I had a great conversation the other night with my dude Taylour on the FB page. It was down the line of swapping engines and of course the reasons for it.
I’ve been in love with the M30 since 2004.
In those earlier years of F31club, we were all into tuning, drifting and motor swaps. I was one of the members that didn’t get that far. The obstacles of life got in to me in my early 20s, so I had to focus on those.
While I loved it.. I never got a chance to apply it. I did have however, gathered up a few JDM parts.
Fast forward to 2016-2019.
I got a new M30, blue grey storm, and actually did a lot of maintenance to the car. I started to put some JDM aesthetics on it. I didn’t even lower the car. Even showed it at 2 Radwood events.
In all honesty, I am very content with a stock M30. I don’t have to lower it, I don’t have to have a motor swap. I don’t have to drift.
That is how much I enjoy the F31. I always tell people, I have to love the car stock before I could love it for tuning. I say that because the F31 doesn’t have much as far as tuning goes.
What reinforced the notion was when I went to Hawaii in 2016 and met with Mark and Renny. We talked and I told them that I just want a nice clean M30.. doesn’t need to have anything, just a nice car… and they both said the same thing. It was like, “we have nothing to prove” and I felt it was the best feeling.
A week later, I went to Japan for the 30th Nissan Leopard meeting. I did expect drift cars, motor swaps and blow off valves… and it was pretty much the opposite!!! Ueda-san was the only one with a motor swap (RB25DE) and while a few people did have aero on.. most of the cars were pretty stock.
So the questions that I asked: Why haven’t people swapped in motors? Big intercoolers or blow off valves and everyone said they love stock style.
The last few years, I’ve been very content with my M30s (coupe and vert) and only wanted some simple aesthetics for them.
Honestly, the idea of tuning was never really a goal to chase in the more recent years.
I was very happy with my M30 and had some cool ideas for it such as the Zenki front end and digital gauge cluster (all have been done by Itabashi-san).