I saw tons of stories about Silvias in Japan and that's what I wanted. The SR20DET turbo motor was like the nectar of the gods, so tantalizing and desirable that I would pass many nights sleepless just thinking about it. I called around and it was just too expensive of an option to go with at the time. Slowly I tried to piece together a turbo kit until I met Andy Yu from V-Spec Performance (Zero-1000 now). They were the ones who had the first SR-swapped 240SXs in the 12s up in Palmdale and brought over the Top Fuel cars from Japan. He helped me with my original SR swap and taught me a lot along the way.
I was pretty content with my car up until some guy ran into me on the freeway. Trying to make the best of the situation, P.J. changed my front end into the full '97 update with a Japanese Silvia bumper and grille. That's how it was on the June '00 cover of Super Street. Then Bomex came in with a full body kit. We'd hit the shows with at least four SR-swapped 240SXs each time. There was mine or my friends: Either of Will Law's two (S13 or S14), Paul Liao's S14, James Yen's S14 (from the original "movie"), and Mike Liao's S13.
Through the years we changed a bunch of minor things like suspension, motors, wheels, and all that good stuff. We finalized that list with the cream of the crop Tein Type Flex coilovers, EDFC and Work Meister wheels and Falken ST115 tires. But the biggest changes were the Strawberry Face S15 front end and S15 motor. P.J. wanted to change the front because the S15 was so new in Japan at the time and the only person in the US at the time who did the conversion was Will on his S14. So that was done with a new Bomex bumper, which is how it stood on the Import Tuner cover and Overboost.com. Andy found me an S15 motor, which was rare back then, and he helped me get it running using the five-speed tranny from my old motor and an S14 harness and coilpacks. With that setup, I took home the six-foot tall Import Showoff Auto trophy at Speedzone to add to my collection of 14 or so trophies that are sitting in Hugh Le's garage. Ken Miyoshi shipped the car out to Hawaii for his show there. Right before it was to be loaded onto the container, this idiot backed into it in the parking lot and pushed the front end into a curb. So when it got back from paradise, it had to go back to P.J.'s yet again.
I only ran the car at the track one time, up in Palmdale for the NIRA finals. With essentially a stock S15 motor with bolt-ons, I ran a mid-13-second pass on street tires with Junko Hyodo in the other lane whooping my ass in her 11-second Top Fuel DC2. I wanted some top-end parts like cams and valve springs, but during the baseline dyno on the the Church Automotive Dynapack, the car died after putting down 247 whp.