Project FR-S : The 4 Year Update Part 1

Author/Photos : Tj Sanethong

Well here it is, the long awaited project car update. 4 years worth of content that I have been wanting to share but never made a real effort to do so. I scrolled through the thousands of photos and it made me realize how much has changed. Its cliche to say but my car really is an extension of me. You’ll get to read what I was going through in real time as I was building my emotional support vehicle essentially. No its not a Sad boy car but there are moments where it did pull on my heart strings a bit, even more so now that i look back at the number of people that are no longer a part of this journey. It is bitter sweet but it is super important to remember that at that time the people, places and things played a significant role in creating a memory. Lets dive into it, 2021 here we come.

This was pre drift era of the car. I was getting it ready for my first track day and figured I would let my mother experience a Zeta III.

Ebay supplied the front spoiler while Bayson R supplied the type 1 TRD style skirts. I was itching to see it on the car

I liked the aero so much i didn’t bother taking it off to paint match. This was taken in long island the day after my first drift day. Yes, this car took a beating Friday night and i drove it straight to New York after. Incredible car.

I struggled a lot at this event. It started off okay but I had no idea what I was doing. The dampers were set too stiff, and the tire pressure was set too high causing uncontrollable spins. It took me a few events to really get the hang of it, but for the first event it went okay.

Jayro was able to get the only picture of me that day. I was definitely getting off track to assess way the car was in limp mode. Turns out we pulled the wrong fuse to disable traction control and stability control. Whoops.

At this point the car didn’t change too much from the previous post where I installed conversion hubs, coilovers and adapters to get the car sitting right. It was and still is one of the best daily vehicles I own.

I wish I stopped touching the car at this stage and enjoyed it for a while. Final Bout was coming to Thompson for the first and last time ever. It gave me a reason to pull off the aero and rattle can it in my mothers backyard. I couldn’t be caught at that event with unpainted aero, or so i thought.

For some reason I thought it was a good idea to order a set of 215/40 Falken 615k’s instead of a 215/45 like I normally do. They look pretty cool but I couldn’t get the car any lower so the wheel gap was really bothering me. A spacer in the rear did help a bit but the front was just not doing it for me at the time. Shout outs to the homie Devin for taking these film shots. Fun fact, this was our first meetup after a year of being internet homies.

I held off on switching to the winter setup for as long as I could. I knew I had to get it done before the first snowfall though. New England is unpredictable so it was hard to gauge.

Eventually I caved and threw the car into the newest version of winter mode. Last uear I just had it on steelies I found on marketplace. This year I decided to make it a little less ugly. Anthony hooked me up with a pair of Volk CV-Pros he had laying around a while ago so I decided to make use of them. I ordered up 215/45 Bridgestone Blizzaks for the CV-Pros and the pair of evo 8 wheels I had laying around. Looks pretty cool if you ask me.

It also drove great too! The car would struggle in deep snow which was expected considering that it is still a lightweight sports car but it did really well for the most part. It was a ton of fun to drive on the street. Before I got into sim driving, this was my off season practice.

While it was still cold, I was shopping around marketplace for a potential new look. I was lucky enough to find a set of Desmond WiseSports local to me that that just so happened to be owned by a friend. I really didn’t want to get rid of my TC105N’s but I had no storage in my apartment for them. So we traded wheels and I took it upon myself to completely disassemble the wheels to clean and refinish the wheels before throwing them on the car.

Not only were they my first true mulit-piece wheel, it was my first set of double staggered wheels. These were 17×8.5 +30 /18×9+30 which were pretty neutral for a stock body car. I fell in love with these wheels almost instantly.

Before I could enjoy it, tragedy struck (literally) and the car was hit by a wack job when I was leaving work one night. The damage was all cosmetic thankfully but I was really bummed about it.

I think I brought this on myself though. The reason I say this is on that particular day Origin Labo released their 25mm rear over fender for the zn6 which I was really into. I said that the only reason I would go that route is if the car got hit or i boof it at the track. Well I am here to confirm that the universe is for sure listening.

Despite the hiccup, I proceeded with the spring plans. I mounted a pair of 215/45 Falken 615K’s in the front and a pair of 225/40 Lexani Uhp all seasons on in the rear. I wasn’t completely sold on it yet because the aero wasn’t on the car but it was slowly growing on me.

Then it started to really come together. I pulled the quarter where I was hit and installed a replica TRD Zenki rear diffuser along with the rest of the aero to give it a little something in the rear section of the car. It really needed spats, I just couldn’t commit to one at the time. I liked them all.

The height of the car always bothered me. BC racing coilovers got the car at a decent height but I always wanted to slam the car. I was pretty maxed out on the coilover without removing the collars so I started looking for a new solution.

Jayro was generous enough to gift me his old Stance 25mm drop arms that he used on his VAB STI. They hardware was rusted in true New England fashion. Thankfully Stance USA sells replacement hardware, so I cleaned them up before installing them on the car.

As you can see here, its at a respectable street car height. It’s just too tall for what I really wanted.

After several months of waiting, TF Works finally got me my Origin Labo 25mm rear overs.

A quick little mock up.

It fit surprisingly well. It needed some trimming but it was pretty close for the most part.

I love taking the car to do normal things. I think it spent more time as a grocery getter, city commuter than it did as a toy/track car.

I got around to cutting out the stock lca bolts (the toe arm bolts were frozen) and installed the new to me Stance 25mm drop lower control arms and god speed toe arms. Say what you want, these toe arms have been awesome and they were so cheap. Year 4 with zero issues and still has full range of adjustability.

I really loved this era of the car. I know I said that when the car was on Wedsports, but look at this. Its a thing of beauty, aside from the shitty paint on the aero. The front needed some adjustment but that would involve a front end overhaul.

I took it to Fieldworks

I took it to get Pho. I was obsessed with driving this car because it looked so dang cool.

It didn’t happen when I was on the street but I noticed that I had a binding issue at full lock which ended up being the endlinks. If you haven’t seen it before, this style endlink attaches to the coilover which would limit the full range of angle.

The remedy I found was from the beautiful land of chicago. One of the SL Spirit members posted a thread with a video showing us that if you remove the factory style endlink and use Acura Rsx endlinks it would fix all of our problems.

So I did just that. It required drilling into my control arms but I was so happy with how playful the steering became and it relieved the binding issue.

Alright, not my proudest moment here. While I was prepping the car for the next event I ended up raising the car a bit in the rear. I can’t remember why I did it but man do i regret it. I’m sure the car drove amazing, it just looks like another FR-S, not my FR-S.

Got a fresh alignment. Its pretty close to OEM spec aside from the camber. I maxed out the front camber plates and had the rears adjusted to 2 degrees of negative camber.

Then I took it to the track and had a time! Devin caught another moment on film that i will cherish forever. Thank you man!

Post track days used to end with awesome food in Worcester. I don’t do this anymore but Coney Island was one of the go to spots. Man I miss this place.

The New York homies pulled up on us for the last event of that season. Unfortunately I didn’t drive but I was able to secure spot for the photo op.

I had serious fomo after that event and convinced Devin it was a good idea to hit my favorite street spot one night. We were there for a few hours before calling it quits.

If you’ve made it this far thank you for sticking around for the entertainment. I realized there was far too much content to cover in one post so look out for the rest as I slowly roll them out. There might be some other posts sprinkled between them but all of the updates on this car should be out fairly soon. Until then Keep Stylin and Keep Smilin. Aloha ya’ll!