wolfpack

My name is Nick Pullin, and this is my story. It all began on May 25, 2011. I had finally found what seemed like a decent S13 coupe on Craigslist. I promptly drove over to Pasadena to take a look. I didn’t really have any idea what I was looking for but everything seemed there to me! So I slapped some crappy tags on it and high-tailed it home.





I didn’t really have a lot of experience with cars. I started to play around with my 350z a bit, but it was too expensive. But something about modifying the car was fun, and rewarding when you let the car down off the jack for the final time. So I began to look around for a cheaper chassis to play with, which is when I stumbled upon the S13. It was love at first sight. It took me a few months to find one, but I finally had one and I was ready to make some moves!



I knew from the start I wanted a Silvia front. It was so cool and unique to me, I had to have one! So I did some searching around and wasn’t having a whole lot of luck. Until I stumbled upon a closed ‘For Sale’ thread on Zilvia with a $550 Silvia front. The seller didn’t post pictures, so the thread was closed and promptly floated a few pages back. I got him on the phone quick and agreed to meet that night. I asked if I should bring tools, he said I didn’t need to. Learning curve… I didn’t have any car friends, so I couldn’t convince anybody to go with me. So I packed up and headed out on a Friday night to give this shit a whirl! It ended up being a total nightmare with the guy leaving me in the parking lot for an hour, and me breaking all the bolts off with an 18-piece WalMart tool set while the seller asked me if I would like to smoke marijuana with him. The front end didn’t have the ‘Brick’ headlights as advertised, so the seller knocked off $50. It was already cheap so I ripped it off and got out of dodge! At this point I was wondering if car life was even cool. Seemed pretty ratchet to me, but I was home free with my Silvia front at this point so who cares!





Swapped it on that weekend and was stoked!



A couple weeks later I was at Japanese Engine Import in Manassas, VA and scored a set of ‘Bricks’ for $250! Nice. While I was there I got something else…









SR20! Hell yeah we’re really moving now! It looks like the motor sat in the container for a year, but it’s better than my KA.



There’s no way in hell I’m going to put the motor in the car looking that way. So I started to tear it down and clean everything up!



Looking better…



Back together and ready to give my first engine swap a try! When my parents asked what I was up to for the weekend, I told them that I was going to pull the motor from the white car. My dad felt pretty bad for me, because he knew I didn’t really know what I was doing. So he decided to come up for the day and help me out! It was quite the experience but we got a lot done for two people with very little automotive experience.



Obligatory first-timers photo…



All cleaned up!



Ready to drop in! Let’s see how this goes…





Wow, it actually worked. Now to get this thing running…



Moved some stuff around…



Reset my timing since I pulled my CAS out without really understanding what the hell I was doing… LOL



Got some side skirts, hell yeah!



Then… one day my SR actually started! That was awesome, I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing and sometimes I wondered what I had gotten myself into…



So I took it out and drove it around as much as I could. Worked all the kinks out and was loving it! SR power! A few months before this time I had started hanging out with the guys from the local forum and a couple of them invited me out to a drift day at the local track. I had just planned to watch because I didn’t want to tear my car up. My dad told me I would be an idiot to go and watch when I have my car…





He was right! So off we went. Open diff, stock suspension, whatever! I didn’t do much but I had a blast. I was hooked!





So I bought coils, a seat, and got my diff welded (thanks Ivan!) I proceeded to thrash on the car for another few events. I was having a blast!



Got 5-lug and some Battles. Did some more drifting. Flew up a grass embankment and smashed my intercooler. Had to rig it up and drive home because I had convinced my dad to ride out with me HAHA. I was having a blast. I wasn’t very good but it was so much fun to go thrash on your car and not have to worry about police or guard rails. But, I think when I hit the embankment I really shook the car and blew some of the rust holes open pretty good. Not cool. The plan was to keep drifting the car and hope I didn’t hurt myself, while I looked for a rust-free chassis.



A couple months and a few events later the white car was on it’s last leg. Right around then I managed to find this piece of shit on Craigslist. It needed alot of work, but it didn’t have any rust and came with a few parts I could sell back to recoup some money.





One good part about the car is all this was already done! I needed better suspension arms, and taking the subframe out of a 20+ year old car is never any fun. So at least all that is out of the way. I wanted to make the final Slideways event at ODS as well as 100 Drifters of December so I quickly got both cars next to each other and went to work. I started with all of the suspension stuff I wanted to switch over, and checked over all of the previous owners work. Unfortunately there were a lot of loose bolts and problems, but I got everything taken care of.







Motor out! Ready to go into its new home.



At this point things were getting pretty chaotic at the shop, but I just had to keep pressing on and getting things done! I would get off work at 5, eat dinner until 6, and work all night until 1/2am. Wake up for work at 6 and do it all again. This went on for about 3 weeks…



Things were starting to come together though, just have to keep pressing on!



Carlos came by and did some flexing, we got some shit done and…



The new car is alive! Finally. Took it to H2Oi and drove the car for probably about 14 hours total in one weekend. Everything was great!



Carlos put in some more work…
[hr]




Decided that I needed to clean up the shop a bit and knock some walls down for more room. Looking way better! If you look in the background of some of my earlier pictures (where I am in the engine bay), you can see how fucked up this place was to begin with. So it’s a huge improvement for ~1 year.



Spray painted my Silvia front to match, put some Eurolines on and went to some car meets!



Hit up the last Slideways event ever! Didn’t do that well but I had a blast! I got the ‘Scariest Driver’ award!

__________________