This past weekend our friends over at ISO: Insane Stance & Offset held their second meet of the year and had a great turnout. Unfortunately none of our guys were able to make it out there but hopefully that will change for their next event. Faiz Rahman fortunately was in attendance and captured some great coverage that he was nice enough to allow us to use. Enjoy
I have been interested in doing a feature on Nick Abad’s 2008 BMW 335i for a few months now but when I first approached him on the subject he said to hold off until he had the car to a point modification wise that he wanted to show off. Nick is a long time member of an established local car club in the Hampton roads area, Revtek, and has been involved in the car scene many years. His car is now at a point at which he feels it deserves a feature, which is good for everyone, myself included, because now we get to look at it!
I set up a photo shoot with our resident photographer Ricky and another friend of mine and great photographer, Matt Ward, so we could get the ball rolling on this. While they worked on the shoot I was able to talk to Nick a bit about the car. He ordered the car brand new back in 2008 and overall it still looks as pristine as it did when it first rolled off the lot. The first thing that jumps out at you when you see the car is it’s lowered stance provided by KW Variant 2 coilovers and the 19×8.5 and 19×9.5 BBS LM wheels that have been fitted with the help of Macht Schnell 3mm spacers in the front.
The exterior of Nick’s car has also been accentuated with matte black kidney grills, UED matte black lower bumper grills, a Vorsteiner carbon fiber deck lid spoiler, and an OEM front aero lip. The car’s lighting has also been modified with painted front reflectors, 8000K HID angel lamps, 8000K HID fog lamps, and MTEC 8000K D1S Xenon bulbs. To keep the sun and people’s wandering eyes out of the interior of the car while it’s parked, Nick also installed 40% tint on all of the windows.
Now don’t let this car fool you, this isn’t some poser car that has been lowered and prettied up for looks with no concern for performance. This isn’t your snobby, wealthy cousin’s BMW that was bought for her by mommy and daddy for her to drive up and down the strip showing off with her snobby friends. This car definitely has the balls to back up its aggressive stance. The already not to shabby 300hp/300tq numbers that this twin turbo coupe rolls out of the factory with were not sufficient enough for what Nick was looking for.
Under the hood of Nick’s 335i we find at first glance we see carbon fiber housing covers, a carbon fiber microfilter housing cover, carbon fiber intake snorkel, as well as an AR Design oil catch can. Down in front of the radiator, Nick also installed an AMS performance front mount intercooler, upgraded his factory charge piping to Stett piping, and also added a Tial blow off valve. Bringing the air into this bad boy is a Stett cold air intake and sending it out are AR design catless 3” downpipes emptying into an Autobahn exotics catless dual exhaust. A BMS modified clutch delay valve helps get power to the ground in a more hasty fashion. The maestro running this beautiful automotive orchestra is a Vishnu Procede v4 Engine Management system. With this system, Nick is able to monitor his boost and air/fuel through his factory instrument cluster, a neat feature that helped sell Nick on using this particular management. With these upgrades, Nick is now pushing roughly 390hp @ 15lb. of boost on pump gas and 430hp @ 19lb. of boost on race gas.
Nick’s car is a perfect blend of style and performance and I personally love it. I want to give a huge thanks to him for letting us feature his car and giving me a little insight into what he has done to it. I also want to thank Ricky and Matt for all of the photos, they look amazing.
Our friends over at Fortune Auto were racing their two time attack Evo’s down at Sebring this past weekend and provided some awesome coverage from the event as well. Congrats on the podium finishes!!
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This past weekend was simply amazing!
We have never been to Sebring before and I personally was super excited to be at such an epic track with so much history.
This past weekend was a whirlwind of emotions. Many factors such as extreme heat and humidity, mechanical issues, pressure, intense competition and did I say it was to freakin hot!
Our street tire class car started off Saturday with 2 cracked rotors and guess what. We did not bring spares!! Apparently nobody in all of Florida had any and we finally sourced a set in Miami. So I had to hop in the car and drive hours back and forth just to get a set of rotors. Our modified car had more problems (It has been plagued all year with wiring and electrical glitches).
Despite all these short comings we managed to podium both cars! (3rd Place AWD modified and 2nd Place AWD street tire)
I will never forget this epic weekend and now on to the pics!!!
PS- Stay tuned for video in a few days!!
HUGE THANKS TO FIZZY STATUS aka FIZZY BUBBLY aka BALLIN FIZZLE aka FAIZ RAHMAN FOR THE BADASS PICS!!
So I got the tires mounted on my rear wheels today – big thanks to Cars Inc for doing it in such short notice and very quickly, not to mention for a great price! I brought a wheel up to Sage/RE-Spec Garage to test fit it up there when Brian joking asked if it would fit up front. I didn’t think a 17X11 -1 would fit up front, but as you can see, it fits pretty damn well on stock rolled fenders. I can’t wait to get the front pair together and get this thing on the ground!
The front control arm was still fairly flat, even without the spacer, so I am pretty excited to see how the car handles when I finally get to drive it again.
Finally put the 25mm spacers up front, Much better and clearing the coilovers now. This puts the setup at 17×10.5 (-3mm)Front & (-20mm)Rear. You can kinda tell in the pic the rear looks much better, Ill have wider rubber on the other set of wheels I have so that will close that gap and make the car look better when I raise it another inch.
I also had a chance to install the ISIS Power Steering Line, big thanks to Ken@ Enjuku Racing. Definitely wont have a problem with this blowing off compared to the ghetto one I made from universal PS rubber hose and cut up hard lines haha. The picture sucks but Ill take some better once I get the car on a lift. You can clearly see the fluid everywhere from the old line blowing up.
You can also see the cage coming along, Danny still working on getting it sized up good. Cant wait to see the end result!
I have cleaned up the website store making it easier to order our stickers and have also dropped prices!! Order today!!
Mark your calendars chaps
driver registration will be limited to forty drivers.
spectators and crew members will be allowed.
This event is open to both drift and grip drivers of all skill levels.
your vehicle must pass nasa tech and you must provide your own
dot and/or snell rated helmet.
With the great success we had at our last Yahtzee cruise in March, it has been decided to make this a bi annual event! This cruise will be taking place on Saturday, September 25th, 2010, at 4PM. Proceeds from this event will be going toward the Norfolk, VA chapter of the Recovery Outreach Mission. Please come out and support this great charity and those that are less fortunate in our community. See you there!!
Event Details:
Prize Pack Includes:
Game Details:
It’s not too often that a group can really help out one of it’s own when they are really in a rough spot in their life. Our car club, Sumospeed, recently had a chance to help our one of our members and friends, Steve. Steve is an avid car enthusiast and has built multiple cars in the past including a Subaru WRX STI and a Scion XB. He recently purchased a 1991 Nissan 240sx from another club member and friend, Danny, with plans of building a dedicated track car for drift events. Danny had previously used the Nissan coupe as his track car but it had since been stripped of its engine, headlights, body panels, amongst other things and was sitting outside of his house next to his garage.
Early this year it was discovered that Steve had a cancerous brain tumor. He needed to have surgery and chemotherapy to get everything removed. This process was going to take a lot of time as well as a lot out of him both physically and mentally. He had begun building the 240sx and had purchased a stock 240sx engine (KA24DE), Amistad Dish wheels in 18×11 -13 and 18×13 -3, purchased a body kit including a wide body, coilovers, and had already mounted the rear over fenders on the car when he had to leave for treatment.
It was at this point that Danny came up with the idea for all of us to chip in and finish Steve’s car by the next local drift event at that point, Driftwater, in Moyock, NC on July third. Unfortunately Danny wasn’t able to participate in the early phases of the build due to him being on cruise for the Coast guard for a month. We decided the best bet for a location to work on the car was going to be at a local shop at which Danny is a partner, located in Virginia beach, Virginia, Sage Auto/RE_Spec Garage. Being that we were going to be working on it after Steve returned home from his first round of treatments, this location was perfect due to it being about an hour away from his home in Gloucester, Virginia. Once everything was delivered to the shop Steve was told by one of our club members and good friend of his, Erasmo, that the car had been put into a storage unit with some overflow items from the shop by Danny and that he took the key with him on cruise by mistake.
With Steve out of the way and none the wiser, we began to work on the car. This first step was to get the body and engine bay cleaned up and prepped for paint. Due to the car sitting outside at Danny’s house in between him no longer driving it and Steve buying it, the engine bay had collected a significant amount of surface rust, in addition to some previous damage resulting in weak points in the inner fender wells from Danny’s wheels rubbing through. Before the body work started we got the clutch and brake master cylinders, brake booster, power steering reservoir, and all other misc. parts out of the engine bay, leaving it completely empty. Next our resident body man for this project, Brandon, patched a hole in the inner fender well on each side of the bay, sanded all of the rust and residual paint left in the bay off, and got it primed for paint. We then all chipped in for two nights to get the body sanded and ready for paint. It was realized at this point that with the wheels Steve had chosen to put on the front of the car (18×11 -13), his 20mm wide body front fenders were not going to work, they were too small. We decided to go ahead and order 50mm wide body front fenders through Raceonusa.com to match the 50mm rear quarter panels he was running.
The next step was to get the car on the trailer and take it over to Greenbriar collision in Chesapeake, Virginia, where it was due for a fresh coat of BMW sapphire black pearl paint for the body and engine bay. Our paint specialist Reid, arranged for them to spray the car at no charge for the project. Upon loading the car on the trailer, we realized the HKS coilovers that were on the car were completely blown and leaking oil. We opted to order a fresh set of ISIS coilovers as well as a braided clutch line front the master to the slave cylinder through our club sponsor Enjuku Racing.
Once the car returned to the shop after paint, Erasmo and Stephen, another club member, put the engine in the car. Erasmo also donated a Isis cat back exhaust and Stephen a steering wheel for this project. Stephen’s steering wheel was then installed with the assistance of a NRG quick release hub donated by another club member, Tim. Next we installed new projector style headlight housings donated by another club member, Mark, in addition to a movement HID kit that I threw in.
The wiring was the next hurdle to be cleared in this project and it would prove to be the most difficult. The engine harness was donated by James, a club member, but what we didn’t know at the time was that the harness was from a 1995 240sx, the generation following that of the car we were working on. The primary issue we ran into was that Danny had previously wired the car for a very simplistic setup strictly for the track and much of the engine bay harness, including both fuse boxes, had been lengthened and tucked inside the car behind the dash. Without Danny there at the time we could not figure out what went where and ended up scraping the entire harness that was in the car for time’s sake and buying a new one from the junkyard. Once Russell, another club member, dropped off the harness, the wiring began. The harness on both the driver and passenger sides were run up on top of the fender support to prevent any contact with the larger then normal wheels that were going to be installed on the car. Once everything was plugged in on the harness it was Danny’s turn to jump in and work his magic. He returned just after we got the harness installed from his cruise and was super eager to jump in. Danny realized that the harness was from the wrong generation of car but managed to rewire what we had to make it work. With the help of Russell, Mark, Grant, Ricky, and multiple other members chipped in the get the car started and running, the coilovers installed, and brakes completely put back together and working correctly. Once the car was started and running the rest of the build was just buttoning up loose ends.
We unfortunately did not finish the car prior to Driftwater, however, the event organizer and Sumospeed member, Dan, was nice enough to bump him to the next event free of charge. At this point Danny planned a BBQ at the shop to reveal the car to Steve. He was obviously not told about our ulterior motive, just that it was a team BBQ. The last few days before the presentation were spent putting the final touches on the car. Chris with CN Stainless bolts fitted the car with a stainless dress up bolt kit, Stephen finished getting the suspension/fitment perfect, a custom intake built and donated by a friend of the team, Shawn, courtesy of his shop, Rameybuilt, was installed, and finally some vinyls representing all parties involved with the project that were donated by Dale courtesy of Beach City Customs, were applied to the rear glass.
Now was the day of the presentation. Everyone met up at SAGE/RE_Spec Garage at about noon. The car was detailed and then a close friend of the team, Natchez, courtesy of his company Projekt Photo, in addition to our club member, Stephen, did a photo shoot of the car, and it was then parked in front of the shop where it would await it’s presentation. Steve’s parents then arrived to participate in the day’s activities. They were in the loop from day one but had also not seen the car in it’s current state. Upon seeing the car, his father was in disbelieve that it was the same vehicle (both of his parents had helped Steve work on the car when he was sick, which is what motivated Danny to have this build), and his mother broke down into tears. Everyone then gathered inside of the shop, where Danny thanked everyone there that was a part of the build and got a little emotional himself, as did many others in the room.
Erasmo then arrived, Steve riding as his passenger. They parked on the side of the building and came in through the back bay doors, preventing Steve from seeing the car out front. Upon coming in and greeting everyone and mingling a bit, Danny grouped everyone inside and began his speech. “Now everyone knows why we are here today, but Steve doesn’t.”. At this point his parents came out (they had been waiting in the closed office). He then announced why we were all really there, everything we had done and what everyone had chipped in as part of it, then proceeded to go bring the car around. Steve was already in shock and even shaking a bit before the car pulled in but his smile really lit up when Danny pulled the car into the shop. Steve was in disbelief as we went through everything that had been put into the car and he couldn’t believe it was the same vehicle he had purchased from Danny months earlier. Next we presented him with a valve cover that we had gotten powder coated courtesy of Brian with SAGE auto and all signed so he could have a memento to remember everything from.
All in all it was a great experience being involved with this build and I am extremely happy with the outcome and also extremely happy that he loved the car as much as he did. I want to give a huge thank you to all of my fellow Team Sumospeed members for putting many of their projects on hold, donating both time, money, and parts to this build. I also want to thank Ken with Enjuku Racing for giving us a great deal on any of the parts we needed for this build, especially items from ISIS performance. This also could not have happened without contributions and donations from local companies Rameybuilt, CN Stainless bolts,Beach City Customs, SAGE Auto, RE_Spec Garage, Greenbriar collision, and Projekt Photo. I hope everyone enjoys reading this article as much we enjoyed participating in this build!
We have a HUGE gallery from this past weekend’s Driftwater event out in Moyock, NC. I want to thank everyone that came out and made this event great, Dan for setting up the event, and of course John and Ian Magor who provided all the pictures. This is a very large gallery but please take a peek and some of the shots!! Thanks for viewing!!
