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Probably a bit late to start a build thread on this car considering I’ve had it for about 5 years now, but the quarantine going on now is the best excuse for me to create one starting with a recap of all the things I’ve done to the car since I got it. So to start from the beginning, I bought the car in July 2015 when it was stock in relatively good mechanical shape(apart from both rear shocks being blown). It is a 93 SC400 which at the time had 139k miles on it. Unfortunately the car was quite neglected aesthetically, the Midnight Pearl Indigo paint was fading all over, especially on most of the front end, had noticeable rust spots around the rear quarter panels, the interior had torn up seats, cheap head malfunctioning head unit, broken door handles and a lot of damaged and interior pieces. It was definitely not the best example of an SC, but at the time being a broke college student, that was about all I could afford. A couple days after I bought it The first mods that I did to the car after about 2 months of ownership were the basic wheels and coils. Installed Megan Racing EZ Street coilovers and a set of MOMO RPMs with very conservative specs that I had sitting around from my previous car. The day after installing them was also the first time autocrossing the car with the local miata club. Day after installing wheels and coils Next mod to the SC was exhaust, removed all resonators, and replaced the stock mufflers with a pair that a buddy gave me that he used to run on his GS300
After a trip from the junkyard I managed to find some cleaner interior pieces and door handles to freshen up the interior a little bit. Also removed the old nasty purple tint and got the windows tinted 20% all around except the front windshield. That in itself got the car looking much better.
Nothing else really happened with the car until around January of 2016 when my young stupidity and overconfidence got the best of me and I slammed the car into a curb while trying to “drift” it, destroyed all the driver’s rear control arms, axle, and bent the wheel pretty badly. The only positive thing from the whole situation was that there was no body damage from the accident. At the time with my financial situation that was very close to being it for the car. Fortunately for me about a month later I found one of the local SC guys selling an entire rear subframe with all the arms I needed to get the car on the back on the road. And with the rear MOMO wheel bent I had to borrow a pair of stock 350Z wheels to run in the back for the time being until I found something else. After smashing into curb Temporary setupToward the end of february 2016 managed to buy a used set of MB Battles off one of the local SC guys. After that not much happened to the car for a while apart from just enjoying it, taking it to shows, and an occasional autox. Closer to the end of the summer I ended up completely redoing my exhaust setup 2.75inch piping and adding an xpipe to help give it a nice tone. I purchased a Bullet Cars M112 Supercharger kit during this time as well. First pic on the MB Battles Pic for one of the autoxsIn february of 2017 I decided to finally do something about the exterior of the car. I chose to get it wrapped. Preparing it for the wrap meant I also finally had to do something about the rear quarter panel rust which by then had gotten a bit worse from when I got the car. I addressed all the rust on the body of the car and finally sent it to get wrapped. I liked the OEM color so I tried to go for a more subtle color and ended up going with dark blue metallic from Avery. A couple weeks later I also installed a TRD style lip onto the car. The day I picked it up from the wrap shop With the TRD lip installedMid march 2017 I finally went forward with installing the supercharger kit after having it sitting in for half a year. Thanks to a couple friends that car was back on the road within one weekend. The car ran great except for a small issue I had of a fuel line popping off and causing a fire in the engine bay(car probably would be gone now if I didn’t carry an extinguisher with me). After that I made sure to get braided fuel lines for the fuel rails. At the time the SC was still my only vehicle so the install was a bit rushed which ended up unfortunately really showing in the long run. The install consisted of just the mechanical installation and was supposed to run only 6 psi, which based on the research I did at the time was still relatively safe to run on the stock ecu. Right before starting the supercharger install With supercharger installed
With the supercharger installedToward the end of march I also felt that the car needed a change of wheels and bought a set of Enkei NT03+M wheels which I didn’t end up installing until early may. First show with the Enkei NT03+M wheels onDon’t remember the date, but sometime that summer a local SC guy sadly had his car totaled. I ended up buying most of his beige interior pieces and finally getting rid of much of the torn up and damaged pieces. 2017 was also the year that I got much more involved with the local SC community and started hosting monthly SC meets. One of the local SC meetsAround september 2017 I upgraded to the LS400 brakes up front on the car after, which made a big difference for me since the front brakes were already getting to the point where they'd occasionally start sticking. I also installed a set of 95-96 taillights which in my opinion are still the best looking OEM tails for the cars. New brakes on(yes some horrible wheel gap) Shot with the new taillightsMarch 2018 is when the engine finally had enough of the supercharged and the year of abuse with a stock ecu caught up and destroyed the ringlands on one of my cylinders. I chose to abandon the supercharger setup and go back to a stock motor. Thankfully one of the local SC guys was nice enough to sell me his motor and trans. And I was able to get the old motor out and new one in over one weekend. Engine pulled out from the car Supercharged vs Stock motors Destroyed ringlands on the pistonAgain the most of the summer I just enjoyed the car without really doing any mods to it. The only thing I did that greatly change the car for me was upgrade all speaker from the 4.5 inch to 6.5 inch Alpine speakers and installed a Pioneer AVH-2300NEX double din head unit. Around august 2018 I picked up a daily and decided to tackle the suspension on the SC. I ended up buying a whole new battleversion suspension setup for the front since the ball joints on the stock lower control arm were already nearing the end of their life. That is lower control arms, upper control arms, and inner and outer tie rods. Since I finally had a daily I was able to take my time installing this which I really took to heart because the car ended up being on jack stands until the end of that season. Battleversion suspension installed
Stance XR1 coils with 22k Swift springsAround april 2019 I finally got the suspension finished up and took the SC to get an alignment at togue factory and the car was again back to drivable condition again. I also upgraded to Stance XR1 coilovers. By then the wrap had already been through two winters and had quite a bit of imperfections in it that were really ruining the look of the car for me. I decided to peel the wrap off and address all the small imperfections and dings in the body before getting it wrapped this time. A lot of this was trial and error as I’ve never had any experience with that kind of body work. I also took the opportunity to get rid of the broken antenna and shave the leftover hole. The color I ended up going with this time was 3M Raspberry Blue which without even really planning on it ended up looking pretty close to the oem RSP color. I also ended up putting the stock lip back on the car since the TRD one got destroyed toward the end of 2018. Getting rid of all the rock chips Shaving antenna and emblem holes
Right before going to the shop to get wrapped Hood wrapped The whole time owning the car I was slowly stockpiling black interior pieces, toward the end of the 2019 season I had just about everything I needed to get rid of the beige. I did not want to play with pulling the dash so my plan was to get change out all the lower interior pieces to black and keep the interior a sort of two tone. I still have a few bits and pieces left to find and change out but the bulk of the swap is done and I’m quite happy with how it came out.
Swapping the interior pieces Lower black interior pieces two tone interiorThat basically brings the car to the point it is at right now, over winter changed out my Volvo daily for an LS430 which I plan on turning into a small VIP build so for now the SC progress has slowed a bit, but my plans for this season are to finally swap a CD009 transmission into it and to get the diff welded and hopefully get back to autoxing the car and maybe take it to some skidpad events.
Excellent timeline and story. That car has had quite the life, and it sounds like its been an awesome experience for you. Love the blue/yellow combo on the Enkei's.
Wow! That's one storied journey for your SC400! I love the progress throughout! Any chance you'd try the same roots supercharger setup again later on with a built 1JZ block (whoops! I had meant a built 1UZ block!), metal head gaskets, ARP studs and a different ECU & tune?
Excellent timeline and story. That car has had quite the life, and it sounds like its been an awesome experience for you. Love the blue/yellow combo on the Enkei's.
Thank you, its been quite a roller coaster with it so far
Wow! That's one storied journey for your SC400! I love the progress throughout! Any chance you'd try the same roots supercharger setup again later on with a built 1JZ block, metal head gaskets, ARP studs and a different ECU & tune?
I really do miss the supercharger and would love to try again and do it properly this time. If I do try it again it won't be anytime soon though
Little update on the car
Picked up spare 4.08 diff out of a manual SC300 and got it welded, I'll throw it on whenever I get to the manual swap, plan will be to drive it welded and decide if I can live with it or if I'll need to buy an LSD. Also finally pulled the trigger on a Collins CD009 swap kit and just waiting for it to come in now to start the swap process. If all goes well hopefully once this quarantine is over I'll get to really start having fun with the car again and take out for some autocrosses and possibly some skidpad events
Awesome build. Love seeing the car around and I'm glad you never gave up on it. You're going to LOVE the manual trans paired with the 1UZ. I'm still kicking myself for not doing that when my trans went out many years ago in my old SC400. But then again, I wouldn't have bought my 1 of 120 SC300 lol.
As far as welded diff, you should be ok if you dont drive it in the wet. Idk what LSD would pair best with the CD009, but the TT Auto Torsen I have in my car is awesome, one of the best things i did to it. Plus my fuel mileage got better compared to the high gearing of the stock SC300 diff
Update on the car. Got the swap finished up about a month ago. Makes the car feel completely different and much more alive. Driving around with the welded diff is honestly not as bad as everyone makes it seem so I will most likely end up sticking with it. Also decided that if I'm already taking the diff out, I might as well changed the bushings on it, So I ordered and installed the FIGS rear diff bushing kit. Transmission with all the swap pieces installed and ready to go into the car Flywheel and clutch installed Most difficult part of the install, wrestling the trans into place Trans bolted to the engine with the trans mount installed Clutch pedal installed Shifter in place without having to cut any extra holes in the trans tunnel Reassembling the interior Interior assembled, still haven't fully decided on what I'll do as far as the shift bezel goes FIGS diff bushings installed in the diff ears Diff installed in the car with the FIGS bushings
Also got a set of O.G. Status headlights with the clear lenses, drl strip, and their HID kit. Big upgrade over what I had before and makes me feel a lot safer driving at night now, and in general look so much better then the faded OEM lights I had
This week I decided to take the car to an autox event. To prepare I changed out the ball joints on the lower control arms, changed the fluid on the diff after putting approximately 500 miles on the swap to break the clutch in. Local SC owner also sold me a set of Titan Motorsports supra sway bars. For now I just installed the front one as that one was really simple to change out. Rear one requires me to change out to Supra subframe bushing mounts, so I will most put it off until I am swapping all the rear subframe bushings. Also raised the car up a little upfront to give the suspension some room travel without eating up my tires during cornering. New MK3 Supra ball joint from Drifmotion OEM vs Titan front sway barsOverall the car performed really well at the event. I wasn’t really able to post any competitive times. most likely due to me still needing a lot more practice and experience, but everything on the car held up well and at least to me, it feels like the sway bar made a tremendous improvement in controlling body roll
04-09-20, 01:43 PM
1uz_pete's SC400
