1995 Nissan Silva - High-End "Hybrid"

Performance, audio and style. This combined approach to design juggles these three distinct categories with the goal to build the ultimate hybrid vehicle. If only incorporating the three key aspects into a car was as easy as juggling apples. Many have tried, but few have succeeded in creating a well-rounded high-end car like this. Scott Buwalda took his 1995 Nissan and turned it into most aspiring tuners' dream car.

SpeedStarting out as the bare frame of Buwalda's '95 240SX IASCA Expert SQ vehicle, the project began with a clean slate. The foundation of the car is a 500hp twin-turbo Nissan Skyline RB26DETT engine. Using this particular engine came with a major caveat - in order to correctly install it without compromising performance, the car had to be converted to right-hand-drive. No easy feat, it required the firewall from a Silvia, some serious cutting and welding, and even recreating the factory asphaltic barrier between the new firewall to replicate the original. Even S14 experts have trouble identifying the completed car's true heritage. For more on the performance side of Buwalda's ride, check out the November issue of Super Street magazine.

StyleOne of the distinct features of the install are the four amplifiers mounted against the rear window. Buwalda needed a unique way to show them off of course. "We decided to motorize the back window up and down to show off the amps' internals," he explains. The rear window was removed and a mold was made. Using two layers of 22-ounce marine-grade fiberglass (the same thickness used for boat hulls) and two gallons of resin, a fiberglass replica window was created. To this day most people think the rear window is actual glass.

Sealing the new window against the elements required much more work than building and motorizing it. An entire water channel system had to be created to route water away from the amps and out of the car. Buwalda welded portions of the window channel together and used a special right-angle rubber edging, creating what looks like a factory-original hatchback. Next, he scoured the woodworking magazines for just the right hinge. "We opted for a stainless steel 120-degree hinge most often used in high-end cabinetry" says Buwalda, "To make this work, we needed to establish a flat and very strong mounting point for the hinges." To that end, Buwalda welded 1/4" thick, hot-rolled steel brackets to the unibody ceiling. The stainless steel hinges were also welded rather than bolted to the new mounting points, ensuring no flexing when the window is raised and lowered by two Select Products 6" Acme linear actuators. Additionally, a mercury tilt-switch makes sure the window can't motorize when the trunk is open.

SoundWith the major fabrication completed, the focus shifted to the sound side of this build. The entire interior received a spray of catalyzed bed-liner (read Rhino-liner). This provides a solid, consistent surface foundation and virtually eliminates the potential for rust. On top of the new coating, the front of the car received a double layer of B-Quiet sheet damping material. Lastly, a layer of B-Quiet's laminated decoupling pad was applied to same area to ensure the listener hears music, not the 500 horses crammed under the hood.

Bring In The EngineersUnderstanding the bulk of the audio installation may just require an electrical engineering degree as practically every single piece of gadgetry was heavily modified. The source unit, a Denon DCT-Z1, received this treatment from JK Labs. The mods include newly designed hardware to upgrade digital clocking and oscillation (which increases the sampling rate and lowers distortion), converting to a 75-ohm silver coaxial digital output, adding remote control panel electronics and removing all of the hardware not needed for the final design. This, in turn, basically results in a custom source unit in a DCT-Z1 box.