Original post https://www.f31club.com/2017/09/05/tracing-down-cars-project-leopard/
Naoki and Koji did F31club a favor back in the days. While they did not post much, when their cars became published in some magazines, they gave credit to F31club. Koji’s car is pretty famous for being on Project Car magazine and showing a bunch of information on the RB25DET install. It was the 1st documented RB25det stateside (RB20 was done by another F31club member).
Koji’s M30 would also be continued in the next issue of Project Car magazine as there were a bit of additional information about the build. This magazine introduced many people to the M30 and inspired tons of people to swap a motor into this platform.
After awhile, Koji had to sell the car due to family expanding.
I wasn’t around and lost track of the price of the sale and the car.
2018 Update:
I’ve wondered about it (the Project Leopard) and posted pictures on facebook and Cameron B. said he currently has the car. Cameron said it is his drift car and the condition wasn’t like how it was in the magazine.
He gave me the whole back story.
Hey man I have the project car m30.
A buddy of mine owned it a long time ago. He bought it from some guy and the car came with the magazine and the guy was sad to let it go, my buddy owned it for a short time and did some minor changes to it such as add gauges shift knob and stuff.
Later he found a evo 8 for sale and he offered it up for trade. When he traded the m30 it was still super clean no rips in the seats no faded/cracked paint no cracks in the dash.
Later he found out that the guy with the evo was wanted for a hit and run that killed a pedestrian in the evo. Now the hit and run guy has the car and it’s starts to get all fucked up. Seats ripped dash cracked. He hits another pedestrian and sells the car for super cheap to the guy who owned it before I got it then he ran to mexico.
The guy after that was so happy with the car and motor and started turning it to a drift car with forest wang being his inspiration. (Forest wang once owned a m30) so he added the angle kit and had alot of videos of him drifting it. And he did some sketchy wiring in the engine bay. Later he blew the motor.
I found the car while I was out of California for work for 3k. I messaged my buddy I work on all my cars with he went checked it out and figured it was worth it. And picked the car up for me. I sent him money a week earlier. I came home and found out the car had a bad misfire in the 6th cylinder and did a couple things, it started right up but had a horrible idle do to misfire. Later I found a automatic rb25 for sale with wiring harness for very cheap. And I jumped on it. I pulled the bad motor and replaced it taking the good parts from the bad motor such as Greddy intake manifold steel exhaust manifold gaskets. The old turbo was sold to a friend for a miata. And I added a bigger turbo (cheap shit) and top mount turbo manifold and external wastegate. The engine bay has all sorts of random wires and stuff. But I actually sent it to a friend to have the wires tucked and only the wiring needed to run and drive the car hooked up to a switch panel. After it gets done there in a couple weeks it getting sent to another friend for a half cage and door bars. Also have seats and harnesses coming for it. When I originally got the car i wanted to get new parts and make it nice. But there is so much work and I have a way nicer project miata. That I’ve swapped a 1.8 into fully built and turboed. So that take up alot of my time and money.
So the Infiniti remains a drift car and I’m happy with it, it’s alot of fun and the track and I can’t complain, it has it’s ups and downs but i really enjoy it, sometimes I daily it still haha. I know you guys are about preserving the m30 but this is what I like and this car is fun to watch people stop and stare cause it looks so homeless and broken with the angle kit giving it 9 degrees of camber in the front. I love my pile hahaha.
Thanks Cameron for giving me this info!
