Kaihatsu Factory V8 S13

After the unfortunate failure of my Silvia's SR20 and it needing a R16K rebuild, I came accross an amazing deal.

Brenton's V8 S13 has recieved alot of bad reviews in the past and sat on Gumtree for sale for a long time as there were rumours going around about the chasis being skew, everyone warned me about this car. I personally knew this car and the driver and knew there was a lot of money spent on this car.

The deal of my Caddy and a set of Grids was agreed upon for a swap and I now own it 🙂

I took the car out on Saturday night before the Wheels of Fury event and the car performed CRAP! I had taken it for alignment the day before and the guys left half of the bolts loose and it lost all of it's aligment settings. Later that night it was pointed out that my right rear was toeing in heavily, so after a quick adjustment the car started to feel like a drift car. But with the other alignment out it was very unpredictable.

I sent it back to the alignment place and I stood there with them telling them how to adjust the suspension and making sure all was 100% correct. I also fitted an adjustable seat rail for my short ass, changed the position of the handbrake, replaced a cv boot, re-did the entire fueling system and did some stitching where it was needed to give it my touch. We worked late into Tuesday night to get ready for the next day.

Then Wednesday came and it was time to test the car on the day of the event, I had no time to test prior to this. Practise sessions showed this car had SO much potential and the 1UZ V8 in the S13 was such an awesome combination! The car drifted a dream and the torque made for some really awesome drifting! The front tyres need to be changed for something more grippy and a bit of tightening to the steering rack as there isn't as much feedback as what I'm use to from the S14. Also the S13 is very sensitive, I cant be as aggresive as I am in the S14, so I need to calm down behind the wheel.....

Half way through practice the car started bogging and we had to work on the car to find the issue. After about an hour or so it was found to be the fuel pickup pipe had come off and the car was literally running on fumes. We got it sorted but by this time it was qualifying.

My two qualifying runs were the only times I had actually linked up the whole oval which I was VERY happy about, but unfortunately it wasn't good enough to qualify in the top 8 which is what I expected being my first time out with it. A bit more development time and practce in this car and it will be a force to be rekoned with.

Anyway enough with the typing...let's see some pics:

All the is left now is some new front tyres, a change in the fuel system to be gravity fed and to sort out the hydro handbrake as I battled to get it to lock on the day. Then the car is ready for me!

The Wheels of Fury event was something to be so proud of as a Cape Tonian! Killarney was FULL and some really good driving was enjoyed by the crowd all day and night long! I must give props to Jason Webb for driving like he did against one of the worlds best drivers, Naota Suenaga....I only ever see that kind of close competition on D1 videos....but here at Killarney race track, our very own South African was running like a D1 driver against an actual D1 driver.

Congrats goes out to Jody Powell, Drift Africa, Team Orange, D1S and all involved in the event....it was VERY successful and can only do good for driving in Cape Town and South Africa. Thanks to the guys from up country who made th trip down and thanks to Team Orange for attending and some driving....!!! And last but not least, thanks to all that helped me....Calvin Beekman and Nick Mitchell from Dragon Cutoms, Brenton Stratford, Lorcan Aylward Jarryd, The guys from Redline Racing and my beautiful, understanding and patient woman Nicol Muller.

Here's to the awesome future of drifting ahead of us in Cape Town and South Africa!

car looked great, well done and good luck in the future D 😉

Thanks bud!

Cool! What Rear Wing is that ??

Not entirely sure, it came with the car.

Car is pretty..really good looking.
N/a V8 ?
Pics of engine bay please..

Yeah N/A V8, Lexus 1UZ.

I will put more pics up ASAP, just dirty at the moment and I want to show off how clean the install is.

Dude i had no idea u piloted tha monster! i did come over when u guys were having issues with starting. we were in the drift pit area with the hardbody's the red one is Rb25det the purple one is vg30 turbo and my white spin(soon to be drift) hardbody .my buddy owns steenburg tires and he spons me and a couple of guys with tires. we were helping out chingy in the black supra,he is also one of the spinners crossing over to drifting. i took part in the spin part of the day ,clapped the tires so hard it toppeld over haha. but must say that lexus s13 of yours is hellof neat . that motor has loads of space to work around and sounds maaaadddd. ill chek u at the next event. this was my first time back on any sort of event , after wheels of fury i miss my R33!eish id love to get a set of rota wheels but ill do that when i do my 5hole convertion,then we can talk.
AND YES the days drifting was spectacular ,most of the guys had no fear and tight tandems were as close as D1 drivers .there was even a couple of touches and exchanges of paint lol. all the cars there were on another level and big ups to every one who mad the day possible.

Hey bud, yeah we thought the TPS failed but it turned out to be the fuel pick up pipe had come off.....always check the basics first...!!!

I think I've seen your hardbody drifting one night at street to strip, love that setup and must be fun!

Check you at the next street to strip, come say howzit man!

yes that was me too at street to strip. was my first outing at killarney for years. gona make a few changes soon, hopefully before next event. any YES chek the basics, i had an issue the day before killarney and turned out the battery was just dead hahahah. Id love to go out on the oval with u sitting shotgun.heheheheh . as for my hardbody it is fun as hell, and my setup all home made frankenstein suspention,with clamps and all. see u next time

Just ask bud, Ill deffinately come out to see how the bakkie goes 🙂

thanks man. been a long time since i was out on any sort of track to do anything lol. quick question what gearbox it that lexus setup running? 21R ,22R maybe?

No such thing as a "21R" or "22R" gearbox. It is a W58. It is referred to as a 21R as that is the Cressida engine, 21R, that it was commonly bolted up to. Some trivia for the day.

21R but I will be getting a SR box for it that comes spare with the 13, will decide then as to what I want to run or keep the SR box as spare for the 14. 21R box seems good so far though. And yeah as per BigKriss, it's the W58.

Here are some pics of the little Team Orange lessons we had on Saturday:

now why were the rest of us not privlaged to those lessons? i need as much help as i can get. hell just listiing to those guys whould been an experience to learn from. eish jody holding out on us.lol buy the looks of it u guys practiced the corner behind the start of the drag strip. or did u guys get to hook up arpound the hole track? who was all there?
will that that SR box hold that V8? rather keep the 21R . BUT if u wanna sell the R21 box let me know.
looks like the jap lessons paid off hey!heheheh

The sr box can handle 300kw bud so yeah. Jody reserved it for more 'experienced/advanced' drivers and was R1900.

Yeah we only used turn 5, there was short circuit racing so it was the only corner available.

I probably will keep to the 21r and build the sr box for the 14, os giken kit would be nice 🙂

Yep the os would be nice. When i had my R33 i had Ferobrake build me a custom double diaphram button blutch. it was hell driving in traffic but boy could that thing connect. and all for the price of R1200 but that was about 5 years ago.lol i have a rebuilt clutch in at the moment looks std but with better material .Ghateem that drives the yell escort built it. its holding up pretty nicely.
ok not all of us could have afforded the R1900 but to the lucky ones im sure it was well worth it. im hopping alot more track time would be made available to the guys so we can gain that experience and get to the point were we making head way, personally i ploued many of the grass patches on all sections of the oval ,even touched the tires onece hehehehehehe.

If you don't go off you not trying hard enough.

Don't worry, we are all working hard to get regular track time but you can be guaranteed that we will always be drifting on street to strip days/nights

Awesome stuff.... please more pics of the engine bay

The engine bay