Driving through the rural countryside of Nagoya, Japan, I begin to doubt myself about making the four-hour drive from the heart of Tokyo to a shop called C&Y Sports. Upon making a series of left and right turns, we finally arrive at our final destination when my heart suddenly sank to the floor. The rusted tin metal exterior of the shop and peeling paintjob gave me a meager image of a place that had been recently hit by a tsunami-this was bad. Really bad.
After a quick unloading of camera equipment and laptop computers, we entered the building and to our surprise, the garage area was covered with ultra-clean vehicles ranging from classic Datsun 1200's (Sunny) to the more recognizable Silvia S15. "This place is sick," murmured our photographer. From the corner of my eye, I catch glimpse of an S13 Silvia with its hood ajar. What followed made my mouth drop in absolute awe as my eyes came face-to-face with a 2JZ-GU Supra engine crammed into the engine bay. With disregard for those around me, I yelled out in Japanese, "Are you kidding me. Is that for real?" That very second, a man in a blue mechanic suit, which I later found out to be the shop owner, appeared from behind me with a smile on his face and responded, "It's no dream. This 1000hp S13 is the real deal."
Years before the name C&Y became synonymous with hardcore performance and tuning throughout Japan, Chinen Yoshiyuki of Aichi -ken, Japan worked as a mild-mannered private mechanic by day to pay the bills. But under that quiet demeanor of Chinen was a madman with a passion for speed and horsepower that transgressed onto Osaka streets at night as he banded with some fellow street racing enthusiasts. Chinen was one individual hell bent on dedicating himself to every sanctioned and unsanctioned race imaginable. Whether it was blasting through the quarter-mile Sendai drag strip in less than 9 seconds, rounding the corners though the Dunlop hairpin at Tsukuba Circuit or producing plumes of smoke while drifting the Ebisu Circuit, here was a man who lived the world of automotive performance through pure desire.
 Don't let the exterior of...  Don't let the exterior of this shop fool you. This shoddy looking shop can build everything from full-blown race cars to fully street-legal hybrid swap machines. |  No, your eyes don't deceive...  No, your eyes don't deceive you. It's a VQ35 powerplant from the 350Z shoehorned in a Mazda FD3S. "We decided to go with this setup because the FD3S is known to be a fantastic car, but the 13B engine is known to be problematic over long periods of time. We wanted to transplant an engine that wouldn't break and do something that's never been done before," Chinen states. "The VQ35 engine weighs only 20kg (40 lbs) more than your typical SR20DET powerplant, which was our initial go-to motor before we went with the larger 3.5-liter displacement." |  Feast your eyes on an ultra-clean...  Feast your eyes on an ultra-clean S13 chassis, complete with a 2JZ engine sporting individual throttle bodies. |