The World’s fastest and most powerful Nissan Pao….for now!

At 354bhp and 303 ft/lb of torque, the Pink Pao is easily the world’s fastest, most powerful Pao* - maybe even the most powerful K10 chassis’d Nissan/Pike Factory car.

Why are we writing about our car again, and not pens or ink or book covers? Well, you may remember, good readers, that when we imported our little pink car from Japan in 2017, we knew we'd adopted something a bit ornery and special which would require us to maintain a certain lifestyle for it. 

The blog that recorded the first few months of the car's life in the UK can be seen here, but this is the next chapter, detailing what we've done since with our Nissan Pao x Silvia SR20DET-engined machine. If you've read my blogs before, or follow me on any socials, you'll know that we keep a small fleet of 'interesting' Japanese vehicles, and if that's your thing too, you can follow us on Instagram at @inkymolesmotors.

Like any of our projects, this was something we put ourselves and our energy into. People LOVE this car and smile and laugh wherever we take it, laughing in disbelief as we tell them the current bhp, as the sun bouncing off the wheels blinds them and the little kids point at the pink and coo. Just like our gallery, our shows, records, our chocolate projects and our radio stations before it, and everything else that's to come, we know that our projects often give other people enjoyment; they’re neither designed to make money (though they sometimes do), nor to satisfy any brief but our own. And it's not like we started this project with a brief, I think with this one we're writing that as we go along!

Both a show car, a driving-wherever-you-want car and a potential track car, this beastie emerged from its time with Dynodaze a much-improved and upgraded version of itself; a makeover of the likes seen in car programmes on the telly: stronger, safer, faster, tidier, cleaner, more stylish, but still very much the one-of-a-kind car that first attracted us to an auction thousands of miles away.

So, for those who share a penchant for the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) car scene: here's what happened next.

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~ THE BIG STUFF ~

Engine

On track at Silverstone in the summer of 2018 we were into only our second lap when the engine thrust out one of those noises that you Do Not Want To Hear. Being of unknown age, around 30 years old and subjected to who knew what kind of life, the original SR20DET had finally given in.

That was the end of our track day, but it was the beginning of a new engine era: a trip to JDM Garage allowed us to review the four rebuilt engines on offer there, glinting in the window. The chosen engine went in with a GT28 turbo, a new flywheel, stage 3 clutch and a winged sump.

While the engine was being swapped, the gearbox was subjected to an overhaul as well as the diff; new brake discs and pads, and we changed out the alternator. 

Do we buy this one? Or this one?

THIS one.

Roll Cage

We knew that we'd need a roll cage fitted as the car got faster and more powerful, so we asked HDF Motorsport to build one for us. One of the most awkward installs of his life, the tight spaces of the Pao required yoga-like welding moves for 6' 2" owner Billy.

Wafting about the HDF premises like it works there.

'A Comfortable Working Environment'

Cage in progress.

Wheels

The car made its way from Japan on red and silver 1980s Star Sharks, and although we were fond of these and the fact they were a recognisable link with 'the car that Nomuken drove on TV', they were tired and had suffered in their very long lives. We took them to Isaac Brain at Rimscarnated who treated them to a full restoration, widening the back rims by half an inch and blasting off the old red paint. The rims were polished to a ludicrous high-maintenance gleam (we use Peek cream to keep them shiny) while the red paint was replaced by one of over 100 silver paint options - the choosing alone took over two hours, comparing swatches and shades.

And the finishing touch was a single pink stud, hand-painted with enamel by Mole (took me HOURS) and fresh centre caps.

Here are some gratuitous shots:

Progress shot by Rimscarnated

Centre caps by Barrel Bros.

This original pink was close, but not close enough, so was swapped for a near-perfect matched 'Pink 200' by Humbrol Enamel, hand-painted on.

Photograph by Rimscarnated

Photograph by Rimscarnated

(We made him some stickers to say thanks.)

Headlamps

In a bid for better night vision and 'to help people see' the hard-to-spot noisy pink thing hooning down the road, we swapped the factory headlamps for LED versions, more commonly seen on a Jeep. They're an almost perfect fit, and give flexibility with their very human-like ring option or full loving gaze:

Wheel arches 

Since it had always bugged us that the wheel arches made the car look like it was floating way above its wheels when viewed from a distance, we got them painted in matching Hellrosa (an 80s Mercedes colour) by Keith Ellis at Uncle Keith's Paintshop.

They'd needed a bit of a wriggle to get them to fit, and they're still not a super-slick match to the car, but it looks so much more 'together' now - especially from across the track.

Suspension!

The car's also been fitted with a Tein EDFC coilover suspension system which totally revolutionised the handling. Our first words on returning from a post-fit test drive were "it drives like a normal car!"

More stable, level, comfy and highly adaptable due to its myriad setting options, the car did indeed go from feeling like a lairy unpredictable bounce-fest to a comfy ride you'd be happy to give Great-Grandma a lift to the track in.

And of course, the tiny control box LEDs have been set to pink.

Door cards

We'd bought a tired donor Pao a couple of years ago and kept the door cards, which we hacked hard to modify into a fit for Pink Pao (which had had its battered cards removed early on to allow for roll cage fitting and other work). Serious chopping and slicing was needed to fit them around relocated handles, but once painted Hellrosa-pink and put in place, they brought the car another step closer to 'comfy'.

Digital Dash

We added a Sinco digital dashboard for easier, more immediate sight of the vitals while driving.

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~ THE SMALLER STUFF ~

Gear knob

We re-painted the faded gear knob it came with - a MAC screwdriver handle - in Hellrosa and picked out the lettering in permanent black. Much better!

Steering wheel

Rather than replace the wheel it came with, which is a bit tired but wearing its Japanese drift history with stoicism, we gave the empty horn push centre an identity of its own.

We ordered a stock horn push, took out the badly-printed 'Nissan' logo and replaced it with our own. Since the car is a half-S13 half Pao Francarnstein, we designed a 'Paovia' logo in the style of the Silvia marque and printed it on a brushed aluminium stock.

Tiny Pao

The teeny pull-back-and-go toy Pao we bought from Japan, which arrived in fugly yuckpink, was repainted to match its real-life counterpart!

Tiny Pao now lives on the dashboard.

Original body shell

Proper pinked (Elgrands and Carry van parked behind it in the desktop car park).

RIP BACK AND GO

~ THE NUMBERS ~

354bhp / 303 ft/lb. Here's the most recent dyno print out.

*Ours is certainly only one of two rear-wheel drive Paos in the world, the other is currently being finished in the US by the brave (and now probably empty-pocketed) Roman Vasquez. 

Roman went for 13B rotary power and is currently naturally aspirated, but we know that a satisfyingly big turbo is on the horizon next year!

Showtime!

2020 wasn't the most fruitful year for car shows, but we really didn't do too badly considering. As well as some Exclusive JDM events and a couple of pre-covid track sessions, Pink Pao's last public outing of the year was at a double Exclusive JDM / Go Japan! weekend in September 2020.

With its new bits all in place, Connor at Exclusive JDM kindly invited us and Pink Pao (along with Blue Pao) back for a third time in a year, somehow managing to pull off well-organised and welcoming events in a very difficult pandemic landscape. New to the car show world, Connor's events have a 'less is more' approach with a hand-picked roster of cars representing the full spectrum of JDM machines. This particular weekend he had a post-rainstorm slot at Yakushi! which saw both Paos side by side on an only mildly treacherous grassy slope, the sun beaming down for 8 hours.

Pinkymole was invited to be part of the 'JDM Legends' stand at Go Japan! where we got to take part in the parade: a selection of infamous drift, rare/tuned and show cars taking to the iconic British track accompanied by a lively commentary detailing the specification and history of each one.

Streamed live on the day, Leigh drove the first parade and Sarah the second, alongside the Ayrton Senna NSX, the HKS Hiper Genki S15 and Blitz Nissan Skyline R34 drift car (owned by Garage-D), a rare Subaru SVX,  the V8-powered Fujin Nissan GT-R, the Winfield R32 Skyline replica and a beast of a Porsche 911, with enthusiastic commentary by a narrator who was clearly a fan of the car. Sun-drenched visitors were treated to a mini-drift display while given plenty of time to enjoy the cars cruising past.

Scroll down to watch!

Next

At the time of writing, like all loving built-not-bought car owners, we've got a pile of plans as long as your lockdown to-do list, and we hope to be through most of them by the mid-to-late summer when the car shows reopen for business - and at that point we'll probably be ready to write Pink Pao Blog Part III! 

From where we sit right now on a rainy dull February day that all feels like a long way off, but we hope you enjoyed this run-down, and we're really looking forward to meeting people again in the outdoors with an overpriced coffee; fumbling with sunglasses with one hand and a dyno print-out in the other.

Thanks again to everyone mentioned in this blog who's helped us get the car where we want it to be -sorry about the cuts/burns/strains/scraped knuckles - and everyone we might have unintentionally omitted.

Inkymole's Motors

@inkymolesmotors

Despite it sometimes looking like all I ever do is stay chained to my desk with my hands just loose enough in the manacles to move the pen/cil, we've spent our entire time together ‘doing stuff’ — what used to be called ‘side projects’ in popular terminology are now just ‘projects’; brethren to the main body of what occupies our time, rather than extensions of or competitors to it. 

An important but gradual shift in our perspective, this way of thinking has changed our approach to ‘side projects’ in that they now sit within the brightly-coloured, myriad wobbly circles of the Venn diagram that is Inkymole.

And it means ANYTHING can be ‘a project’.

There are, and have been, many of these in the near-two-and-a-half decades of working together. This is one of them, brought blinking and pale into the sunlight at last!

Ever since I was given a custard yellow 2CV in lieu of a debt owed to my boyfriend, which I threatened not to keep, I've been into cars.

I wasn't going to be - cars were something you got into and went to the shops in, or on holiday; they made you have dirty hands, meant you had to go outside in the cold to 'do things' with them, and cost money, all things I hated. But Dad's series of interesting vehicles, changed every 3 years, piqued me and my sisters' interest, until she became the biker and Ford Escort petrolhead, and I, eventually, reluctantly, became a car owner too. And the 2CV wasn't just any old car; French, with legendary, bouncing suspension, air-cooled with a vertical gear knob in a pattern not seen on any other vehicle, and with a peel-back roof, skinny tyres and an engine you could fix yourself, I was soon outside, in the cold, doing things with my car, spending money on it, and getting mucky hands.

This morning Leigh and I drew up a list of all the cars we've owned together, after a chat with an art director mate who's a proper car nutter (I mean, he has a racing car, in FAST ORANGE). We talked for 28 minutes and agreed to swap car lists. We've had quite a few...with a bit of a theme running through them.

This weekend we took our Nissan Pao and Suzuki Carry to JDMCombe at Castle Combe, Bristol. JDM stands for 'Japanese Domestic Market' - so any vehicle that was made for the Japanese market (though just because it's Japanese car doesn't mean it's JDM!) We were on the 'Rare Breeds' stand, since the Pao (pronounced POW like Batman) had a very limited production run, and although the little Carry did not, what we've done with it is quite unusual.

It was a sunny but windy day (Car Show Hair is a real problem, one I've only solved in the last 48 hours with pigtails and a baseball cap), and the air was heady with the smell of cleaning products, chips and hydrocarbons. I love it; they should make THAT into an air freshener. Having spent weeks preparing your wheels for the show, you turn up, park, and start polishing. Props may be added to dashboards and engine bays, or they may not; additional graphics may have been added for the occasion, and you might also select clothing / nail polish / lippy to tone with your ride (oh wait no, that might be just me). Prizes are given for Show'n'Shine (er, the shiniest) and for Best In Show. You can usually take your car on the track, for which helmets are required, and there's nothing quite so mentally and emotionally liberating as staring at cars going berserk round a track, on two wheels, burning through tyres, sliding sideways into corners, or missing corners altogether.

After ensuring your car is as buff as it can be, it's off for a coffee (standard), a walk around the other cars on your stand, then you might be surprised by the man coming at you with a microphone in hand, at 8.30 in the morning, asking questions about your car!

It can take hours to go round a car show like this, as they're magnets for the thousands of humans attracted to the distinctive shapes and sounds of Japcars, the good, the bad and the ugly. (We like a lot of the ugly ones.)

We'd spent the weeks before working on the vehicles, making little refinements and improvements ready for this first big show of the season. I say 'week'; really, every show is a culmination of everything you've done during the entire time you've owned the car, from its very first wash. In particular though, for this one, we added graphics - Dynodaze, who do the mechanical and fabricating work - Uncle Keith's Paintshop, and our new logo for what has for twenty years been a project, but never had a name or a shape - Inkymole's Motors!



As well as new exhausts made and fitted recently by Dynodaze, with custom manifold gaskets by SubCon Laser, the Pao went out with its from-scratch beautifully curved rear parcel shelf and speaker panel for the Pao - designed by Leigh to look like an original feature (which it isn't) and made by Rob at Artfabs:

Gold tints for the Carry, to stop nosy people looking in the back (and to ADD BLIIIING):

Obligatory toys - this is Gudetama, the whining, lazy egg, who lives in the van full-time - he had a bath (the Rillakkuma pocket looks on, unimpressed):

Sillies from Japan:

Black One-Shot used to make my first tentatively sign-painted Japanese characters:

There is more to be done to the vehicles, and these latest additions represent only the very latest bits of work; much of it is done under the bonnet, under the car, and behind panels - the stuff that really does give you mucky hands!

You can follow the progress of these two, our workhorse Peugeot 406 and Nissan Cedric on Instagram.

And there's a little moody video of the show here, where you can spot me buffing the paintwork at 16 seconds.