Larry Chen: KA24-Swapped 1998 ER34 Nissan Skyline GT Drift Car: 90’s Forever Video

Larry Chen Video Transcript

Entry entry here we go Reporting not so live from Apple Valley Speedway we got a four-door R34 Skyline yep I’m sorry we have to do this today because I forgot my microphones but luckily we have this uh awesome Harbor Freight screwdriver that we’re going to use as a microphone so yeah let’s let’s

Uh let’s talk about your car when you’re done prepping it and then we’ll go drifting yeah while we’re waiting for Rodney to get his R34 ready we’re gonna check in wait that’s not Richard I’m Chris hi hi Chris what are you doing in Richard’s

Car I’m gonna see if the car is good and then I’m gonna teach Richard how to drive hello good sir hello we’re still waiting for uh Rodney he’s still getting his R34 ready but uh I’m here with my buddy Chris Marion he brought his s13

Out how did it go went great I found all the dirt so generally speaking you guys are supporting road racing and autocross and everything grip with KW but with drift it’s all about St right it’s a different Market that we’re kind of hitting we want to hit a different price point

Also and make it a more affordable brand to have fun with and do fun things like this and that’s kind of where our Target is so materials change some technologies changed so we can lower the price and have something more economical for everyone to use and have fun with but

It’s made in the same place in fictenberg right correct in the same place we just use a galvanized body instead of a steel or stainless steel construction so and that that’s a big cost savings it starts with a piece of metal and by the end it turns into a coilover back to you 90s forever yes as you guys probably know I got into drift photography specifically from a love for driving and now after all these years I’m actually driving and that’s actually why we’re here at Apple Valley Speedway but I actually wanted to feature this car Rodney has this awesome

Four-door R34 and we actually had a chance to catch up a little bit in Japan last time we were at Tokyo Auto Salon we went to the that fun drift track you know the funny thing about this track is it’s indoors and it’s uh on the second

Floor of like this industrial park in Japan and they’re running gas Motors so everybody’s just getting fumed out all the time what’s the story with this uh R34 this is a 1998 so it’s actually federally legal now yep federally legal but I’m still waiting on like paperwork

So it’s going to take some time we have to ship it piece by piece I have a friend that like just told me when I bought it I was like hey I need someone that could ship a car and he was like oh I can do it but it’s not going

To be simple and I was like all right let’s do it because I really wanted to build this car because I was really bored of the Cressida and now here we are I guess three years later so you started this project three years ago um was this inspired by uh Ken numura or

What was this inspired by yeah I was inspired by kendamora like just watching like all his videos from back in the days like I wanted to actually have a Skyline especially sedan and then um went to Tokyo Auto Salon I think it was 2019 and then we bought the car after

That I was like yo I need to get a [ __ ] Skyline yeah this one’s cool but this one’s special and I’m sure a lot of people hate you for this but this doesn’t have a Skyline motor in it at all literally I ripped out the RB just

Because I kept hearing a lot of my friends with RBS complaining about RV problems and I don’t want that and I have no clue what to do like with Arby’s and ka’s always been here so the funny story about this boat is you know uh Henry Shelley right he actually built

This motor this is like the one of the blueprint Motors that he did so it’s a fully built motor it’s I think he added an fd-09 back in the day wow so this was running in his uh s13 in Formula Drift many many years ago like 2008 2009 I

Actually have photos of that this is a truck motor sir the torque is there this was a er34 gtt is that what it’s called so the gtt and uh actually has hikis and the only model that doesn’t have high case would probably be the GT from what

I think I researched and it shares every suspension components rear end the bottom and under the shock Tower as S14 that’s from my understanding so literally all the arms lower arms even the coilovers are actually S14 and then a good friend of mine Adam did all the

Custom top hats and he actually swapped the motor in for me he did pretty much all the legwork while I was busy you know working my ass off okay so uh ka24 now it’s a det I don’t remember how much power it was making back when it was

Running in Formula Drift how much power is it making right now uh it’s only making like 369 horsepower and 369 torque looks like a n a car on the dyno graph the only reason why I opted because I had a Sr sitting literally under my workbench and this Ka was

Actually in my 14. so with that I was like you know what like this motor actually does a lot better and you know like rough conditions than Sr I’ve blown like five SRS and I’ll knock on wood I don’t want to blow a Ka but I feel like this one’s a lot more

Reliable in my opinion and parts are more accessible and so you pretty much built this whole thing yourself no it was not by myself uh it was actually a the biggest help was from a lot of my friends especially Adam I think you may know him Feliciano

From JDM BMW he has a 1j E30 back then but yeah he’s the one who actually built this I just pretty much pieced it all together and in my mind I just told him like this is what it’s you know like gonna be and I did like majority of the exterior work with

Richard Rabe and then uh all the stuff rapping and everything making it fit pretty much me but all of this like the lines he deleted the ABS and he made custom hardlines for the car Adam did all of that and then this custom intercooler piping water to air make it

Look like a stock intake box whoa okay there’s something crazy going on here so then what is this a oil cooler so this is the heat exchanger from uh pretty much the intercooler so oh yeah yeah so it’s a water to air water to air but it’s like um basically another radiator exactly

For the air charge cooling so it pushes it back which also works because when we put the subframe the S14 subframe on this the motor sat perfectly centered but we had a lot of space here and it was actually a really good idea to just put the heat exchanger here and

It pushes the radiator back what’s crazy to me is that this is still the stock S14 uh shroud and um you’re actually using uh clutch fan on this because it’s probably a lot more efficient yeah uh I don’t I don’t really trust e-fans too much especially with I know I might they

Lead this later on in the long run but uh stock clutch fan is always you know like my favorite and cooling wise at least so then is there a reason why you guys kept the stock um intake manifold uh it’s just a faster response than a bigger intake manifold

It’s the runners are a lot more thinner you know um and at least that’s in my opinion because I feel like if there’s a lot more air building up here you’d lose a lot of torque yeah what’s interesting to me is that this motor was originally making what 150 155 horsepower yeah

Right to the crank um and also just as much torque had a good day maybe you had a good day I always thought it was like less than 100 horsepower yeah yeah I mean but these were I guess originally truck motors so that’s why they’re so reliable and they’re built really nice

Um but with that said This was meant for our inline six like how did you get it to sit back so far uh it’s all honestly through the cross member the you know the front subframe the lower subframe it actually sat perfectly we didn’t have to do anything

It mounted right up to the chassis and we thought we would have to like kind of shift it forward or back and it just sat on the cross member perfectly fine uh we Adam did have to notch the um subframe just so the brake lines can work and the power the power steering

Lines actually work too so and then what are you doing in terms of transmission uh transmission is a z32 transmission so it’s still old school but it shifts really nice so uh the only one we had to get was a custom mounting bracket for that one just because it was like

Literally like two three mil off from the hole why is it that you wanted to do a water to air like this has a lot of room and it seemed like it would be pretty easy to do air-to-air so I like to party and with that whenever my

Friends are in front of me I’d like to give them a love tap or sometimes they just end up parking right in front of me so I figured if I do it that way it eliminates the intercooler problems and all it is is just cosmetic problems you know but

And then is this the hikis that is a that is oh this is electric power steering and this is aftermarket Porsche Cayman I think yeah of course came in so Bobby from Bobby uh over at threes racing actually installed it for me and that that way it’s just like gets

One more thing off of them so off the it’s just running off you know the power itself and then uh we eliminated that so that part and dude the power steering on these cars are so heavy dude it’s insane it’s interesting that you imported this Japanese car and put like an American an

American only I I don’t know if it’s American only but it was available in the US and it’s it’s so far and wide I mean these came in Nissan Altimas for you know these came in all Nissan Altimas for a long time and they came in

The trucks yeah so it’s it’s pretty cool so let’s let’s do a walk around here um tell me about the kit so the Kit’s a full Urus GT um kit from you know pretty much nomiken and what I opt to this is because it’s such a like aggressive looking body kit

But it’s also pretty subtle in my opinion at least the only part is probably like the front that’s aggressive and then uh the fenders are also Uris but it’s a type R so basically it’s like a GTR wide body uh I don’t really like to go really wide

On the body itself but so I just wanted something more mellow and then uh East bear Hood with the Urus GT drag wing and then the roof wing so what about um exhaust what did you guys have to do for the exhaust so exhaust is also an

S14 exhaust but we just uh extended it like about a foot and a half if I’m not mistaken just so it makes it works let’s take a look at the interior real quick yo this is nice yeah everything works uh all the gauges gas gauge the coolant

Um all of that still works and then we added a power tune Digital dash for the uh AEM infiniti6 ECU and then my favorite part of this is this so this used to be automatic then yeah so you can see I kind of just blocked it off

But it still works I put it in reverse and it still beeps you know like the Japanese cars um yeah everything works down to the ETC yeah you still have an Etc card reader here yeah uh and is full interior uh are you planning on caging it or anything

Yeah later on but right now I like to enjoy this stockish interior eventually I’ll get there dude this thing is so cool let’s uh let’s see this thing Drive boom let’s do it close close Yes yes this is all second gear uh yeah third to second wait wait so your entry is started then you go down a second yeah so as soon as I hit transition I drop it to Second and then cool that was dope Richard’s gonna follow us oh really yeah uh I don’t

Think that’s a good idea [Applause] hey thanks for watching if you want to support us directly go to larrychenprince.com I print and sign every single one of these this is the perfect gift or it’s the perfect piece of art for your wall Each time [Applause]