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When i was 15 years old, just like everyone else, I found out about drifting on the internet. After a few months of sitting at my computer I decided I wanted an s14 to be my first car. Not knowing anything about s-chassis, much less cars for that matter, I spent $3,000 on someone else's mess. Fast forward an s14, hatch, coupe, coupe, and then an e30 I found exactly what I was looking for. Original owned, babied, and the most beautiful coupe I have ever seen. I had so many plans for this car.






I had dreams of building this car to be a nice, clean, powerful, and most importantly - competitive coupe. I planned on building this car for 2014 lonestar proam in TX. I didn't care about placing, but I wanted to have a car to go out and compete with people and give it my all and chase a dream. Because let's be honest, who really can frown going 100+ mph sideways? It just doesn't happen.

After a few weeks of saving I ordered a set of Powered By Max coilovers.



Car was perfect. I was in love, and I finally knew that infamous feeling that owners have with his car.







and then this happened.


The car pictured left is one I picked up about a month after the wreck. This is the only picture I have of the wrecked car, I deleted all of the pictures of the damage.

Basically what happened is ten minutes after I got the coils on the car I went drive around. I was on an unfamiliar road after it had been raining all day, going about 55-60. There was no shoulder, two small lanes and then a gravel downward slope into the forest. I was in the outside lane turning left and I felt the front end loose traction. I panicked and hit the brakes. as soon as I hit the gravel there was nothing left to do. Went head first into a tree.
For about a week I didn't want to do anything, gave up on the whole "proam" dream, etc. Then reality hit and I realized moping and complaining isn't going to build me a drift car. So I started saving and bought a hatch. Sold that after about a month and bought an auto s14 with ac and fortune auto coils for 2600.



Got together everything I needed for a 5 speed swap, and then I sold it. I realized I needed another coupe. So I found this mint white coupe, 89 base model.

PERFECT.

I was going to pick the car up that Monday, but Sunday on the way home from a local drift event I got a call and a friend gave me a pretty good deal on a full notchtop sr swap with a new s15 turbo.
So being the smart guy I am, instead of buying a nice clean drivable car, I bought my first sr!

It arrived at my apartment in Louisiana from Alabama at 1:30 a.m. so I didn't get to get any pictures of us unloading it and all that jazz.



The next day I went with a friend and rented out some shop space. It's a 15 x 25 storage unit with two outlets and a pretty decent overhead light.

Spent the next bit of my free time cleaning.


(I'm the guy with the hat. Red shirt is my roomate. He's actually planning on buying the mint white coupe I didn't buy.)



Ordered ARP head studs and an OEM headgasket and started disassembling the head.




All of the rockers were smooth except for one, has some slight wear on it on the exhaust side. I plan on ordering Rocker Stoppers because I've read sr's like to break rockers at high rpms.



My awesome organization skills:


This is all new to me so I want to make sure I don't loose track of anything. I don't want a bolt to bottom out with 10mm of thread left to go in.

Meanwhile one of the guys I split the shop cost with adjusted the valves on his 1981 te72 wagon.


...while the other friend decided the "garage" needed a proper banner.




After getting the head off I began cleaning up the piston heads of carbon build up with seafoam, a rag, and a lot of elbow grease I noticed piston #2 has a bit of scarring.
Piston #1 has a few smaller needle sized dimples while #3 and #4 are clean. Other than that the cylinder walls are clean and I don't see any damage anywhere else.

(Sorry for the incoming of cellphone pictures. For some reason I never had my camera with me when i went to work)

Got ahold of a guy in Mississippi that had a hatch shell. Pictures looked pretty clean and it was only $400 so I said why not. I'll be getting in a coupe one day, but for now my main priority is to get this motor running nice and strong so I can get some loooooooooooong over due seat time in. It's been a good 2 years since I've driven my own car at the track.




Uncracked dash. Somehow I always end up with these.




Towed it back to the shop and began to take out the broke ass ka.




Parts started arriving! Got my ARP Head studs in as well as my head gasket.


After twenty minutes of me trying every nut on every head stud I looked up the part number of the nuts and head studs.



Turns out they packaged the wrong size nuts. The head studs were 11mm x 1.5 while the nuts were 10mm x 1.5. So I called up ARP and told them about the situation and asked if they could overnight me the right size bolts.
"Monday is the best we can do, sorry". It was Thursday.

So I woke up this morning around 10 a.m. to a nice surprise!


So I got dressed and headed to the shop to get my head on finally.
Torqued everything to 90ft.lbs as per ARP's specifications.
Went to put the cams in and redo my timing when I realized I forgot those two 10mm bolts that bolt up the front timing cover part of the head to the block.
And this happened.


A few turns in, not even snug it snapped. So now tomorrow I'll be taking the head off again and seeing if Autozone or Home Depot will have the right bolt I can use.

Ordered a new waterpump, exhaust/intake gasket, and motor mounts tonight so that should be coming in Tuesday/Wednesday. In the meantime I'll be getting this head back on and cleaning up the bay getting it ready to drop in.

That's all for my frist post, will be updating this pretty often as this is my main priority in life right now. (I know, such an exciting life) If anyone has any helpful tips or suggestions let me know! This is my first legitimate build so I'll take all the advice you guys have to offer.