Last Friday we delivered the first chapter in Colin Frost Racing's bid to cobble together a Nissan S13 240SX in three weeks to compete in the Formula D season opener on April 10-11 (click here). Driver Colin Frost's crew chief and friend Bryan Rogers donated the S13 chassis, SR20DET motor and various other bits and pieces to get the project off the ground, and Rogers is also heavily involved in assembly with mechanic Andrew "Long Torso" Ferguson.

The transformation began on March 21 at Unique Performance West in Anaheim Hills, Calif., with the initial goal of getting the car complete enough to go to FD's pre-season technical inspection at UTI in Rancho Cucamonga on April 4. That objective has now been scrubbed, though, primarily because the roll cage will not be installed in time. The new target is to have the car teched at round 1 in Long Beach on the 10th.

The other setback worth noting is tire support. At this point, it appears Cooper will likely not be returning to the CFrost program, leaving another sponsorship hole. It wasn't all bad news from sponsors, though; when we stopped by UPW on March 31, we bumped into Sun Automobile's Justin Otsuka dropping off a grip of electrical goodies for the SR20 engine.

MARCH 28

After a week, with its white over-fenders in place, the 240 is starting to look like a JDM hotrod cop car. The temporary Work Meister S1s are another gift from Rogers, used just for rolling around until a wheel sponsor steps up. He got the centers of the two-piece rollers powder-coated and polished the lips before throwing them on the project.

The fiberglass widebody fenders came from Japanese company D-Max. The fronts are Silvia D1-Spec variety that are mounted via the stock fender bolt points and flare out some 40mm. The rears are also for the S13 Silvia and provide a 50mm widening, but the team pushed the edges in a bit to create a bubbling effect and gain another 20mm of flaring, for a total of 70mm. To keep the over-fender bowed, it was secured to the body panel underneath with rivets.

In other body news, the paint showed up (yay!), a fetching teal green metallic that hopefully won't make the car look too much like a Falken-backed vehicle. Also, the inner fenders were cut away to provide clearance for the increased steering angles from the front wheels.

Since we're looking down there anyway, we noticed the CKS coil-over suspension in place. The adjustable setup came with pillow ball mounts and camber plates, and the dampers feature custom valving. Rogers mentioned the car has also been aligned.

The last bits completed for Day 8 were mostly under the hood. The charge plumbing was buttoned up, brake lines wrapped in protective heat-resistant loom, and Rogers moved much of wiring harness into the cabin, including the fuse box. What's left around the engine bay will be tucked out of sight.

MARCH 31

We returned after three more days to hear some great news: the car fired up! Rogers had to troubleshoot a gremlin in the injector wiring, and the SR is still in need of a tune, but progress is progress.

Little Mike from Sun Auto also brought by the BN Sports Silvia body kit, which includes front and rear bumper covers and the side skirts. The team installed the pieces and now the car is really starting to look like a drifting machine.

Speaking of Sun Auto, as we mentioned at the top, Otsuka-san was hand delivering some of the company's aftermarket tuning electronics when we arrived, namely Hyper Voltage System voltage stabilization, Hyper Force System ignition amplifier, Hot Earth Ignition Blade for grounding the coil packs, and a Hyper Ground System grounding kit. Sun also provided the fresh-looking GT wing, which we understand is a prototype. We got plenty of pics of the wing, but completely forgot to get some snaps of the electronics - we fail.

The newest add-on under the hood is a Summit Racing radiator overflow tank. The blue scuba tank-looking reservoir was attached to the fan shroud and is required by FD to prevent any fluid from getting onto the track surface.

They don't call him Long Torso for nothing. Why is it the guys that get covered in the most flammable engine muck are usually the ones that never wear a shirt?

More to come in Part 3...

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www.sunautomobile.com
www.upwtoys.com
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