Since the beginning of this year I have been on a mission to finish off what the 12 year old in me had always wanted, a clean daily driven RPS13 that can hunt the curves on the canyons with ease and bears all the right parts. This is a story of how I fell in love with my car and the progress of my build from beginning to end… for now.

As a kid I was always obsessed with car culture. I remember going to the hot rod and lowrider shows that occasionally happened around town. At home I played with nothing but car related toys from Hot Wheels, Matchboxes, and Micro Machines to the Gran Turismo series on Playstation until the Internet came about. Now there wasn’t much you could do with dial-up but when DSL became available, it gave me the ability to stream videos with reasonable load times. It was almost natural for me to find out about the world of Initial D, Best Motoring, Smokey Nagoya, and the illegal drifting in Japan all before high school. From car buying in Gran Turismo 2, I learned about the Supras, Skylines, and a handful of other Japanese and Euro cars that were forbidden fruit to the USA thanks to the strict import laws.

As I drooled over the early generation Lancer Evolutions, Impreza’s, and Skylines, I realized, due to price and legality, that most of these cars are more of a dream than a reality. Fortunately for me there was one car that stuck out from the sea of 90’s Japanese glory. This car also happened to fit my budget when it came time to own my first car. That was the 240sx, which yields many variations. Some of you might know it as the Silvia, Onevia, 180sx, 200sx, Sileighty, Type X, S13, S14, S15…I mean the list goes on but I’ll save you the explaination between variants because Wikipedia can cover you on that. Now it wasn’t the girlfriends from Impact Blue driving the Sileighty, or the white 180sx Chuki hatchback, or even the white S14 Keiichi Tsuchiya drove in the Drift Bible video that made me fall in love with the S-Chassis. What made me like the car so much was the plethora of body and engine variations that came with the S-Chassis. The idea of owning a car with so many versatile options of customization symbolized the freedom and ease of tailoring the car to my taste. This picture I saw in middle school of a red Type X with Blitz wheels probably also played a small part in convincing me.

Coming from my part of town, I had to earn my keep and make something out of nothing. Once out of high school, my options were either to buy a car or use that money go to college, I chose the latter and put my car dreams on hold. Being undocumented also meant that owning a car was too big of a risk. It would pain me to have my car taken away off a technicality or be slapped with a big fine that I couldn’t afford. By my third year of college I was commuting by bike to my community college and worked several freelance jobs. Public transportation sucks around my part of town and without a car it made it very difficult getting anywhere on time. Fortunately my parents were nice enough to match my savings so I can purchase my first car. All the while Deferred Action had also just been implemented by Obama’s executive action meaning I finally had the ability to get my drivers license in California. My eyes were set on getting a RPS13. Although the prices of the 240sx’s had plummeted in the early to mid 2000’s, by 2011 people were starting to realize how much potential of track car it can be and prices slowly inflated. The drift scene was picking up in the states and it was slowly getting difficult to find a car that was not abused, engine swapped, or gutted. A clean blank canvas would cost a few hundred more and this was known as the dreaded drift tax.

My goal was to find a chassis that didn’t have any detrimental dents and was not gutted or abused. It had to be a hatchback, a sunroof, and most importantly a manual transmission. Although it isn’t as hard as today to find a clean untouched sample for a decent price, it still took some effort. I remembered searching online for about four months before I had found what could potentially be “the one” and even then, the seller was a three-hour drive away. I remember being excited because it was exactly what I was looking for, a grey hatchback with a sunroof and manual transmission with a few nice surprises on top. It had rare un-cracked dashboard, clean title, and only 112k miles on the dash. I managed to score the car for much less than the asking drift tax price due to it having some simple maintenance issues. The car was an early 89-90 model therefore holds the single cam engine. Despite it not having the better dual cam motor it was match meant to be because it was made the same year I was born, 1990. Those pleasant surprises made me instantly attached to the car. When it came time to register the car, it actually got better. According to the DMV records, I was officially the second owner, making it a rare two-owner RPS13. This was verified by my friends’ Carfax report. Not bad for a 21 year old car at the time.

Stage 1 of my build was to make it a reliable daily driver; doing tune-ups and only fixing things that were broken. I completed that within the first two years of ownership. Being a broke college student at the time, I didn’t believe in doing heavier modifications until I got my first career out of college. I didn’t like the idea of building a car when I wasn’t financially stable. I patiently planned my build through an Excel sheet and tried to stay away from buying cheap knockoff parts. No shortcuts here. With the post 2010 trend of 240s being stripped down into drift missiles and unloved by many of its newer owners, I had a different goal in mind. Horsepower didn’t matter to me, so an engine swap or turbo is off the table until this one dies. The idea was to make mine a reliable, period correct, daily driver with only a few hints of modern amenities. Suspension is important because I want it to handle tight corners and small roads with ease. Throughout the past two years, I’ve been crossing off many parts from that long list which brings us here now.

I will get into more details of what parts are on the car in part two. In the mean time, my goal of completing stage 2 of my build is almost done. All the suspension, interior, and exterior upgrades I wanted were purchased and installed. It was finally time to send it off for paint at SoCal Auto Image in Long Beach to make this a rare, non-drift slutted 240sx with color-matched panels. Now we wait.

The post Running in the ’90s: Period-Correct 240SX Build Part One appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

So by now we’ve gotten our Kawasaki, stripped it down, painted it, and added a new headlight and so go-faster F24 stickers. She’s looking pretty good, but not good enough yet. It is not yet exuding it’s urban tracker feel we’re going for. To that end, this week we got rid of the sparse black seat in favor of a more old-school leather affair and add the Iron and Resin tool roll we recently took a look at.

When we got it, this moto was covered in your standard offroad accoutrement like nasty and gummy grips, a Walmart handlebar pad, and a plain-jane black seat who’s better days had seen better days. This could not stand. We are good friends of the Travlr team, we did a review of their fantanstic GoPro case in June, so we reached out to them and asked for a little advice on leatherwork. Instead of hanging up on us like smart people, they stepped up big time and not only taught us how to work with cowhide (pro tip: burn your cuts with a lighter to remove rough edges), but also sent us out a huge piece of their buttery-soft leather to work with. Great guys! Now what to do with it?

First up, we’ve always wanted try wrapping the grips of a motorcycle like you do for the bars of a bicycle. I personally have never seen this (certainly not saying it doesn’t exist), and we had the itch to do it. So we did! We cut off 2 long strips of the Travler leather and wrapped them around the existing grips so there would be some give and cushion. Next up was the god-awful handlebar pad that was the kind of shiny plastic only drugstore Halloween costumes have any right to be. We kept the phone, but cut out a new leather square to go over it. Add in some velcro for easy on-and-off (just like the plastic protector) and that’s two of the three leather pieces done. Next up – the seat.

Now the first two projects were a doddle, but the seat was a much different, much bigger, much more complicated deal. To match the wrapped grips, and for something different than the standard quilted diamond pattern, we decided to do a series of strips running up towards the front. Rather than completely strip the current seat, we used the existing black pleather as a good base for our strips to adhere to without damaging the foam underneath. One at a time, we cut strips, glued them down, and set the next one at a precise measurement overlapping. In this manner, over the course of 2 hours or so, we had the seat pretty much completed. We even included a little 4″ loose strip near the top of the seat to tuck gloves or maps into, or just hold onto like at a rodeo…

As the pièce de résistance, we strapped on Iron and Resin’s excellent tool roll to the front forks to hold our tools/Pez dispensers while we are far in the backcountry. You don’t want to do without either of those in an emergency. The FactoryTwoFour bike is really coming together now. Sometime in the future, we may tackle a new exhaust and a custom front fender, but up next we tackle some modern LED lighting for night riding!

The post FactoryTwoFour Bike Build Part 3 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

As I hit 4th gear bombing down the boulevard, it hits me that a vehicle doesn’t feel like mine unless I’ve made design decisions I have to defend. Mods and tweaks are fine, but until I’ve gone out on a limb and done something aesthetically that I’ve never seen before I’m not happy. Until then, I’m just piloting around some designers idea of good looks. But let’s backup.

A few weeks ago, I picked up an off road bike – a Kawasaki KLX 300R – to learn the art of dirt riding. In between sets in the backcountry, I would be occasionally driving the bike around town, so it also had to be somewhat streetable. So in short,  something completely antisocial and capable of all kinds of mischief.

As with most projects, this one would have to start with demolition before construction. Off came all the fairings and plastic. Gone are the SUPER RAD!!!!!1!! stickers and graphics. Let’s tone this beast down a notch. While at it, that headlight had to go. Square is for squares. I had something far more Mad Max in mind… Something like a salvaged Suzuki light from eBay, yellow film, and a rally cage. Stripped of everything, we started laying down some muted grey in healthy doses. I used more coats than was strictly necessary because this machine will be dropped frequently when off roading and needs to stand up to that abuse.

But grey and green does not a stylish bike make. No, I’d need some flair here (well, everywhere in my life really…). So I grabbed the vibrant blue I use on all my machines and got to adding some speed stripes and accents. That’s got to be good for at least 5hp right there.

While it’s apart and paint is drying, it’s an excellent time for a service. Oil, spark plugs, coolant, and a good chain lube are all done in between copious coats of primer grey and signal blue. Now I’ll have a smooth looking and smooth running little beast.

Major mods to the exhaust, seat, and possibly tank are coming, but for now the aesthetic changes will make this thing drivable around town without looking like a hillbilly who got lost. Gone are the massive front fender and headlight. Gone are the tribal stickers and bright colors. What remains is a design that I will defend as wholly my own. Next up is some custom leatherwork on the seat and a few other places, then on to trying our hands and creating a custom exhaust. Should be fun! But in the meantime, I present to you FactoryTwoFours off road tracker:

You can catch up with read Part 3 now!

The post FactoryTwoFour Bike Build Part 2 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

What we bought is a Kawasaki KLX300R. We choose this bike for a variety of reasons, listed below:

• It’s not a Honda CB something something. I.e., we can’t just bolt on parts to make something cool – we’ve got to actually fabricate. Which is cool.
• It’s a dual sport (or at least was converted into being road-legal by the previous owner), so we can ride anywhere and everywhere. Which is cool.
• Kawasaki is as close as I can get to my big Polish last name in a motorcycle manufacturer. Which is admittedly not cool at all, but my reasons are my own.

What we are going to do to it is as follows:

• NOT make a cafe or cruiser or chopper or bobber. Absolutely not.
• Make a badass offroad machine that is capable of scaling a mountain and still popping down the road for brunch on Sunday comfortably.
• Get rid of all the plastic and bright color scheme. We’re not Riff Raff, we like a more muted color scheme.
• Change out the seat, light, and exhaust. There will be countless other small tweaks that we’ll document along the way as we run into them.

Our custom KLX 300R will be ridden hard and dropped ruthlessly on back trails. It’s got to be able to put up with any and all abuse. But we are not interested in an offroad-only beast; we need an interesting bike with which to cruise around Los Angeles and upset small children. Follow along here as we build just such a machine.

You can read Part 2 now!

The post FactoryTwoFour Bike Build Part 1 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Defending Your Castle by William Gurstelle will teach you how to “build catapults, crossbows, moats, bulletproof shields, and more defensive devices to fend off invading hordes.” Yes, it said crossbows. While the book walks you through various defensive positions and weapons in the context of defeating ancient armies like the Mongols, Huns, Tartars, Macedonians, Crusaders, and Vikings I’m pretty confident a goddamn crossbow will work on a modern thug.

This is what a men’s self-help book should be. “You? You’re just fine. But here’s how to build a battering ram…” Defending Your Castle walks you through the history of ancient armies and then shows you the defensive technologies that either did or could have defeated each one.

It is a fascinating journey for historians and makers alike. Neither of these elements are too focused on, leading to a very balanced and fun read. Whether you’re worried about the zombie apocalypse, all those damn [insert ethnic group here], or just looking for a fun, weaponized Sunday project, Defending Your Castle is right up your alley, or maybe castle wall.

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