During the roughly eight months in which the car awaited its new powerplant, Chen was able to handle many larger aspects of the build at once. He sourced an ultra-rare JIC Magic kit from Japan, through nearby SIXautoworks, and had the car sent off to DTM Autobody in El Monte, Calif., for a complete interior/exterior color change from the stock Diamond White Pearl to the metallic Daytona Blue found on the 350z. Tein Type Flex coilovers replaced the stock spring and strut assemblies at all four corners, situated nicely behind the JZA80 Supra slotted Brembos with Rotora carbon pads. Long-time friend D.T. Maverick added even more style and function to the mix, with a set of Blitz Technospeed Z1 hoops, staggered at 19x10 at the drive wheels, and 19x8.5 up front, while a previous supporter of Chen's Accord had the new gems wrapped in 265/30/19 and 225/35/19 Dunlop rubber, respectively.
With his SC powered the way its OEM design team would've undoubtedly preferred and sporting a look scarcely seen outside Japan, Chen's back-burner automotive affinity had officially been placed back in the frying pan and onto the fire. "Before I noticed it, it had started all over again," he laughs. "Once the ball gets rolling, it gets bigger and bigger." After only 2 months since first driving it out of the Autolink bays, Chen decided he needed to go bigger. During his years researching the capabilities of the 1JZGTE engine, Chen found it could be made to hold about as much power in stock trim as its nearly indestructible 2JZ cousin. Predicated on this knowledge, and after some short conversation with Danny at SIXautoworks, Chen had a request put in overseas with GReddy for one of their T78 single turbo kits. "The kit is so rare, it's not even kept in stock in the Japanese factories," Chen explains. "To my knowledge, it's the only one on an SC in the states, and one of only a handful in the world."
The next six months of waiting for the kit's arrival that would follow allowed Chen to turn some attention to the interior of his car-a place where he'd hoped to be spending much of his time enjoying the fruits of his labor. "I considered doing another crazy stereo build, like what was in my Accord," he points out, "but decided to keep the interior functionally basic. Subtlety is a must for a daily driver." With this resolve, Chen added a modest arrangement of in-car-entertainment, comprised of a 7-inch Concept Audio DVD player and screen, and an assortment of MB Quartz, JL Audio, and PPL components. During this time, Chen had slowly begun to part out his Accord, but decided to keep his Recaro SRD seats and have MotorFX Autoworks re-upholster them to mesh well with the monochromatic interior of the SC. Friends at Luxurymods.com hooked Chen up with some new OEM interior pieces for the car, which, together with a duo of A'pexi gauges monitoring boost and oil pressure, round out interior mods.
Upon the GReddy kit's long-awaited arrival in the states, Chen was quick to hand it and his SC off to Steve of SRmotorcars in Gardena, Calif., for the installation and tune. Consisting of only the basic mechanical components, the GReddy kit includes the T78-33D turbo, tubular manifold, wastegate and downpipe. Custom piping channels the boost charge through a front-mounted XS Engineering intercooler and into the engine, while an HKS blow-off valve vents the charge to the atmosphere at throttle let-off. Since his SC was always planned to remain a street-driven car, Chen was adamant on retaining the use of a catalytic converter to reduce emissions and help ward-off unwanted attention of any "decibel limit" enforcing lawmen. Hosting the cat, and further quieting the 1JZ's mighty din is a custom-fabbed 3-inch exhaust, complete with an HKS Hyper silencer.
By Eric Kieu
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