It's a rare occasion to see the first car someone's ever owned grace the pages of Super Street. It's even more rare to find someone with a drift car that's been used and abused for nearly a decade that is still in one un-mangled piece. Both cases hold true for this heavily-modified Nissan. Nikolay Konstantinov's S13 has been a constant project since he first picked it up at the age of 16. Nikolay has made friends, learned a lot about cars and became Formula D licensed in the process. I was fortunate enough to have a chat with the owner and get the low down.
Super Street: Give us a little bit of history on this amazing car.
Nikolay Konstantinov: I bought the car back in the summer of 2001, right before my junior year in high school. About a year later I kinda' got into wanting to do the basics: header, intake, exhaust. I didn't know anything about cars at the time, I just saw the car in Initial D and wanted one. Then I came across a website, srswap.com, and they were doing the two-liter SR swap into a car so I looked into it a little more and ended up picking up a front clip from Blitz USA. I got the SR into the car and then got started drifting with the help of a couple of friends and it just took off ever since.
SS: Very cool, so how did you go about starting drifting? Was it through the interest of a friend?
NK: Yes a friend of mine, Chris. I remember there was a local forum we were on and I ended up buying a part off of him. When I came by to talk to him, he had a really cool S13. It was slammed on JDM wheels and everything so that got my attention. Then he started showing me a lot of things like Drift Tengoku magazines and JDM videos and I was like "wow this is really cool." Along with one of my other friends, Gary Webb, we started going to the parking lots to practice. I had the SR at the time but with an open diff so I could only turn to the left!
SS: (Laughing)
NK: Just like a lot of kids you see nowadays!
SS: Well you've gotta' start somewhere!
NK: Exactly! Then maybe six months later I got a two-way (LSD). At that time there were events happening over in Vancouver late 2003/early 2004 and it just progressed from there. Then the drift scene started to take off here in Washington around 2005, so we started having some local events. Prior to that there were only private, actually
very-very private sanctioned events. But when 2005 rolled around the local track started to warm up a little to drifting and people started to like it a lot more. The crowds kept getting bigger and now it's a full-blown program up here.
SS: You're talking about Evergreen Drift right?
NK: Yup, it's been around for a bit, I'm starting to get recognized around town. (laughs)
SS: Why did you decide to go from the SR to the RB?
NK: I wanted a little more power and torque and I didn't feel the need to spend an arm and a leg for a build (on the SR). The RB was just kind of a better choice, especially after talking to my mechanic and he was saying this was the least expensive way to get the power I wanted. Being on a budget, we just did the turbo upgrade and right off the bat it was already making over 120hp more than what I was making with the SR. With the new setup and the turbos we have coming, I should be just shy of 500hp.
SS: It's definitely a more reliable motor for that amount of power and there should be less strain on the engine.
NK: Yes definitely and it requires a lot less boost to get there.
SS: I understand you are now Formula D-licensed, congratulations!
NK: Yes! Thank you sir!