Our Very Own: Pulse's SR Powered S13

Heart of the Machine

Keep a pulse

This is the third S13 I've owned and the second one I've built. The first one is what got me here, and the one in the middle is the reason this one exists.

I got my first S13 in 2017, a 1991 hatchback, manual, completely stock dual cam KA, in the OEM maroon red. I drove it for years and loved it. I was already getting into drifting by then, but that car is what pushed me to actually drive and figure out what drifting was going to be for me. I got comfortable working on a KA and on the chassis in general, did some mods, and had my fun with it.

Then I started spending time around Wolfgang and Tanner and a few other local guys, and I got the itch for an X chassis. I sold that S13 in May of 2019 for seven thousand dollars, and people thought that was insane at the time. Funny thinking about it now, because nobody would blink at that today. A clean KA hatch with AC and full interior for seven grand would be a deal. A month later I was in the JZX81.

That's where I really started trying to become a better driver, but I always had it in the back of my head that I'd end up in another S chassis. I told people that when I sold the first one. It just happened sooner than I expected.

Finding it

In late 2020 I sold the JZX81 to a friend from Instagram out in California, and started seriously looking. I knew what I wanted: a Silvia, and an SR20. I was already comfortable driving right hand drive from the JZX, but I'd wanted a Silvia for years and I wanted to know what an SR felt like.

I found one in New York. Clean Silvia K's, full interior, no AC but everything else there, lowered, sitting on Advan Model 5s. That OEM plus look a lot of people go for. The motor was a Faction Motorsports build, and the guy who owned it had connections to Frontstreet Drift Club. I reached out, and it sold before I could make any real plans.

I was bummed for a couple weeks. Kept looking, saw a few others, and got real close to pulling the trigger on one. Then, that same car came up again, listed by a different guy in New York. I reached out to him and to the original seller, who told me the new owner tends to buy a car, keep it a bit, and move it along.

That was Rob Kushmick, and he couldn't have been any cooler about our plan to get that car. I told him we were going to fly out and drive it back to Texas.. sight unseen, all the way across the country. He was completely down, and did his best to prepare the car for the trip.

Zay Kanalez and Kevin White came with me, all Drift Team HyperStyle at the time. We got to the car and knew it was cammed, but it wasn't running right whatsoever, so we spent a while messing with the timing just trying to get it good enough to leave. Then we got in and went.

A white Nissan S13 Silvia parked on an outdoor paved lot at a car show, with other cars, trees, and people visible in the background under a cloudy sky.

The drive home is its own story and it's getting its own post. But in the meantime, the short version:

We flew to New York on New Year's, in the middle of COVID, to pick up a car nobody in the group had ever seen. Seven hours straight off the plane with no sleep, three of us packed into a coupe, breathing gas fumes the whole way because the tank was leaking. We found out how badly when we stopped to fill up, went inside, and came back out to nine gallons on the ground. We crossed the country in three days on a quarter of the coolant the car needed and it never overheated once.

Pulse's pink S13 Silvia drift car racing on a track with white tire smoke and a blurred forest background.

The Build

Back in Texas I got it sorted. Fixed the timing, redid part of the harness and wiring, got it running right. It turned into a genuinely good car and I daily drove it, which I loved.

Then an older guy pulled out in front of me and essentially totaled it. He was at fault, so after a fight with insurance to keep them from writing it off, I got paid out directly for repairs.

That's when the build really started. We chopped the front end off, welded in a good core support, got the frame pulled, and I started putting everything I'd been collecting in my head for years into the car.

Team Burst/Pink Style/N-Style, and Donkei Style, which at the time was alive and well through Frontstreet Drift Club and Faction Motorsports. I loved those cars and the way they drove them. Casey at ShirtsTuckedIn and Jesse Streeter were both equally big for me too. But the biggest one by far: Drift Team Animal Style. I've admired them since the day I got into drifting and that hasn't changed. What they've brought to American drifting, and what they're still doing with it, is the standard I measure my own cars against.

The car came together as essentially an Origin catalog build: Type 2 hood, Racing Line kit, Combat eye, roof wing, GT wing. Gram Lights 57DRs, refreshed suspension all around. And pink, of course.

I drove it for the next year and it was the best time. I was in university, so I had time to actually spend with the car, on the ground, sorting things out. I was driving KnuckleUp Texas, which was still fairly new then, and the style at those events added so much to it. Final Bout was coming to Texas under Special Stage South. Texas was finding its footing in the larger drift world, in driving and in style both. I look back on that stretch a lot.

Losing it

I was working at a dealership to cover tuition and housing, living in a house with roommates that made it affordable, with a garage to work in. Then the lease got pulled out from under us and we had two weeks to move.

An apartment was the only thing I could afford, which meant no garage, which meant paying to store the S13 on top of insuring two cars. It didn't add up. I sold it.

I'm still bummed about it. Everything I'd done to it got undone by the next owner and it ended up in Tennessee looking like a different car.

I wasn't getting out of drifting though. I sold my daily alongside it, picked up a BRZ, and drifted that while I finished school, knowing that the second I graduated and landed a job I'd put everything into getting back into an S13.

A New Beginning

That's what I did. First job, saved up, and then leaned on good friends. Kevin White helped me source a shell and a pile of parts for it, and through other friends I put together a motor, transmission, and everything else for the swap. Then I spent about a year assembling it alongside Zay — Thank you, Zay!

That's the car today. People who don't know assume it's still the Silvia, or that it's a replica of it, and in some ways it is. But the goal with this one was different from the start. Half the interior is stripped, it's caged, and the engine bay is stitch welded, same as the Silvia was, which I'd recommend to anybody. I had more knowledge going into this build and more financial backing behind it, so I got to be more deliberate about it.

This one is meant to be the car I level up in. The one I push myself in as a driver and use to work out the style I actually want. A reshell into a Silvia is coming eventually, but the heart of what that car was is still here.

Mechanically it's built around the same things. S13 SR20DET, Tomei Poncams, a bottom mount Sinco manifold keeping the Garrett T28 in the stock location, and a PBM high mount intercooler. Everything I loved about that first SR is here: immediate spool, great power. #ClubT28, if you know you know.

It sits on Feal coilovers, standard rates with the radial bearing upgrade, so it feels just right. B-knuckle up front, because there's no other way to go, and basically the full PBM Limit Break catalog in the rear. And it's back on 57DRs, easily my favorite monoblock wheels.

A pink widebody Nissan S13 Silvia with a lowered suspension and Origin Drift Line kit, parked on an asphalt lot with trees in the background under a cloudy sky.

SPEC: Pulse s13

Engine

SR20DET · Tomei Poncams · Tomei head gasket · Tomei oversized oil pan · Sinco bottom mount manifold · Garrett T28 · PBM high mount intercooler · ID1050x injectors · EMU Black

Suspension

Feal coilovers (8k/5k), radial bearing upgrade · Heatmaker B-knuckle · S14 front LCAs · ISR tension rod · Nismo front brace · Full PBM Limit Break rear + refreshed OEM LCA

Exterior

Origin Type 2 hood · Origin Drift Line kit · Origin underpanel kit · Origin T3 +55mm fenders · Origin Combat eye · Infamous Aero roof wing · 50/50 tails · DMAX trunk wing

Drivetrain

Z32 transmission + Mazworx adapter kit · ACT Stage 3 clutch · One-piece driveshaft · Welded differential

Wheels

Rays Gram Lights 57DR

Front: 17x9J +12, 235/40/17 @ 60 psi
Rear: 18x9.5J +12, 235/40/18 @ 40 psi

Interior

Thrash Racing Circuit Spec Beta One driver · Thrash Racing Circuit Spec Alpha passenger · Thrash Racing 330mm wheel · Cusco bolt-in cage · Greddy 60mm multi-gauges · Hitman shift knob · ShirtsTuckedIn shift boot

A bright pink customized Nissan S13 Silvia coupe with widebody fenders and a lowered suspension, parked in a residential driveway in front of a garage.

Where It's Going

The last two years have been building it, taking it to events, sorting out problems and finding new ones. It finally feels like it's in a good place, which is exactly when it's going under the biggest set of changes since I first finished it.

It's getting a full refresh. New color and kit, suspension, and a real focus on the interior this time, styling and audio both. I've got one of the Relic head units set aside for it, one of my favorites, and I'm looking forward to getting it in there.

After all of it, this car is finally going to be what I set out for it to be, and what I'd hoped the Silvia would become. Getting to build it now, alongside Pulse, in all the ways I dreamed about building that first one, with the events and the driving and the friends around me, feels like everything landing at once.

Here's to the rest of 2026 and everything after it.

Increase the Pulse!