to blog.

dennys before buttonwillow


electronic ignition for the cb750


macaroni and cheese and tuna and battles

Oh, an eventful track day.

A huge learning experience for me, well, because everything just went wrong that day. This was the strictest event I've ever seen, though given the circumstances of the groups I suppose it's somewhat reasonable.

The event was mixed motorsports, grip and drift however the groups were set up like garbage. There were two grip groups, intermediate and advanced, and the last group was both beginner grip and ALL drifters. So there wasn't a dedicated drift group and this caused a lot of annoyance on track. There were evo's and corvettes on the asses of all the low power guys and passing by was only allowed on straights. Seemed like a lot of guys including myself were giving up corners to let them pass by and get off our bumpers.

Another rule that limited our group was that if you spin out, meaning all 4 tires on dirt, then you get black flagged. I mean, honestly, practically everyone spun out in the first half of the day. It was 50 degrees out, and it was full track so there were a lot of 3rd gear turns. Our group accommodated all the drifters, beginner, intermediates and the advance guys AND threw in those beginner grip drivers to boot.

I was black flagged during the second run, and due to a mistake I made after getting flagged (entering the pits through a way I shouldn't have, my fault but it seemed reasonable to me at the time since it was where I was told to go the previous session) I wasn't allowed to hit the track for the rest of the day.

I managed to get into the last run of the day and during one of the uphill blind turns, I managed to spin out and hit a burm and it's lip pretty hard and bent one of the long champs. It seems fixable but man I was pretty bummin.

And to kick off the "everything happens in 3's" superstition, about 10 miles away from home I noticed my oil pressure gauge read zero. I pulled over, popped the hood and it sounded okay, but within the next few seconds I heard a tapping so I turned it off immediately.

I was so aggravated man! Poured in 3 quarts of oil, turned it back on and it sounded all normal after a couple seconds and the leak was a small steady stream coming from the oil filter area. Probably from the sandwich plate, who knows. I'll have to see later.

Forced to miss a bunch of sessions, bent a wheel, lost oil pressure, geez man! Just about everyone I've met who goes to the track has been faced with a ton of problems like these and I guess it's just my turn.

Anyway, good learning experience. Gotta check the motor, fix the wheel, and get it out to the next event.





snuggie!








we had to put numbers on our cars for the photographers