so many great cars in here. It’s so sad you cubed the 4ws. i had a friend that had one with a hotter jdm motor swapped in and coil overs it was a fun little beastie.
my car, the only car Ive owned until recently is my 2006 scion xb. bought new in 2006 and driven all over the country. Ive moved with just it twice, Ive hauled fence panels to fix my fence after a hurricane, built a deck with lumber I strapped to its roof, Ive slept in it had dates in it, cannon-balled 18 hours straight in it. I think I have 186,000 miles on it and I still take it up to red line with no complaints. The gen 1 XB’s is such a perfect cross section of specs. only 2400lbs has a huge interior and it loves to rev. It has a really close ratio gear box meaning that you shift alot but its easy to use ever ounce of power it has. Its also an easy car to slide and recover once you start to rotate (assuming you disable stability control).
It lived outside around pine trees for a few years so the paint is wrecked. Ive bounced it off a few barriers and the passenger door got crunched by a poor neighbor of mine. I couldn’t fix it and didn’t want to screw up his insurance so I still have a wavy door.
Right now I have light weight 8″ wide rims on the front with grippy sport tires. Too much grip in the rear and the car doesn’t want to move round but this setup lets me basically pull the car out of a slide using the front grip. It has so much steering response now.
For the future I plan to just keep this car forever as my frontwheel drive car. I found out the 2008 corolla 1.8l engine has the same exact mounts and uses a transmission with the same case, and shafts as mine but longer gears. I found a company that rebuilds and race preps said engines for 5k. So once my 240z is done and Ive got the money lined up I plan to swap that engine in for a 30% power increase that will prolly help gas mileage too and basically an engine with 0 miles. Ill refresh the suspension at that time as well and swap the brakes for 4 wheel disks.
My second car ever is my 1973 Datsun (nissan) 240z which i am in the process of rebuilding and modifying. I spent a few years getting rust out of it, learning to weld, replacing sheet metal, putting in a new floor and upgraded frame rails and painting the interior. I also got a larger 2.8l engine from an 83 280zx. Same motor just larger pistons and other small changes, more power potential. Ive also installed larger brakes, a light weight flywheel to make the zingy engine zingier and a race exhaust header for a 2nd layer of zing. All the rubbery bits in the suspension are now stiffer. Right now I’m in the process of rewiring it completely. After which its testing the fuel system, replacing the radiator and hopefully driving it.
How it would look presently if shiny and all together
Its been a 5 year journey through some radical life changes that had me not engaging with it for months sometimes. But I can see the finish line now, and that kinda rules.
Part of me wants to never rebuild a car again and part of me cant wait to start the next sheetmetal journey.