G Fo12ce: New Member From So.Cal

G Fo12ce

Warning: long, read when bored lol. I wrote it when I was...

Alright, so finally getting around to this. I used the site to gather info before purchasing my car and contributed along the way. The site has a lot of great info and members and I'm glad to be a part. I decided to pitch in and become a premium member. I haven't taken pics of the car as of yet so I'll try to add those soon. I'll throw in a few pics of previous cars though.

I live in Southern California, South Orange County, Mission Viejo to be exact. I'm a big hockey fan. And no, I'm not a Ducks fan . I've been following the NHL since before they existed and am an L.A. Kings fan! In fact my brother and I always say, our favorite team is the Kings and our second favorite team is who ever is playing the Ducks lol. Despite my age (mid 30's) I've been know to nerd out on the occasional video game. What can I say, I'm from the video game era. I do play some PS3 and some World of Warcraft (unless there is impending wife aggro). My gut suggests like most people I like to have good food, especially with family and freinds. Of course, I'm also a big car enthusiast.

In fact, I used to work in the aftermarket/high-peformance industry for about 10 years. For the last 5 years though I have worked for the County I live in and it has nothing to do with cars. I worked for Stillen where I did Customer Service, Technical Support Liaison between R&D/Service and the customer then finally Purchasing. I also helped out Mainstream Productions (Import Showoff) for a short time. I went on to work for HKS for about 4 years where I did Sales and Tech Support and continued to judge a few Import Showoff's here and there before I stopped. Then finally I worked for Sparco mainly handling the tuning and racing lines of product. I really enjoyed myself and am thankful for the knowledge and experiences I had while in those positions. I've been out of the scene as an insider for a while but I still have a passion for cars and will be participating here on the forums and at what ever events my work schedule will allow.

On the last couple cars I've had I was able to get some nice upgrades relatively fast. What I would do is sell the car and use the equity to put down or buy then next car. Then the parts I had I would sell separate and use the money as my fun fund for wheels and suspension or whatever. This time around I had to use my equity and fun money to put down on the Nismo Z I bought in order to get the payment where I needed it. So this car will be a much slower built up I sort of promised my wife I'd chillax for a bit too.

So here are the cars I've owned, I'll try to be breif. My very first car was a Nissan:

NO PICS:

-It was an '87 Sentra. What can I say, my parents bought it for me. Through part time jobs I was able to put some cheap Enkei wheels on it, Suspension Technique springs, Tokiko shocks, a cat back exhaust, fog lights and a stereo system.

-I then had a '93 Sentra SE-R. It had Ground Control suspension, Work wheels, full exhaust, intake, stereo system and Jim Wolf tune. This car became a sitter when I pulled the engine to do a Pulsar GTI-R swap (SR20DET) before I had it all ready to go. I sold it years later unfinished. Lessons learned...

-Toyota Corolla GTS (AE86 notch back) Only had cat back and intake. The Hachi-Roku was a fun car, and all before I knew of Takumi (Initial D Fans will get it )

PICS NOW:

-'92 240SX S13 Coupe. It was one of the few cars in the early days of the swap that had a successful SR conversion. Done by a group of enthusiasts, one of which was well off and had a shop to support his love of cars called V-SPEC. Couple guys you may know from there were Ricky Chu (Super Steet and Wayne from Phase2Motortrend (awesome GTR now, so jealous). This car looked like a sleeper but had many HKS bolt-ons. The swap was featured in Super Street, article by Brent Romans HERE

I'm the only non-asian guy there:

Before I put the HKS suspension on (the SR is so much ligher that the KA the front is high after the swap!)


More pics on the link above.

-After realizing I could get something cooler with the build up/money I had planned in my mind for the 240 I got this Supra (featured in the Apr '03 issue of Super Street Maganzine (I'll link the article later):

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To make a long story short this car had all the HKS upgrades and then some lol. This is the only car I regret selling but I was starting a new chapter in my life getting married and buying a house and I thought it was the best thing at the time. I made a killing on it though and it paved the way for future cars/upgrades.

-Next up was an '03 G35 Coupe. It had a Brembo upgrade, Volk LE37T's. HKS Suspension and Exh, a JWT intake, and Gialla Corsa Grill:









After the G I got an IX EVO MR. Mostly HKS Bolt-ons, wheels and suspension:





-Lastly before the new Z I had an E46 M3 SMG. Again a few bolt-ons, suspesion, wheels and some exterior accessories:






I'm going to try and wash the Z this weekend and get some pics up in the new owner section. I got a 2010 PW Nismo and I'm very happy with it. I promised the wife I'd keep it for longer than the last car so I should be around a while lol! I hoped you enjoyed the read.