By Eric
Let me now give you guys a little introduction to one of my favorite cars we currently have here at JDM Legends. The car is a 1973 Nissan Skyline which started out life as a Datsun 240 K and has been converted to a Japanese spec GTR clone. Some people may ask why buy a GTR clone when I can have the real thing? Let me start out by saying the C110 body style GTR’s were only produced from late 1972 to 1973 and only 197 GTR’s were ever produced, making the C110 body style the rarest of all GTR’s. That being said, clean examples can be found in Japan reaching the six figure mark! Not a problem for collectors with an expendable amount of cash but for the average Joe looking for a unique piece of JDM history at a more affordable price a clone is the way to go. The GTR conversion usually consists of changing out the mirrors, grill, badges, front and rear spoiler, and of course the most notable being the addition of the bolt-on fender flares which is no easy task as all of the non-GTR C110’s came with entirely different fender lines which requires the original fenders to be cut, re welded and resealed before adding the flares, but more on that later.
We received the car with the RB26 installed and some of the aforementioned GTR parts, but the car definitely needed quite a bit of refinement before we would be happy letting it go with the JDM Legends seal of approval. Lets start with the engine bay in the way we had received it…..
Way too cool of a motor in way too cool of a car to be in such a sloppy state. I started by going through and re looming the rat’s nest of wiring and other randomly placed items. Once that was done I had noticed that at one time or another over this cars long history it looked like there had been more than a few things screwed haphazardly here and there all over the engine bay resulting in swiss cheesed shock towers. The repairs were done in the only acceptable fashion by patching some of the larger ones with replacement steel, and filling some of the smaller ones with the MIG welder. This first pic shows the holes being prepped to be filled.
Right side before grinding and smoothing to give you an idea……
Everything filled prepped and ready for paint. I think I repaired 38 holes of various sizes, yikes! Someone needs their drill taken away 
Another issue we had decided to address was the fact that the previous owner had installed a front mount intercooler which required the removal of the high beam lights. We felt this took away from the classic exterior of the car and decided to redo the entire intercooler and piping setup to be a little more discreet, and while we’re at it lets spruce up that valve cover.
Ahh….. I feel much better now. The topside of the engine is done, now it’s time to move underneath, stay tuned!!
By Eric
I wanted to introduce you to a car that we have been currently restoring. The car is a 1973 Toyota Celica coupe, these cars came originally equipped in the states with the single cam 18R-C which made 97 hp. The cool thing about this car is that the original motor has been yanked and replaced with the a Japanese spec 18R-G twin cam motor with the Yamaha head and dual side draft Mikuni carbs which makes 134hp @ 6000 rpm. And oh what music those Mikuni carbs make at full song!! The car came to us with the some of the usual gremlins old cars have, exhaust leaks everywhere, no tach, no tail lights, carb issues etc. I am pleased to say that we have rectified all of the cars previous shortcomings and brought it back to it’s full glory. This first pic is the engine bay as we received it, definitely no way to treat an 18R-G!
So with quite a bit of work we have the new and improved engine bay, I think you will agree that it looks a bit nicer.
We also decided to add a functioning factory tachometer instead of the column mounted Autozone special and replace the factory fake wood dash with something a little less um……… woody.
The exterior of the car didn’t need much attention as it had just recently been treated to a fresh repaint. You will have a hard time finding a cleaner one.
Suspension sits right thanks to some Ground Control coilovers and Tokicos.
So there you have it. As much as I hate to see it go, this fine little Celica is now ready for a new home. If you are interested you may contact us with an offer, or if bidding is your game the car is currently up on ebay found here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270488330349
By Eric
I would like to introduce you to the first of many builds that JDM Legends has in store. The vehicle is a 1977 Toyota Celica GT liftback, or the chassis code RA29 as we J-tin geeks like to refer to it as. This is the car as we received it, definitely well worn and in need of some JDM Legends love.
Yellow, yellow, and more yellow. That will have to go, all of it down to the bare metal. No shortcuts here. I can’t wait to see what’s underneath that glorious Maaco “presidential special” paint job. It’s never a good thing to see body lines disapear into what I have a bad feeling is layers upon layers of bondo.
Ahh….. The interior. You gotta love that old car smell, a mixture of old french fries, wet dogs and gasoline. There’s something about a yellow car with brown interior that just screams rotten bannana to me. You have to wonder excactly what the designers were thinking back then. Also take note of the prerequisite Yosemite Sam floormats and flaming steering wheel cover on the passenger seat. Nice.
The heart of the beast. The 20R motor served it’s purpose well and still fires right up. Great for a daily driver but not quite up to the task of what we have in store. What motor is that you may ask? You will just have to stay tuned to find out but I will say that it will be making at least 3 time the power of the 20R, be fuel injected, and maybe not what you are expecting. Don’t worry though, we will be keeping all Toyota.
Next up, let the gutting begin!! Let’s see what this pandora’s box has in store for us.
By Eric
I will start off by apologizing for the recent lack of blog updates as we have been very busy lately with everything involved in starting a new business. A lot has happened since the grand opening and we have plenty to show you so make sure and check back frequently!
