A long and exhausting story.

[Wootang]

This build thread will start off the way most do, and I'll tell you how I fell in love with the car from playing grand turismo for the play station.
One day I found myself pondering over the idea of purchasing a new vehicle, and so the hunt began. I thought about a VW originally, and checked out a few Jettas, VR6's, and then eventually migrated towards Nissan. I looked at a lot of 240's, but at the time, the drift tax on one of those was astronomical for what you were getting. After a few weeks of feeling defeated, I stumbled across my old copy of GT, and immediately remembered the skyline. I became a member of this site that very day and just started to read. I read a lot of threads, and stayed up wayyyy too late looking over every ones build threads until I felt comfortable checking one out for myself.

The summer of '09 I looked at a lot of skylines that just didn't make my heart pop, until I saw this one on the last weekend of september..
$6800 later she was mine.
1991 GTS-t




The mod list wasn't extreme, but it was enough for me at the time.
60,000k on the clock
great compression
mishimito FMIC
apexi AVC neo piggy back computer
HKS mushroom intake
HKS SSBOV
18" tenzo wheels with brand new rubber
aftermarket cat back exhaust
quick release hub and sparco wheel
some prosport gauges in the dash
and a retarded wing on the spoiler that I removed as soon as I got the car home lol.

I bought the car on a thursday night, and drove all over vancouver island 'till 3am when I had to get home and get some sleep before work the next day. I managed to convince my manager the next afternoon (a fellow car lover) that it was in his best interest to let me off early, and since I was mentally some where else, he was only getting 50% performance on 100% wage. He laughed, and agreed I made a good argument, then told me to leave before he changed his mind. I again spent the whole afternoon driving around, and giving my friends rides before parking the car at my friends place and heading out to a party. The next day I tried to leave, but the fuel pump had died.
Totally bummed out I had the car towed home, and found a member on here who shipped me a replacement for $50.

The fuel pump arrived mid week, and determined as all hell to get the car working, I decided screw it: I'll work on the car in the dark to get it going. I grabbed my tools, popped the trunk, and stuck a flash light in my mouth so I could see properly as the sun was quickly setting. An hour or so later (with an extremely sore jaw) I was done. I fired the car up, and just listened to it idle grinning eat to ear before heading inside.

The next weekend arrived, and it was time to drive again! Sadly, this weekend would be the end of the car.
On the saturday night I went out drinking, and probably drank waayyy too much. This wasn't shocking since I was 19 or 20 at the time, and tended to binge drink - as most people my age did. I vividly remember getting a ride to my friends place to crash, and then curling up on his couch and passing out. I have zero memory 'till the next day when I went outside to drive home and didn't see my car. I was little shocked, and ended up calling the police station and tow truck companies trying to figure out what had happened.....

I found my car in the pound looking like this.





The police met me with that day and bombarded me saying the car had been found crashed a few blocks away with most of the electronics still in the car, and some one saw one male racing away from the scene that matched my description. I was informed that if I wanted to make a statement for a stollen vehicle, I could, but if it was found that I was the driver, I would go to jail for fraud. I was also told that I had to make my mind up right then and there. This scared the **** out of me. I was literally speechless at the moment. Could I have done this? Could one my friends have done this and are letting me take the fall? What if an innocent man is found guilty, and I go to jail? I could never leave the country. I played the cops game, and agreed that I must have done it.

To this day I hang out with the same group of friends, and they have stuck with the same story that it couldn't have been me, and none of them ever tried to joy ride my car.
All I know is that my car did get crashed
My wheel, nor my ipod were stollen out of the car
All key locks were in tact and not broke
No broken glass
No ignition wires, or ignition barrel damage was apparent.

Moral of the story, call a lawyer first. Always. It's my beliefe I got the run around, and the cops used the fact I was a young guy to scare me.


The story is faarrrrrrr from over, but that's enough for now. I'll update again this weekend.

[alienmare]

Sorry to hear that man, no matter what will be the outcome hope you will learn from this and never drink too much or if you plan to, don't drive, atleast not with your skyline...good luck

[Wootang]

After having the car towed home I spent a week or so talking my options over with my dad.
1) part out the car and give up
2) fight the police with a lawyer since we were (still am to a degree) pretty certain I was not driving.
3) buy another skyline and take the best parts from both and make one good one and then part out the rest
4) rebuild the one I had.

I decided on option 2, and contacted 5-10 lawyers about how much this would cost me after all was said and done. Every one was roughly the same, and it seemed I would be spending $10,000 to have this go to court, and dealt with, and be on the winning side of this finally. Since that was clearly way more money than I had, I had to pick something else.
This time I decided on option 3, but there were no skylines around me at the time. A local one came up for sale (member here if my memory serves me correctly - chewy) and I msg'd him every day, but never had a response. It must have sold or something. The only other options were GTR's that were going for $15,000.. again, too much money.
I didn't have a shop where I could park the car and take it apart, so it was just sitting in the yard, so parting out would be next to impossible... That leaves me with seeing how much rebuilding will cost.

By chance, I ran into an old friend who had recently had his skyline worked on by a shop located on vancouver island that went by the name "Fullmetal jacket racing" and he was stoked on the quality of work. I asked him all the usuals, and decided to give them a call. They were new to the game, and very eager to get some of their work out there for people to see, and told me I could have my car back to road ready for just shy of $7000. That total included..
Full body resto with paint and new panels
Replacing worn interior panels
racing seats with harnesses
interior cage
a list of engine mods that would bring the RB20 to about 400WHP
and a few other things that I can't remember right now.
The only catch was that I would have to drive around with "Fullmetal jacket racing" stickers on my car, as well attend most car shows they were at so that they could show the car off. Since pretty much every shop I contacted wanted $5000 alone just to paint the vehicle (no body work), I thought this was a pretty big steal. After a day thinking it over, and talking to my brother about lending me half the cash, I gave them a call back and told them to send the tow truck to pick the car up.

Little did I know, this would be the biggest mistake of my life, and the end of me financially for the next three and a half years.

Update more later.

[leeaspin]

Ohhhh full metal jacket racing....the most shady shop I have ever seen in my life! Sorry they got the best of ya. Ive heard quite a few stories about that shop and none that were good.

[rvander1992]

Aww I want more story