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This is probably where I should be posting this.
just got myself this 93 SC400 a few days ago.
Last owner seemed very fond of it and took very good care of it. I didn't ask a lot about some of the modifications I have noticed since dragging her home.
What I know from him and what I know by looking at the car
93 SC400, 209K miles,
known good/indifferent
only 3-5k on rebuilt transmission.
American Racing Rebel wheels with 245/45R17 on all 4 corners, it grips great.
ViS Ballistix body kit sides and rear partial (just the sides behind the tires not a full bumper) and what looks like a possibly stock style front lip.
APEXi mufflers, has two but one is sitting in the trunk. Looks like it rusted off the weld. Glad to have both cuz I'm not dropping $600 on a new pair, will cut out the rust and weld in a new pipe section! Rest of exhaust appears totally stock.
Interior is in awesome shape small wear area on driver seat where somebody's *** rubbed it getting in and out every time but its not bad.
has a couple thousand miles until oil change time according to the window sticker so it was very well cared for.
only need to emissions test it one time, it's emissions exempt in WA after this year
the bad-ish.
Needs a speed sensor, gauge doesn't do squat and O/D light is blinking to tell me the obvious
Speedometer and tach needles are burnt out, temp is starting to flicker.
Passenger window rolls down real slow and makes a bit of noise so its gonna need some love soon
Peeling clear coat and sun damaged paint on top of stock spoiler, over passenger door and top of passenger side fender and back bumper.
needs an alignment bad. its a bit twitchy on the road, little changes in road surface cause it to pull a bit both ways, and it gets jumpy real bad over 60mph
I need to look at the suspension not sure about the struts or anything under it. I dont think they're blown or anything but I also dont know the history on them or what may have been upgraded under the car. I'd be surprised to see stock struts with the wheels and tires, mufflers and body kit on it but who knows.
im not a "JDM" guy or a "hellaflush" guy (despite the fact it does flush out very nicely) or a 2j swap guy.
I am already enjoying the crap out of this car, threw its first nice drift under my ownership earlier today heading back from work, man this thing transitions nicely, was planning to see how fast I could take a particular full visibility turn and get the back end walking around so I just let her go a while and I am impressed by how smooth and composed this car stays, no drama between full grip, full slide, or back to full grip. I am going to be very happy with this car I can already tell.
Got the car for a steal at $1,500. Was originally 2,900 which wasnt even a bad deal, was lowered to 2,100 after a couple weeks, and after another guy flaked right after I first called he was willing to do 1,500 for me to get it sold.
And to please you pic wh0r3$
Plan is to take some time working on the platform, poly suspension bushings, replace end links and everything that needs it. Just get the suspension all freshened up.
once I see what it has for struts on it now I will see what I want to swap in, it handles great right now so thats down the list. May go with the gixxer_drew setup
Looking at setting up a wet nitrous system once I dial the suspension in. Only cost effective way I have seen to gain 100+ HP in an early SC.
Then once the tranny goes I will do a manual swap probably 350z 6spd trans. But hopefully thats way down the line since this trans is fresh.
Found more info on the wheels. They are American Racing "Rebel" wheels. 17x9 +24mm offset, 6" backspacing. Or so the AR website says. sadly discontinued. Most pics are on mustangs and camaros etc. I love the look on the SC
Just spent a few minutes and noticed the tell-tale signs that someone has also done the BFI mod for me already. Planning to fix it up for a cleaner install. Need to pull the cover and see how they did it and if I need to go all out and redo the whole thing. Looks like they fitted some weather stripping to seal it up around top so some effort was taken to do a decent job at least.
Going to get one of those OBD1READ tools from zf-scantools and the toyobd1 app app on my phone so I have some data logging and monitoring ability for $35
Is it worth the effort to swap to electric fans from the hydro fan? I did it in my LUV with a temp switch and relay and it has been reliable for 5+ years now but that wasnt a hydro fan. Just seems like the hydro setup adds weight and takes up a lot of space
AQ
Started looking at the previous owners BFI mod and noticed he used some toggle bolts to hold the panel down in front for some forced airflow And fully opened the front of the box, I vacuumed out the crap in there after. Looks like he used styrofoam to seal the gap down low. Going to have to clean the install up but the whole setup is definitely going to work as needed. Also made a plastic under tray Finally got around to looking at those fog lights and realized they aren't connected at all just mounted for looks. Thinking about wiring them in with my brights.
Looking to weld the other muffler on next weekend so I can take it to emissions for its last time. Need to grab a couple reducers, it was stepped up twice to get to the muffler Inlet size
Also fixed my driver seat. Like most people mine had the plastic cap pop off and let the rod end pop out. Got it set back and super glued the caps on
Tomorrow I am going to rotate the tires and degrease/de-grime the suspension and such while I have it up and the wheels off so I can see what I'm working with.
have an appointment to get it aligned early afternoon after i rotate the wheels, so by end of day tomorrow I should have a better idea of how the chassis bushings look and have it driving smooth at highway speed.
Planning to put my muffler on sometime this long weekend too. Not sure but I may cut out the resonators too
It never rains it pours!!
little bit after my last post I took the car on an excellent adventure 1,100 miles from Vancouver, WA to sundance, WY, and 1,200 back. By the time I hit Hermiston OR one rear tire was shot, band/ply went bad and it was ballooned out around half the tire on the outer side of the tread.
Threw the spare on and drove on since it was about 11pm. One front had a small bubble bulged out but couldn't do anything so late. Drove all the way up to Missoula MT like that and hit up Les Schwab for a set of 4 235/45r17 tires (40k mile federal super steel, figured the lower mileage equates to softer rubber and I like the tread pattern). By then 2 of the remaining tires were ballooning from broken internal layers.
But from there it was 80mph speed limit all the way through Montana and Wyoming so settled in at 81ish.... (sticking to that story) and made up for lost time.
Went event free for a couple hours. When I stopped at a rest area I smelled gas really bad, pulled gas gap off and it was blasting out pressure, no not the little suction sound, like full force compressed gas vapor that was HOT and kept venting out for a while while I held the flapper open. Checked and sure enough my charcoal canister is stuck shut and the line isn't clogged.. found a few YouTube videos on how to fix that.. so for the trip I just pulled the line off and took the gas cap seal off so it didn't pressurize again.
But wait there's more!!!
So I had a very minor misfire I noticed before leaving Wyoming at idle. Leave for now..
drove a longer return route to meet up with a buddy south of Yellowstone in Lander.
After that I was rolling through Idaho after driving too long without sleep apparently it got to me and I drifted out if my lane in a construction zone and hit one of those big barrel shape orange cones (not the water filled ones) and dented the crap out of my fender. Well that force woke me up fully and pulled me to the left and I hit the second one dead on and broke my radiator, bet the support sits on and cracked my bumper, lost my fog light that was in there etc. Pulled off, got the cone out of my bumper, and got some radiator stop leak (I hate it but it worked)
realized the first cone tore off my side skirt on driver side and the apron on the rear was barely hanging on so I ripped it off. So no more body kit. Looks great without it anyway
So I drove on....
Remember that misfire? near the Oregon and Idaho border in the mountains one of my coil wires for the passenger side distributor burned out, like burnt hole in boot and totally crumbled the wire So I was running on 4 all the way from there to home in Vancouver. Couple hundred miles of single digit mpg... Because I took the other distributor apart on the shoulder and all was good so I thought a sensor must have been bad from the minor crash..
just found that wire yesterday finally...
So fast forward to today....
Finally got it all together again. Used a smoke machine and I have no vac leaks.
Just installed new caps, rotors, wires, plugs(ones in it we're ngk but were gapped between .037-.040 vs the .044 spec on new ones so someone screwed with them), rad cap with a release lever, oem thermostat, etc etc... And a new denso radiator once I straightened the support out enough to make it fit the mounts
Got the red coolant toyota recommends, just have to flush the system a couple more times before I fill it up with that because it had the green and I guess it becomes a nasty goop if they mix.
Need to find a nice band-aid sticker for the fender until I get around to removing it and straightening the dent out, it is a decent sized dent but should get back to straight.
Front bumper needs to be replaced once I find one. Will just zip tie the cracks for now like a total ricer Sucks but it's reality, It is still holding itself straight.
But as of now car is working again and running really strong. Still need to deal with the muffler and such, the series of issues kind of side tracked me there.
Will add pics later today for you pic *****s
Not much new just a couple pics Car as it sits without the body kit. Not likely but if anyone had the same kit and had a piece destroyed let me know I have both aprons and the pass side skirt Nice dent from that little incident... All better
Nothing really exciting going on with the car just dealing with issues the car had and slowly getting it squared away
Finally figured out why it feels so damn twitchy at speed. Since my speed sensor is shot my variable power steering isn't getting sinal and is at full assist all the time. Finally figured it out last night when I was searching. Going to try unplugging it and see if I like it better at low assist i until I swap the sensor out. My other rig is a v6 swapped Chevy luv so no p/s I'm used to feeling the tires and what they're doing more
Man, sounds like you really had a hell of a trip. If you need a fender and a bumper I have a parts car (though I'm not sure if shipping from tx to washington would end up costing more than it's worth and they're gold not 8j5 blue). Hopefully things from here are uphill and you can get some stuff done. Good luck with the build, can't wait to see another 8j5 sc400 get cleaned up.
Man, sounds like you really had a hell of a trip. If you need a fender and a bumper I have a parts car (though I'm not sure if shipping from tx to washington would end up costing more than it's worth and they're gold not 8j5 blue). Hopefully things from here are uphill and you can get some stuff done. Good luck with the build, can't wait to see another 8j5 sc400 get cleaned up.
yeah man at least it will be memorable, trips that go smooth are just long drives. When running decent that 80mph limit across a couple states suits the car so nicely.
The fender I can fix, the dent is pretty smooth I just need to get behind it and bang it out. The bumper is pretty well trashed , couple big cracks and such. Probably worth 3x what a bumper is worth to ship it this far but I appreciate the offer.
Still deciding on the end goal for the car. I'd like to keep it comfy inside but improve on the power and handling a bit. S/C is an option or nitrous. Probably not a turbo unless I go remote mount the engine compartment is already crowded af
This was a little bit ago i never put it in this thread..
since i deliver for dominos a few days a week i put a ton of miles on my car.. Water pump seal let go when i was working.. Thankfully i pay attention to my gauges and it didnt overheat.. Did the timing set, water pump and all that while i was there. The water pump that was in there waa terrible quality the port was a third blocked by casting material and such. Really glad it went before the belt did! Somebody cheaped out big time in the past.
Not a super expensive or exciting update but I managed to get myself a set of 7 spoke 18x8 inch Infiniti G35 Wheels for two hundred bucks with good tires on them to replace my 17x8 5 spoke american racing wheels with flaking chrome and 2 nearly wrecked rear tires.. Couple of them are a little scratched up and the one has some deeper curb damage that I'm going to have to smooth out before paint
once I fill and smooth the scratches and get them looking presentable I will be painting them something either a gloss gunmetal Grey or a metallic dark grey, Gotta file off the infiniti emblems from the center caps and smooth that before paint. may or may not put Lexus emblems on em. The ones i got. Just a pic from the CL ad Found a pic of the same wheels on a dang near identical SC and loved them. Plus they will clear the LS400 BBK my old ones measured up as not having space behind the spoke for the caliper.
The reason new wheels became necessary. Chrome was flaking on the inner edge and it lost the ability to hold air. Even had les schwab try to use rim sealant on it but no luck. Would hold air for a day. Air to 42psi and itd be 15 or less by the next morning, got old fast.
i wish mine looked as good as the one in that pic.. My paint is still faded on the passenger side. Going to try to sand and reclear the bad areas soon. But it is going to need a respray after i fix the dents and the busted up front bumper cover. Thinking a cobalt blue would look great. But there are mechanical things to fix first
My passenger door needs some love, most of the door card screws were missing when i got the car and there are quite a few broken mounting tabs, inside handle is broken almost all the way off and the arm that opens from the outside handle is broken. So it is a ***** to open from the inside and impossible from outside. Probably easier to get another door at this point than swap the whole mechanism for the exterior handle, door card and replace the jacked up window track, and interior handle..
And i have a suspension clunk i notice mostly when i have the wheel turned and and moving slow.. Think pulling out of a driveway and turning.. Could even be a motor/trans mount need to get it found i checked a lot of bushings and most seem fine
05-12-17, 12:48 PM
JoeBlobs 93 400
Sucks but it's reality, It is still holding itself straight.
