Lord Umoja

So I haven't been on here for a while. I am still working on my 1993 S13 Coupe with a built turbo motor, but in the meantime I bought myself a 1993 Vert as a daily. The photos on the ad looked like this:









Went to southern Ohio (8 hour drive) to pick up the car. When I got there the car was sitting outside and I realized that the paint was not the factory white, but instead a fairly nice and subtle pearl white.





I test drove the car, it had power, ran fine, but had weird shake like a wheel was out of balance. I popped the hood and noticed a kinda mangled upper rad support. I asked the seller about it and he said it was like that when he bought it and seemed to just be cosmetic. It didn't bother me becuase the Carfax said no accidents and a clear title. So I bought the car and drove the 8 hours home with my girl in the passenger seat and my old man driving our "emergency vehicle", a ford Escape loaded out with a garage worth of tools.

Fast forward about 2 weeks and the car goes in for an alignment. they get the car fairly well aligned but a ton of red flags are rased over the history of this car. Apparently the thing took one hell of a hit in the front and some tardcart tried to do repairs on it. Instead of listing the damage I'll just let the photos speak for themselves.....

Passenger Side Steering Rod


[b] Front with ****tly mounted fans.


Damage by the headlight.


Mis-aligned radiator.


Welded and mis-located front suspension bracket. (Should be bolted in.)


And the Coup de Grâce........

MONKEY WELDED FRAME RAIL!!!!!



So I'm picking up a front shell next weekend hopefully, amputating the damaged stuff and welding a new front on this car. Both my old man and I are skilled welders so even though this seems kinda daunting, I'm confident that I can do it and get this thing back on the road. This will be the most in depth work I've ever attempted on a car but the end will be well worth it and I'd hate to see one of these verts end up in the junkyard. Apparently (If Wikipedia is to be trusted) only about 4% of all US spec S13s were verts so this little thing has some rarity even if it is a wet noodle of a chassis.


I gotta thank my girl too, this was an Ohio registered car so that means it had front plates, something that I DESPISE WITH A PASION THAT CAN NOT BE DESCRIBED So being the absolutely wonderfull thing that she is, she gave me a gift "for the car" a week after I got the car home.....




Used tag from the Hiroshima Transport Office. Seems kinda fitting since I plan on doing a WWII decal on this car as well once it is road worthy.

Lord Umoja

Started prepping the car for the front replacement. Looks like the reason this car survived the accident is due to the insane amout of strengthing ASC did to this chassis.







While doing the teardown I found even more damaged **** on this car. Whoever did the repairs the first time should never be allowed within 500 ft of a car ever again. I also picked up some seats when I got my spare front shell.

First the damage.


A/C Rad Core (Think of a Pringles Chip)


A/C Fan? Please explain this wiring???


Fan Wire (Made from Speaker Wire)


Who needs the correct plug??


So I got seats from Nick at Elite JDM. Very nice and helpful. These are, according to him, 1995-1996 180SX seats. They are nice cloth with a kinda cool stripe pattern.







Finally I shampoo'd the interior after removing the stock seats. I got MOST of the stains out and the ones that remain are hidden by the seats. I must admit there are some major advantages to having a Vert. Next weekend I will attempt the repairs on the front end.