llebynohtna
New Member
I needed somewhere to recap, and document my on going build with my C33 laurel.
I've collected countless pictures and done hours of work on it, but never really shared my build with anyone. Driftworks seems pretty popping these days and figured this would be a good place to start. I've skipped a lot of the little stuff as I don't want to make this too heavy, but included some really great points and events that I've done with the car. I will try and keep this updated as I continue to work on, drive, drift and overall just have fun with the car! So sit down, buckle up and get ready to be disappointed... LOL
The story starts sometime around 4years ago; browsing a local forum sale section I came upon a 1990 C33 Laurel with RB20DET and a bunch of other drift goodies up for sale. At the time I didnt have the cash to buy the car as is ($4500CAD). I was pretty bummed as it was exactly what I wanted. Time goes buy and the car ended up getting parted out, as no one bought it as a whole (WTF??). The car passed through a couple hands as a shell until it ended up in a friend of mines possession. He had made an impulse buy and really didnt know what he wanted to do with it. I offered him up a trade for the C33 rolling shell for a set of Veilside wheels I had kicking around.... He accepted!! And this is where my love affair began:
Picking up the car:
She was a bit of a site for sore eyes, but I knew it could become something really cool.
Got pulled over on the way home with the car; lol... officer was nice, didnt know what a laurel was
The key is actually one of my favorite things about the Laurel, everyone things its a Lexus (silly north american kids)
Basically the first order of business was to get the car to my shop space, take it apart and figure out what I was working with... and it wasnt much! lol The car had been stripped down pretty good...
- Stock struts
- 4 lug
- no brakes
- barely an interior, and what was there was brown *barf*
- some aero that had seen better days
I got to work right away, cleaning the car up and collecting parts...
Now, this car has gone through a multitude of engines, funny enough only of which 1 actually ran. I started off with this "dream" of putting a 1uz mated to a CD00X 6spd, but quickly realized the cost outweighed the reward in my opinion. The 1uz is an excellent motor, but with the non VVTi models quickly running out of steam without dumping an assload of money into them, I opted to go a different direction... nonetheless spent a bunch of time getting an engine fitted up:
From there I began basically overhauling the interior and collecting more and more parts. I'm not going to bore you with 4years worth of text, so we'll jump into a bunch of pics
Stripped down the interior, painted it white and installed my cage, seats, etc. I flocked the dashboard, along with the door panels to update the look and minimize glare!
somwhere along the way, I bought a parts laurel. This car had a sr20 engine in it. Owner had rear ended someone and basically left in it his driveway for 2-3 years. There was lots of good spare parts on this that are now on/in my car!
Out of the parts car I got the following:
- Some OG Kei Office coils (8k/6k) in really good shape, not seized or leaking
- Cusco safety 21 bolt in cage
- Spare front gaurds
- Spare front aero bumper, skirts, trunk lid and all the doors !
Once the car started to actually resemble a car again, I begin to look at other aspects of the build... cosmetics:
1UZ removed, and repainted the engine bay along with tubbing it. I wanted a clean engine bay look along with as much wheel clearance as I could get
I also bought these from my roomate! 19" Riverside Altstadt for rebuidling. Fitted up to the front guards from the parts car, which a PO had graciously already done a nice roll/pull.
Final fitment/look after rebuilding them...
Car finally coming together as a whole, on the ground and rolled out of the shed.
I'm sure some of you have heard of SerialNine; they are local to me and hosted a Block party style meet/bbq, get together. I towed the laurel out there for this as it was STILL not running lol.
The first outing with the car, and first car show! I actually managed to get "People's choice" which was a voted award.
After the show, the car went back in the shed for a while as I had lost motivation even after coming home with an award. I had recently picked up a 240sx coupe with an RB20DET swap, and a few other goodies. After driving around in that and really enjoying it, I was hit in the back and my insurance company wrote it off. I took this as a good thing and transferred the engine and all the goodies I had from it into the Laurel, banging away to get it done for another show a few hours south of me called Nissan Fest, presented by NWN (Northwest Nissan's)
I've collected countless pictures and done hours of work on it, but never really shared my build with anyone. Driftworks seems pretty popping these days and figured this would be a good place to start. I've skipped a lot of the little stuff as I don't want to make this too heavy, but included some really great points and events that I've done with the car. I will try and keep this updated as I continue to work on, drive, drift and overall just have fun with the car! So sit down, buckle up and get ready to be disappointed... LOL
The story starts sometime around 4years ago; browsing a local forum sale section I came upon a 1990 C33 Laurel with RB20DET and a bunch of other drift goodies up for sale. At the time I didnt have the cash to buy the car as is ($4500CAD). I was pretty bummed as it was exactly what I wanted. Time goes buy and the car ended up getting parted out, as no one bought it as a whole (WTF??). The car passed through a couple hands as a shell until it ended up in a friend of mines possession. He had made an impulse buy and really didnt know what he wanted to do with it. I offered him up a trade for the C33 rolling shell for a set of Veilside wheels I had kicking around.... He accepted!! And this is where my love affair began:
Picking up the car:
She was a bit of a site for sore eyes, but I knew it could become something really cool.
Got pulled over on the way home with the car; lol... officer was nice, didnt know what a laurel was
The key is actually one of my favorite things about the Laurel, everyone things its a Lexus (silly north american kids)
Basically the first order of business was to get the car to my shop space, take it apart and figure out what I was working with... and it wasnt much! lol The car had been stripped down pretty good...
- Stock struts
- 4 lug
- no brakes
- barely an interior, and what was there was brown *barf*
- some aero that had seen better days
I got to work right away, cleaning the car up and collecting parts...
Now, this car has gone through a multitude of engines, funny enough only of which 1 actually ran. I started off with this "dream" of putting a 1uz mated to a CD00X 6spd, but quickly realized the cost outweighed the reward in my opinion. The 1uz is an excellent motor, but with the non VVTi models quickly running out of steam without dumping an assload of money into them, I opted to go a different direction... nonetheless spent a bunch of time getting an engine fitted up:
From there I began basically overhauling the interior and collecting more and more parts. I'm not going to bore you with 4years worth of text, so we'll jump into a bunch of pics
Stripped down the interior, painted it white and installed my cage, seats, etc. I flocked the dashboard, along with the door panels to update the look and minimize glare!
somwhere along the way, I bought a parts laurel. This car had a sr20 engine in it. Owner had rear ended someone and basically left in it his driveway for 2-3 years. There was lots of good spare parts on this that are now on/in my car!
Out of the parts car I got the following:
- Some OG Kei Office coils (8k/6k) in really good shape, not seized or leaking
- Cusco safety 21 bolt in cage
- Spare front gaurds
- Spare front aero bumper, skirts, trunk lid and all the doors !
Once the car started to actually resemble a car again, I begin to look at other aspects of the build... cosmetics:
1UZ removed, and repainted the engine bay along with tubbing it. I wanted a clean engine bay look along with as much wheel clearance as I could get
I also bought these from my roomate! 19" Riverside Altstadt for rebuidling. Fitted up to the front guards from the parts car, which a PO had graciously already done a nice roll/pull.
Final fitment/look after rebuilding them...
Car finally coming together as a whole, on the ground and rolled out of the shed.
I'm sure some of you have heard of SerialNine; they are local to me and hosted a Block party style meet/bbq, get together. I towed the laurel out there for this as it was STILL not running lol.
The first outing with the car, and first car show! I actually managed to get "People's choice" which was a voted award.
After the show, the car went back in the shed for a while as I had lost motivation even after coming home with an award. I had recently picked up a 240sx coupe with an RB20DET swap, and a few other goodies. After driving around in that and really enjoying it, I was hit in the back and my insurance company wrote it off. I took this as a good thing and transferred the engine and all the goodies I had from it into the Laurel, banging away to get it done for another show a few hours south of me called Nissan Fest, presented by NWN (Northwest Nissan's)
