PROJECT S800 #2(a). RE-EVALUATION.
August 21, 2010

Back into it. I do apologise for those who have been asking us how Bruce, our project '67 Honda S800 has been progressing. I'll admit, we neglected him for a little while as the workload for our store and the design studio increased exponentially with Q4 projects and events looming. Don't worry though, he has been on the back of our minds.

Since the last update where we picked up Bruce from his previous home of 19 years in a corner of a dry shed, we've entrusted his care to the fine Ruiterman family establishment of E&H Motors in Pukekohe; about a 30 minute drive south from Auckland City. It was hard trying to find someone to tackle this unique little car, but when they called me to tell me what a great find it was when we had the car delivered, I knew he was going to the right hands for the monumental task ahead.

I've decided to separate this update into two entries - part (a), a more easier read for the mainstream audience, and part (b), which I'll publish on my think-silly blog, a little more technically minded (read: for the geeks).

If the name E&H motors may seem a little familiar to NZ and global motorsport fans, it might be because you've recalled seeing the E&H liveried Nissan S14 competition drift car, piloted by NZ Drift champion Carl "The Flying Dutchman" Ruiterman. A little about my personal history and involvement in NZ drifting - in 2003 I helped co-found the D1NZ national drift series, which still continues to this day under new management with a following of tens of thousands of loyal fans around the country, spawning such other local drift heroes like DriftCorp, WSR, Victor Chapman, and Mike "Mad Mike" Whiddett amongst many others. Along the way I also became the head commentator (and the reserve judge) of the series, a post which I held until I had to leave the series to devote time to set up Qubic in 2006.

I remember Carl's first outing in his car, where he exhibited an insane amount of natural ability to control his vehicle (those involved with competitive drifting will know what I mean) and surprised a lot of the established competitors at the time. After my departure from the sport, he went on to capture numerous championship titles, including all three NZ drift series championship titles in 2007, a 2008 Championship title, as well as qualifying, and competing in the USA for the 2009 Red Bull World Drifting Championship.

One of the fun things about this project has certainly been re-connecting and catching up with old friends from the automotive-fold, whether in drifting, or otherwise. Thank you all so much for your support and offers to help.

A quick tour of E&H motors to begin with.

One of Carl's competition cars, the infamous E&H S14. It's handicapped at the moment with a cracked SR20 block though. For those who don't know, in the heyday of the late 90's and early 00's our local car import laws were extremely laxed, meaning we were able to import just about any used Japanese car onto our shores, and for relatively cheap too. I never knew owning a factory S14 200SX, BNR32 GTR, or even an EF9 Civic was such a luxury until I went to an import car show in LA and literally had people offering me wads of cash for my junk parts pile at home. Unfortunately the laws have been tightened quite heavily since then, but that period kicked off a huge rise in popularity of modified imports here in NZ that were not compliable in other countries around the world (including Australia).

Shiny.

Equally shiny.

It occurred to me at this point that it's been a rather long time since I've stepped foot in a garage. I do miss it though; the smells, grease, noise, workshop humour, and general 'lads' camaraderie and banter.

Up on the other hoist, a blast from the past. Stickers and everything.

The main event - Bruce, now in the daylight for those who have been following the project. It still makes me laugh seeing how small the car is. The good thing about that is that it doesn't make it hard to store. Here he is in the corner. In between the shop office and the engine building room. I swear if he were any smaller, they'd use him as a coffee table.

Although I had a pretty good idea of Bruce's condition, it was time to sit down with Carl and Hans Jnr for a re-evaluation on what we needed to do to get him back on the road. After having a few weeks to poke around and assess him, they presented a list of issues that we needed to take care of.

First up - a quick body check.

Here's the previous owner trying to figure out what the original colour of the car was. Since the car didn't come in a green option from factory, we're going to assume that it was the primer coat for the rather awful metallic blue paint job by the first original NZ owner. My best guess is silver. That said, Ivy and myself haven't decided on a colour for Bruce just yet. Any suggestions?

R-U-S-T, inevitable for a 43 year old car. After speaking to fellow Honda S-nerds, they've all said that they've encountered this very rust spot on all of their restoration builds, and this is the only rust problem spot on Bruce. Far better than its UK brethren.

This is what we refer to in the industry as a 'shit-house paint job'.

With the body check over, it was time to look at the car starting from the bottom up, with a heavy focus on the car's suspension and brakes.. a rather critical part of any type of vehicle restoration, especially one which has been sitting dormant for almost two decades.

19 years of sitting around has certainly taken its toll.

Whilst the car is rather small, it never occured to me that the parts themselves would be miniature. This is the front brake rotor. Our dinner plates are larger than this. Truly.

Exhaust extractors (headers). I think I've seen lawnmowers with bigger ones.

The clutch master cylinder. It's seen better days.

Hans Jnr, removing the hub from the brake hat. I wish I had power tools at home.

Carl went back to dyno-tuning this competition S14 in his dyno room. Dynapack chassis dynamometers - yet another NZ invention used by top tier race teams and garages around the world. Not sure what the power output was, but it sounded angry. I'm guessing 300wKw (400hp)? Something nice and usable without being ridiculously overpowered.

For Daisuke Gemma. Workwear... actually being used for work. Well I'll be.

At the end of the day, we managed to take some parts off the car that needed dire replacement, which I'll elaborate on in the second half of this update here on my think-silly blog, for those who are interested in getting a little bit more indepth with the build.

For the most part, the car is as we thought it was - but almost the entire brake assembly needs to be reconditioned, after having sat idle for 19 years and slowly corroding away in the corner of a shed.

With the parts packed, the brakes and assorted parts have now been shipped off to another contact at BNT Automotive for their crack parts and machining division to try and match up parts from their extensive catalog, or for them to recondition. This'll be interesting.

The parting shot.

Stay tuned for more when we get the parts back from BNT.