Check out this awesome feature that Larry Chen did of my M56 now that it is complete an running at Irwindale! We shook the car down for the first time today on the high banks of Irwindale to get it ready for some ride-a-longs tomorrow. Big thanks to Kevin and Sergio for helping me get this thing wrapped up and ready to run for the weekend!

Click here to see the Speedhunters feature

The car getting sooooo close to completion now. This will be my final installment of photos before the car runs its first event this weekend at XDC in Irwindale. If you are in southern California, come out to Irwindale this Saturday to watch the up and coming drifters of America tear up the track.

To get things started… I had to make front seat brackets for the car since no one makes any for M35s. Nothing fancy, just some plate steel, similar to most bolt in seat brackets.

Then I installed my DJ Safety fire suppression system. I wanted to make sure that we had a four stage system to protect all the passengers in the car.

Got the roll cage padding in… and! Kevin wired up the V-LED’s strip in the ceiling so that I can switch on interior lights and all the passengers can find their harnesses at night events!

My new Recaro seats came in and they went right into the car! Just in time for the weekend. They fit great and I cannot wait till we have our first 4 passenger ride!

Kevin and Serg have been a huge help wrapping this car up. Among other things, they have been hammering on the engine to get it fired up. They got all the wiring done and ready to go to the dyno. We will see how this thing does in the morning.

I had these interior panels wrapped in carbon to cover up all the old switches and vents so that I could mount my new switch panel.

Here they are in the car with my new switch panel and my Clarion in dash monitor. I will be hooking up a rear view camera to it to give another perspective to the passengers.

I have some more work to do before the weekend. So come on out if you want to see this car in person.

As we are coming towards the end of the build, I wanted to get one more update posted before we get to another intense week of work. The car is coming together very nicely so far, Kevin and Sergio have been cranking on the car with me to get all the wiring and plumbing finished up on it. Before that though, Kevin got the DG-5′s mounted up in the car, we have had great experiences with them in competition so it is nice to get a set on the M56 as well.

Then he got cranking on the wiring for the car. It looks insane right now, but Kevin is a wiring genius. It’ll be perfect when he’s finished with it.

Testing out the tail lights! These LED’s look real sweet.

I had to make a mount for the cut off switch next. I was having trouble figuring out where to fit it and how to make it look good. I was working with this space…

So I cut some metal and fit this into the space.

And to go with the suede/wood/carbon dash, I wrapped it in 3M carbon vinyl. This was my first time working with this stuff, and I have to say that it works really well. Check out this finish.

The brake and clutch lines are now all finished up too.

And I got the power steering all plumbed up and ready to go.

A lot of little things left to do on the car so it will be another long week!

Just wanted to update everyone on my recent travels to Abu Dhabi for the Formula Drift invitational at the Yas Marina Circuit. It was by far the most amazing race track I have ever competed on and the facilities were beyond first class. The Yas Marina Circuit is a recently built Formula 1 track with high speed sweeping corners, tight 180 turns, and a very unique colorful look to the whole track.

Since this was a special invitational event there were no championship points on the line so all of the drivers could relax and put on an exciting show for the over 5,000 fans in attendance. We were blown away by the enthusiasm from the fans in Abu Dhabi who got their first taste of high level professional drifting.

Even though the drivers were relaxed and having fun once the competition started we were full on. I qualified 2nd and felt really comfortable on the track. This was the first event running on Hankook Tires and they were incredible. I have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming 2011 season coming out on Hankook rubber.

The first battle in the top 8 was against Tony Brakohiapa in the Mustang and he put up a good fight but our run was perfect and we moved on. Next up I ran against Tanner Foust in his final drifting event as he is retiring from the sport this year. Tanner is one of the toughest competitors out there and it felt great to beat him in the semi finals knowing that this may very well be the last time we ever battle it out in a Formula Drift competition. After that it was on to the finals against the Norwegian Champion and Formula Drift newcomer Fredric Aasbo who is wide open and really fun to run against. We had a fierce battle matching each other in every turn but unfortunately I had a rear axle break in the final run and had to settle for 2nd.

All in all it was an experience I will never forget and was honored to be a part of the 1st professional drifting event at the Yas Marina Circuit. This event only fueled my excitement and anticipation more for the 2011 season and I can’t wait for Formula D round 1 at Long Beach on April 9th.

Click here for a link to the gallery from the event. Thank you for all of your support!

I just picked up my SSR’s from Tanabe USA! I thought they were going to be coming in next month but they made it on the earlier container. I went with SSR MS-1′s, the full mesh looks awesome on this car.

18×11 in the rear.

Mounted up a set of our new Hankook RS-3′s and test fitted them on the car. They fit perfect!

Now that the car is back from paint, I’ve been smashing on this car trying to get as much done before we all head out for Abu Dhabi on Sunday. I wanted to get the engine fully plumbed with fuel, oil and water before I left. So I started with installing the fuel pumps in the Fuel Safe fuel cell and dropped it in the car.

I whipped up this sweet little cover so that I do not need to have a firewall in the car. This box will clamp shut with dzus fasteners and keep all the lines and fittings outside of the cabin.

After the fuel was done I start working on my new Mishimoto radiator setup. I wanted to try something new and made hard lines out of aluminum. So first I made adapters for the engine side.

I picked up some tubes and cut em up and taped em to get a good test fit.

Then had them welded up… made these mounts to hold the rad in place, and mounted the overflow tank.

I went with a FC oil cooler because they work really well and it fits perfect in the upper grill opening. Got that mounted and ran the lines for the cooler, oil filter, and accusump.

I needed to make brake lines for the car, and I got the idea from Kevin to make hard lines with AN fittings. I got some bulkheads to go through the shock tower and bent up the lines.

I wanted to see how the new dash looked in the car so we popped it in for a look.

I also made this gauge setup for the cluster.

So I got the M back from Sam’s Auto Land, and let me just say that they have done an awesome job! The pearl came out so good! I have been slamming away on the car for the past few days so I got a big update…

My new Seibon Carbon trunk! I masked off the areas that were chrome on the factory trunk to be carbon on this trunk.

First thing I did was pull the front and rear subframes so I could clean off all the suspension and repaint them.

Then we swung the engine in so we could start mounting everything up to get all the plumbing done.

Got a lot more work to do!

I wanted to make sure that the interior was more than just a stripped down “drift car” interior… So I started with the dash, which was this tan and brown color…

I cut the bottom half off and will be mounting all the gauges and switches on this upper portion, then I had it wrapped in black suede!

The door panels were the next to modify. Here is the stock door panel…

But instead of just throwing the whole thing away, I took the door panel apart and kept just the upper piece with the handle in it as well.

I then had this portion re-wrapped in black suede too.

You bet your butt I am keeping this woodgrain.

Jim from Sam’s Auto Land sent me some pictures of the progress of the M56 as it goes through the paint process. Now that the interior is done, Jim moved on to the door jams. They removed the doors to make sure they got every last visible area on the car for a real clean look.

Here are all the extra parts that were removed to paint inside and out.

Seibon got me a carbon fiber hood and trunk for the M. These parts will help me cut some weight out of an already big and heavy car.

First stage!

Paint!

Heres the Seibon carbon fiber trunk all painted up and ready to go onto the M.

Sam’s Auto Land did a great job painting this car all the way inside and out! The color is Nissan 370Z White Pearl, and I cannot wait to see it in the sun! Thanks guys!

I got these images from Jim over at Sam’s Auto Land of the progress of the paint on the M56. Looks like it is almost done!