Adam Hopkins 1989 Skyline GTST - EP.25

Yo, and welcome to episode 25 of the right hand drive guys podcast.

I'm Bobby. This is Aaron.

Yo, yo.

And today we're continuing on with our live from IA interviews that we did with a coupleguys. Today is Adam Hopkins.

Have you ever heard of Adam before this?

Yeah, yeah. Back in the day, I remember him like being like a tuning guy.

Yeah.

And pretty much all my friends that had Honda's were like tuned by this guy.

And this was like back in like 2000, 2008 probably.

So like that's pretty much where I heard of him.

I've never really met him before real life.

I guess you could say, but he was always one of those like, dude, you see on the internet.

Internet dudes. Yeah.

So he kind of talks about his past and tuning in Honda's and circling back to kind ofthose routes, which is pretty cool.

So you never had to like a cartoon by him right now.

No, no, he was big in the Honda's back in the day.

And I always had 240s and two photos, you know, stuff like that.

But yeah, I mean, for like the group of friends I was with, the big thing was like, whateverhe did to tune it with it gave the cars like a full throttle launch.

Wow.

So it's like, you know, like a two step.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah. So all my friends were like dickheads about it and just did that every time they

stopped doing it like every time every time they took off they were doing that.

So yeah, I remember that was like always on everyone's list is to get the tune with AdamHopkins because like he'll give you the full throttle launch.

That's legit.

Yeah.

So he's a pretty cool guy.

Like I spent quite a bit of time sitting at the booth in Fort Alliance just chopping itup with him.

And he for sure has like a unique insight and ability on kind of sourcing good deals.

He's like a good deal finder.

Some people are just good at that.

Right.

And he's definitely from what I've gathered one of those guys.

And you know, has a lot of other cool hobbies like white water kayaking and, you know, hikingthrough the Grand Canyon.

And he like seriously, I my neck hurt from from turning it looking at him talking to him forso long.

Like he is a really interesting guy.

So you ready to get into it?

Yeah.

Let's start it.

All right.

Cool.

So this is Adam Hopkins in his 1989 Nissan Skyline R32 GTST.

Hey and welcome back to another episode of right hand drive guys.

Today we have Adam Hopkins.

What's up, Adam?

What are you?

Pretty good man.

So Adam's out here at Import Alliance and he is actually in our booth out here.

We're live and he's got his beautiful 89 GTST with all kinds of stuff done to it.

Why don't you give us a little rundown?

Man, I, my buddy owned the car, Squirt Shout to Squirt.

Oh, this is a Squirt Car?

Yeah, yeah.

So Squirt had that car for a long time and like it's a joke every time I go there.

Like, hey man, when you go something that's kind of like, when you go something that'skind of like, and I bought a jikster 1000 because I like motorcycles too.

And like two days after I bought that motorcycle Squirt hits me up and it's like, hey man, Igot the cheapest GTST in the nation for sale.

If you want it, come get it.

Then that's a homie hook up.

Yeah, yeah.

I was like, dude, just let me get my motorcycle sold and then I'll have the cash to come getthat car from you.

And then doesn't, did not look like it does now.

It's been a full respray and you know, engine out, engine bay door, jam, trunk, you know,everything.

Oh, so this is, this is an Adam Hopkins car now.

Is there any even a Squirt Car no more?

No, no.

Okay.

All right.

That's dope.

So, so that motor though, when I, when I, when you opened that hood that I was like, oh,shoot.

What do you got going on there?

Because that's not original.

I had the RB 20.

I ended up putting like a GT 30 R on the RB 20 and the thing ripped man.

It was a fun little car.

You guess in 300 horsepower.

Spunky.

Yeah, yeah.

Just a fun car and you know, second year was useless.

Just a fun little ripper.

And then I got to where I was going to paint it.

And so I'll figure, hey man, I got the engine and everything out of it anyway.

So let me upgrade this stuff while I'm in here.

I'm a, I'm the Facebook bandit and I scoured Facebook marketplace and then found a guy thathad a Neo engine completely torn apart.

And he, he think you wanted 1500 bucks for it.

Oh my God.

So I went over there dude and when I tell you like every bolt was out of the engine,like, so it was work.

Yeah, yeah.

The cam caps were all mixed match on the on the rods.

Like, it was just literally two five gallon buckets full of bolts and parts and then likethe block in the head.

You saved it.

Well, yeah.

And then I just told him I was like, bro, I don't know what's missing or how much it'sgoing to take to get this car.

The engine back to where it can perform the way it is.

And you know, if you're looking for OEM hardware trying to get stuff back right here,we'll nickel and dime you to death.

So I told the guys like, hey man, I'll give you 800 bucks for the parts you got here.

Oh my God.

I gave 800 bucks.

I went home.

I kid you not.

There was one bolt missing out of all the.

That's it.

Yeah, like he did pretty good.

Yeah, like I was like, I took all the parts, laid them out in the floor in my shop, laid allthe hardware with it.

You know, built the engine essentially laid out the floors saying, okay, everything'shere.

I ended up leaving the everything looked good on the on the engine.

I put the block was all good.

I just ball-honed it.

Oh, you know, put piston rings in it, put it together and you know, new bearings.

The head has caliper, the tight B cams.

I don't know the specs on it by heart, but yeah, it's the biggest cams that caliper offersfor that engine without, order and custom cams.

So that probably down low idle is a little.

Yep.

I could kind of tell when you pull them.

I'm like, okay, that thing's got something in it.

Yeah, it's runs good.

When I, so what happened, I got the motor running and then this is a FYI for anyone thathas an RB engine out there.

Replace your timing belt tensioner and your tensioner bolts with ARP upgrades.

A dude on eBay sells them.

It's like $70 or something for the bolts.

What happened?

I had to call running, finally got it ripping away.

I wanted to and the timing belt, the one that holds the tensioner broke in the block anddestroy the head.

So that's when I tore it all apart and that's when I put the caliper cams in there.

I poured and polished ahead, put stainless steel valves in there.

I got a Ferreira valves, Ferreira, titanium retainers, valves springs, caliper cams.

So she's, she's set.

Yeah, I'm ready.

On a dyno dynamics on 14 pounds, we got 414 horsepower, which is a, that's a heart breakerdyno.

Yeah.

So it should, it's a pretty healthy engine.

We ended up, we're blowing out spark because the stock cool packs were crap.

Oh, I know.

Once we turned it, because once we put E85 in there and then started turning the boostup, it just, the, the cool is good to do.

Couldn't keep up.

So I ended up buying the PRP, the R35.

Oh, yep.

Coil kit and luckily it fits underneath that, the valve.

Yeah, you're lucky.

Yeah, I got, I got them and it wouldn't fit under my RB26 cover.

I was, so now I got the, the naked, you know, top end.

But yeah, and that would have been a shame because that, that valve cover set that you havethere is actually something to be had, right?

It's, it's not regular.

Yeah, it's the, if I'm not mistaken, so forgive me.

I think it's a chemical R31 Skylines.

Oh, yeah, that's the like originals.

Yeah, and then the, it had the fan, they call them the fan valve covers and some dude had itlisted for the wrong car on eBay.

I ended up getting super cheap.

Hey, and what a come up, huh?

Dude, I'm the, I just scavenged the internet and I find deals and, you know, find connectionsand cool people and without the community out there, I wouldn't have the car that I have.

You know what I mean?

Right, yeah, which is beautiful, right?

To be able to find all these things like when you were talking about the wheels and, youknow, how you source those out of Maryland and what was it?

Your brother and mom picked them up.

Yeah, he drove, he lived, he was stationed near where the wheels were like a 30 minute driveform and he picked them up and brought them back to me in Tennessee when he came home forChristmas.

And those are LMGT 4s, right?

Yeah, the bronze ones.

I got the center caps.

Like, they're the, yeah, and those, those they didn't reproduce the center caps.

I know.

So if you missing one, like, 3D printing it or something weird, yeah, and it's hard to getthat finish that anodous finish to make it look right.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

So your valve covering a strut tower bar, those are semi the same color, right?

Like a different shade.

Yep.

I tried to match the wheels as close as I could have a powder coat.

You know, and that's the closest color they had.

I ended up putting the, it's an old logo, Nismo strut bar.

And then the, yeah, that thing's nice.

And then I got the old school wheel side, old cap.

Yeah, that turbo.

Yeah, yeah.

That is, and you'll see that those going online.

And that's another story, right?

You found a guy that just didn't know what he had.

Yeah, just messaged him, dude, on eBay or sorry on Facebook marketplace.

And he was stationed in Italy.

And he ended up, we just chatted back and forth online.

He was like, dude, I'll just, I'll let you have it for 160 bucks.

Oh my lord.

He put it in a box and shipped it to me.

So those, those are very sought after.

Yeah, it's just cool.

Little Nicknack parts.

And like, I tried to build the car with parts that would have been dope as shit to haveon the car in the 90s.

Right, yeah.

And I mean, for the most part, in Japan, like it, you know, like, it's pretty true to style.

I mean, and we'll have some pictures and video of the car for you to look at.

But I mean, this car has complete confetti interior.

And if you're a Nissan guy whatsoever, you know how hard it is to find all of those piecesin this guy.

Has him.

Yeah, it's, you know, again, the seats came from a dude in Malaysia.

Oh my gosh.

So you, so this, this car really has parts from just all over the world.

Yeah, all over the world.

And, you know, if you, once you find some part, your heart falls in love with it, you gotto have on your car, you'll, you'll scour the corners of the internet to get it.

It's so true.

Yeah.

And some of these parts, like you're saying, you know, the LMGT4 is the wheelside oilcap.

Those are things that you really can't get in now.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you, you really can't get them.

And if you see him, somebody's already scooped him up.

So congrats to you on even being able to source those.

It's just meh.

Stower in Facebook and looking at old posts.

And I'm not scared of message of five year old post and be like, Hey, bro, do you still gotthis part?

It has it worked out.

Absolutely.

I got it.

That's crazy.

I got parts from my NSX.

I showed up this week.

From a dude that had something that he listed, you know, years ago.

And just never sold.

Never sold.

And then they never, they never tried again.

And then you just message folks online and hopefully they got what you need sittingin the garage and they're happy.

You're right.

And I'm happy to have it.

So that is cool because I've seen, you know, old posts.

Posts of items that I wanted and I didn't take that same route.

I was like, there's no way he's got this dude.

And I could have passed something on.

Dude, my mom told me a long time ago and it's helped me through this life is like that answeris always no if you don't ask.

So that's true.

Yeah.

And so as we sit here on the paddock at import alliance, everybody's just literallycircling this guy's car.

So that just tells you the quality of it.

I mean, I'm just looking at myself in the paint right now.

And that's new too, right?

You've gone through this thing.

Yeah.

I did, you know, every bolt, you know, the only thing I haven't done, which I have all the stuffto do it, I just don't have the time.

That's what I like.

Yeah.

I didn't pull all the suspension off and powder coat everything.

Yeah.

But that's the next thing.

I got the GT, I think GTEC like chassis braces for the weld and all the stuff for aimingall that stuff.

Yep.

I just, the car runs and drives and it's hard for me to tear it down and spin.

Oh, yeah.

You can't drive it.

Yeah.

Aaron, the other guy who's usually on the podcast that has the Fordora, talking about he,this past winter, actually did what you're talking about.

He took the subframe out.

He welded in all the GTEC braces, repowder coated it.

It looks so amazing.

So I can only imagine once you get to this, that it'll, it'll look great.

Yeah.

I mean, that's all it really lacks is just a little freshen it up underneath, but thecar is overall pretty solid, man.

And so what color would you do that suspension work?

I'd just push gloss black.

Black, yeah, I think that would look awesome.

Yeah, and just, you know, just black everything out.

So, I mean, the car is obviously amazing.

We've already established that, but what's Adam doing next?

Oh, man, I have too many projects.

I got a 1973 Dotsin 240Z that I've been restoring for the past.

I want to say decade.

Yeah, that's a classic thing.

And it's been, you know, no expense spared, like full rotisserie.

I've done all.

Oh, wow.

I sandblasted myself every inch of that car.

I've sanded on every inch of that car.

It's been painted.

It's in the process of getting the back together.

I got a carbon signal wide body kit for it.

Some custom, a lot to know, I be if I'm saying that correctly.

Yeah.

Wheels built by a love 20b.

So there's 17 by 13 and a half in a rear and then 17 11 and a half in the front.

Oh, that's going to be nice.

I can, I can, I can picture that.

What color are those?

The, the faces are gray and the lips are polished.

The car is, it's called Blue Me Away Blue.

It's a GM color.

It's on a bunch of different cars.

But man, I saw, I saw cars at car shows.

I knew I wanted the car to be blue because the car was originally blue.

And so I saw several cars at, I saw it at a car show one time and I said, hey man, what coloris your car?

It was this color.

The W388A is the pink code.

And then I ended up going to another car show, saw another blue that I like.

I said, hey, bro, what's the, what's the color?

It's pink code W388A.

It's the same exact color.

I was at a body shop looking at a car.

Somebody was painting.

So, hey, what's this pink code?

W388A.

It was speaking to you.

That's my color, man.

I'm picking it out three times.

That's my color.

So.

That's cool.

That's sweet because, you know, a lot of what you're saying, there's a story behinda lot of what you do, you know, it's not, it's not for nothing.

So to speak, like you, you have intention behind a lot of what you're doing, which I'm notgoing to say is rare these days.

But it's very easy for somebody to just throw something together for no reason.

And it's cool to meet people that are really actually putting thought into what they'redoing and having purpose, which that's dope.

It clearly shows, man.

Well, I'm building that docks and originally I built it to just have a track car.

I could beat the crap out of it.

But man, I've made it too nice and I'm going to be.

Yeah.

It's, you know, again, it's carbon signal wide body kit on it.

I got a six liter fully forged LS with LS three years.

Oh, for it?

Yeah.

TBS 2300 blower, you know, brand new term in T 56.

Like it should be a 700 horsepower car all day.

It'll need those 13 inch wide wheels in the rear.

It has every piece that T three offers for that vehicle.

Oh, you know, it's all a suspension.

The R230 rear differential upgrade.

Like it's, you know, so you don't play around when you, when you do a project, it's doneright or it just doesn't get done.

Yeah.

And that's the problem with the car is it doesn't get done.

And, you know, man, I've in 10 years since I, I mean, when I bought the dots and I had toask my girlfriend at the time, she's my wife now.

But I was, you know, we were serious enough to wear her.

If I'm going to buy something, I got to talk to her about it.

Right.

And I was like, can I go buy this dots and it was 300 bucks and 300 bucks at the time wasa lot of money to me.

Yeah.

You know, and like, I've been building this dots and then I care so much about it and haveso much time and love into it.

Like the budget keeps changing because my lifestyle has changed.

My income has went up.

Right.

And so like, you know, some of the parts that I was originally going to put in theredidn't make the car and I sold them.

But like, when I finish that car, it will be super nice.

It will be the best dots in you seen.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, shout out to Sean.

He's that L. S. E. G. I. He's on Instagram.

You should look at his D. A. T. L. S. Z. G. I. He has a carbon signal kit.

And I actually became friends with him just because I bugged people on the internet likeI was telling you.

Yeah.

And he had the, he had that carbon signal wide body kit on his dots.

And so I wanted tips and pointers on how to, you know, how do I get this kit installed?

I was like, I'm so picky in OCD about my paint and body work.

And it took me a year to get that kit fitting the way that I wanted to fit on that.

Wow.

A lot of trimming, a lot of cutting, a lot of nut certs, a lot of love.

Yeah.

But it's nice now.

Small changes.

But yeah, he, he's a good friend.

He actually, he lives in Houston.

He, he, he showed up to my house one day just because we're internet strangers and he wasin the area.

He's like, do let me come, let me come meet you face to face, you know?

Yeah.

The internet certainly has changed how everyone but car people communicate and do business,which is really cool because without the internet, I mean, you wouldn't have found that guy.

No, no.

And it's just cool that, you know, you have people out there that are, that have this skillsense to build the quality of cars that that guy, the Sean has built.

And then he's willing to share that knowledge with you to help you pursue the build thatyou're shooting for.

You know what I mean?

Right.

And in turn, now you're putting together quality like he does, maybe not at the same rateor whatever, but it all and all.

Now you stepped your quality level up because of him.

Yeah.

And he's only as good as information to have and the people you surround yourself with.

And, you know, I mean, he's super good guy.

So Sean, I do appreciate you.

Sorry for all my questions.

No, but that's cool.

That's what makes us car guys, right?

Is that willingness to kind of share?

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you obviously you get the guys who are maybe a little stingy.

They don't understand yet.

But I feel like for the most part, the love of the cars goes beyond the ego.

Yeah.

So real quick before, before we wrap this up, I know you got a 91 NSX.

I heard you talk about it.

Yeah, that's another project I got.

You can't hide it, man.

Tell us a little bit about it.

It was, it's got a love fab turbo kit on it.

I bought the car.

It was a total disaster.

Just like, there's a trend here.

Yeah.

It appears that some shop that spells custom with the K and a Z worked on the car back ina couple of thousands.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So like, it was just a basic case, non non OEM carpet had carpet on some of the interiorpieces.

The crappy carbon fiber trim, all over everything and no maintenance vehicle history on thecar.

But I'm re-spraying the bumpers.

I've got the interior looking good on it.

I've got every piece to do the maintenance on the car in my shop.

I just got to have the time to drop the engine.

Get it all.

Yeah.

And then the last car I got I'm messing with right now is a 93 Mazda R7 FD.

Ooh.

Is it a USDM?

Yeah, USDM.

Oh nice.

Is it touring or what was it?

I don't even know enough about it to tell you the honest answer to that.

Yeah.

It was at factory turbo.

Yeah.

And you were hearing good change.

Yeah.

It was one of those deals where, you know, the dude, again, Facebook band, the dude posted the car.

It was like seven minutes after he posted the car.

I'm like, hey bro.

What's up?

You know, and he ended up, he lived in Alabama.

So it's a little bit of dry for me.

But I picked up an FD with an engine in a transmission and the dude looked me and I said,hey, if you bolt this stuff together and plug everything up, the car will run.

And I said, okay.

And I paid him 7500 bucks for this car.

Oh my gosh.

And you know, and it's not, again, it needs, it needs paint.

Right.

Of course.

But I did.

I bolted everything together, the car freaking ripped.

And then once I tore it apart, now I've gotten like, you think, played in all my hardware to makemy stuff look good.

Oh yeah.

So I tore the whole engine apart, powdered everything, sink, powdered everything, sprayed the enginebay, and I'm about to put the engine transmission back in the car.

But like, when I tore all that stuff off the cleaning, you could see where somebody hadported the hell out of this motor.

Oh yeah.

With this in the car.

So it had motor work.

Yeah.

And it had an aftermarket ECU in it.

Like it had a, what is that little thing called?

I ended up buying a leak.

That's what I have on the skyline is a link ECU.

I have a link for the RX-7.

Okay.

I prefer to just drive by wire.

So it gives me cruise control options.

It gives me idle control much better than what an IECB is going to do.

Wow.

So you, wow, man.

So from what I've gathered is that you do stuff right.

Man, I don't, I do that.

I mean, I mean, I don't know what I'm doing.

You know what I mean?

But I mean, it seems to be working because not only do you have a beautiful car sittingin front of us.

Many projects that of course at your own rate once you're done with, these are like, you'regoing to have like kind of a dream garage in your own right.

I tell myself all the time.

It's like, I'm lucky to have the life I live.

I work really hard for what I do for a living.

I'm able to provide for my family.

I'm thankful for everything I have.

But man, like I literally have like my GT, my, my grand tourism playlist and my garage.

You know, it's like cars that I love that I always, you know, never thought that I'd beable to own.

I have them.

I have them in my shop.

The last one I'm missing and it's probably my least favorite at all.

And it's a super.

Yeah.

I like a super.

Don't get me wrong.

Yeah, yeah.

They just didn't tick the same boxes as the NSX does for me.

Right.

Oh, for sure.

I hear you.

I've always been a big Honda guy.

So when you said NSX, I perked right up like, oh, really?

What, what you got?

Yeah.

And so this is a reoccurring theme that I found in all of, you know, this communicationthat I've done with import car guys is grand tourism.

You know, really set us all up for this, you know, every, everybody says what you justsaid.

I have or am working towards my garage that I had in grand tourism, you know, and I feellike we're really lucky maybe to be at our age we were when that dropped and, and to havereally taken that in and now realizing it, you know, it's crazy.

I think that's why, you know, we like our generation likes the import cars.

The way that we do is because of grand tourism, all those video games, just like EDM music,man, I listen to, you know, I played video games with a repetitive electronic music.

It's so true.

You know what I mean?

On loop.

Yeah.

And like that's the, you know, like EDM music.

So it's just, you know, it's what I was exposed to as a kid.

And, you know, I have found that I like working on cars more than I actually like having a finishedcar.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

It's the, it's the, the process.

Yeah.

I agree.

I'm saying, man, that looks clean or man, I did a good job with that or, you know, really good.

Yeah, but then you're like, so what's next?

And you're like, but this is kind of done.

What do I do?

Yeah.

And then Adam has three other cars he needs to finish.

You know, I don't, which is where it's at, right?

I mean, I'm in the same, same situation in that sense is you check one off and you just moveon to the next, right?

Yeah.

Because otherwise you're kind of bored.

Yeah.

You know?

And then what?

You're going to get in trouble or something.

Yeah.

I'm going to get in trouble.

Adam Hopkins 1989 Skyline GTST - EP.25

Nissan Skyline

Datsun 240Z

Mazda Rx7

Honda NSX

About this episode

Original notes