Burn Your Rulebook: Meet The Half11 – Speedhunters
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Given our track record, it’s probably a little hard to believe that Keiron and I don’t intentionally seek out projects that provoke knee-jerk reactions. However, I promise you there is no ‘trigger’ pay packet bonus here at Speedhunters. If there was, both of our projects would probably be further along.
While I’m being honest, as much I’m becoming accustom to expecting the unexpected with Keiron’s photoshoots, his curve balls seem to be getting wilder with each pitch. Seeing an eyeless Porsche staring back at me from within this photoset, ‘Here we go again…’ was about all I could say before getting down to business.
Considering the photos breaking up these paragraphs, I’ll grant you skepticism regarding our unintentional, yet continuous sparking of powder kegs. Kyle’s Mustang, Live To Offend’s E30 and Mike’s K-powered Ferrari – these are all builds that have veered from paths previously considered acceptable.
The appropriately-named ‘Half11′ is no less of a departure from roads well-travelled. A Porsche 911 carved up more than a festive Turkey might seem like sacrilege for social media’s sake, but this car is actually a homage to motorsport of the 1960s and ’70s – an era its designers view as one of the most romantic.
To better explain how and why this car is a homage rather than a desecration, I first need to better introduce the parties involved.
Oil-Filled Pens
Oil Stain Lab is the creative umbrella under which twin brothers Iliya and Nikita Bridan operate. The Ukrainian-born, Canadian-raised and Italian-educated siblings have found home in California. Neither brother grew up with a wrench in their hand, a point worth noting before proceeding with this article. The Half11 project is as much a design experiment as it is a real-world vehicle.
“We (mostly) drew cars and dinosaurs as kids… it’s much easier to design cars as profession than it is dinosaurs,” Nikita explained, before quickly adding “unless you work for a film studio”.
After formal education, both Iliya and Nikita went through several rounds of on-the-job training. Individually, they have built names for themselves by being incredibly methodical with their design approach. Typically working for companies with at least a tangential connection to cars, they are as capable designing quarter panels as they are advertising panels.
In a designer’s 9-5 (rarely does such a thing exist) they are challenged to deliver clients’ needs, even when those needs are radically unclear.
Client work has made Iliya and Nikita’s skin incredibly thick when it comes to criticism. So, comparatively any negative feedback the Half11 has received online has simply been regarded as par for the course.
Both are thankful that their day jobs keep them very busy. The fruits of their labor have also allowed them the resources necessary to play with cars in their limited ‘down’ time.
That time between client emails and personal commitments is where Oil Stain Lab was born. It has always existed to be an escape, and as a result there’s never been a reason to compromise or play things safe.
Therefore, a 911 with an F1 car shoved up its rear end seems like a perfectly reasonable idea.
Crass aside, before we get to the nuts and bolts, I feel it worthwhile to mention again that this is a fun project for the Bridan brothers.
Their tongue and cheek approach to the build as a whole is evident via the IKEA-themed ad above. Could you imagine an IKEA-produced car? Hopefully they’d add a bit more length to those damn Allen wrenches.
Oil Stain Lab has extended their imagination to a robust ‘alternate history’ of the Half11’s conception too.
“The ‘alternate history’ images have actually upset people the most,” Nikita explained. Simply put, some self-proclaimed Porsche ‘experts’ have become wildly upset to learn this car never raced historically, nor was it ever experimented with in secret, despite images that suggest it may have.
I have not waded through all the comments on Oil Stain Lab’s social media accounts, but one can only imagine the confusion among Porsche enthusiasts when they realize they’ve been subject to a deep fake. It’s one of the more clever ways I’ve seen a company build project buzz in some time.
For the Bridans, rooting their project in the aesthetic of the 1960s and 1970s has really helped ground it. “Racing in the ’60s and ’70s was the peak era for many enthusiasts,” said Nikita as he described his passion for motorsport designs of that time period.
As someone that’s never been much more than a casual motorsports fan, I must agree with Nikita’s assessment. That era is particularly enticing simply because it’s so stripped down. The raw pursuit of speed and comparatively rudimentary understanding of vehicle design and aerodynamics led to some of the most creative and celebrated vehicles in motorsport history. Adding to that, these cars were piloted by true gladiators with unique personalities.
From a purely fandom perspective, it then makes perfect sense that a model of a Tyrrell P34 wheel sits in the studio.
It also makes sense that a six-wheeled version of the Half11 also exists within Oil Stain Lab’s alternate timeline.
That’s Cool, But Is The Half11?
The Half11 is the progression of what the Bridans call a small collection of hot-rodded 911s. Having done your typical purist – and a few non-purist – modifications, they wanted to make a drastic departure from ‘standard Porsche’.
A car that simply looked different wouldn’t be enough, however. It had to be uniquely engineered as well.
Naturally, the project was approached in a way that mirrored Iliya and Nikita’s professional endeavors. With design language rapidly developing thanks to their alternate history, sketches hit the table at a fever pace. During this process, the brothers occupied both ends of the boardroom table, as the clients and also as the agency.
When I asked if the pair learned to fabricate as part of the Half11 process, Nikita explained that despite having an extensive interest in automobiles, their hands-on experience started rather late. “I didn’t learn to drive stick until 25, and hadn’t done an oil change until about then either. So no, we didn’t do the heavy fabrication.”
Joe Scarbo from Scarbo Performance took the brothers’ original drawings and turned them into functional designs using SolidWorks software. From there, Joe got to work creating the chassis in DOM tubing and the suspension components in heat-treated 4130 chromoly.
Joe is one of a handful of wonderfully talented people that have been roped into this car’s construction. During the design process, he ensured the chassis would work as people would both expect and demand it to. In particular, keeping the car to the overall height the design called for has proven quite the challenge. As a point of reference, the dash has been lowered roughly 2.25-inches from where it originally sat in the 911.
The goal all said and done, is a vehicle that is about the height of a Ford GT40. In person, the Half11 has a huge presence, despite actually being rather small.
Driveline angles become problematic the more you squish a car and Joe spent considerable time in this area making it all work.
A lot of care went into reworking and redeveloping ideas without changing the overall aesthetic. Today, the engine sits as low as it physically can while retaining drivability.
On the topic of engines, yes, that is indeed a Chevrolet JMS Racing LS-based V8 mated to a GT2 996 gearbox. Is a pushrod V8 the most creative power plant? Perhaps not, but with so many irons on the fire, shoehorning in a German-built V8 or a turbo air-cooled motor is something that can come later.
The de-stroked V8, complete with ITBs and a wild exhaust, should still sound pretty exotic from deep within the back of this car.
‘Inspired By’
Joining Joe in the hands-on department is metal fabricator Jake Krotje. Jake, or ‘The Flying Dutchman’ as he’s often known, is the metal madman that constructed the ‘911’ out of aluminum. This project did start with a VIN-equipped chassis (this will aid in street registration later), but very little of that core remains today.
Similar to Singer creations and builds of similar nature, this Half11 can be viewed as a re-imagination.
It’s a small wrinkle the brothers have to consider when marketing the project, as they do plan on producing them as a boutique vehicle. With a company motto that reads ‘We Live For Creating Dreams’ it only makes sense they start with their own.
But, let’s not put carts before horses here – there is still a huge amount of work to be done before the Half11 is ready to be manufactured beyond this prototype.
Much of what you see in the various renders has become reality using modern production methods. The very intricate exhaust for example has been printed with Inconel powder – cutting-edge tech for a vehicle with its roots in the past.
Since these photos, the Half11 was taken to Riley Stair, another individual whose name is closely associated with a number of outlandish builds. Riley handled the final wiring and plumbing of the car.
What’s Next?
At this point, the natural question would be what’s next for the project? This is where things get interesting. The car pictured will always belong to the Bridan brothers. It’s a test mule, so it will continue to exist in somewhat of a fluid state.
Will the production cars, if produced, have the same dampers, wheels and hand-cut slicks? Maybe, maybe not.
The same question can be asked of the engine. Switching to a more exotic powerplant – which is something many have called for – would suit the wild nature of the design, but would also require reworking the back half of the chassis.
At that point, if things are to be extended, then perhaps the wheel diameter would need to be upsized to handle the new elongated footprint. This plays with the visuals of the final result, so it’s currently low on the list of items to be addressed.
The future is uncertain for most things, and most definitely the Half11.
By the time you read this, the car will have completed its very first track day at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. Provided all went well and the Half11 doesn’t come back down to the studs, we hope to catch up with it again in the future for an in-depth feature.
Until then, enjoy the madness in the gallery below and follow the build on Oil Stain Lab’s Instagram.
Global Time Attack in the streets of Long Beach. To properly convey the experience of being trackside as some of my friends were competing, I need to back up for a minute.
Let’s go with football. It’s always more fun watching a game when your home team is playing. In fact, if they aren’t the ones playing, I generally have little interest in watching the game. Not a very profound statement, is it?
Unless you’re a student of a particular sport, have a fantasy roster with players from a wide range of teams, or you simply really, really love it, you probably aren’t watching every single game. The casual fan just doesn’t have the time or energy to take in all that information. But load that same casual fan up with a few beers with friends at their home stadium — or even on their living room couch — and you’re likely to see some real passion emerge when the game is on the line.
People who don’t even care for the sport will still go out to a bar for a couple games out of the season and lose their mind in the crowd a few friends and dozens of strangers. As humans, we have a lot of allegiances that don’t totally make sense. We’ll defy logic to argue that a certain call went our way, whether the evidence is in our favor or not. We’re human, and we like other humans. We like our city best, or our state. We want to be part of a tribe and we want our tribe to win.
To me, just seeing time attack in the Long Beach was a win-win situation, regardless of the actual results. I’ve followed a number of the cars and drivers over the years, and know a few of the competitors personally. And there they were, racing back to back with IMSA and IndyCar on closed public roads in my home state.
As awesome as the feeling was for me and others in my position attending the race, you can imagine along with me that it was exponentially more so for the drivers themselves.
My friend Amir of RS Future had a rough weekend race-wise, but he was still so enthusiastic about the experience afterwards. “It has been a dream to race there. I’ve attended the GP as a spectator for over a decade, so to be able to compete alongside IMSA and Indy was surreal.”
“Driving in an Acura at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach was also a cool experience. I’m a huge fan of the brand, so that definitely added to some of the magic.” Amir goes on, “Not to mention, it was wild doing a track walk with some of the greatest drivers in the country.”
Ravi Dolwani of CSF Radiators had a similar sentiment: “My dad went to Long Beach State — he always used to tell me stories of watching the races from his friend’s apartments overlooking the track. It sounded so cool.”
Ravi started going to the races here himself around a decade ago, watching Pirelli World Challenge and Formula Drift tear up the streets of Long Beach.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize how it must have felt for Ravi, Amir, and the rest of the teams who actually got to go out on such an iconic track themselves after watching along for so many years. Even shooting at the Long Beach Grand Prix was a special experience for me; something I would have thought was completely out of reach seven years ago when I picked up a camera for the first time.
The same is surely true of these teams and drivers when it came to dreaming of racing in Long Beach, and yet, there they were.
The Field
What I love most about time attack is its accessibility. I’ve been shooting for a newer track day organizer in California called Corsa Club, and they’re in works to introduce a time attack-style session to their events around the state, wherein built Miatas with good drivers have their chance to harass Corvettes and their owners. Anyone can get a taste of this motorsport.
Incidentally, speaking of Corvettes, it was Feras Qartoumy in the Qar Optics Z06 who took the top spot at Global Time Attack in Long Beach with a 1.19.571. For some perspective, that’s about half a second quicker than the fastest lap in the GTD class during the IMSA race, which was set by a Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
I certainly haven’t been the sport’s biggest fan or supporter, but as a more casual fan I’ve always enjoyed the format of time attack competition. More than that, I like the competitors and their cars. There’s a relatively low barrier to entry, as every entry is production-based and the rulebook isn’t super restrictive. Since you can go absolutely wild with aero and horsepower there’s a huge variety of interesting and unique solutions that emerge across the field.
As I was rounding the circuit, I loved seeing the fans interact with the cars on the Global Time Attack roster from the other side of the fence. A dad hoisted his kid up to get a better look at Will Drees’s Honda Prelude as it ripped by. “That was your mom’s first car,” he shouted to his incredulous child.
All of the cars are cool in their own right, and none of them are insanely out of reach as a starting point, either. They’re all interesting to me and each one would deserve its own feature here. The same is not really true of IMSA or IndyCar, where the technology becomes not only monotonous but increasingly incremental and secretive. In the Global Time Attack paddock, everything was on display and entirely accessible to fans.
Speaking of displays, CSF Race had a proper setup at the event, where I noticed their nitrous-ready B58 manifold sitting on the table. Of course, that wasn’t the only interesting thing sitting around…
It was my first time up close with the CSF Evo for a few years, so I wanted to take in every last detail while it was apart in the paddock. I hadn’t seen it since it was rebuilt from essentially a show car into a half-mile car, after which it was eventually converted into time attack spec. A fire ensued in their first outing a couple years back, but Ravi and the CSF team didn’t give up. Now, they’re racing in the streets of Long Beach with Randy Pobst behind the wheel.
Ravi shares he was “really nervous because, even after changing our power steering setup to a complete EPAS system, we were — and still are — having issues which we’re trying to sort out. It worked pretty well during our two test days before the Grand Prix and it just decided to die when we went out for the first practice session on Friday. With no power steering and no run-off area — just walls — I was really nervous about a potential crash. But Randy is such a professional, and did his best to drive through it.”
Ravi told me that even though the results were expected with the steering issues they suffered, it was ultimately disappointing. Regardless, he expressed that overall the experience was a very special one that not many get to experience, and he hopes to come back next season with the car fully sorted.
In The Moment
Racing always brings surprises, and the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
The taste of surprise and disappoint were not unique to the CSF Race crew over the Grand Prix weekend.
As I mentioned, my friend Amir and his K24-swapped NSX didn’t have the smoothest of outings in Long Beach. His connecting rod also had an outing, you could say, although usually you want those to stay within the confines of your engine block. Being local, Amir and the RS Future team did their best to see if they could complete work in the shop overnight on a spare engine, but no dice.
They brought the car back to display in the paddock, where I asked Amir about the experience overall. “Being my first street circuit, I was a little nervous, but quickly forgot about the walls and really enjoyed the layout. I wouldn’t say I was surprised but the surface was really bumpy in some areas [and] changes in the surface over the course were an interesting challenge. However, we setup our KW Competitions to be pretty compliant, and they did great on the difficult surface.”
Amir continued, “It was an unfortunate result, but our team has done a great job of turning every failure into a victory one way or another. We’ve learned from what happened and made changes to our program to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Hopefully we get a chance to go back for a shot at redemption.”
It also wasn’t a total loss for the RS Future team anyway, with eight out of the 20 competing cars running Amir’s RS Future aero over the weekend. Offering track support, full builds, aero packages, and more, you can find his shop in Southern California.
The Street Class victory ended up going to another friend of mine, Jackie Ding in his GR Supra. I’ve seen Jackie and this car come a long way, and he always seems hungry for more.
Steven Chan piloted his GT-R to first place in the Limited Class and, as I mentioned above, Feras Qartoumy’s Corvette was fastest overall in Unlimited.
This fourth story wraps up my coverage from Long Beach, but leaves me wanting more. More street circuits, more racing in California, and more time attack. Here’s to hoping that in one year from now I’m sitting on the curb on Shoreline Drive as my friends zip by in cars they built themselves, only for hundreds of millions of dollars to follow them shortly thereafter in the form of open-wheel racers.
Behind The Wheel Of Pete Stout’s Porsche 914 – Speedhunters
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Making Memories
It’s been over a year now since I was sitting in the driver seat of Pete Stout’s 1973 Porsche 914, and yet the rumble of the 2.2-liter flat-six positioned directly behind me feels as effervescent in my mind today as it did in the moment.
“You can go faster,” Pete excitedly urged me with a sly grin as I felt my way through the corners on a winding mountain pass some 20-odd miles north of San Francisco, California. The crisp forest air lightly battered my hair as on and on I went, relishing the marvelous sensation of the 914’s center of gravity, which felt as though it was riding along in the right-rear pocket of my pants.
As I opened the throttle, allowing the maximum volume of air to pass through the velocity stacks and on into the flat-six, Pete turned his face upward through the open targa top to the tips of the redwoods and closed his eyes in reverie. “That’s the sound of Le Mans, 1970,” he shouts to the heavens from the passenger seat.
The sun had already descended beneath the horizon by the time we made our way back to Pete’s garage to store the car, and a certain sentimental memory was triggered. I was four or five, bouncing around on the rear bench seat of my uncle’s 1966 Mustang. The carbureted V8 shook the entire car, there was an aura of spent fuel in the dark air, and I remember the feeling of the textured vinyl covering the unsupportive and decades-old seats. If memory serves, my uncle had an aftermarket sound system in the car, but the soundtrack of the engine through a hot exhaust was all that we required on that particular evening. As these things go, I ended up buying a first-generation Mustang myself years later. It was my first project car and ultimately a life-changing experience.
Though Pete’s 914 – which has been in his family since the 1980s and in the Bay Area for even longer – left the factory in a much more refined state than a first-generation Mustang. With both the small tweaks Pete has made and the swapped flat-six gargling all that fuel and air, the closest thing I could place it to was a muscle car. In fact, it sort of is one. It just happens to be a 914 and thus is also capable of going ’round a corner in a manner very much unlike a muscle car.
It was a driving experience like no other, and one in particular that I’ll never forget. Pete’s 914 just so happened to be the first Porsche I had driven, and what a foray into the marque it was. I spent weeks afterward scouring the internet for 914s, and from time to time I still spend a moment to take a fleeting look. There was a dark green one I almost pulled the trigger on, and in retrospect I regret not doing so, as it seems the popularity and cost of the 914 is going the way of the 911: Up.
High School
Everything about this particular Porsche, though, is either unique to or innately special to Pete. And yet, curiously, Pete never wanted this 914. At least when he was 15 he sure didn’t, but that’s when he started working on and – soon after – driving it.
If you want some insight on Pete’s background, you might want to take a pit stop here, where I took a deep dive with Pete into his role as editor of 000 Magazine. There, as I’ll reiterate here, I explained that Pete really wanted the family’s diesel A1 VW Rabbit at the time, as he had dreams of modifying it.
Not to mention, in the early 1990s the 914 was “deeply unstylish,” and Pete went on to explain that this one wasn’t in good shape, either. One of the doors had been kicked in when it was vandalized in Southern California while off to college with his older brother. A taillight was also broken, the paint was oxidized, and the clutch needed to be replaced.
But still, Pete ended up with what his father called a “dishonest Volkswagen” – finished in Bahia Red over black with narrow 15-inch Pedrini alloys – and was awarded ‘Hooptiest Car’ in his senior year of high school.
More important than all of this, Pete’s 914 was powered by a questionable flat-four of unknown displacement (probably 1,911cc) paired with a 5-speed manual transmission, which Porsche updated for the 1973 models with an improved side-shift mechanism. Going a bit deeper, Pete explains that the car bears serial number #193, making it one of the so-called ‘first 1,000′ 1973 914s – and had the vinyl A-pillars associated with those cars.
“About the only 1973 equipment I found on the car was the transmission and the front bumper guards. This car had 1972 doors with no crash beams, 1972 door windows, a 1972 top, rain tray, headlight switch…” Pete continues, “This is indicative of why ‘correct’ is a moving target, and not just with Porsche. Manufacturers use up what they have when possible.”
The car was Pete’s daily driver to El Cerrito High in the East Bay, positioned just north of Berkeley and Oakland. Being in high school, this meant that the car could only be improved using a high school budget, but Pete didn’t let this stop him.
While initially cool to the 914, he soon discovered what any car represents to a high-schooler: freedom. He went to work on making it his right away, and the obvious first job was lowering the car and ditching the skinny tires. Pete says, “Jim Breazeale at European Auto Salvage Yard [EASY] proved an invaluable help here on said high school budget. Many hours were spent scouring his warehouse for better parts than those on the car.”
The car remained a daily driver for the next few years, which meant projects had to be done quickly – the 914 served as transportation not only to El Cerrito High, but jobs at Toys R Us and, later, Costco. In fact, Pete shared with a chuckle that he once went on a date in San Francisco with five-lug wheels on one side and four-lug wheels on the other; “she didn’t even notice!”
For college abuse, Pete purchased a K-platform Plymouth Reliant for the princely sum of one whole dollar, which made the 914 a second car – sort of. The truth was, he couldn’t afford to drive the 914 in college, but the Plymouth would eventually teach him what anyone who has purchased a daily driver to supplement their project car knows: Just having something else to get to work makes all the difference.
After college, the 914 remained a fun car for five years or so, but it resumed daily-driver duties for about a year after Pete married his wife Rebekah, who ended up in Pete’s first new car, a 2003 WRX.
Today, Rebekah handles important duties at 000: they call her ‘The Money’. Besides that brief period, the 914 has since been a pampered second-stringer. Thus, around 2008, Pete began what he thought would be a quick repaint, which ended up triggering a chain reaction that might feel familiar.
He says the “new paint made the trim look bad, new trim made the Fuchs look tired, refinished Fuchs made the calipers look bad, a brake rebuild and upgrade prompted a complete suspension rebuild.” And finally, this tight new suspension setup caused Pete to cast a second look toward the mid-mounted engine in his quest for a better driving experience on California’s splendid back roads. Particularly after Rebekah remarked that it still sounded like a tractor.
Six Swap
Even before Pete went on this quest for more power, the 914 1.7-liter was a formidable foe. He thinks back to a night just over two decades ago, when 000 co-founder Alex Palevsky and a mutual friend of theirs came over from San Francisco for a tour of the East Bay’s best driving roads high over UC Berkeley. The roster included an E36 M3 and a 993 Turbo; then “glassy-eyed stuff,” Pete says of the latter’s 400-odd horsepower. He parked his 914 at the base of the mountain, “because it was a tractor,” ready to hitch a ride in one of his friends’ modern sports cars.
To Pete’s surprise they resisted: ‘No no, we want to follow you.’ And what an educational night it became.
All three were fair drivers, with many fast-paced miles under their belts but still in their early 20s. Although Pete had the advantage of knowing these particular roads, he was very (very, very) down on horsepower. A three-to-one advantage went to the E36, and a five-to-one advantage to the 993. And yet the lightweight mid-engined platform served to shock them all as it managed to keep pace all night. Each driver rotated, and each member of the trio came away with an appreciation for how much speed you could carry in the 914, and how much confidence the chassis inspired. A ‘70s car with 80 horsepower had no business being this fast.
Fast-forward to around a decade ago, when a new character enters our story: John Holleran. Pete had met John while digging around in the EASY lot during his high school years, and John, a student at Pinole Valley High School at the time, performed a six-swap on his own 914 after the hot-rodded four he had gave up the ghost. This made a big impression on young Pete back then, and therefore John was the one Pete called before signing the paperwork to have his own engine replaced with a built-up Type IV. “Am I crazy to spend five figures on a Volkswagen engine?” Pete asked. John ended up putting in a good word about the builder Pete was going with, so all seemed well.
Then, a call back the following day threw the best of monkey wrenches in Pete’s well-laid plan. John’s friendly voice on the other end of a second-gen iPhone said, “Have you called the guy yet? Because I have a bunch of parts I’ve been saving for a conversion that isn’t going to happen, and I hate eBay and I hate Craigslist…”
Pete would need to supply a set of carburetors, an air box, engine mounts, engine tins, a tachometer, an exhaust, and a number of other parts, but John had most of the big pieces. Namely, an unstressed engine case that was pulled from a stock 911T, a nice set of used Mahle pistons and cylinders he’d been holding onto, a new old stock oil tank, and more.
John ended up building and installing the 2.2-liter flat-six that’s in the car today, which he worked on during weekends and nights when time was available. Pete helped as he could, and wishes he could have been more involved. “It was really neat to be doing this with someone your age, who you’ve known since high school, and who came up in the same school district you did,” Pete says. “We were acquaintances then; we are friends now.”
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The six made good use of the Mahle pistons and cylinders; the compression ratio was bumped up, work was performed on the cylinder heads, and Solex camshafts were utilized. Exhaust headers mean the air-cooled car has no heater in the cabin -something Pete hopes to get around to – but the sound out the Dansk sport muffler seems a nice trade if you ask me.
Further aiding in this fantastic sound is a set of Weber triple-throat carburetors from the classified ads on Pelican Parts. Hidden under the air cleaner you’ll find a crank-fire ignition system with a mix of older Electromotive components and newer bits from Clewett Engineering. It was all made to fit using a Rich Johnson 914-6 engine tin and mount set, and power is transferred to the rear wheels through a lightweight flywheel and a rebuilt 5-speed dogleg 901 manual transmission. How much power, you might ask?
With the factory air box removed for tuning, the six produced 169.9whp at RPM Engineering in Santa Rosa, or more than double what the old 1.7-liter could do at the crank. Pete, who was hoping for 160-170hp at the crank, as much as a stock 2.2-liter 911E might make, was thrilled, though he says the engine lost 20hp with the air box back in place and only gained 12 of it back when the air filter was removed. The air box (seen above cast aside in the grass to expose those glorious carburetors) has since been updated with a GT3 Cup-style intake, but Pete isn’t sure what the final horsepower number is and doesn’t seem all that concerned: “It’s driveable, with great midrange torque for such a small engine – and that’s a lot more important than peak power numbers.”
The added power came at the cost of around 100-120 extra pounds compared to the Type IV, which Pete was initially leery about; “I liked the philosophical aspect of the lighter engine,” he says. However, in driving the car, you can tell that all of that weight is added exactly where you want it.
Bits & Pieces
Weighing an estimated 2,150lbs, the car feels amazingly balanced as you feather the throttle around a corner. It feels good on hard braking and wide open on a straight, too, but the most amazing sensation in this car is hitting an apex at speed. You can imagine that this is made even better by the fantastic sound that follows as the Webers go to work, and every moment of the driving experience is special.
This is thanks to a few major things that Pete has done over the years, paired with hundreds of finite adjustments. Take Pete’s lug nuts for an example of the latter, which are factory aluminum pieces from a 911 that were re-anodized in gray after their tops were cut off and the resulting edges chamfered.
The five-lug suspension is a mix of early 911 and 914-6 gear, which Pete found in the Richmond Classified Flea Market in 1992, and drove out to Modesto to get. This setup was accompanied by Bilstein HDs when I drove it, but Pete says he’s going to switch back to Koni Specials (AKA reds). Apparently they feel even better, so I might need to go for another drive to make sure Pete isn’t making things up.
Five-lug ‘Deep Six’ Fuchs were poached from EASY, also during high school, and have since been refinished by Harvey Weidman to resemble the unfinished look seen on some of Porsche’s customer race cars in the late ‘60s. The 15×6-inch wheels wear 185/60R15 Avon CR6ZZ rubber, popular among vintage racers and incredibly confidence-inspiring during spirited backroad driving.
Braking is provided by a set of period Brembo aluminum front calipers paired with ventilated early-911 rotors and stock aluminum hubs. These calipers were polished before being clear-anodized and rebuilt by Eric Shea at PMB Performance, while the stock ATE rear set were cadmium-plated in silver.
The Aura
This incremental approach was applied to the exterior as well, which while appearing stock at quick glance sports 30-odd modifications. The most obvious are the earlier and more attractive guard-less bumpers, Hella H4 headlights with black surrounds, Euro taillights and turn signal lenses, and the lack of US-market side markers.
The antenna has been removed along with the Porsche lettering on the engine grille, while a Euro ‘914 VW Porsche’ badge has been added at the rear. A fiberglass rear valance serves to save weight and delete the stock single-exit exhaust. There’s an LE-style front air dam, and a couple dozen other little items that make this car Pete’s.
Pete shared that back in the ‘90s when the car became his, he wanted to find a 916 body kit. “Everyone was trying to make their 914 look unlike a 914,” he explains, further expanding that he’s thankful now that he couldn’t afford to do that at the time. Instead, Pete “caught a vision” of the car mostly stock, low, and with the right wheel/tire setup. I’d say this has been executed to a T, and then some.
Touching on that unique 914 style, Pete is glad that the car is finally valued for what it is: “Super spare, super simple; alternative thinking and design – things that I’ve come to realize were in line with the mid-century movement.”
Mildly side-tracked but curiously on-topic, Pete continued by talking Eichler houses: “A new design movement might be popular early on – or not – but it often fades, especially [when] groundbreaking… If, after 20 or 30 years of deep undesirability it comes back, it’s often here to stay.” In a nutshell, this describes the cycle of the 914, and Eichlers, perfectly.
“A lot of mid-century houses, including the one we moved into a few years ago, were built to bring good design to the masses,” says Pete. “The same is true of the 914, and it was very advanced for its day… in a lot of ways. What’s funny is that something that wasn’t particularly special, or at least wasn’t considered as such back then can change over time – or at least the way we approach it can change. This car wasn’t a special model, and doesn’t have a special VIN. And yet it keeps reminding me that you don’t need that to have a lot of fun out on the road. If anything, it reminds me that stuff can actually get in the way of having a lot of fun out on the road.”
Inside the cabin there are many details that remain from Pete’s high school days. For example, he admits that he’d prefer clean door panels, which he cut for speakers, but also says “the parts that were there back then” are becoming more important to him over time.
There are little scratches on some of the trim, scratches likely made by Pete, a friend of Pete’s, or maybe even his older brother who used the car before him. Each of these imperfections contains a story, and while the car might be improved by erasing them, you’d actually lose something in the process. Through and through this is Pete’s car, and like everything else he’s updated the interior where he sees fit rather than as an exercise of perfectionism.
The dashboard was replaced with a nicer used one, and EASY came through once again with a used carpet set. Seats from GTS Classics feature heating elements (but have since been replaced with period Scheel seats), an early Prototipo-style steering wheel has been installed, and the center console has been removed altogether. Pete says the Weltmeister short-shift kit was “purchased used from EASY in high school and installed in a Costco parking lot on my lunch break. Still there, still works. A lot of people give the 901 a hard time, but this one shifted beautifully once I’d gone through it – and it got better when Holleran was finished with the conversion. It’s no GT4 shifter, but I’ve never missed a shift, never had an issue with it.”
Revelations
It’s a focused build that has been honed over the decades, and it feels that way behind the wheel. Asking Pete about the purpose behind the project as a whole, he replies, “While the car has been on track, has been autocrossed, and has been rallied, the purpose of the rebuild was none of the above; it’s just meant to be something fun to drive on the backroads of California.”
And what a fantastic job Pete has done in that regard. The chassis inspires such profound confidence and allows you to push it so much closer to the limit than possible in other cars.
Since driving Pete’s 914, I took out a pair of vintage 911s for some contrast. They were both incredibly compelling cars in their own right, but they were more of a battle to wrangle around. The feedback was fantastic, and I felt very close to the road in both. Naturally, the unsettling feeling of the rear engine would dissipate over time, but – like the trio of young drivers experienced in their M3, Turbo, and this very car two decades ago – the 914 was a revelation. If I had to pick between a period 911 and a 914 on experience alone, it’d have to be the latter. The 914 just does precisely what you want, exactly when you want it. Right away it felt like an old shoe in the best of ways.
For additional contrast, the same can nearly be said of Pete’s 991.2 after driving it, but not quite. It’s all relative, and in newer 911 you do feel like you’re part of the car, at least compared to, say, an F82 M4. But in the 991, especially when driving it immediately after the 914, there was just a disappointing lack of feedback. The car felt strangely heavy despite being plenty powerful, the steering was oddly light, and the ceramic-composite brakes served to chuck us all toward the windshield due to my unrefined right foot. Sure, the 991 stops on a dime, it’s crisp, and it’s even fairly practical. But naturally, in modernizing the 911, its rawness has been lost.
Yes, the drive in the 991 was great, but the sensations were not entirely memorable. On the other hand, I won’t soon forget the sensation of feeling out the heavy brake pedal, the weighty steering, bumpy ride, and magical center of gravity in Pete’s 914. Looking over the silver-dot VDO gauges as I ate up the miles, high on the sound of that sensational six. It doesn’t get better.
Speaking of gauges, Pete had no use for a certain VDO clock that I noticed sitting on his workbench during a separate visit. He saw me coveting it in his garage and, presumably on a whim, said I could have it. I refused; he insisted. As did my better half. As Sara and I took the clock from his hands there was something fleeting that danced behind Pete’s smile. I was taking a piece of the story with me, a clock gifted to Pete out of a mentor’s garage years ago. “Some gifts are meant to stay in motion – just don’t let it change what you write.”
That VDO clock now resides on my desk, adapted to run off AC power, ticking away as I work each day, tracking me through the hours. And oft-times when I glance at it, I’ll consequently find myself briefly lost in thought. When will Porsche build a proper toy from the ground up again? Will any car in the future be able to strike me in the same way that Pete’s 914 did? Will I have the pleasure of finding myself behind the wheel again? Will I get my own? Only time will tell.
“Been thinking about your story, and if there’s one thing I’d love to convey to your readers – especially younger ones – it’s that you don’t need a car that’s ‘special’ or ‘cool’ or ‘valuable’ in the eyes of others or ‘the market.’ It’s about how far a sports car – any sports car – can take you if you’re willing to persevere. My 914 was a $3,000 used car 30-40 years ago, and the butt of plenty of jokes. Today its obvious parallel is a decent early Boxster for $5,000-$8,000. The liability with the 914 was structural rust, and still is, where it’s mechanical with a 986.
But look where that $3,000 used car eventually took a punk kid, 30 years later. Where might an old 986 take someone?
— Pete Stout
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A Civic Modified One Lesson At A Time – Speedhunters
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I’m going to go ahead and say that next to catastrophe-driven resurrections and family heirloom stories, tales about unintentional builds are some of my favorite.
Because while anyone can build a car with a clear end vision in mind and a well-crafted shopping list of parts, it takes a special individual to start with no real direction and still end up with something incredibly purpose built.
There are countless four-door Civic race cars that exist today, but remarkable lap times were never Honda’s true intention for the responsibility-oriented, D-series-equipped cars. But, even in their lowliest form, ‘golden era’ Hondas have always been fun to drive.
The ‘ricer’ era proved that it’s easy to take these cars left, but with decent prodding you can also take them very right. This car, from wing to front spoiler is done right.
As the intro alludes, this didn’t happen overnight. Nor did it happen by following a gospel written by tuners running the streets of LA or Japan. Its current state of being is the result of 10 years of fettling with lower lap times in mind.
Have You Ever Heard Of Autocross?
When Chris Acosta bought his EJ6 Civic sedan, it was the first car of nine he’d owned by that point to actually hit the road. Previously, he bought almost anything that he came across with a conservative price tag. He’d fix these cars up a bit before selling them, and then do it all over again.
Life and family responsibilities eventually intervened though, and Chris found himself in need of his own reliable method of transportation.
“I had a job mostly to pay for insurance,” Chris explained, describing the early days of owning the Civic. Between errands he found time to give it a small drop, some Enkei wheels and a few other small modifications. Nothing extreme, but just enough to stand out from the other Civics running the rat race.
The Honda stood out to the point where a co-worker took notice and one day at lunch asked a bit of a loaded question: ‘Have you ever heard of autocross?’ That was a Monday; the following Saturday Chris pulled up to a closed parking lot full of cones “not really knowing what I was getting myself into.”
Chris’s co-worker happened to be part of the Porsche Club of America and a well-respected member of the local autocross community. Impressed that he showed at all, he saw to it that Chris got a proper introduction to performance driving.
After a few laps with an instructor, Chris was hooked. Autocross proved to be the perfect introduction to motorsport in general, and at an affordable cost.
Like most, Chris was eager to get knee-deep in modifications, but several people suggested he value seat time over wrench time.
“If you drive a car enough, it will tell you what it lacks. Rather than doing thing twice, I’d listen to the car and act on that,” he says in retrospect.
Time To Think
After a handful of years running autocross and a few modifications along the way, Chris followed an invite to a lapping day. Again, it was a well-organized event, and the groupings placed like drivers together, mitigating the risk to everyone involved.
Chris can’t stress enough how appreciative he is of his local racing community for guiding him along the way. Each lap day was a learning experience, and the community was more than willing to share their knowledge when it came to car set-up and driving style.
During his first track day, a fellow Civic driver was surprised to see the D-series engine still under the hood of Chris’s car. ‘You’re going to have a whole lot of time on the back straight to think about swapping to a B-series,’ he said with a smirk before heading out for his own session.
No lies detected, the D-series, while faithful, revealed that despite being solid enough for a tight autocross course, didn’t have much to offer on a longer track. In the engine bay now is a ’98-spec’ Integra Type R B18C engine. On the induction side, a 70mm throttle body has been paired with a port-matched Integra Type R manifold; on the exhaust side, a Spoon Sports header runs into a Spoon N1 axle-back system.
A Fidanza 7.5lb flywheel and Exedy clutch transfers the power to the transmission, which itself had been fitted with a GearX 4.9 straight-cut final drive and Synchrotech carbon synchro kit.
An autocross background fostered an appreciation for momentum over horsepower, so naturally the engine remains NA. Further performance gains were sought in the simplest way possible – by removing weight.
The interior has been stripped almost entirely. A lone Spoon Sports bucket seat sits on a PCI bracket, and a Takata Racing harness keeps Chris strapped in behind a Spoon Sports Gen2 steering wheel.
The factory tachometer has been replaced with an Omnipower equivalent, which has seen its needle pegged all the way past 11,000rpm after an accidental full-throttle 4th to 3rd gear shift at Limerock Raceway. Pulling off the track after the mishap, Chris let the engine idle cool, keeping a close eye on the matching AEM oil pressure and air/fuel ratio gauges.
No harm no foul; the motor turned out to be OK, and it’s the same motor still in the car today.
Still A Street Car
While the Civic most certainly has race car mannerisms, it is still license-plated and registered in its hometown of New York. One of the key components that allows this car to remain legal on the streets is a roll cage that’s functional but not too obtrusive.
Chris drew the 8-point cage himself and had Soul of the Street take his design and make it reality within the specifications for the various series he competes. Once it was complete, the cage and engine bay were painted Frost White to match the exterior.
The RAYS Volk Racing wheels are – if there was any question – green TE37s wrapped in 205/50R15 Toyo Proxes R888R tires. Ground Control Special Purpose coilovers specced with 900lb/sq-in front and 700lb/sq-in rear springs keep the tires mostly away from the fenders.
Again, driving style and miles behind the wheel have seen various suspension reinforcements enter the equation. The front and rear strut bars are Spoon items, while the OEM Civic Type R parts bin was pilfered for lower control arms, shock forks, and a 26mm sway bar. Energy Suspension bushings are used throughout.
Finally, behind the 15s are Alcon 4-pot brakes equipped with Hawk Performance pads.
Overall, much like the rest of the car, the exterior is a combination of higher-trim Honda OEM parts and track-proven accessories. Beneath the JDM Honda Civic SiR front lip is a homemade plywood front splitter, while JDM SiR headlights can also be found up front guiding the way. Professional Awesome hood louvers help with engine temps, as does a Shelby GT500 heat exchanger and a C&R Racing three-quarter-size radiator with 14-inch fan.
Hanging off the carbon fiber trunk is a Spoon Sports GT wing that’s the final exclamation point on a truly sorted vehicle.
The motorsports racing itch has led Chris to a point that he’s considering a rear-wheel drive project next. If he does go this way though, the Civic won’t be replaced – it has too much sentimental value now.
From rides with his father to track days with his wife Nicole by his side, no amount of money or rear-wheel temptation could persuade Chris to part with his beloved Honda. A FR car would be an addition to the stable rather than a swap.
A decade into an incredible journey with an honest car, Chris thanks his parents, in-laws, and wife for their support along the way. The car also wouldn’t have come together without Eddie Valez, Mill hatch, Tom and the guys at Full Throttle NYC, and his cousin David. “I’m sure I have forgot a few who helped me get to where I am today, but I am forever grateful to anyone that’s helped.”
Wheels, suspension, aero. Intake, exhaust, and a tune. Rinse, repeat. There’s nothing wrong with this, but some people like to go further.
Eric is one of those people, and after modifying mostly Japanese cars over the previous 15 years, he says he “took a step back to assess the path [he’s] been following. The way I try to modify and upgrade cars has always been the same, meaning I try to make them more distilled and more race-inspired. Nothing is more important than the foundation, so why not start with a car that’s already built to be like a street-going race car?”
After graduating from his highly-tuned AE86 and his LS-swapped FD3S, both of which were modified through and through, Eric stepped up to a Lotus Exige S.
When I heard the news I was a little disappointed, in the sense that I wasn’t sure how far he would be able to take this car. Sure, I’ve seen plenty of big-budget Lotus builds for the track, however, when you look at Eric’s previous cars I didn’t think he would able to crank this one up in the same clean and cohesive way for the street.
Sometimes, it’s nice when your wrong.
Eric built on his foundation of modifying Japanese street cars and carried the same ethos over to this British coupe. Everything has been torn down, replaced, or made better. Extremely well-engineered factory components have been replaced for even more impressive aftermarket ones, and while the car has become more aggressive looking through the process, it isn’t overly so.
Like his Mazda and Toyota I shot previously and featured here in 2017 and 2018, Eric’s Exige S retains its fantastic factory body lines. No gaudy wide-body, no ridiculous aero, and a lower but sensible ride height.
Still, form follows function close behind, and the package as a whole is simply an elevated version of the factory car. They’ve all looked phenomenal, and the spirit of the car is still there behind the wheel, despite all of the aftermarket parts.
Considering a stock Exige, I’ve always thought of them as leaning toward the exotic side of things despite carrying a price tag similar to cars that, while nice, are very mundane. Eric, like myself, says his “pragmatic side has always kept [him] away from new-age luxury cars and supercars due to their complexities and electronics.”
He continues, “but I fell in love with the interesting blend of features the Exige has: very raw, an almost unfathomable 2,000lb curb weight, mid-engined, exotic looks… and actually quite practical. I like to be able to know how to work on and maintain my cars myself, and it doesn’t get more simple than the Toyota powertrain and underrated supercharged 2ZZ.”
Like Eric’s other cars, this Exige has been a home-brewed affair, built entirely in personal garages. However, usually when I think Lotus, I think sterile. Proper British engineering (if there is such a thing), owned by likewise proper businessmen or well-to-do track day enthusiasts.
In other words, these aren’t cars that seem synonymous with wrenching in a garage late at night, waiting on parts from Japan, performing your own suspension setup, carefully fitting carbon fiber trim yourself, and so on.
And yet, here we are.
Late Nights
Precisely, this time around we’re in Ezekiel Lee’s home garage where the suspension and exhaust were getting overhauled. The vibe here is what I think Speedhunters is all about; just a couple of guys, wrenching away on a Toyota engine, hands dirty, sticker-bombed toolbox, just having a good time despite the setbacks and frustrations that come from any project like this.
It just so happens that the Toyota four-banger in this case is supercharged, and bolted to a British go kart. Otherwise the sentiment and the process have been the same as Eric’s other cars.
When we hung out while the Lotus was under the knife, Ezekiel still had a day job and was just rebuilding gearboxes and doing other service for friends (and friends of friends) during his spare time at night or on the weekends. Ezekiel has since graduated to a shop in Fremont, California – CM Autohaus – where he has been able to scale up his operation.
We met up nearly two years ago, in fact, and it’s been really inspiring to see Ezekiel’s progress since that time. Ezekiel embodies the Speedhunters-type hustle that so many of our readers have, and he has moved from this being a hobby, to a job, and into a growing career.
Some of the most well-executed cars come from the most unlikely places, and this small garage in San Jose was where Eric’s very special Lotus got a few steps closer to completion. Of course, there were tons of other nights after work and long weekends that Eric and Ezekiel spent together, as well as plenty Eric spent on his own with the car in his own garage.
I’m sure this resonates with many of you, as well as many of us here on the team, who don’t have a ‘professional’ space or all the tools that we wish we had. And yet, Eric shows us again just how far you can take things with limited or no help from a full-scale shop. This leaves more money for parts, and as with his AE86, Eric seems to have spent all of it.
Parts, Parts, Parts, & More Parts
The mod list on this car is a mile long, and far exceeds the level to which I thought anyone would take a street-driven Exige. The nice thing is, unlike many of this car’s track-going equivalents, great measures have been taken to ensure the car still works through a crowded downtown and also to retain the factory charm and aesthetic.
These cars are fairly stripped down and somewhat brutal from the factory, with their firm ProBax bucket seats, exposed aluminum tub, and few amenities. In Eric’s usual fashion, he’s taken this and simply enhanced it.
There’s a sound system with JL Audio speakers and a subwoofer built into a custom enclosure between the carbon fiber Tillet bucket seats, an Android-powered in-dash receiver, GRP carbon fiber components including extended door sills, console trim, and switchgear surrounds, a carbon fiber rear-view mirror, and an impressive InoKinetic shiftR111 shifter that also included replacement linkage and cables. The door panels, portions of the dashboard, and headliner have been covered in Alcantara, and parts like the satin handbrake lever and aluminum cupholder were poached from a newer Lotus.
Gone is the somewhat cheap, plasticky interior experience that is delivered from the factory. Needless to say, it’s now a function-first cockpit that happens to also look fantastic thanks to the high-end components and thoughtful combination of parts from various catalogs.
Outside, you have a Benetec dry-carbon rear wing and three-element diffuser that sort out the rear end and are balanced by more carbon fiber components including Shine Auto side skirts and a front lip. Beyond the rear wing these are relatively subtle parts, but there’s no way the awkward factory deck lid wing would look at home here.
Another nice touch are the updated version of GRP’s LED taillights, which are plenty bright while maintaining a soft, consistent look. I’ve met Greg from Greg’s Racing Parts at the track before, and it’s cool to see so many of his parts ending up on this street build.
Another interesting move that furthers the factory aesthetic is that OEM wheels and brakes are retained. The Lotus Sport 240R Cup wheels leave nothing to be desired, and the same can be said of the AP Racing front calipers that were taken from an ’08 model. Two-piece AP Racing rotors from EliseParts have also been added at each corner, along with G-LOC R8 front and InoKinetic rear brake pads.
At the core of the suspension is a set of Quantum Racing One.Zero coilovers, which were going in when I visited Eric and Ezekiel in the garage way back when. These are paired with Quantum Q2 damper mounts, and billet front and rear uprights were purchased from EliseParts. Billet knuckles also replace a weak link in the factory suspension assembly, and many more intermediate parts have been thrown at the car to make it all work.
Under the rear deck lid, the factory-supercharged 2ZZ-GE has been enhanced with a ReallyLightStuff intercooler, which is paired with dual SPAL fans. ARP hardware was used where possible, silicone radiator hoses replace factory pieces, a DeatschWerks fuel pump feeds Bosch EV-14 injectors, an ITG cold-air intake has been installed, and a Fidanza aluminum flywheel is utilized.
I’m just naming a few things here so you can get the gist; because covering it all just wouldn’t make sense.
What I do want to focus on when it comes to the powertrain is the titanium ARQRAY exhaust that had arrived from Japan when I visited Ezekiel’s. Eric is holding the muffler up above at the beginning of the article and it’s amazing just how much lighter it is than the factory exhaust.
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Titanium is a wonderful thing, and paired with a DMZ Ultimate exhaust header, the four-cylinder sounds solid. Have a listen for yourself.
As extensive as that list was, it’s truly just scratching the surface.
The Experience
What matters in the end is how the car actually drives. Has this plethora of parts actually improved the experience? Has the big budget made the car more fun to drive? Does it look demonstrably better than when assembly was completed near Hethel airfield in Norfolk, England?
Yes, yes, and yes.
The lower ride height is not such that the car is unusable, but in the already great chassis you can truly feel every last thing it’s doing. With the engine riding along right behind you, the car has insane balance. It’s the type of experience you can only feel, and words won’t do it justice.
It’s also hard to sum up a build like this, where so many incremental improvements have been made all around. Still, Eric gave it a shot: “As good as the Exige is from the factory, it was still just a starting point for me as there are a few easily identifiable areas where Lotus had to cut corners for costs. My plan was to address all these ‘shortcomings’ and realize a higher-spec Exige that could have came from the factory if Lotus was willing to sell the cars new at a higher price point.”
And that’s the interesting thing about any stock car. There’s a certain balance that manufacturers need to strike between many factors; cost, safety, fuel consumption, compliance, comfort, and other such checkboxes. It’s pretty impressive what can be added to and taken away from an engineered car by an individual in their own – or a friend’s – garage.
I had to ask Eric if, all said and done and after several build over the last few years, the Lotus suffices. He answered, “it has a fighter jet-like driving experience that further adds to its allure, which is something my previous cars lacked. They just felt like cars at the end of the day.”
As satisfied as Eric was in this Exige, I could tell when we shot that he already had the itch to do it all over again. Still, Eric kept the car longer than any of his others before making another jump into one of his dream cars: a Porsche 993.
This time around, he says he’s adjusting the strategy, and is quite happy with the car right out of the box. I’m sure he’ll eventually go down the inevitable rabbit hole and starting making some more serious changes, but time will tell.
Through all of these builds, though, one thing is clear: if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
Riverside: Come For The Cars, Stay For The People – Speedhunters
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Not being able to attend events or social gatherings this year has been a real bummer, so when I heard that the Riverside Spring Meet 5 show had been rescheduled to the fall, I knew I had to make it out to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
This being one of my first officially sanctioned car events since COVID struck this year, I was on edge with a 2-stroke-like mixture of excitement and anxiousness, for obvious reasons. But thankfully, much of my anxiety was alleviated by the fact that the event organizers had followed the latest CDC guidelines along with all of the local health guidelines.
If you’re unfamiliar with Riverside events, let’s just say you’ve really been missing out. At this event – renamed the Riverside 5 Fall Meet – some of the best food trucks catered to a huge variety of people and cars in an amazing venue, with true southern hospitality.
One of my favourite times at a car show is the early morning roll-in. Not only do you get a preview of some of the best cars of the event, this time of the day tends to have some of the best natural light.
A quick cup of tea later (yes, with milk my British counterparts) and some really interesting machines had started to turn up.
As the morning rolled on and the show start time inched closer, the morning light only got better. Was it worth the lack of sleep and a Red Bull-fueled diet? Absolutely.
Like most shows, Riverside has both indoor and outdoor elements, but unlike most shows they don’t charge admission for spectators. Being completely open to the public, many people from all walks of life had a perfect introduction into our wild world of cars.
Every single car that registers for Riverside has to be approved, but the event organizers don’t play favourites. From the vibe of the show, it was extremely well curated.
While I had seen a few of my favourites during roll-in, there was a good dozen or more that I wanted to take a closer look at before the show became too packed.
This included one of the best Chevy Astro vans I have ever seen. This has definitely been added to the list of vehicles that I don’t need but most certainly want.
Next up was this phenomenal Mercedes-Benz 190E on two-piece BBS Motorsport wheels, in my all-time go-to colour combo – white on white.
Yes, I may be biased as I own a W201 and think that they’re one of the best-looking cars ever made, but so many details on this one were personalised. From the parking marker to the exhaust tips, each piece had its own flair and style.
Even in my semi-awake state at 6:00am during roll-in, it was impossible to ignore the sound of turbocharged LS idling. To find out that the sound was coming from a Mazda Miata was even more welcoming. I’m not a huge Miata guy, mostly for the fact that I don’t fit in them, but seeing this one set up as a drag car had me fizzing.
An LS with a turbo the size of my head along with an idle that rattled my teeth is an awesome upgrade from the stock 1.8L four-cylinder.
As this particular engine is capable of putting down anywhere from 800 to 1,100hp, a parachute has been fitted, along with some meaty tires to hook up the gobs of torque and keep the car somewhat straight.
Just as I found myself on the track of not wanting to buy anything else, and therefore not needing to deal with storing more cars in Los Angeles, I stumbled upon this FC3S Mazda RX-7 convertible on classic Panasport G7 wheels.
For a long time, I thought convertibles weren’t for me and were inferior to other cars. Then I relocated to the only place that has summer and sun all year round with crazy traffic, and I’ve slowly come around to the idea of being at the beach while sitting in traffic.
And looking mighty fine at the same time. Not only was the wheel fitment and colour the perfect choice, but this RX-7 also had a two-tone matching interior, which to me was the absolute cherry on top.
Maybe it was because I was in the South and folk are known to be more friendly around these parts, or maybe everyone was just happy to be out of the house and interacting with others, but I met so many good people at this event that it’s unreal to think about.
From the those putting on the event, to those with cars, and those and catering food for the masses, everyone was passionate about being there.
Riverside’s tagline reads “Come for the cars, stay for the people” and this year’s event lived up to that and more. BBQ, cars, good people, fantastic weather, and southern accents – maybe it’s time to move to Tennessee…
While I ponder that thought, make sure you check out all the gallery images below.
Mini Truckin’ Lives On: A Drift-Spec Nissan Hardbody – Speedhunters
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Are there any ice hockey fans among us? If so, then the term ‘sucker’ pass is probably somewhat familiar. A sucker is a pass that puts the receiver in high risk of being checked off the puck, rather violently, upon receipt. The passer doesn’t intentionally wish harm toward the recipient of course; the pass simply becomes a sucker pass as a result of the play changing quickly in the opposing team’s favor.
When Kerion sent through a folder full of the various vehicles he shot during his recent trip to Ocean City, I couldn’t help but feel, at least slightly, that he sent me a sucker pass. At this point, some of you are confused, fed up, and even somewhat angry with our ‘not H2Oi 2020‘ coverage, so you might be wondering why Speedhunters continues to send anyone to Maryland for this ‘event’ at all.
Vehicles like this are why.
The variety of vehicles tucked in the alleys of Ocean City in early October are hard to rival, practically anywhere. Despite what it may look like from the outside, and amidst all the tickets, walking bananas, misguided youth and pandering for Instagram likes, the H2Oi weekend can still be a place where like automotive minds are able to converge relatively unbothered.
So, if you can, put aside your situational bias and enjoy the first of many treasures Keiron dredged up on his latest trip to the city called Ocean.
How Cool Could That Be?
It’s a bit funny how many builds start from the simple thought: ‘How cool could that be?’. Chris Miller said that to a friend about a passing Nissan Hardbody truck shortly after he sent the motor of his Mazda 6 to an early grave.
In stock form the Nissan D21 Hardbody truck was right up there with the Mazda B2200 and Toyota Tacoma as a competitor to Ford’s Ranger and Chevrolet’s S-truck offerings. During the heyday of mini truckin’ it was an extremely popular platform to customize with small, wide wheels and a hefty drop.
But in 2020 we’re a long way removed from mini truckin’s peak, and about eight years from the last time a proper mini (single cab, short bed) truck was released in North America.
As I mentioned, a wide variety of slammed Hardbodies have been built across the globe, but a much smaller percentage have made their way onto the track. Fewer still have been properly built to go sideways.
Chris’s inspiration for his Hardbody came from an appreciation for the factory styling, coupled with the peer pressure of friends who found themselves getting further and further involved in drifting.
While not a traditional drifting platform, thinking of a Hardbody sliding through corners flanked by a pair of S-chassis had Chris wondering how cool it would be.
Ground Work
Making a truck work well as a drift/street vehicle isn’t a task for the faint of heart. A simple coil spring, shock and spindle swap, coupled with lowering blocks and de-arched leafs in the rear wouldn’t do the trick.
Chris can attest to this – he tried.
After attempting to live with the horrendous axle wrap that came with a traditional mini truck-style drop, he was forced to get creative. The rear suspension is now four-linked, using a universal kit originally designed for air bags.
The provisions for bags were cut off and replaced with coilover brackets, resulting in a true coilover setup for the rear. All of the aforementioned is now covered with a Rohde Fabrication bead-rolled notch cover.
To assist with vehicle balance, Chris has placed the new fuel cell considerably further rearward than the factory tank.
To match the rear, the front end was brought down on QA1 coilovers fitted with Swift springs. The steering knuckles have been shortened, and the lower control arms extended to allow for an overall suspension geometry that is better suited for drifting. Read: more angle.
Behind Work Meister wheels a Nissan 300ZX has given up its brakes both front and rear, and that includes the additional hydraulic OEM 300ZX caliper-based handbrake.
Poppin’ In the Hood
If you were wondering whether this truck has some extra ponies to back up its looks, it most certainly does. Nissan D21s share the same block as KA24-powered Nissan Silvias, but they differ in regards to intake and exhaust manifold setup. Using the truck parts in a turbo application would have been a right pain, so Chris instead used an S13 manifold to handle the intake side of the equation and a Rev9 cast manifold for the exhaust side. Mounted to the log-style manifold is a polished CX Racing T35R turbo.
The necessary fueling requirements are provided by a Walbro 255lph pump and regulated by an Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator.
Inside the block are Wiseco 8:1 forged pistons, a Brian Crower cam, and Eagle rods. A freshly rebuilt OEM head is bolted to the balanced short block via ARP head studs, while a Megasquirt standalone ECU tells the motor setup what to do and when to do it.
Out back, a subtle turn-down pipe terminates the 3-inch v-band exhaust system from the turbo back.
To get the tires turning, a refreshed stock transmission kicks power to a welded stock differential.
Of Course It Looks Good Too
The truck has seen a few visual revisions in Chris’s ownership, but its latest cleanly blends ’80s-inspired graphics with ’90s-inspired drift styling.
Grey Avery vinyl covers the entire truck, including the widened front fenders and rear bedsides. The quality of the vehicle’s new finish works as a rolling promotional item for Chris’s own shop, CJ Motoring.
The bumpers are from a Toyota and all of the LED lighting – including the clear tail lights, which are completely awesome – are also from CJ. The lighting package includes under-glow, because at this point, why wouldn’t it?
Inside, the interior is reminiscent of most tracked street cars with all creature comforts like carpet, sound deadening, and a radio retained. Corbeau buckets are affixed to the floor with Planted seat brackets, and a horizontal bar runs behind the seats to provide a safe anchor point for the Sparco harnesses.
A Grip Royal steering wheel replaces the large factory item, and the handbrake is a Twisted Images 6060 aluminum unit built for Wilwood master cylinders. The shift knob comes from We Are Likewise, while the gauge pod was handmade by Chris himself.
In its current form the truck has proven quite sorted at events, and it’s still quite capable on the street too.
While Chris did do much of the work to this truck with his own two hands, he’d like to shout out Beebani Customs, Alchemy Stdio 320, Rhode Fabrication, RZT Performance and Bavwerkshop for contributing with parts and wrench time when needed.
To bring things full circle with the intro, had Keiron not waded through the turbulent waves of Oceans City this year, then we’d likely never had the chance to feature this fine piece of automotive creativity. As a fan of both trucks and drifting I feel that would have been a shame.
