five&dime

The LFA is an extremely rare car. The LC500 looks similar and is very common. Beautiful car as well but doesn't have the Yamaha V8 that sounds like F1. The LC500 also costs about 1/3 the price of the LFA. They were way ahead of their time and are considered the only Japanese Supercar ever made. I have always dreamed of getting to photograph much less drive one. It's an experience I will never forget.

Sure it was an LFA and not an LC500? They look similar but the difference is ridiculous. I was lucky enough to drive both the LFA and the Hakosuka. Which is nuts because they are both on my top 10 list. The LFA was the most interesting, amazing, impressive and unique car I have ever driven/experienced. The sound is the most wonderful thing my ears have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It's ridiculous.

My friend Mike Lee's photos.

I put together a little group caravan to cars and coffee this morning. Then our friend with the LFA joined us. My dad drove his green Z, I drove his safari gold, Eiji brought his G nose, my friend Michael brought the Hakosuka and then our other friend has the LFA. I will post my photos first. Then my friend Mike Lee's which make mine look like cell phone shots.

Looking forward to dropping this beast in on Sunday. I can't wait to post photos of the gathering of cars we've put together Saturday either! Everyone is in for a real treat!

Test fit a seat and it's perfect. All the way down as low as could be and it fits me perfectly.

Yeah, you won't believe the seats! They are incredible. And yes indeed, I hope to change a lot of opinions on the Z31!

Seats arrived that I ordered back in February. Real Japanese Bride Stradia II gradient with carbon/kevlar backs. I chose these seats for multiple reasons. The gradient reminds me of the Z31 Shiro Recaro's, the kevlar back matches the safari gold exterior (photo below), they are super comfortable/fit me perfectly, recline and lastly, they only weigh around 22 lbs vs the stock 60 lbs. And my favorite beer, falcon smash by triple crossings compared to the safari gold 920 as well. Coincidence or fate? Lastly, a Shiro interior to show the theme I am going for. I got extra Bride gradient fabric for the door panel inserts as well.

It's the angle of the photo. It's not that much negative camber and the camber plates aren't in yet. This is just so I know how long the shock tube length needs to be since it will be welded to the spindle. I plan on -1 to -1.5 up front and -1.75 to -2.5 in the rear.

Got the front end static height set and luckily, I can run a 10-12 mm spacer up front which will greatly help with caliper clearance. My Bride seats shipped from Japan and I cannot wait to see them. One of the most exciting parts I have ever ordered.

Went to see my machinist. He is almost done with rough porting. Then he is going to cut the valve seats, polish everything up and then combustion chamber shaping/unshrouding of the valves. My dad met me over there in one of his 240's so I snapped a pic of our cars together too.

Haha! Port and polish is done or at least close to being finished and I should have pics soon. Got a Renown 130R steering wheel in leather rosso. Also got Dapper lighting LED printed board inserts for the tail lights. These things are of incredible quality and have built in switchable controllers to allow for sequential brake and turn signals. Lastly, my custom modified RB26 covers have been powder coated in wrinkle volcano stone. The stock intercooler notch has been welded up with a filler plate made of aluminum. NOS ornament plate and hardware to top it off. Fortune Auto is adding spherical bushings to the top of the rear S13 coilovers since they didn't quite line up with the S14 chassis mounts.

Picked up my S13 Fortune Auto coilovers. Looking forward to getting these in. My best friend is towing the car back to his place soon to weld in the Response Type S13 front conversion kit and he will also notch out the rear frame rails. We decided to see how low the car could go with the current wheel/tire combo and it can go really low. The upper arm hit the frame rail before the tire made any contact. Bump steer spacers also arrived from Japan. Note the notches in the S13 front kit. It's really cool because you can adjust camber at the bottom and/or top which means I can bring the track width in our out to suit wheel/tire fitment. It also allows you to rotate the upper camber mount and use it for caster adjustment if you desired. Just offers up a lot of adjustability overall. I also ran into a couple of roadblocks but working through it. First off the Z32 calipers don't even come close to fitting behind these Watanabe's. Even the stock front calipers rubbed a tad which could easily be fixed but I found some floating 2 pot slim calipers from Wilwood which will work once I have brackets made. Next off, the S13 rear coilovers upper hats were too large for the Z31 towers so my friend modified them a tad. But then the angle still isn't right using the S14 subframe with the Z31 chassis so my friend is trying to come up with a spherical bearing for the upper hats of the rear coilovers which would allow articulation and correct the angle issue. Worst case, I will sell the S13 coilovers and buy Z31's from Powertrix and modify the bottom rear mounts to fit the subframe. The machinist got the old valve seats and guides out and put the Tomei beryllium copper seats and supertech guides in. Next is port and polish then combustion chamber reshaping, unshrouding of the valves. Lastly, my little helper

Yay!! 205/55 fits! I rolled the fenders and was able to set the camber much less aggressive. Tried to eye the toe close to 0 as well. Very happy with how this looks.

Evening, Charles. Yeah, I will be running coilovers with 9k/7k springs so it will be pretty stiff. Most likely just a bit softer than my previous BMW wagon. But I am building this car more for performance than comfort. No A/C etc. I adjusted the camber pretty aggressively and I do believe I can get them to fit but I am definitely considering dropping down to a 205/55 or 50 tire. That's why I only bought 2. I only want to run about -2 rear camber but -2.5 would be as extreme as I would like. The fenders look pretty easy to roll and are very similar to my BMW wagon which didn't have any fitment issues once I really massaged them. Here is how it sits with some negative camber and without any fender rolling. I've got a roller in my garage so I will work on that next.

Getting there on fitment. Still plenty of adjustments need to be made. Ideally, I want to tuck a tad bit of tire under the fender.

RS Watanabe 16x8 0/ 8.5 -6

I've spent hours researching tires and running tire calculator numbers to figure out the ideal tire for my application and finally made that difficult choice. It was down to about 10 including several track only tires but I spoke with some people with real street experience who say the only issue with that is excessive gravel, noise and stiff sidewall. That led me to extreme high performance summer, narrowing it down to about 5-6. In the end, I focused on the tried and true Bridgestone Potenza RE71R which seems to be the absolute best R street compound affordable tire you can get. A close runner up was always the Dunlop Direzza ZII. It came close to the grip of the RE71R but it also far exceeded the tread life as well as lowering road noise. Then rumors circulated of it's replacement, the ZIII as a direct challenger to the RE71R. They were just released and were only $10 more so I went ahead and ordered 2 225/50/16's to test fit on the Watanabe 18x8/8.5. They claim equal or better performance to the Bridgestone with almost double the tread life and less road noise/harshness. They look almost identical as well. Coming from BMW for the last 10 years, I welcome the cheap prices of a 16" tire! The car looks great with the drop! Off tomorrow for rear cage! That will be exciting.

It will be lower when it's all said and done If it were a 600+ hp turbo time attack wide body...

I will stack all our mulch bags on the front crossmember.

Traction arms in and the car is finally brought down. Hilarious how high the front is compared to the rear. Ready for takeoff!

Thanks and yeah, the metal guy is amazing! The Nitto stroker 2.8L crank, H beam rods, ROSS crank fire hall sensor kit, ARP head studs, ARP rod bolts and the RB26 exhaust flange arrived. My traction rods showed up as well so I can get those in and tow the car to the shop that's doing the rear cage on Sunday.

Unfortunately that cluster was sold but never removed from the site. Bummed because that was a fantastic find and I got an order confirm and everything. Seems the site has a number of things listed that are no longer available. I found a few companies that might be able to replicate it though. Got the throttle bodies back. Enlarged to 49mm, new plates, seals, bearings, bore coating and all hardware plated in yellow cadmium. Watanabe's are done and ship tomorrow! Cannot wait to see them! Stroker crank, rods, header flange and head studs arrive this week too so I can run it all over to the machinist. Then the real fun begins! Also, a few more shots of the amazing work done on the RB26 covers. Lastly, spray outs of Lotus saffron yellow and Nissan safari gold. Saffron is out but I am going to take a loot at Porsche 139 blossom yellow or blood yellow as it's sometimes referred too. It was a common color on the 914 back in the 70's and appears to be like 920 safari gold with a touch more yellow. It's also the color of RUF's "yellowbird". I am most likely to paint it safari gold but I definitely want to see the 139 color before I make the final call. Lastly, the traction rods shipped and once I get them in, the car can be towed to the fabricator who is doing the rear roll cage. Then on to bodywork and paint!

Love Eiji's attention to detail. Looking fantastic! Ready to go for a ride with this monster!

Yeah, can't change that. Would be just as if it were a JDM. I will just have to familiarize myself with where 80 is