SerialNine

 As most of you know SERIALNINE started out small. Just like everyone else building a driftcar or any other car for that matter, we had a budget, a SMALL one.. $6000 That was it. We figured, we could make the best of what was available to us, and only buy/use the bare minimum needed. So the plan was made, everything required to build a decent driftable Cressida had to be aquired for less than $6000 Canadian. Sounds easy right ? Read on. There were certain requirements I had, since this car needed to get noticed, there had to be something about it that would catch people's attention. It needed BIG f*ckin rims. Now i've seen plenty of JZX81 driftcars in Dori-ten mags, and they all kindof look blah. . lackluster.. nothing special. . mismatched, equally lame wheels, usually 17's, and boring looking not super low etc. I figured if I was gonna make any sort of impact, I needed dope rims. . .  Next,  it was a GIVEN that the car would have a 1J. NEVER would I drive, let alone DRIFT a 7M cressida, NEVER. Why? you ask. . well IF you lived in japan, and were going to buy a JZX81, would you EVER not buy the TWIN TURBO GT version ? ? ? Of course not. .  So I dont care if our cars came with crappy 7M motors. . Mine would have 1J power. Of course, the other reason is that the 1JZ is THE best sounding motor on the planet. Nothing sounds better than a psycho 1J. .  Nope, not even a ridiculous 2J . . The 1J has this glorious, musical, wailing banshee sound that is unmatched even stock, get a big turbo on there and an open dump external wastegate. . UNMATCHED. . So we needed a 1J, big cool rims, and the rest of the sh!t to build a driftcar. . Suspension!! This was something I was familiar with, doing custom suspension on various cars, the retrofit came easily after I studied the X8 suspension. Simply pick a reputable manufacturer's dampers, build some pieces to fit it to a Cressida, and Voila!! the SERIALNINE/STANCE coilover kit was born. .  The rest of the stuff was basically a bad story, starting from bad, and proceeding to worse. .  lol. . Read on and find out. I'll simply do a breakdown of the rest of the car to quicken the story. .

CAR $150 Found on Craigslist bought for $400 and sold the innards for $250 More on this later. (y'all are probably thinking WHOA SOO CHEAP!!)        

Engine  $2800 A buddy of mine was wrecking a JZX90. I had driven the car many times and knew it was a good motor, had an ORC409D clutch, a decent tranny, and a few little doodads, like a downpipe and some intercooler piping, JZX90 stock fuel pump, cluster, wiring, etc.

Suspension OVER $2000 I purchased a set of STANCE GR+ and proceeded to get a bunch of one-off prototype stuff made. We all know one off sh!t aint cheap. .

Wheels $1500 Good old Yahoo Japan. . we got a set of Gulf DISH 18x9+18, 18x10+11 wheels in decent condition. Picked up another set as well to flip and help fund the project. . That went nowhere lol.

MISC. $unknown   Windshield was cracked (cant go to the track with a busted windshield) so there goes $200, Door was f*cked and  didn't open, another $100, needed spacers for the front rims. . $100, NEW tires for the front rims. . $300 later,  Aircare, seatbelts, paint, etc. . .  and the list goes on. . and on. .

TIME  YOU DONT EVEN WANNA KNOW. .  All i gotta say is START WITH A GOOD SHELL.. TIME IS MONEY. . whatever that may be worth to you. . My time is expensive to me. . As you all can add up by now. . We were WELL over budget. . Anyways. . Here are some pics and vids of the beginning. 

The Beginning of SERIALNINE. from SERIALNINE on Vimeo. Stay tuned for Part 2. . G.