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To Infiniti and beyond (BMW content)

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  • To Infiniti and beyond (BMW content)

    Hello there SW, most of you probably didn't read my other thread where My friend and I "built" a y33 q45 drift car. Well we kinda built the car... cheap and may have cut a few corners that may have bit us in the butt down the road. After two years of building said car we realized we wanted something different from the car. Maybe something that we can drive around without suspicion. A car that can be driven to an event that wont require a trailer. So the only logical thing to do was install the interior back into the gutted race car? The same car that needs a new windshield, registration, and a... *looks around* "perfectly legal California smog"? No its cheaper to just buy another q45...

    SO fast forward a few months, we're browsing the craigslists and we happen to come across an almost ideal q45, It's black on black (black interior was a must) cheap, and has a much cleaner body than our previous q45. The drivetrain didn't really have to be great since its going to be swapped anyway. Here's the picture from the add.



    After talking to the owner of said q45 we agreed on the price and bought it sight unseen! The following weekend we secured a rental car and headed to Rancho Cucamonga to pick up the car!



    *Side note these do pretty gnarly burnouts, but the seats are pretty uncomfortable for 6+ hr long drives*

    On the way down to LA we had an hour or two to kill before picking up the new q45 so we see a large building near the freeway with like 3 h1 Hummers, G wagons, and other cool cars, so naturally we go and pull off of the freeway and check it out. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot we were immediately blown away at all the exotic cars were there, apparently this place is some sort of luxury car dealership/ car museum. heres some random pictures of cars that I liked.









    yes that badge does say 1500hp...

















    and this super cool lexani body kitted private security car...

    BUT THE COOLEST CAR



    While walking into the building I realized that i remembered the place from a Hoonigans live stream episode I watched on youtube...


    ANYWAY SO ABOUT THE Q45... t


    So back on track with the q45, we pull up at the previous owners house and we see this magnificent beast



    Yes I did for sure take a picture of the bad side

    onto the deets of the new car, Its a 1999 q45t with the ugly rear end "facelift", almost fully loaded, black leather, factory leveling HIDs, power rear sunshade, 4 year old megan coils, 5% tint all around, some sweet kesken wheels, and a handful of dents and random broken stuff. Basically the perfect doner chassis for our new car!





    The drive back home went pretty smooth, the car drove "fine" apart for some crazy rattling in the back of the car from one of the bolts coming loose on the megans and no radio, it was surprisingly uneventful over the 6hr drive. Once we got back to the house we gave the car a good wash and took some better pictures.





    swapped over our gt grill




    all the yachts in one piccc

    OK THATS COOL AND ALL BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING


    So we're swapping over our drivetrain from our old q45 into this new q45t BUT we're going to retain as much factory equipment as possible. that means making cruise control work, AC, heater, and anything else we can keep.

    We somehow managed to convince one of your friends to let us borrow a lift at his shop during the week of Christmas, what a fool jk hes cool with us tearing apart a couple cars in the shop. So lets go see how a week in a shop goes while we completely go crazy swapping the new car...

    so first things first here's the old car:

    It's a 1997 q45 with;

    BMW m52 refreshed with m50 forged rods, m54 pistons, s50 cams arp head studs, m50 manifold, 1,000cc injectors gt35/82 turbo, gtr intercooler, walbro 455 fuel pump, and a K- data plug n play ms2 megasquirt ecu.












    So to do a "simple" chassis swap you need to first strip down the car you would like to replace.

    (Sunday morning)





    that front fitment is something i'll miss with the new car since we're not going that crazy on the fender work



    gutting the interior out





    the plan was to keep everything we could use on the new car











    So what do you do with a bare chassis? You weld casters on the frame rails and call pick n pull to grab the car of course!









    All tucked away for later

    STEP 2

    (Wednesday, after Christmas)

    Now here's the fun part, ya now have to take apart a "perfectly good car". jk it overheats and stuff so yolo.





    snip snip



    if you're wondering why your car still feels slow after you get a muffler delete...



    dropping the engine by the subframe is super easy with a lift tbh, well unless the last nut holing on that subframe is stripped...



    5min with a dremel later...



    The plan is to keep the existing subframe in the black car with the VLSD and stock arms/ bushings while we powdercoat the silver cars old subframe and throw on solid subframe mounts at a later time.



    #savetheautos

    After we dropped out the engine we cleaned up the engine bay, stripped off unnecessary brackets, and modified the heater core routing to work with the m52.





    (THURSDAY)

    On Thursday I didn't take too many pictures since visually it didn't ook like a whole lot of progress. We were mostly finding better mounting solutions for a huge jegs camaro radiator, huge duel fan shroud, intercooler, and other various small stuff.



    engine mocked up while fitting up components and finding a way to keep the OEM hood latch.



    So this wasn't really part of the plan... but long story short to remove the engine + subframe we had to cut our "up pipe" basically an extension of the the exhaust manifold to better fit the turbo. I have always disliked the design/ construction of that up pipe and since it was basically the forst thing i welded together, it was not at all air tight... so we cut that off and decided to just remake our "turbo setup" and relocate the turbo where we would have less issues fitting the exhaust.











    In this location we can tuck the "downpipe" up closer to the chassis, not have to worry about melting the valve cover, and we can get fresh air from inside the fender through the bumper

    (Friday)

    Friday was a long day, we started off the morning by having the old car picked up



    Got the VH41 and auto trans recycled (which is what the proper way of installing a vh41)



    we bolted down the subframe



    This is where we basically went into full work mode and I barely took pics of the progress



    we installed the battery where the OEM cd changer was, we plan on making it look a bit more pretty down the road.

    (SATURDAY)

    *enter sleep deprivation and general panic because we want to get the car running already*

    We made spaghetti!





    driveshaft and trans mounts are in!

    And Paul Installed the clutch pedal, shifter, and wired up the car to work with the key tubler! I didn't take pictures since i was welding up the intercooler piping and exhaust.

    (SUNDAY)

    Sunday was just attaching hoses, lines, bleeding fluids, adding fluids, double checking bolts and clamps for the tightness and oh yah, the first startup and drive






    I'd love to day it was a happy ending, and we drove the car home that day... buuut we have a small list of revisions we need to make. the biggest one is that our clutch is making the most awful noises, and we need to extend the wiring to the ecu so we can mount the ecu in the cabin. We'll be working on that eventually, but we're going to wait on that for a bit, working 80+ hours in a week on this kinda killed us.


    -Stay classy San Diego







    Last edited by leaferiksin; 01-06-2019, 05:55 PM.
    99 GS 400
    85' 190d
    99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
    97' q45 (rip)
    ig: erik.docx

  • #2
    Awesome, this came out way cooler than the old one!
    Also really cool turbo setup, looks proper racecar with the turbo sideways and all the piping "tangled" together

    FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

    Comment


    • #3
      Damn you guys did a hell of a job swapping everything over. Cant wait to see more of this one once you get it more sorted out.
      Insta Mintyhinrichs

      Comment


      • #4
        no offense, but that update was fun AF to go through

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Fruttolo View Post
          Awesome, this came out way cooler than the old one!
          Also really cool turbo setup, looks proper racecar with the turbo sideways and all the piping "tangled" together
          Heck yah! Looks like a 1/2 mile car setup hahah

          Originally posted by hinrichs View Post
          Damn you guys did a hell of a job swapping everything over. Cant wait to see more of this one once you get it more sorted out.
          honestly im even surprised we were able to limp it around after a ~5 day "build"

          Originally posted by Miroteknik View Post
          no offense, but that update was fun AF to go through
          I really need to take better pictures of the progress on this car lol.
          99 GS 400
          85' 190d
          99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
          97' q45 (rip)
          ig: erik.docx

          Comment


          • #6
            Long time no see!

            Well after that week of hell that went on with that last update (building a car in a week) we didn't really touch the car for like 3 months. Mostly due to California having an actual winter and whatnot.

            So after we assembled the new q45 we were having some weird noises coming from the clutch, which on the drive back to the house, evolved into a fun issue where the clutch wouldn't really disengage. So back at pauls house we removed the trans and found that all the flywheel bolts had backed their way out. knowing that there was an issue with the clutch we bought a new clutch kit to replace the ebay clutch that was in there.





            so somewhere along with the clutch issue we threw on the clutch disk backwards... sooo the next weekend we planned on bringing the car to our friend Gabes shop and fix our issue. I give AAA a call and long story short the tow truck company didn't tow the car because its lowered with non factory wheels... So luckily our friend Gabe has a truck and trailer, and 20 min later we were on our way to the shop.





            this car is so long it barely fits on the trailer hahaha







            with the clutch/ trans back in the car we fixed some small odds and ends with the car, mainly throwing on some heat wrap, cleaning up the wiring harness, and changing our wideband to work better with the megasquirt.





            This 14point7 wideband controller is the best option for megasquirt BTW



            also threw in some new lower control arms to replace the ebay arms we had on the car that flexed under braking...

            did a quick toe plate alignment and took the car on a test drive to his school car show.



            only rubbed a little



            parked near some... interesting cars...







            So the next weekend we picked up our spare differential and welded it up. The factory VLSD really hates to get hot, on the old silver q45 we had the vlsd open up all the time at drift events.





            Still mad about the whole AAA situation with them not wanting to tow our car, so we took matters into our own hands...



            We decided to throw in Pauls old LS400 air setup







            so that brings us to our first "problem". Its known that q45s cant go low unless you buy something like the BC extreme lows, or go s chassis suspension up front. In order to run the bags up front we had to use the megan coilovers that came on the black car since the shock body is smaller (the JIC magic coils are inverted and have a bigger shock body). So we read that megan coils have the same thread pitch and shock body design on their coilovers, so we bought s14 lower mount brackets thinking it would thread on... apparently the q45 shock body is bigger.

            So because we're cheap and impatient we just made our own lower mounts.



            q45 vs s14



            painted the new modified s14 knuckles since I **** red things.







            came out... meh



            but with some convincing we had everything back together!



            installed some offset rack spacers and new tie rods and enjuku 70mm studs



            now the car does this weird thing where you can do this.



            also this stuff is interesting



            so now the front of the car is now more or less a s14, what if we did that to the rear as well

            Long story short a while ago I bought a Villains dual caliper handbrake kit for an s14. so in order to instakk a dual caliper handbrake on a q45 you'll need the following:
            Q45 diff
            j30 axles
            s13/s14 rear knuckles
            s14 5 lug hubs
            s14 brake calipers and rotors



            glitter all the things because glitter





            throw away q45 knuckles because they succ



            the sauce





            funny enough the Villains handbrake bracket fits on a q45 without an issue



            so after months of wrenching on this thing we finally were able to drive this thing out of the shop and giver her a bit of a bath.











            Next on the list is:
            fix random leaks
            Alignment
            new headlight
            FINISH TUNING
            maybe slide this thing around a bit
            99 GS 400
            85' 190d
            99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
            97' q45 (rip)
            ig: erik.docx

            Comment


            • #7
              This makes me want to turbo my E36.....Love seeing how far this car has come
              grimegang_cody on insta if you want to follow my build

              Comment


              • #8
                Love the vip looks on this, but I'd like it more if it was static
                Isn't air "weird" to setup for drifting?

                FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by xxcody2130xx View Post
                  This makes me want to turbo my E36.....Love seeing how far this car has come
                  Do it!


                  Originally posted by Fruttolo View Post
                  Love the vip looks on this, but I'd like it more if it was static
                  Isn't air "weird" to setup for drifting?
                  It probably is weird to slide on air, but it’s just so convenient to be on air hahaha
                  99 GS 400
                  85' 190d
                  99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
                  97' q45 (rip)
                  ig: erik.docx

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    this thread is still unpredictable and fun to watch. was just going to say something about the headlight lol

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Miroteknik View Post
                      this thread is still unpredictable and fun to watch. was just going to say something about the headlight lol
                      Oh yah, this car is just going in random directions until I run out of money hahaha.

                      Edit: yes I have a replacement headlight, just been a bit lazy to put it on
                      Last edited by leaferiksin; 05-14-2019, 10:36 AM.
                      99 GS 400
                      85' 190d
                      99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
                      97' q45 (rip)
                      ig: erik.docx

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        wow its been almost a year since I last updated this...


                        so around June I saw that my local FD driver (Matt Field) needed some "luxury drift cars" to use for a commercial shoot. Not knowing what I was getting myself into I went ahead and and volunteered the Q45 for commercial duty. What does that mean exactly? Well it means I had to make sure the car can drive under its own power, do burnouts, and maybe do a little skid or two. Long story short Matt gives me three weeks to get the car ready for the shoot.

                        After many long nights after work and on weekends we had the car "ready". Looking back at it, the car was not at all ready. But the car drove about 120 miles doing data logs and doing "durability testing".



                        So with the road testing done we brought the car over to Matt's shop "Drift Cave" and threw on some of his burner wheels for the video.





                        Over the next two weeks the car was detailed, wrapped silver, and trailered to LA.









                        Yes thats indeed a brushed silver wrap. And no, I didn't know that was a thing.





                        Well a few weeks later the car made its way back to northern California after being a trouble child. Apparently Chelsea Denofa, who was driving the Q45 for the shoot, did not love the bags (no surprise there) and struggled to keep the car cool (it was super hot during the first day of shooting).

                        oops... well I guess its a learning experience right?

                        anyway here's the commercial, you see a glimpse of it at the 5 second mark in the film, enjoy?



                        So with doing the commercial we got paid a little bit, so what did we buy? Something smart? Something that would improve the Q45 that wasnt all that reliable on the commercial?

                        no



                        We bought a lifted mustang... v6



                        Yah we don't know way either...






                        So with that bombshell we then took off for H20i!



                        We picked up this little beast of a rental car, it lowkey sucks

                        Saw some cool cars and drank a bunch of adult beverages















                        seems a little familiar

                        and i found my next car that i NEED to buy






                        After nearly a week at H20i we started to work on cleaning up the Q45 for a local car show



                        Fun fact we've been trying to get the Q45 into this show for the past 2 years but for whatever reason the Q has always been broken. So we cleaned her up, threw on some big ol' 3 spokes, and rolled in with the Wagonsteez boys.











                        Well as it turns out we like to make a big entrance. While parking the car at the show I was showing off the steering angle on the car and I blew off a power steering line..







                        And for some random reason our $1,000 Q45 with crap paint, poor fitting wheels, and a dumb engine that barely runs won an organizers award for confusing everyone at the show...



                        So to celebrate we parked the car for 3 months.

                        Then I did something bad, I drank a latte in my '85 190D



                        and preceded to remove the drivetrain, suspension, and cut out a bunch of metal from the front end...





                        Yah i'm being original and doing an m52 swap, but i'm swapping in the e36 front subframe and suspension. dumb, but maybe it'l be cool? who knows? Find out next month when it might run or something...
                        Last edited by leaferiksin; 12-07-2019, 02:03 PM.
                        99 GS 400
                        85' 190d
                        99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
                        97' q45 (rip)
                        ig: erik.docx

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Yay for updates
                          The dude with the meme car and "windshield" banner wins at life

                          Also love the superadvans on this car but I'm baffled at why you should put literally the worst part of the e36 chassis on a lexus LOL Is che lexus front suspension so bad that it's worse than e36 front suspension?

                          FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Fruttolo View Post
                            Yay for updates
                            The dude with the meme car and "windshield" banner wins at life

                            Also love the superadvans on this car but I'm baffled at why you should put literally the worst part of the e36 chassis on a lexus LOL Is che lexus front suspension so bad that it's worse than e36 front suspension?
                            Well its not a Lexus lol, it's a 1985 mercedes 190d. The "issue" with those are that it has a steering box and those aren't all that great on track/ drifting. Plus all the bushings in the front were shot, and there really isn't that much aftermarket support for the 201 chassis for steering mods and such. So I figured that since I had a parts car laying around, I should just use all of it
                            99 GS 400
                            85' 190d
                            99 Q45 (slightly nicer)
                            97' q45 (rip)
                            ig: erik.docx

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Oh dang, I mixed it up and actually did not notice we were talking another car here

                              FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

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