Alright, here's the long anticipated project thread for my drift build R33 GTS25t 2JZ.
The car arrived as a rolling shell. The previous owner had dumped a lot of money into tuning the car's RB25DET, and decided to take the engine out of the otherwise stock R33 and put it into a much more tuned R32 that had blown a headgasket. His loss is my gain, I thought. It came on R33/S14 stock wheels, with stock interior except for a radio head unit and some tacky gauges that I promptly tore out.
The suspension had some serious wear on it, probably from lots of burnouts, donuts, and whatever else the guy did with it when it had its old engine. At least one of the shock absorbers was blown, and the guy told me the car needed new brake pads. At that point, I decided that, if this was going to be a serious drift car, there was no half-assing it. A friend and I tore out all of the suspension.
We replaced it with brand new R34 GT-T suspension wherever we could, though a few of the parts wouldn't fit, so we had to make a hybrid setup of sorts. In any case, it was all new parts, including a set of Brembo brakes.
Because I wasn't sure what I wanted the car to look like yet, and I hadn't ordered any wheels, I threw on a set of BCNR33 wheels I had lying around that happened to have decent tires on them.
At this point, though, the car still didn't have an engine. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I knew I didn't want to swap in an LS, because it's been done a lot already and I don't like the torque curve or the sound as much. I very strongly considered building another RB25 or an RB26, but while I was looking for engines to swap in, someone gave me a very good deal on a built 2JZ short engine without headers, with a lot of custom parts. This was just about the best possible outcome, so I bought it and began planning to swap it in.
I assembled the intake header and the turbocharger while the engine was out of the car, so that I would have a better idea of how everything fit inside the R33 engine bay.
With the help of a few of my buddies and a lift, we got the engine in without many problems.
Then we plumbed the engine, mounting a proper radiator and intercooler onto it. However, when I placed the intake filter onto the car, I decided that I wanted a headlight-mounted intake, to avoid having to mount it low and risk hydro-locking the engine.
In the meantime, though, we put the front end parts back on the car and took it out for a spin.
Everything handled the way I wanted it to, but I kept feeling like the engine was too much for the car. Maybe some new tires would fix it, I thought to myself - and if not, there was still a lot we could do with aero. We later had it dyno'd and it made 480 rear wheel horsepower!
Some time passed, and I bought some accessories for the car, including a pair of "racing style" wing mirrors, a new steering wheel, and some Bride seats. I also had a vented intake headlight made to cover the intake filter.
The car looked like this for a good while. I took it to a few events with a buddy. Here's a few shots of me drifting it around a track:
The car's major changes came when I decided to order a better body kit for it. I ordered a Do-Luck GTS body kit, but I must have gotten the part numbers wrong or something, because what arrived in the mail was a Do-Luck GT-R kit. The front bumper was too wide, as you can see here:
This was a blessing in disguise. I had always thought the car's track was too narrow, and the car needed wider wheels, not just better tires. So, instead of sending the kit back, I decided to buy a set of stock GTR front fenders and a pair of bolt-on over-fenders.
However, rather than keeping the car the same silver color it was, I decided to make the car a little more visually unique. I sent it to Boss' Crew's garage and had them paint it in a lime green color.
I later had them re-paint the brake calipers black, too, since the red clashed against the car.
There weren't too many things I did after that. When the new wheels arrived (a set of Weds Kranze with dished rear wheels), I put them on, and then sent the car to get aligned.
There weren't many more changes after that. The biggest change was the ducktail spoiler. I also traded the rear garnish out for one of the stock-looking ones, since I thought it made the car's rear look a little more interesting. Finally, I tinted the original front headlight, and I painted the right-side headlight scoop black to match.
The car now looks like this, and turns heads everywhere I take it:
Hope you enjoyed reading!
This post was edited by Harrison15 (2015-01-11 02:51, ago)
Roleplay set roughly in a fictionalized version of Phoenix, Arizona. The time varies, with a lot of flashbacks / stories told through old photos as well as flash forwards to later times, but is intended to be one continuous story. My character is about 5 years older than myself, and considerably richer. lol. I have a couple of other made-up characters for the RP too.
Current cars:
- Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec (BCNR33 1996 S2)
- Toyota Supra (JZA80 1993) - auto N/A; work in progress
Will the R33 ever be released? When? : The R33 is a long running work in progress that will be released when it's done, and not a moment sooner. I'm definitely being a perfectionist about this, but I want this to be the mod the community deserves and expects, not merely the latest in a set of stop-gap mods.
Will you be making a Mustang 2015 / S550? : Not after the large bunch of other stuff I'm planning to make is all done.
Is that your mod in those screenshots? : Is it the Skyline R33, the Audi A5, the Crossfire, the Supra JZA80 (with Bigg Boss93) or one of the ones I've released (like the Mustangs)? If so, yes. If not, probably not; search the GOM and VStanced downloads sections for it.
Mustang mod updates? : A new SN95 1995 Mustang mod is planned (the original wasn't mine); a Foxbody remake with LOD0 meshes is in the works, and will include more parts than the original version; and I am preparing updates to the SN95 2000, many of which are finished but not there yet.