Transitioning from just for fun to make it faster.
Bombing this turd around our little track has been a blast but since it refuses to die, the time has come to address some specific issues keeping the experience from the best version of itself. The fact that we get to test some hardware along the way is a major bonus. The biggest issue has…
Any vehicle can be an off-road vehicle if you’re willing to gamble…
Imagine if Woodsy Owl and Howdy Raccoon decided to take nature conservation matters into their own hands on the trails in a clapped-out, lifted (or not) Honda Civic and you’d be pretty close to what Tate Morgan and like-minded folks started in 2014 in the backcountry of somewheresville, Oregon with the Gambler 500. In the…
Hanging curtains in a haunted house.
It has been way too much fun running this thing around our little track and the time has come to make a few changes. The current suspension is lowering springs wrapped around blown stock struts. It just so happens that Fortune Auto, a company that makes custom coilovers, is right across the river from us.…
Before & After Gallery (user submitted content)
Sometimes folks buy these eyesores and turn them into eye candy. And, one sometimes they share pics with us! Here is where you can find these fantastic user-submitted pictures. We will try and keep this up to date. Please note: these are not in any specific organized order and we are not motivated to properly…
Can we kill it?
Some vehicles are just worth more to have fun in than they would return in a retail sale. This forester was one of those vehicles but I never would have guessed the smiles per gallon this thing delivers. I figured a solid hour of fun was going to be had with this thing in the…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 13: We’re back!
After a bit of a hiatus, we’re back! Back in November at our last practice day we obliterated the clutch to the point that the car had to be towed home. Then between the holidays, family stuff and new work schedules time got away from us for a couple months. At the beginning of February…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 12: Soukoukai #4 Practice Day!
We finally participated in our first practice day! It was Spirit.jp’s Soukoukai #4 on 11/17/19. We’ve been preparing for this event for a long time, it was our first time driving outside of a Novice Clinic. A couple weeks earlier I managed to finish up the bodywork, so we were able to finally install the…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 11: Practice Day Prep.
We’ve been quite busy working on the car since our novice clinic last month! I started out with some body work, I got the passenger’s side almost good enough to wrap, then I’ll move on to the driver’s side. The problem has been getting scheduling and weather to cooperate. At least it’s not critical! We…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 10: Another Novice Clinic!
Last weekend was a busy one for Team Lemon House! Saturday night we went to Spirit.JP’s Night Touge 3 event to spectate and show off the newly installed underglow kit on the Previa. We had a blast, these are my favorite events to go to. I can’t wait til I’m able to actually drive in…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 9: From the Junkyard to International Recognition!
Since my last post the Lemon House team and I have been working on the car as well as our plans for it’s future. I’ve also been reflecting on where we started and how far we’ve come since then. On one hand I feel kind of like a seasoned veteran, but on the other I…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 8: Novice Clinic Day!
The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here! We participated in our first Spirit.Jp Drift Series Novice Clinic, and we lived to tell about it! Since my last post we’ve just been ironing out the bugs and putting some miles on the car to get it as ready as we could for the…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 7: Novice Clinic Preparation.
Once we made our goal of getting our trusty 300ZX to the Spirit.jp event for our debut in the VIP parking section last month, it was time to start refining the car and getting her ready for drifting. We’ve been pretty busy. I’d been driving the car to work a couple times a week and…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 6: Chizuru’s Debut.
This was a big week for us! On Friday Nate came over so we could do some more work on Chizuru the 300ZX to get her ready for the public debut. He replaced some of the broken and duct-taped-together rubber bits in the intake plumbing, which cured a lot of vacuum leaks. She’d been pretty…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 5: Chizuru Emerges.
Chizuru has left the driveway! Teammate Nate and I have gotten the Z31 up and running enough to start making short ventures out into the world! The maiden voyage was last Monday to the the Autozone still within my neighborhood. The battery light on the dash was on and we wanted to see if the…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie, Part 4: Chizuru Awakens.
Last Sunday my teammate Nate came over, and we set about rousing Chizuru from her slumber with the help of a new fuel pump. We thought it was going to be just a matter of removing 2 screws and popping off that access panel in the trunk floor to get at the pump, only to…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie. Part 3: Work Continues.
Work has been continuing on the Z31, slowly but surely it’s coming along. Since the last post my teammate Nate and I have removed the carpet and headliner, and many of the other unnecessary interior parts. It should weigh less and smell better inside now! We discovered a bit more rust than we’d like to…
“Stumper” an explanation for the jeep rat rod thing in the corner of our shop.
This whole project started a few not so short years ago with a relatively simple idea: “After years of wishy-washy feelings towards modifying this car or that, I decided that I may have more motivation and better results making the whole car, more or less… Goals: Handle and stop like a Vette, Look like a…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie. Part 2: Chizuru Arrives.
So in my last post, I talked about how I fell in love with drifting in the not-so-distant past, and how I planned to start doing it myself. The crucial component is a car in which to drift, so here we are! The fine folks at Roscoe’s had this forlorn 1985 Nissan 300ZX in the…
Misadventures of a Drift Newbie. Part 1: Introduction.
Hi, my name is Tim, and I am addicted to drifting. It all started back in November of 2018 when I was bored and needed an excuse to get out of the house. Spirit.jp Drift Series was holding their first event at RIR, which just happens to be about 10 minutes away from my house.…
Because (diy) Racecar
This vehicle came to us from the son of its original builder. He worked on this car for years but sadly illness moved in on him faster then he could get this project finished. We saw it for sale and heard the story and knew immediately it needed to come here. It’s built mostly from…