Mr Joey’s highly modified 2002 from Thailand – COTM May 2022

Hello, my name is Joey. I’m the owner of this BMW 2002.
Growing up in Los Angeles in the mid 80’s is when I was bitten by the car’s viruses. My friends were driving early Mustang V8 or 60’s VW Bug for me I’m the import guy. Starting with KE70,  AE86 then the Civic EF. I moved back to Thailand in late 90’s and was driving a few trucks before I buy this BMW 2002 in 2010 when my father passed away.
My father was a Toyota guy, he has all the Ke’s but I know that he really like the 02 but couldn’t afford them back in the day.  So this BMW is just a reminder of my father. When I got the car it was stock looking numbers matching white square taillights and as a classic car it has the mind of its own. I would try to start it and it just wouldn’t turn over and when the mechanic arrives on the scene with one turn of the key it would start right up, this continued a few times and one day I got a chance to get under and see the condition of the car.
At that moment I decided that the car need a complete make over for safety reasons from rust everywhere. I also want to make the car reliable so in goes the 1UZ fe, new set of gas-a-just and set of skyline brakes. Then the rust repairs, wider archs. It went on for a few month until the great flood came, I was lucky to get the car out in time but not the interiors.  It was destined to be a race car.
After a few race the rear axles are difficult to come. It is time for another upgrade, the subframes were changed to S13, the new 3UZ vvti engine moved back about 7″ from the previous UZ, Ohlins DFV on all corners and went with GTR calipers and EBC Yellow Stuff.
The car ran really well on the tracks and occasionally hooning on the local roads.  After that there are a few body mod to accommodate 16″ and now 17″ 8/9 wide.

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