by Ainsley Jacobs (and continuing coverage by Erik Jacobs)
Hi, I’m Ainsley and I believe that bad decisions make great stories later, especially when it comes to cars. Since I was little, I only loved two things — horses and cars. I’ve been fortunate enough to turn my passion for cars into a career with P.TEN Marketing, but I truly do love all things horsepower (pun intended).
When my husband, Erik, proposed on August 12, 2010, he stacked the deck in his favor by not only giving me a ring (and ice cream) but also a ’93 Mazda Miata. How could I say no to that?! We were married in 2012, and I slowly upgraded my new-to-me NA6 over the years.
Although it was a fairly high-miles car (200K+ miles on the clock) with flaking white paint, it was a super rare C-package so I wanted to make it nice given that I planned to keep it forever. I had it resprayed and sprung for a new convertible top to change the factory beige unit over to a black one. I’m not pointing fingers here, but *someone* (Hint: not me) left the windows open one day and it rained. The interior ended up becoming gross with mildew and mold… so, I had almost an entirely new interior put in, too. It wound up being pretty damn nice!
Fast forward a few years to November of 2016, and my beloved Miata was murdered. An inattentive guy drifted into a turn lane, drove straight through an intersection, and hit me head-on at about 40 mph.
Unfortunately, I had my foot on the clutch at the time as I was going to make a left turn into my subdivision. I basically tried to stop a speeding Honda Accord with my left foot and wound up breaking two metatarsals as a result. Lucky for me, it had rained earlier in the day and the fact that the road was still wet helped lessen the impact, as my little Mazda slid about 2.5 car lengths back from where the actual impact occurred.
22 comments
I spent a lot of time on G20.net back in the day when I had my P10. Somehow even among all those Primera enthusiasts I never learned about an AWD P10. This checks a lot of boxes for me being out in Colorado, will be following this closely because I might just have to copy you.
What was your username on Gnet? I was SR20DETg20girl. Small word. And I highly recommend NOT following me… just buy a T4 to start with and save yourself the headaches/cash. 😉
Very cool project and I’m excited to see where the build goes from here!
Thanks for reading and the kind words, Andy! 🙂
OMG. I have to check with my friend as that actually might have been his old Z4M. did it have chrome wheels when you bought it?
No, it had the factory M wheels. It belonged to an older gentleman, even though it came from a dealership I have his name and info. Woulda been a cool “small world” story if not, though!
OI!
Where is Part II?! I read this with much interest and then… cliff hanger!
I can’t wait to read more about yr G20 so hurry up! 😀
I can’t wait to read more, too! 😂 Hopefully we can get another update posted soon… the shop that has the car now had made some good progress (rear end in, etc) but then Covid came and shut down the supply chain so things have been on hold yet again. Supposedly they’re starting work on it again in the next couple weeks. Fingers crossed!
Start a collection- get a GTi-R next 😊
As tempting as that is… no. 😄 I’ve already got a RWD N/A car and a (soon to be) AWD turbo car both for road racing so I’m thinking now I need a supercharged drag car… *evil laugh*
If anyone else has poor decision skills, my wrecked T4 is for sale.
Thank you for posting this while I was sober. 😉
Still got it? I’m slightly insane and want to build an AWD P10
Nice build, i was lucky to buy an original T4 eGT saloon from the netherlands. One day i hope to do an sr20det build aswell. So far away and the same passion for a p10, great!!!
Wrecked p10+t25, lost to the impound. Think my license was in there too. Post updates soon please! Been holding my breath for like a year, not because the police showed up doing breathalyzers though.
I know the guy you bought the wrecked T4 from, A good friend of mine was literally flying to Washington from Florida to buy it and while on the plane the car got rear ended. I was so heartbroken over that. That car was absolutely beautiful, I have some pictures of it before it was destroyed, if you want them.
I can’t wait to see more, as I have a P10 GT (I’m in France) ans would like to do an AWD+turbo conversion on it, and I found absolutely no infos on what mods are required to get the tranny on 🤔
The GTI-R Pulsar transaxle will bolt to an SR20DET block, with some caveats —
1) The AWD block is actually thinner in some parts than the FF block. This helps accommodate where the GTI-R transaxle goes “around” the block.
2) An FR block cannot be used
3) An FF block can be shaved/cut/rewelded in order to fit the transaxle. The casting is mostly the same, except where it isn’t. A quality/skilled welder can handle this block modification.
I am backed up on articles, and the project is a bit stalled. However, I am HOPING to write another segment soon that details some of the transmission-y bits.
This is a super cool project. It’s been over 3 years. The people demand an update!
(Unless the update is “project abandoned”, in which case please let me live with my delusional fantasy of AWD turbocharged P10s in Noeth America in peace…)
Update please